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<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"> <tr valign="top"><th style="text-align:right;">Died</th> <td>1773
Kandahar</td></tr>

Ahmed Shah Durrani
Born	1723 Multan<ref name="Brittanica1">Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ahmad Shah Durrani", Online Edition, (LINK)</ref>

Ahmad Shāh Abdālī (c.1723-1773) (Pashto/Persian: احمد شاہ ابدالی , Ahmad Šāh Abdālī), also known as Ahmad Shāh Durrānī, sometimes also Ahmad Shāh Bābā, was the founder of the Durrani Empire of Kandahar and is therefore often regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan.<ref name="Brittanica1" /><ref>Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth Edition) - Ahmad Shah Durrani...Link</ref><ref>Nancy Hatch Dupree - An Historical Guide To Afghanistan - The South (Chapter 16)...Link</ref>

Contents 1 Early years 2 Commander of the Abdali Cavalry 3 Early Portents of Ahmad Shahs future 4 Nadir Shah's Assassination 5 Loya Jirga 6 Military Campaigns 6.1 Conflict with the Marathas 7 Administration & Government 8 Decline 9 Legacy 10 Ahmad Shah's poetry 11 See also 12 Footnotes 13 References 14 External links

[edit] Early years

Ahmed Shah, an ethnic Pashtun, was born as the second son of Mohammed Zaman Khan, chief of the Abdali tribe, in the city of Multan<ref name="Brittanica1" /> in Panjāb (modern Pakistan). In his youth, he and his elder brother (Zulfikar Khan) were imprisoned inside a fortress by Hussein Khan, who was governor of Kandahar for the Ghalzais. Hussein Khan commanded a powerful tribe of Afghans, having conquered the whole of Persia a few years previously, trodden the throne of the Safavid sufis in the dust.

Ahmad Shah and his brother were freed by Nadir Shah, the new emperor of Persia, after his conquest of Kandahar in 1736-37. The brothers, with a powerful body of their clansmen, pledged their loyalty to Nadir Shah and soon distinguished themselves in battle.

[edit] Commander of the Abdali Cavalry

He quickly rose to command a cavalry contingent estimated at four thousand strong<ref name="Griffiths">Griffiths, John.C (2001) Afghanistan: A History of Conflict p12</ref>, composed chiefly of Abdalis, in the service of Nadir Shah.

[edit] Early Portents of Ahmad Shahs future

Popular history has it that the brilliant and megalomanical Nadir Shah could see the talent in his young commander. he is reported to have said, "I have not seen in Iran, Turan and Hindustan any mass of such laudable talents as possessed by Ahmed Abdali!".<ref name="Singer"> Singer, Andre (1983) Lords of the Khyber. The story of the North West Frontier</ref>Similarly Persian legend has it that Nadir Shah was warned that one day Ahmed Shah would be a great King. Unfazed by the news he is said to have drawn a knife and cut Ahmed Shahs ear saying,"When you become King this will remind me of you". Later on according to Pashtun legend, in Delhi it is said Nadir Shah summoned Ahmed Shah Abdali and said:"Come forward Ahmed Abdali. Remember Ahmed Khan Abdali, that after me the Kingship will pass on to you. But you should treat the descendants of Nadir Shah with kindness." The young Ahmed Shah's response was, "May I be sacrficed to you. Should your majesty wish to slay me I am at your disposal. There is no cause or reason for saying such words!"<ref name="Singer"> Singer, Andre (1983) Lords of the Khyber. The story of the North West Frontier</ref>

[edit] Nadir Shah's Assassination

Nadir Shah's rule abruptly ended in June 1747, when he was assassinated. As the story goes, the Turkoman guards involved in the assassination did so secretly so as to prevent the Abdalis from coming to their King's rescue. However Ahmed Shah was told that Nadir Shah had been killed by one of Nadir Shah's wives. Despite the danger of being attacked, the Abdali contingent led by Ahmad Shah rushed either to save Nadir Shah or to confirm what happened. Upon reaching the King's tent, they were only to see Nadir Shah's body and severed head. Having served him so loyally the Abdalis wept at having failed their leader,<ref>The Pathans (1981) by Olaf Caroe.</ref> and then fought their way out of the camp, and headed back towards Kandahar.

Ahmed Shah had little trouble in taking charge of much of present-day Afghanistan in the power vacuum that resulted from Nadir's death, and Ahmed Shah personally came into possession of the celebrated Kohinoor diamond, which was given to him by Nadir's grandson, Shah Rukh.

[edit] Loya Jirga

Later the same year (1747), when the chiefs of the Abdali tribes and clans met near Kandahar at Loya Jirga to choose a new leader, Ahmad Shah was chosen to lead the tribe. His coronation as the first King of Afghanistan happened in October, 1747, near the tomb of Shaikh Surkh, adjacent to Nadir Abad Fort.

