Nadir Khan was born on 9 April 1883 in Dehradun, British India, in the Musahiban branch of the Royal dynasty of Afghanistan (of the Mohammadzai section of Barakzai Pashtuns).

Abdur Rahman advised his incumbent Crown Prince Habibullah not to allow the "Al-Yahya" family to enter the country under any terms or conditions.

[4] Shortly after a rebellion by some Pashtun tribesmen and Tajik forces of Habibullāh Kalakāni against the monarchy, Nadir Khan was exiled due to disagreements with King Amanullah.

[8]: 464 Although Nadir Khan placated religious factions with a constitutional emphasis on orthodox denominational principles, he also took steps to modernize Afghanistan in material ways, although far less obtrusively than Amanullah.

He improved road construction, especially the Great North Road through the Hindu Kush, methods of communication, and helped establish Kabul University, Afghanistan's first university in 1931;[9] He forged commercial links with the same foreign powers that Amanullah had established diplomatic relations in the 1920s, and, under the leadership of several prominent entrepreneurs, he initiated a banking system and long-range economic planning.

Although his efforts to improve the army did not bear fruit immediately, by the time of his death in 1933, Nadir Shah had created a 40,000-strong military force.

[8]: 475  An ethnic Hazara, Abdul Khaliq, was immediately apprehended, tortured, and then executed by quartering along with most of his relatives including his father and uncle.

Muhammad Iqbal wrote an elegy for him, which ends in the following words سرشکِ دیدۂ نادر به داغِ لاله فشان چنان که آتشِ او را دگر فرونه نشان!