The First King Of Afghanistan ¦ Ahmad Shah Durrani Documentary

Ahmad Shah Durrani, the man unanimously known by Afghans as Baba, or father, single handedly creating the modern nation state of Afghanistan. Over the course of his 25 year reign, he pulled together different tribes and ethnicities in a bid to create an empire out of the political melee that engulfed 18th century Persia and India. His conquests would take him from Eastern Iran to Northern India, in the process establishing Before we begin, I want to tell you about a free newsletter I do, so check out the link in the bio to this video if you're interested. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, Afghanistan was divided between the Safavid Persians in the west, the Mughals of India in the east, with the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara often times intervening in the north. These imperial powers sometimes found it problematic to exert their authority in the region. This was especially the case with the Safavids and the Mughals. Above all other groups, both powers had particular issues with the Pashtuns. An ethnic group that dominate the border region between modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Pashtuns were renowned for their warrior-like reputation that was congruent with the rugged and mountainous terrain they inhabited. Considering we're already talking about them, let's address a key etymological issue. The Pashtuns were the Afghans. Confusing right? Not really. Throughout most of history, those two terms, Pashtun and Afghan, have been used interchangeably. They mean the same thing. Of course today, the term Afghan is a much more inclusive term that refers to the people of all tribes and ethnicities within Afghanistan, but this is actually where you get the name for Afghanistan from, because at least in the last 500 years or so, the Pashtuns have been the dominant ethnic group in the region from a political and even demographic, aka sheer numbers point of view. Throughout this video, I'll often be using the terms Afghan and Pashtun interchangeably. Let's get back to our story. The first half of the 18th century is pivotal for understanding the historical development of India, Persia and Afghanistan for the next 150 years. Both the Safavids in Persia and the Mughals in India were in a state of decline by the beginning of the 18th century. Taking advantage of Safavid weakness, Mirwais Hutak, a chieftain of the Ghilze Pashtun tribe took control of the city of Kandahar and the surrounding regions in 1709. By 1722, the Hutak empire extended over much of Persia as well, as the Safavid capital Esfahan fell to a siege by the Afghans. The Safavid empire was effectively dead. The Hutaks even defeated an Ottoman army that invaded Persia with the aim of restoring their erstwhile Safavid arch rivals. But this state of affairs gave rise to the man described as the Asian Napoleon, or the last great Asian conqueror, Nader Shah Afshar. He would be the man to bring an end to the short-lived Afghan rule over Persia, when in 1729, Nader Shah forced the Hutaks to retreat to their homeland in southern Afghanistan. Another Pashtun tribe that Nader Shah initially had a lot of problems with were the Abdalis of Herat. After he subjugated this tribe in the early 1730s, Nader Shah started recruiting them for his army. This tribe is particularly important for us because the protagonist of our story, Ahmad Shah Durrani, was from this tribe. Born in 1722, there's actually a little bit of debate whether Ahmad Khan Abdali, as he was originally known, was born in Herat or Multan in the Punjab. His father Zaman Khan was the chief of the Abdali tribe and was the governor of Herat, but died in the same year that his son was born in. In any case, Ahmad Khan was a political prisoner in Kandahar at the time when Nader Shah conquered the city from the Hutaks in 1738. The young Ahmad Khan and his brother immediately entered Nader Shah's service, well placed to join their fellow Abdali tribesmen who already formed the key contingent of Nader Shah's forces. Ahmad Khan would accompany Nader Shah in his military campaigns, becoming close to the Shah over time. The young Afghan served various roles including personal attendant to the Shah himself, leader of a cavalry regiment of his fellow Abdali tribesmen within the Afsharid army and finally the pivotal position of treasury officer. In this time, there are stories that speak of how prominent members of the period were highly impressed with the young Ahmad Khan Abdali. The famous Mughal courtier Asaf Jah Nizam-ul-Mulk was said to have commented that the young Afghan had signs of greatness