Despite being younger than other claimants, Ahmad had several overriding factors in his favor:

• He was a direct descendant of Sado, patriarch of the Sadozai clan, the most prominent tribe amongst the Pashtuns at the time;
• He was unquestionably a charismatic leader and seasoned warrior who had at his disposal a trained, mobile force of several thousand cavalrymen;
• Not least, he possessed a substantial 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"). The name may have been suggested, as some claim, from a dream dreamt by Ahmad Shah and his pearl earring, or as others claim, from the pearl earrings worn by the royal guard of Nadir Shah. The Abdali Pashtuns have been known thereafter as the Durrani clan.

[edit] Military Campaigns

Ahmad Shah began his career as head of the Abdali tribe by capturing Ghazni from the Ghilzai Pashtuns, and then wresting Kabul from the local ruler, and thus strengthened his hold over most of present-day Afghanistan. Leadership of the various Afghan tribes rested mainly on the ability to provide booty for the clan, and Ahmed Shah proved remarkably successful in providing both booty and occupation for his followers. Apart from invading the Punjab three times between the years 1747-1753, he captured Herat in 1750 and both Nishapur (Neyshabur) and Meshed (Mashhad) in 1751.

Ahmed Shah first crossed the Indus river in 1748, the year after his ascension - his tribe sacked Lahore during that expedition. The following year (1749), the Mughal ruler was induced to cede Sindh and all of the Punjab west of the Indus River to him, in order to save his capital from being attacked by Ahmed Shah. Having thus gained substantial territories to the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah turned westward to take possession of Herat, which was ruled by Nadir Shah's grandson, Shah Rukh of Persia. The city fell to Ahmad Shah in 1750, after almost a year of siege and bloody conflict; Ahmed Shah then pushed on into present-day Iran, capturing Nishapur (Neyshabur) and Meshed (Mashhad) in 1751.

Meanwhile, in the preceding three years, the Sikhs had occupied the city of Lahore, and Ahmed Shah had to return in 1751 to oust them. In 1752, he 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 tribes of northern Afghanistan.

Then in 1756/57, in what was his fourth invasion of India, Ahmed Shah sacked Delhi looting every corner of that city and enriching himself with what remained of that city's wealth after Nadir Shah's invasion in 1739. 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. Leaving his second son Timur Shah (who was wed to the daughter of Alamgir II) to safeguard his interests, Ahmad finally left India to return to Afghanistan. On his way back, Ahmed Shah captured the Amritsar (1757), and sacked the sikhs holy temple of Golden Temple.

[edit] Conflict with the Marathas

The Mughal power in northern India had been declining since the reign of Aurangzeb, who died in 1707; the Marathas, who already controlled much of western and central India from their capital at Pune, were straining to expand their area of control. After Ahmad Shah sacked the Mughal capital and withdrew with the booty he coveted, the Marathas filled the power void; in 1758, within a year of Ahmed Shah's return to Kandahar, the Marathas secured possession of the Punjab, and succeeded in ousting Timur Shah and his court from India.

Ahmad Shah therefore had to return to India and face the formidable challenge posed by the Maratha Confederacy. He declared a jihad (Islamic holy war) against the Marathas, and warriors from various Pashtun tribes, as well as other tribes such as the Baloch, Tajiks, and Muslims in India, answered his call. Early skirmishes ended in victory for the Afghans. By 1759, Ahmad Shah and his army had reached Lahore and were poised to confront the Marathas. By 1760, the Maratha groups had coalesced into a great army that probably outnumbered Ahmad Shah's forces. Once again, Panipat was the scene of a confrontation between two warring contenders for control of northern India. The Third battle of Panipat (January 1761), fought between largely Muslim and largely Hindu armies who numbered as many as 100,000 troops each, was waged along a twelve-kilometer front, and resulted in a decisive victory for Ahmed Shah.

This battle, coming as it did within four years of the Battle of Plassey, is of historical importance beyond the garnering of booty, since it left India without a dominant native power (neither Mughal nor Maratha) and thus facilitated British expansion.

[edit] Administration & Government

He used to hold, at stated periods, what is termed a Majlis-i-Eeulama, or Assembly of the Learned, the early part of which was generally devoted to divinity and civil law-for Ahmad Shah himself was a Molawi and concluded with conversations on science and poetry. He as a rule did not interefere with the tribes or their customs as long as they did not interfere with his ambitions.

[edit] Decline

The victory at Panipat was the high point of Ahmad Shah's and Afghan power. His empire was among the largest Islamic empires in the world at that time. However, this situation was not to last long; the empire soon began to unravel. As early as by the end of 1761, the Sikhs had began to rebel in much the Punjab. In 1762, Ahmad Shah crossed the passes from Afghanistan for the sixth time to crush the Sikhs. He assaulted Lahore and Amritsar (the holy city of the Sikhs), massacred thousands of Sikh inhabitants, destroyed their temples and again desecrated their holy places with cow's blood. Within two years, the Sikhs rebelled again, and he launched another campaign against them in 1764, resulting in a severe sikh defeat.

