Editing Koh-i-Noor (section)

=== Early history ===
[[File:Nadir Shah on the Peacock Throne after his defeat of Muhammad Shah. ca. 1850, San Diego MOA.jpg|thumb|upright=1.57|[[Nader Shah]] seated on the [[Peacock Throne]] after the defeat of the 13th Mughal emperor [[Muhammad Shah]]]]
In early Indian history, diamonds were the most valued of gemstones. However, during the period of Mughal rule, diamonds lost this distinction. When looking at the Mughal treasury, [[Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak]], the [[List of Mughal grand viziers|Grand vizier]] to [[Akbar]], noted that red [[Spinel|spinels]] and Burmese [[Ruby|rubies]] had become the most desirable jewels by the nobility.<ref name=":1" /> During this time the Persian new year ceremony, [[Nowruz]], had become a period in which the subjects could bring offerings of gems and money to the imperial family in exchange for political promotions within the greater bureaucracy. By the time [[Shah Jahan]] ascended the throne as the fifth Mughal emperor, there were so many jewels in the treasury that he decided to use many of them in the making of the ornate [[Peacock Throne]] in 1635.<ref name=":1" />

Over a century later in 1738 [[Nader Shah]] founded the [[Afsharid dynasty]].  Following the overthrow of the [[Safavid dynasty]] of Persia two years earlier, he began raiding Mughal territory before soon launching a [[Nader Shah's invasion of India|full-scale invasion of North-West India]]. This invading force soon captured Delhi where, after a massacre of the civilian population, the army began a systematic looting of the wealth of the city and the treasury of the Mughal Empire.<ref name="davenport"/> With nearly 10,000 wagons of loot, along with millions of rupees and an assortment of other historic jewels, Nader Shah also carried away the imperial Peacock Throne.<ref name="siebenhuner">Kim Siebenhüner in Hofmeester and Grewe, pp. 27–28.</ref> Nader Shah's biographer, Muhammad Kazim Marvi, first recorded seeing the Koh-i-Noor in the 1740s on the head of one of the peacocks on the throne, along with other prominent gems such as the great [[Timur ruby|Timur Ruby]] and the [[Daria-i-Noor]].<ref name=":1" /> It is alleged that Nader Shah exclaimed ''"Koh-i-Noor!"'', Persian and Hindi-Urdu for "Mountain of Light", when he first obtained the famous stone.<ref>Argenzio, p. 42.</ref><ref name="EB2008"/> One of his consorts is even noted to have said, "If a strong man were to throw four stones – one north, one south, one east, one west, and a fifth stone up into the air – and if the space between them were to be filled with gold, all would not equal the value of the Koh-i-Noor".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/koh-i-noor-diamond-britain-illegally-india-pakistan-afghanistan-history-tower|title=The Koh-i-Noor diamond is in Britain illegally. But it should still stay there|first=Anita|last=Anand|work=The Guardian|date=16 February 2016|access-date=8 April 2016|archive-date=13 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413003050/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/koh-i-noor-diamond-britain-illegally-india-pakistan-afghanistan-history-tower|url-status=live}}</ref>

After Nadir Shah was killed and [[Division of the Afsharid Empire|his empire collapsed]] in 1747, the Koh-i-Noor fell to his grandson, who in 1751 gave it to [[Ahmad Shah Durrani]], founder of the [[Afghan Empire]], in return for his support.<ref name="siebenhuner"/> One of Ahmed's grandsons, [[Shah Shuja Durrani]], wore a bracelet containing the Koh-i-Noor on the occasion of [[Mountstuart Elphinstone]]'s visit to [[Peshawar]] in 1808.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wjk9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA177|volume=27|year=1838|publisher=W. H. Allen & Co.|page=177}}</ref> A year later, Shah Shuja formed an alliance with the United Kingdom to help defend against a possible invasion of Afghanistan by Russia.<ref>{{cite book|author=William Dalrymple|title=Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan|isbn=978-1-408-8183-05 |publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2012|page=5}}</ref> He was quickly overthrown, but fled with the diamond to [[Lahore]] (in modern Pakistan), where in one account, [[Ranjit Singh]], founder of the [[Sikh Empire]], in return for his hospitality, insisted upon the gem being given to him, and he took possession of it in 1813.<ref name="davenport">Davenport, pp. 57–59.</ref>

Shah Shuja's memoirs dispute this, and claim Ranjit Singh extorted the diamond from him by having his son tortured in front of him.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Jamal |first1=Momin |title=Kohinoor's story: from treachery to treasury |url=https://dailytimes.com.pk/26635/kohinoors-story-from-treachery-to-treasury/ |access-date=19 June 2018 |work=Daily Times |date=26 February 2017}}</ref>