About Pakhtuns: Personalities

Ahmad Shah Abdali/Durrani
By : Altafullah  

Ahmad Shah Durrani is the first king of Afghanistan, role in the history of the region is never well evaluated. None of the many historians ever bothered to place him within his proper historical and socio-political perspective. The reason why Ahmad Shahs merit was never recognized was his rise at a time when the Indian and Persian empires were disintegrating and the alien invaders from the West were scrambling into fill the vacuum. Whatever Ahmad Shah accomplished benefited the alien invaders and his achievements were eclipsed by the volatility of the time. To view the Timeline of the Durrani Rule please click here or continue past this article.

Ahmad Shah was a conqueror, a great administrative genius, but his successors were not gifted with his qualities. The inability of his successors even to hold on to his accomplishments manifestly contributed to his relative obscurity. Their lack of administrative and governing potential was exploited by the British colonialists to further their sinister designs. They, on one hand banked upon his victories against the Indian rulers annihilating a people weakened by his armies. On the other hand, they manipulated the weakened heir to Ahmad Shah to let them use a Afghanistan as a buffer zone against the Russians in the Great Game.

People a great majority of them, interested in the history of Afghanistan view Ahmad Shah as a great conquer; a general who channelised formidable jingoism of the savage Afghans to play havoc with northern India. Not many, however, have been able to appreciate the services of the great king rendered while governing, at the uneasiest of times, the most unpredictable of people and the most confounding of land.

He surged the tide of fortune as all great men in human history did. The times he lived in were most opportune for the great man make history. But the way he maneuvered to reach the zenith of Pakhtun history needed quite an extraordinary mind to use circumstances to his advantage.

Ahmad Shah was a soldier in the Persian army of Nadir Shah Afshar who had adopted a reconciliation stance towards the Afghans knowing he could not afford indefinite rivalry with them. He gave precedence to Abdales over Ghilzais due to their superior fighting capabilities. Ahmad Shah progressed from a Yasawal (personal servant) to the rank of the commander of the Abdali regiment. Quite a few writers believe that the death of Nadir Shah Afshar at the hands of the Qizalbash soldiers was an act of jealousy. They are critical of Ahmad Shahs growing importance. This seems to be a remote conclusion. The Qizalbash must had been wary of growing Afghan influence, and Ahmad Shahs significance and relevance must be seen as part of it. So it was a matter of group jealousy with personal jealousy put in for good measure. But the every growing prestige of this young man was sufficient testament to his diplomatic skill and personal charisma.

The death of the mentor did not end the career of the young man. He not only showed great honor and loyalty by providing security to the family of the late king but convened a Jirga another testimony of his ingenuity. Not only this, he also sent letters to different tribal elders on his way to attend the Jirga. This prior communication must have had an effect upon the elders who readily accepted him as their leader. Ahmad Shah may have won the hearts of the jingoistic Pakhtuns through military skill and 5000 strong army, but by communicating with them, leader prior to the Jirga, he must had been able to dispel the misgivings of the Afghan leaders. They must have got the implicit message that the young general was no tyrant but simply considering himself worthy enough to become first among the equals. And this must have been the reason for his accession to throne as the first king of Afghanistan in October, 1747, near the tomb of Shaikh Surkh, adjacent to Nadir Abad Fort.

It was not awe but humility that made Haji Jamal Khan Muhammad Zai abdicate his claim to leadership. Thus making a way for Ahmad Shah to become a king more easily. Pir Sabir Shah, the spiritual guide of the time, showered his praise for the young Ahmad Shah by declaring him Dar-e-Durran (pearl of the pearls) not because that he was a military giant but for his humanity a definite quality of statesman.

Ahmad Shah fought like a soldier but ruled like a statesman giving a sense of participation to his fellows. His council of nine ministers had always been at his side and he even advised his successors to keep the institution alive. But it was never meant to be. They were neither intelligent nor fortunate enough to put to good use their available resources.

Ahmad Shah Durrani was greatly skilled in managing human resources for his advantage. He always honored the tribal traditions of the Pakhtuns. All the tribes were ruled by the men of their choice in his reign, and he never tried to interfere into the affairs of internal administration of the allied tribes. He organized a special force with men from all tribes in commanding positions. The Durranis were placed at the top.

When Ahmad Shah made advanced on Peshawar after conquering Kabul, he interfered negligibly in the affairs of the tribes of this land. The Afridis and Shinwaris remained the toll collectors and Ahmad Shah refrained from posing any threat to their autonomy and authority. These were the traits of a statesman who brought the area from Swat to Balochistan under his command. The rest of our present day NWFP was under his rule by December 1747.

He not only rewarded his own race but also respected worthy enemies of other stocks. His courtesy to Mir Muneer, the governor of Lahore, is an ample proof of his manliness and grace.

There were many Pakhtun tribes who didn't pay homage to him but he never pressed them hard to do so. The Khattaks of Lanri, living in the mountains were never forced to submit. And when they aided him against the Marhattas, he duly rewarded them.