Soon afterwards, Ahmed Shah had to hasten westward to quell an insurrection in Afghanistan. He had to buy peace with the Uzbek emir of Bukhara by agreeing that the Amu Darya would mark the division of their lands. By the time of his death, he had lost interest in control of the Punjab focusing more on his control in Afghanistan , the sikhs then became in charge of Punjab until defeated by the British in the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1846.

In 1772, Ahmad Shah retired to his home in Maruf in the mountains east of Kandahar, where he died in October the same year. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah Durrani.

[edit] Legacy

Ahmad Shah's successors, beginning with his son Timur, proved largely incapable of governing the Durrani empire and faced with advancing enemies on all sides it was at an end within 50 years of Ahmed Shah's death. Much of the territory conquered by Ahmad Shah fell to others in this half century. By 1818, Ahmad Shah heirs controlled little more than Kabul and the surrounding territory. They not only lost the outlying territories but also alienated other Pashtun tribes and those of other Durrani lineages. Until Dost Mohammad Khan's ascendancy in 1826, chaos reigned in Afghanistan, which effectively ceased to exist as a single entity, disintegrating into a fragmented collection of small units.

Ahmed Shah's own achievements were however considerable. He had succeeded to a remarkable degree in balancing tribal alliances and hostilities, and in directing tribal energies away from rebellion. Although he was ultimately only another in a lengthy line of successful Afghan warlords, Ahmed Shah was aggressive, energetic, and tenacious; a bold but careful general and a conqueror who created a large empire. Even today there are thousands of people each year named their sons Ahmad Shah in tribute to the first Emir of Afghanistan. Ahmed Shah and his heirs were the first Pashtun rulers of Afghanistan, and according to some interpretations, the nation of Afghanistan and the basis of a pashtun identity began to take shape under his rule following centuries of fragmentation and exploitation.<ref name="Taizi">Taizi, Sherzaman (2006) Daily The Statesman, Peshawar, 24 February 2003 Pakhtunkhwa</ref> His love for his land and his people were both something which ensured his position in the collective memory of Afghan and Pashtuns as exemplified by the quote attributed to him "Nowhere in the world can replace the ground on which one crawled in childhood".

At the same this policy ensured he did not continue on the path of other conquerors like Babur or Muhammad Ghauri and make India the base for his empire. What he did accomplish was create the basis for Afghanistan as a modern day Nation-state. Indeed, the name "Afghanistan" finds official mention for the first time ever in history, in the Anglo-Persian peace treaty of 1801. Ahmed Shah has therefore earned recognition as "Ahmad Shah Baba", the "Father" of Afghanistan.

His victory over the Marhatas also influenced the history of the subcontinents and in particular British policy in the region, his refusal to continue his campaigns deeper into India (and inevitably clash with the East India company) that pause allowed the East India Company to continue to acquire power and influence after their acuqistion of Bengal in 1757. However fear of a another Afghan invasion was to haunt British policy for almost half a century after Panipat. The acknowledgement of Abdalis military accomplishments are reflected by British intelligence reports on the battle of Panipat, which referred to Ahmad Shah as the 'King of Kings'.<ref>Sources for the study of Afghanistan, 1747-1809[1]</ref> Fear of an alliance between the French and Afghans led in 1798 to a British envoy, to the Persian court, being instructed to stir up the Persians against the Afghan Empire.<ref name=British library">Summary: the emergence of the Afghan Kingdom and the Mission of Mountstuart Elphistone, 1747-1809 [2]</ref>

The most important historical monument in Kandahar is the mausoleum of Ahmad Shah Durrani, in his tomb his epitaphis written

“The king of high rank, Ahmad Shah Durrani, Was equal to Kisra in managing the affairs of his government. In his time, from the awe of his glory and greatness, The lioness nourished the stag with her milk. From all sides in the ear of his enemies there arrived A thousand reproofs from the tongue of his dagger. The date of his departure for the house of mortality Was the year of the Hijra 1186 (1772 A.D.)”<ref>Nancy Hatch Dupree - An Historical Guide To Afghanistan - The South (Chapter 16)...Link</ref>

Wrote Mountstuart Elphinstone of Ahmad Shah:

His military courage and activity are spoken of with admiration, both by his own subjects and the nations with whom he was engaged, either in wars or alliances. He seems to have been naturally disposed to mildness and clemency and though it is impossible to acquire sovereign power and perhaps, in Asia, to maintain it, without crimes; yet the memory of no eastern prince is stained with fewer acts of cruelty and injustice.

[edit] Ahmad Shah's poetry

Ahmad Shah wrote a collection of odes in Pashto, his own native tongue. He was also the author of several poems in Persian language, the administrative lingua franca of the then Khorasan and Northern India.

I come to you and my heart finds rest. Away from you, grief clings to my heart like a snake. I forget the throne of Delhi when I remember the mountain tops of my Afghan land. If I must choose between the world and you, I shall not hesitate to claim your barren deserts as my own.<ref>See [3]</ref>

[edit] See also

• Afghanistan
• Durrani Empire
• History of Afghanistan
• Pashtun people

[edit] Footnotes