Ahmad Shah Durrani

Ahmad Shāh Durrānī (1722 – 16 October 1772) (Pashto/Persian: احمد شاه دراني‎), also known as Ahmad Khān Abdālī (Pashto/Persian: احمد خان ابدالي), was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is regarded to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.

 







Ahmad Shah enlisted as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose to become a commander of four thousand Abdali Pashtun soldiers.^[5] After the death of Nader Shah Afshar of Persia in June 1747, Abdali became the King of Afghanistan. Rallying his Pashtun tribes and Baloch allies,^[6] he pushed east towards the Mughal and the Maratha empires of India, west towards the disintegrating Afsharid Empire of Persia, and north toward the Khanate of Bukhara. Within a few years, he extended his control from Khorasan in the west to Kashmir and North India in the east, and from the Amu Darya in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.^[3][7] Ahmad Shah's mausoleum is located at Kandahar, Afghanistan, adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak in the center of the city. Afghans often refer to him as Ahmad Shāh Bābā ("Ahmad Shah the Father"

Ahmad Shah was born in 1722 in multan to Muhammed Zaman Khan Abdali, a chief of the Abdalis and governor of Herat, and Zarghuna Alakozai. It is believed that Durrani was born in the city of Herat,^{[1][4][11][12][13]} in present-day Afghanistan. Some claim that he was born in afghanistan which is not true  in the Mughal Empire and taken as an infant with his mother Zarghuna Alakozai to Herat city where his father had served as the governor.^[11] On the contrary, several historians assert that he was born in Herat.^{[4][12][13][14]} One of the historians relied on primary sources such as Mahmud-ul-Musanna's Tarikh-i-Ahmad Shahi of 1753 and Imam-uddin al-Hussaini's Tarikh-i-Hussain Shahi of 1798.
Ahmad Shah's father, Zaman Khan Abdali, was killed in a battle with the Hotakis around the time of Ahmad Shah's birth. His family were from the Sadozai section of the Popalzai clan of the Abdalis. Ahmad Shah's mother was from the Alakozai clan of the Abdalis. In 1729, after the invasion of Nader Shah, the young Ahmad Shah fled with his family south to Kandahar and took refuge with the Ghilzais.^[15] He and his brother, Zulfikar, were later imprisoned inside a fortress by Hussain Hotaki, the Ghilzai ruler of Kandahar.
In around 1731, Nader Shah Afshar, the rising new ruler of Persia, began enlisting the Abdali Pashtuns from Herat in his army. After conquering Kandahar in 1738, Ahmad Shah and his brother were freed by Nader Shah and provided with leading careers in his administration. The Ghilzais were expelled from Kandahar city and the Abdalis began to settle in the city.^[16]

Forming the last Afghan empire

Further information: Durrani Empire

Afghan royal soldiers of the Durrani Empire (also referred to as the Afghan Empire).