and Afghan legend notes that Nader Shah himself believed kingship would pass on to Ahmad Khan after his own death. All this integral experience allowed the young Ahmad Khan to be in a very advantageous position when his patron, Nader Shah was assassinated by his own guards in his tent in 1747. Before the whole army camp could find out about their leader's death, Ahmad Khan was able to take Nader Shah's royal seal and the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond along with him as he rode back to Kandahar with his regiment of Abdali tribesmen. According to Afghan legend, a jargah, the Afghan equivalent of a shura where an assembly of tribal leaders get together to decide a matter, was held at Shir Surkh near Kandahar in order to decide the next leader of the Afghans. After seeing no headway being made, a Sufi dervish by the name of Sabir Shah got up and placed a cluster of wheat on the head of the young Ahmad Khan and said to the tribal leaders, that's your king. The Sufi dervish said Ahmad Khan had the appearance of a king and apparently all the tribal chieftains agreed and unanimously elected him to be their king. If that story sounds more like a fairy tale than truth, that's because it likely is. Let's not forget Ahmad Khan had a battle-hardened regiment of cavalry soldiers to support him. His father had also been the governor of Herat. You'd be forgiven for assuming these worldly matters mattered more than the decision of a Sufi dervish. But don't be so quick to ridicule legends and fairy tales. They tell us more about cultures and peoples than we imagine. For the Afghans, it shows us how much they value democratic ideals that they are literally embedded into the heart of their national birth story. Whether Ahmad Khan was elected or if his material assets decided the date almost doesn't matter. The fact that Afghans highlight and triumph the electoral element of the narrative tells us about their cultural ideals. And that is a very powerful message to take away from history. But I digress. Proclaiming himself Shah in July 1747, the young king took on the title of Dur-i-Duran – Pearl of Pearls. Hence from that moment on, the name of his tribe, Abdali, was changed to Durani. And he would be known as Ahmad Shah Durani. Sometimes history can be more exciting than a movie. Upon his way to Kandahar, Ahmad Shah stopped a caravan laden with booty and treasure from India. This was the perfect start to his reign, as he could use that money to strengthen the foundations of his royal authority. Establishing his capital at Kandahar, Ahmad Shah sought to capitalise on the chaos that had been unleashed in Nadir Shah's empire in the aftermath of the Great Conqueror's death. The organisation of his power was based on a tribal-slash-feudal system where he'd rule with the tribal chiefs as his advisors. In turn, they'd furnish him with soldiers for his campaigns and he, Ahmad Shah, would pay them fixed amounts of money. In a sense, he was the chief of chiefs. This was strategically a smart and effective method of ruling. The Afghan tribes have throughout history been known to be exceptionally rebellious, especially against the interference of central governance. So Ahmad Shah ruled the tribes and ethnicities through their respective tribal chiefs. It should be mentioned that whilst the Pashtun tribesmen were the bedrock of his army, his conception of a state was a multi-ethnic one. His administrators prominently included the Shia Qizilbash, his regional governors included the Shia Hazara and his army would recruit the Baloch and Turkic peoples, whilst his wives included Mughal Indians. Wars and conquests were intimately tied to his control of the tribes. It allowed him to channel the tribe's energy in a positive direction, whilst at the same time enlarging his reputation and wealth, thereby solidifying his position as chief of chiefs and even inducing other tribes to join him in the hope of plunder. Subsequently, he could use the wealth gained from conquests to placate tribal elders and reward his soldiers and thereby reinforce the loyalty of those around him. With this rationale in mind, Ahmad Shah Durrani immediately set out after being crowned to start an epic 25 years of conquest and campaigns. The historic and strategically important cities of Ghazni, Kabul and Peshawar were captured in 1747. Moving further south on his trail of conquest, Ahmad Shah made the first of his 8 invasions of Hindustan aka India. Now we have to understand that India at the time signified an area much larger than what we understand today. It included the regions of Punjab and Sindh in modern day Pakistan and obviously the modern day