Shāh Mahmūd Hotak, (Pashto, Dari, Urdu, Arabic: شاه محمود هوتک), also known as Shāh Mahmūd Ghiljī (Pashto: شاه محمود غلجي‎) (lived 1697? — April 22, 1725), was an Afghan ruler of the Hotak dynasty who overthrew the heavily declined Safavid dynasty to briefly become the king of Persia from 1722 until his death in 1725.He was the eldest son of Mirwais Hotak, the chief of the Ghilji Pashtun tribe of Afghanistan, who had made the Kandahar region independent from Persian rule in 1709.