Above all these merits was his quality to revere the pious, Pir Sabir Shahs love for Ahmad Shah is well known. He sacrificed his life defending the honor of the king. But this was not because of the over powering personality of Ahmad Shah. It was in fact, due to his allegiance, and devotion to the pious. His fondness for Mian Muhammad Umar of Chamkani is known to all.

Although these acts endeared him to his fellowmen, one must not jump to the conclusion that these were simply acts of statesmanship: Gimmicks of political Shrewdness. These were in fact, expressions of great piety. His sufi influences can be easily traced in his style of governance. His consultative attitude towards his fellowmen can not be easily found in other men of his time. His conquests and subsequent bestowal of the conquered land upon the worthy among the defeated also indicates his greatness and selflessness a great desire to rule judiciously.

The Durrani Empire
From 1747 until 1823 Ahmad Shah and his sons and grandsons held the monarchy. They were the first Pashtun rulers of Afghanistan, from the Sadozai line of the Abdali group of clans. It was under the leadership of Ahmad Shah that the nation of Afghanistan began to take shape following centuries of fragmentation and exploitation. Even before the death of the Iranian ruler Nadir Shah, tribes in the Hindu Kush had been growing stronger and were beginning to take advantage of the waning power of their distant rulers.

The Reign of Ahmad Shah (1747-1772)
In 1747 Ahmad Shah and his Abdali horsemen joined the chiefs of the Abdali tribes and clans near Kandahar to choose a leader. Despite being younger than other claimants, Ahmad had several overriding factors in his favor. He was a direct descendant of Sado, eponym of the Sadozai; he was unquestionably a charismatic leader and seasoned warrior who had at his disposal a trained, mobile force of several thousand cavalrymen; and he possessed part of Nadir Shah's treasury.

One of Ahmad Shah's first acts as chief was to adopt the title "Durr-i-Durrani" ("pearl of pearls" or "pearl of the age"), which may have come from a dream or from the pearl earrings worn by the royal guard of Nadir Shah. The Abdali Pashtuns were known thereafter as the Durrani.

Ahmad Shah began by capturing Ghazni from the Ghilzai Pashtuns, and then wresting Kabul from the local ruler. In 1749 the Mughal ruler ceded sovereignty over Sindh Province and the areas of northern India west of the Indus River to Ahmad Shah in order to save his capital from Afghan attack. Ahmad Shah then set out westward to take possession of Herat, which was ruled by Nadir Shah's grandson, Shah Rukh. Herat fell to Ahmad after almost a year of siege and bloody conflict, as did Mashhad (in present-day Iran). Ahmad next sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush. In short order, the powerful army brought under its control the Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara tribes of northern Afghanistan. Ahmad invaded India a third, then a fourth, time, taking control of the Punjab, Kashmir, and the city of Lahore. Early in 1757, he sacked Delhi, but permitted the Mughal Dynasty to remain in nominal control as long as the ruler acknowledged Ahmad's suzerainty over the Punjab, Sindh, and Kashmir. Leaving his second son Timur Shah in charge, Ahmad left India to return to Afghanistan.

The collapse of Mughal control in India, however, also facilitated the rise of rulers other than Ahmad Shah. In the Punjab, the Sikhs were becoming a potent force. From their capital at Pune, the Marathas, Hindus who controlled much of western and central India, were beginning to look northward to the decaying Mughal empire, which Ahmad Shah now claimed by conquest. Upon his return to Kandahar in 1757, Ahmad faced Maratha attacks which succeeded in ousting Timur and his court in India.

Ahmad Shah declared an Islamic holy war against the Marathas, and warriors from various Pashtun tribes, as well as other tribes such as the Baloch, answered his call. Early skirmishes ended in victory for the Afghans, and by 1759 Ahmad and his army had reached Lahore. By 1760 the Maratha groups had coalesced into a great army. Once again Panipat was the scene of a confrontation between two warring contenders for control of northern India. The Battle of Panipat in 1761 between Muslim and Hindu armies who numbered as many as 100,000 troops each was fought along a twelve-kilometer front. Despite decisively defeating the Marathas, what might have been Ahmad Shah's peaceful control of his domains was disrupted by other challenges.

The victory at Panipat was the high point of Ahmad Shah's--and Afghan--power. His Durrani Empire was one of the largest Islamic empires in the world at that time, perhaps second after the Ottoman Empire. Afterward, even prior to his death, the empire began to unravel. By the end of 1761, the Sikhs had gained power and taken control of much of the Punjab. In 1762 Ahmad Shah crossed the passes from Afghanistan for the sixth time to subdue the Sikhs. He assaulted Lahore and, after taking their holy city of Amritsar, massacred thousands of Sikh inhabitants, destroying their temples and desecrating their holy places with cow's blood. Within two years the Sikhs rebelled again. Ahmad Shah tried several more times to subjugate the Sikhs permanently, but failed. By the time of his death, he had lost all but nominal control of the Punjab to the Sikhs, who remained in charge of the area until the British defeat in 1849.

Ahmad Shah also faced other rebellions in the north, and eventually he and the amir of Bukhara agreed that the Amu Darya would mark the division of their lands. In 1772 Ahmad Shah retired to his home in the mountains east of Kandahar, where he died. Ahmad Shah had succeeded to a remarkable degree in balancing tribal alliances and hostilities and in directing tribal energies away from rebellion. He earned recognition as Ahmad Shah Baba, or "Father" of Afghanistan.