country of Bangladesh. From Peshawar, he crossed the Indus river and seized the rich city of Lahore, once the capital of the Mughal empire and the main city in the Punjab. Hearing of the Afghan advance upon India, the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah dispatched an army to meet him. At the battle of Manipur in 1748, Ahmad Shah was decisively defeated by the Mughals and forced to retreat back to Afghanistan with the loot he had secured from Lahore. Not disheartened, Ahmad Shah invaded India again the next year in 1749. This time, lack of support from Delhi prevented the Mughal governor of the Punjab to make a worthy stand against the Afghans. Instead, favouring to settle matters peacefully, a treaty was signed which gave Ahmad Shah control of the territories to the west of the Indus river as well as annual tribute from certain Mughal territories. It should be mentioned that this treaty was in many ways a reiteration of the agreement between Nadir Shah and the Mughals. This is important because Ahmad Shah saw himself in some ways to be a successor to the great Persian Turkic conqueror. In this vein, his next campaign in the same year would be to take his home city of Herat which was at the time ruled by an Afsharid governor. After a siege that lasted almost a year, Herat fell to the Afghans. Ahmad Shah put Darwish Ali Khan, an ethnic Hazara, as governor of the city. Feeling secure enough with his eastern frontier with the Mughals, Ahmad Shah continued his conquests westward, moving deeper into the region of Khurasan. Capturing the city of Mashhad, held by Nadir Shah's grandson Shahrukh, Ahmad Shah allowed the young blind ruler to remain in charge of the city but in return for tribute and Afghan suzerainty over the region. After failing to take the city of Nishapur on the first go, Ahmad Shah returned the next year in 1751 and with the help of heavier artillery, laid a successful siege, going on to sack the historic city. With eastern Persia being reduced to vassalage, Ahmad Shah ordered Shah Wali Khan, a key minister of his, to subdue the Uzbek and Hazara principalities in the direction of the Amudarya or the Yoxus river as it's known in Latin. Shah Wali was able to bring Balkh, Badakhshan, Shabarghan, Maimana and Andukhoi to submission, earning himself the title of Seyed Razam or prime minister. In the meantime, the Mughal governor of Punjab had not paid the Durranis the agreed tribute. Considering Ahmad Shah relied upon northern India to financially fund his military campaigns and state building, he could not afford to let this affront to his authorities slide. So he invaded India for a third time in 1752, this time annexing Multan, Lahore and Kashmir to be a part of the Durrani empire. It has to be mentioned that in this period the Mughal empire was a mere shadow of its former self. Court intrigues played a big role in its downfall. During the 1750s, the vizier Imad al-Mulk was the de facto ruler in Delhi. He had allied himself with the Mughal's biggest foes on the subcontinent, the Marathas. A Hindu confederacy that began in western India, the Marathas had become the most powerful force in India by the 1750s. It's within this context that in 1756, Ahmad Shah Durrani was invited by the Mughal emperor Alamgird II and a key vizier of his, Najib-ud-Daulah, who also happened to be Pashtun, to march on Delhi and remove Imad al-Mulk. Attracted by the wealth of the Mughal court, Ahmad Shah invaded India for the fourth time early in 1757. He entered the Mughal capital Delhi virtually unopposed and had his name read in the khutbah or sermons for Friday prayers. He profited from this particular invasion immensely as the reparations exacted on the Mughal treasury as well as the wealthy inhabitants of Delhi were enormous. In addition, he married his son Timur Shah to the daughter of the Mughal emperor whilst marrying the daughter of an ex-Mughal emperor himself. This would be the second Mughal princess Ahmad Shah took as a wife. He left Imad al-Mulk as the prime minister but put Najib-ud-Daulah, his fellow Pashtun, in de facto control in Delhi. Upon his return to Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah was constantly harassed by the nascent Sikhs who had taken refuge in the hills and forests of the Punjab. In the next decade or so, they had become a real nuisance for the Afghans in the Punjab. He would leave his young son Timur Shah in charge of the Punjab under the watchful eye of Jahan Khan, a key minister of his. Back in Delhi, the Marathas had recovered their supremacy over the Mughals as soon as Ahmad Shah left. The Marathas then marched northwards towards the Punjab, aiming to kick the