Following his predecessor, Ahmad Shah Durrani set up a special force closest to him consisting mostly of his fellow Durranis and other Pashtuns, as well as Baloch Tajiks, Qizilbash and others.^[16] Durrani began his military conquest by capturing Ghazni from the Ghilzais and then wresting Kabul from the local ruler, and thus strengthened his hold over eastern Khorasan which is most of present-day Afghanistan. Leadership of the various Afghan tribes rested mainly on the ability to provide booty for the clan, and Durrani proved remarkably successful in providing both booty and occupation for his followers. Apart from invading the Punjab region three times between the years 1747–1753, he captured Herat in 1750 and Ahmed Shah Durrani with 5,000 Afghans and 3,000 Baloch troops under the command of Khan of Kalat Mir Noori Naseer Khan Baloch Captured Nishapur and Mashhad in 1751 and 1770.^[21]
Durrani first crossed the Indus River in 1748, the year after his ascension – his forces sacked and absorbed Lahore during that expedition. The following year (1749), the Mughal ruler was induced to cede Sindh and all of the Punjab including the vital trans Indus River to him, in order to save his capital from being attacked by the Afghan forces of the Durrani Empire. Having thus gained substantial territories to the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah and his Afghan forces turned westward to take possession of Herat, which was ruled by Nader Shah's grandson, Shah Rukh of Persia. The city fell to Ahmad Shah in 1750, after almost a year of siege and bloody conflict; Ahmad Shah Abdali with his Afghan and Baloch forces then pushed on into present-day Iran, capturing Nishapur and Mashhad in 1751. He then pardoned Shah Rukh and reconstituted Khorasan, but a tributary of the Durrani Empire. This marked the westernmost border of the Durrani Empire as set by the Pul-i-Abrisham, on the Mashhad-Tehran road.^[22]
Meanwhile, in the preceding three years, the Sikhs had occupied the city of Lahore, and Ahmad Shah had to return in 1751 to oust them. In 1752, Ahmad Shah with his forces invaded and reduced Kashmir. He 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 peoples of northern, central, and western Afghanistan. In 1752, Kashmiri nobles invited Ahmad Shah Durrani to invade the province and oust the ineffectual Mughal rulers.
Then in 1756–57, in what was his fourth invasion of India, Ahmad Shah sacked Delhi and plundered Agra, Mathura, and Vrndavana. However, he did not displace the Mughal dynasty, which remained in nominal control as long as the ruler acknowledged Ahmad's suzerainty over the Punjab, Sindh, and Kashmir. He installed a puppet emperor, Alamgir II, on the Mughal throne, and arranged marriages for himself and his son Timur into the imperial family that same year. He married the daughter of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah. Leaving his second son Timur Shah (who was wed to the daughter of Alamgir II) to safeguard his interests, Durrani finally left India to return to Afghanistan.
On his way back he attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar and filled its sacred pool with the blood of slaughtered cows. Durrani captured Amritsar in 1757, and sacked the Harmandir Sahib at which point the famous Baba Deep Singh and some of his loyalists were killed by the Afghans.^[23] This final act was to be the start of long lasting bitterness between Sikhs and Afghans.^[24]


  Defeat of Ahmed Shah Abdali and Treaty of Kalat in 1758
 

 Mir Noori Naseer Khan was in an Alliance with Ahmed Shah Durrani from 1749 to 1757 but he declared himself independent and broke the alliance with Afghans in 1758 as Ahmed Shah started interfering in the internal affairs of Balochistan Ahmed Shah Abdali tried every means of reconciliation to induce him to return to his alliance and agree to pay his usual tribute but Mir Naseer Khan treated the advance of Ahmed Shah with contempt and sent to him in reply a register of the Baloch army which exhibited an aggregate of two hundred thousand armed men ready to take up arms against him and Naseer Khan Baloch also told Ahmed Shah that don't interfere in my internal affairs for the next time. left with no alternative Ahmed Shah had to dispatch an army against Naseer Khan Baloch under the command of his prime minister Shah Wali Khan Mir Naseer Khan was not frightened at the approach of the Afghan army he levied his troops and as soon as he was informed of the arrival of shah wali khan he issued forth from Mastung to meet him the battle was fought near Pedangabad Mastung, the troops of Shah Wali were defeated by Noori Naseer Khan and forced to retire to a distance of thirty miles from the field of action. hearing the news of defeat Ahmed Shah Durrani came with a huge army of Afghan and non Afghan tribes and defeated Noori Naseer Khan in Mastung District Naseer Khan retreated in all haste to his stronger position in Kalat where Mir Noori Naseer Khan Baloch Defeated Ahmed Shah Abdali after which the treaty of Kalat was singed between both countries.all those historians who researched on Balochistan, majority of them accepted these reasons and events and as well as the treaty of Kalat in 1758 A.D. like, Mason, Hennery Pottinger, Ganda Singh, Elphinston e and Akhund Mohammad Siddique.The main points of the treaty were following:-

   1) Khan - e- Baloch, Mir Naseer Khan Baloch will not pay any tribute to Shah-e-Afghan in the future

    2) Khan -e-Baloch will not supply San (Military assistance) to Ahmed Shah Durrani. But provided he is at war against external enemies, the Khan will supply a military contingent as a token of help, on the condition that the Afghan King provide annually Rs. 100,000 and military weapons and provide for the expenditure of the army as rewards

    3) Khan -e- Baloch will not provide any help or asylum to rebel princes of the Sadozai or Afghan Chiefs. On the other hand, the Afghan King also will not give any help or refuge to prince of the Royal family of Kalat -e- Ahmedzai

   4) Shah-e-Afghan in future will never interfere in the internal affairs, disputes and matters of Balochistan

    5) all those areas of Khan -e- Baloch, which are in the possession of Shah-e-Afghan will be handed over today to Khan -e-Baloch

Third battle of Panipat

Main article: Battle of Panipat (1761)

Durrani sitting on a brown horse during the 1761 Battle of Panipat in Northern India.

