Task: Question Generation
Input (English): Passage: Refusing the title of king, Mirwais was called "Prince of Qandahár and General of the national troops" by his Afghan countrymen. He died peacefully in November 1715 from natural causes and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz; the latter was murdered later by Mirwais' son Mahmud. In 1720, Mahmud's Afghan forces crossed the deserts of Sistan and captured Kerman. His plan was to conquer the Persian capital, Isfahan. After defeating the Persian army at the Battle of Gulnabad on March 8, 1722, he proceeded to and besieged Isfahan for 6 months, after which it fell. On October 23, 1722, Sultan Husayn abdicated and acknowledged Mahmud as the new Shah of Persia. The majority of the Persian people, however, rejected the Afghan regime as usurpers from the start. For the next seven years until 1729, the Hotaks were the de facto rulers of most of Persia, and the southern and eastern areas of Afghanistan still remained under their control until 1738. The Hotak dynasty was a troubled and violent one from the very start as internecine conflict made it difficult to establish permanent control. The dynasty lived under great turmoil due to bloody succession feuds that made their hold on power tenuous, and after the massacre of thousands of civilians in Isfahan - including more than three thousand religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family - the Hotak dynasty was eventually removed from power in Persia. On the other hand, the Afghans had also been suppressed by the Iranian Safavid government represented by its governor Gurgin Khan before their uprising in 1709.
Output (English): How many years did the Hotaks rule?