Afghans out. They allied themselves with the Sikhs and successfully captured Lahore. In fact, they would pursue the Afghans all the way to Peshawar in 1758. After dealing with a rebellion from the Baloch Khan of Kalat, Ahmad Shah made plans to meet the Maratha threat and march on India towards the end of 1759. For the next year, throughout 1760, Ahmad Shah and the Marathas prepared themselves for the oncoming conflict by trying to draw nobles across northern India to their sides. At the start of the next year, in January 1761, the Afghans and the Marathas fought at the decisive Third Battle of Panipat. The battle was fiercely contested and resulted in a huge loss of life on both sides, but in the end, the Afghans emerged victorious. Above all, they were helped by their usage of the Jazail muskets as well as their cavalry and last but not least, the Zamborak, a mounted artillery which had a small cannon placed on top of a camel. I did a review on the Bollywood movie Panipat based on the Third Battle of Panipat, you can check that out as well. At this point, Ahmad Shah was in a very advantageous position and some may question why he didn't press that advantage further by conquering Delhi and adding it to be part of his domain. In addition to the realities of him being far from his support base in Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah's main aim had been to decisively make the Punjab his own. With the Maratha threat to the Punjab gone, he had no reason to stick around in India. However, he still had to contest with another opponent for supremacy in the Punjab. The Sikhs. Ahmad Shah would invade India three more times after Panipat, each time he was solely preoccupied by the combative Sikhs. The Sikhs were a fairly new religious community that had been persecuted and had subsequently developed a militant communal bond that made them incredibly difficult to suppress, despite their small numbers. The Afghans would gradually lose control of the Punjab to the Sikhs throughout the 1760s. Finding it tough to get the Sikhs to abandon their guerrilla tactics and have a pitched battle, Ahmad Shah even resorted to desecrating their holy monuments and massacring their communities. Sikhs to this day remember something known as the Vada Ghalo Ghara, or the Great Massacre, which was when Ahmad Shah killed up to 30,000 Sikhs, many of them non-combatants, in 1762. But all this simply emboldened the Sikhs, who would avoid fighting when Ahmad Shah personally invaded the Punjab, but then resumed their military activities once he left for Afghanistan. By the end of his reign, most of the Punjab was controlled by the Sikhs. One interesting thing to note is that the British were expanding their power in India at this time and they were particularly wary of Ahmad Shah Durrani in the aftermath of his victory at Panipat. When the Afghan king marched in the direction of Delhi in 1767, the British told some of Ahmad Shah's former allies like the Mughal emperor to not give him money and even oppose him. Nothing came of this potential confrontation. The British and the Afghans would eventually be embroiled in numerous wars in the following centuries. After suppressing rebellions in Balkh and Khurasan, Ahmad Shah's health started to deteriorate. As well as potentially suffering from diabetes, he had an ulcer on his nose that was literally eating his face, even being compelled to wear an artificial nose made of silver. Towards the end, it is said that his speech was incomprehensible. After appointing his son Timur Shah as his successor, Ahmad Shah Durrani passed away in October 1772. Ahmad Shah Durrani, perhaps the last great assertive Muslim ruler before the onset of European colonialism's dominance. Through his conquests, he was able to acquire wealth and resources which allowed him to set up a tribal state. As well as being a militarily vigorous man, he had the soft skills required to deal with the people whom he ruled. In the process, perhaps unknowingly, he set up the basis for an Afghan state that was inherently diverse in its range of ethnicities and customs. For his efforts, he is known by Afghans as Ahmad Shah Baba, father of Afghanistan. I hope you guys enjoyed that. This was probably the video I did the most research for and also the one that I enjoyed doing the most research for. I know Afghan history is super understudied so I'm glad I can shed a little bit of light onto it. Remember to subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications so you won't miss any Hikma History videos. Make sure to check out my Patreon page if you want to help Hikma History grow, the link is in the bio. Until next time, peace!