The Mughal power in northern India had been declining since the reign of Aurangzeb, who died in 1707. In 1751–52, the Ahamdiya treaty was signed between the Marathas and Mughals, when Balaji Bajirao was the Peshwa.^[25] Through this treaty, the Marathas controlled virtually the whole of India from their capital at Pune and Mughal rule was restricted only to Delhi (Mughals remained the nominal heads of Delhi). Marathas were now straining to expand their area of control towards the Northwest of India. Ahmad Shah sacked the Mughal capital and withdrew with the booty he coveted. To counter the Afghans, Peshwa Balaji Bajirao sent Raghunathrao. He succeeded in ousting Timur Shah and his court from India and brought Lahore, Multan, Kashmir and other subahs on the Indian side of Attock under Maratha rule.^[26] Thus, upon his return to Kandahar in 1757, Amidst appeals from Muslim leaders like Shah Waliullah,^[27] Ahmad Shah chose to return to India and confront the Maratha Confederacy.
in 1761 Shah Waliullah of Delhi wrote to Ahmed Shah Abdali asking him to help his brethren-in-faith so He declared a jihad (Islamic holy war) against the Marathas, and warriors from various Pashtun tribes,and 25,000 warriors from various Baloch tribes joined him under the command of Khan of Kalat Mir Noori Naseer Khan Baloch.The Early skirmishes ended in victory for the Afghan and Baloch against the smaller Maratha garrisons in northwest India. By 1759, Durrani and his army had reached Lahore and were poised to confront the Marathas. By 1760, the Maratha groups had coalesced into a big enough army under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau. Once again, Panipat was the scene of a battle for control of northern India. The Third battle of Panipat (January 1761), fought between largely Afghan and Baloch armies of Abdali, largely Hindu Maratha army was waged along a twelve-kilometre front, and resulted in a decisive victory for Ahmad Shah.^[28]

Central Asia

Ahmad Shah dispatched troops to Kokand after rumours that the Qing dynasty planned to launch an expedition to Samarkand, but the alleged expedition never materialized and Ahmad Shah subsequently withdrew his forces.^[29] Ahmad Shah then sent envoys to Beijing to discuss the situation regarding the Afaqi Khojas.^[30]

Rise of the Sikhs in the Punjab

See also: Sikh holocaust of 1746 and Sikh holocaust of 1762

During the Third Battle of Panipat between Marathas and Ahmad Shah, the Sikhs did not engage along with the Marathas and hence are considered neutral in the war. This was because of the flawed diplomacy on the part of Marathas in not recognizing their strategic potential. The exception was Ala Singh of Patiala, who sided with the Afghans and was actually being granted and coincidentally crowned the first Sikh Maharajah at the Sikh holy temple.^[31]
Victory against the Sikh in 1765
After the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, the Sikh once again resumed their infiltrations deeper into the region, finally capturing Lahore in 1764, where they established their short-lived Khalsa State extending from Jhelum to the banks of Jamuna. It was then that they rose against the Muslims, whose condition was getting progressively weaker due to the onset of the general decline of the Mughul Empire sensing danger to the cause of Islam Ahmed Shah Durrani declared jihad against Sikh and also requested Khan of Kalat Mir Noori Naseer Khan Baloch to join him with 15,000 Baloch Troops Which he did, Hence the Afghan and Baloch armies marched into India and defeated the Sikh in 1765 after which Ahmed Shah encamped in the fort of Rohtas here Ahmed Shah Durrani Thanked Naseer Khan Baloch for his valuable help,granted him the Territory of Quetta and also offered him the territories of Derajat, Multan and Jhang which he declined to except.