By the time of Ahmad Shah's ascendancy, the Pashtuns included many groups whose origins were obscure; most were believed to have descended from ancient Aryan tribes, but some, such as the Ghilzai, may have once been Turks. They had in common, however, their Pashtu language. To the east, the Waziris and their close relatives, the Mahsuds, had lived in the hills of the central Suleiman Range since the fourteenth century. By the end of the sixteenth century and the final Turkish-Mongol invasions, tribes such as the Shinwaris, Yusufzais, and Mohmands had moved from the upper Kabul River valley into the valleys and plains west, north, and northeast of Peshawar. The Afridis had long been established in the hills and mountain ranges south of the Khyber Pass. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Durranis had blanketed the area west and north of Kandahar.

The Reign of Timur Shah (1772-1793)
Timur Shah had 24 sons, several of whom became kings.

Ahmad Shah's successors governed so ineptly during a period of profound unrest that within fifty years of his death, Afghanistan was embroiled in a civil war. Many of the territories conquered with the help of Ahmad Shah's military skill fell to others in this half century. By 1818 the Sadozai rulers who succeeded Ahmad Shah controlled little more than Kabul and the surrounding territory within a 160-kilometer radius. They not only lost the outlying territories but also alienated other tribes and lineages among the Durrani Pashtuns.

The Reign of Zaman Shah (1793-1801)
After the death of Timur Shah, the three strongest contenders for the position of shah were Timur's sons, the governors of Kandahar, Herat, and Kabul. Zeman Shah, governor of Kabul, was in the most commanding position and became shah at the age of twenty-three. His half-brothers accepted this only by force majeure--upon being imprisoned on their arrival in the capital for the purpose, ironically, of electing a new shah. The quarrels among Timur's descendants that threw Afghanistan into turmoil also provided the pretext for the intervention of outside forces.

The efforts of the Sadozai heirs of Timur to impose a true monarchy on the truculent Pashtun tribes and to rule absolutely and without the advice of the other, larger Pashtun tribes' leaders were ultimately unsuccessful. The Sikhs too, were particularly troublesome, and after several unsuccessful efforts to subdue them, Zeman made the mistake of appointing a forceful young Sikh chief, Ranjit Singh, as his governor in the Punjab. The "one-eyed" warrior would later become an implacable enemy of Pashtun rulers in Afghanistan.

Zeman's downfall was triggered by his attempts to consolidate power. Although it had been through the support of the Muhammadzai chief, Painda Khan, that he had come to the throne, Zeman soon began to remove prominent Muhammadzai leaders from positions of power and replacing them with men of his own lineage, the Sadozai. This upset the delicate balance of Durrani tribal politics that Ahmad Shah had established and may have prompted Painda Khan and other Durrani chiefs to plot against the shah. Painda Khan and the chiefs of the Nurzai and the Alizai Durrani clans were executed, as was the chief of the Qizilbash clan. Painda Khan's son fled to Iran and pledged the substantial support of his Muhammadzai followers to a rival claimant to the throne, Zeman's older brother, Mahmud Shah. The clans of the chiefs Zeman had executed joined forces with the rebels, and they took Kandahar without bloodshed.

The First Reign of Mahmud Shah (1801-1803)
Zeman Shah's overthrow in 1801 was not the end of civil strife in Afghanistan but the beginning of even greater violence. Mahmud Shah's first reign lasted only for two years before he was replaced by Shah Shuja.

The Reign of Shuja Shah (1803-1809)
Yet another of Timur Shah's sons, Shuja Shah, ruled for only six years. On June 7, 1809, Shuja signed a Treaty of Friendship with the British which included a clause stating that he would oppose the passage of foreign troops through his territories. This agreement, the first Afghan pact with a European power, stipulated joint action in case of Franco-Persian aggression against Afghan or British dominions. Only a few weeks after signing the agreement, Shuja was deposed by his predecessor, Mahmud (much later he was reinstated by the British, ruling during 1839-1842. Two of his sons also ruled for a short time in 1842).

The Second Reign of Mahmud Shah (1809-1818)
Mahmud's second reign lasted nine years. Mahmud alienated the Muhammadzai, especially Fateh Khan, the son of Painda Khan, who was eventually seized and blinded. Revenge would later be sought and obtained by Fateh Khan's youngest brother, Dost Mahommed Khan.

The Reign of Sultan Ali Shah (1818-1819)
Sultan Ali Shah was another son of Timur Shah.

The Reign of Ayub Shah (1819-1823)
Ayub Shah was another son of Timur Shar, who deposed Sultan Ali Shah. He was himself deposed and presumably killed in 1823.

From 1818 until Dost Mohammad's ascendancy in 1826, chaos reigned in the domains of Ahmad Shah Durrani's empire as various sons of Painda Khan struggled for supremacy. Afghanistan ceased to exist as a single nation, disintegrating for a brief time into a fragmented collection of small units.

Source: Factindex.com