Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c10.s4: § 8. Rise of Ahmad Abdali
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c10.s4
- Language
- English
§ 8. Rise of Ahmad Abdali
v1.c10.s4.1
This tragedy took place near Kuchān at the extreme north-eastern corner of Khurāsān, on 9th June 1747. The death of Nādir Shāh left the field open for Ahmad Khān Abdāli.* His ancestors had their homes in the Herāt district and belonged to the Saddu-zāi clan of Afghāns. His father and grandfather having been slain in battle, young Ahmad fled for refuge to the Ghilzāi clan in Qandahār. When Nādir Shāh captured Qandahār (in 1737), he took Ahmad into his service as a personal attendant (*yasāwwal*.) The conqueror removed the Ghilzāi clan from their home in Qandahār to Māzendrān and Khurāsān, while he shifted the Abdāli clan wholesale from Herāt and Khurāsān to the Qandahār district, which henceforth became the land of the Abdālis.
v1.c10.s4.2
In the service of Nādir Shāh, Ahmad Abdāli greatly distinguished himself and rose to be the chief commander of that king's Abdāli contingent (some six thousand strong.) Nādir used often to say in open Court, "I have not found in Irān Turān or Hind any man equal to Ahmad Abdāli in capacity and character." There is a charming legend that one day Nādir Shāh was enjoying the breeze seated on his golden throne and Ahmad was standing before him at a respectful distance, when the king cried out, "O Ahmad Abdāli! come forward." Ahmad approached, but Nādir said, "Come closer still." When Ahmad had come up, Nādir told him, "O Ahmad Khān Abdāli, remember that after me the kingship will pass on to you. You must treat Nādir's family kindly". Ahmad replied in alarm, "May I be your sacrifice! If you wish to slay me, I am present here. But there is no reason why you should utter such (unfortunate) words as these." Nādir repeated, "I know for certain that you will become an Emperor. Treat Nādir's descendants well". The historian Husain adds that Ahmad Shāh in his days of power was always mindful of his late master's appeal and assisted Shāhrukh Mirzā, the grandson and successor of Nādir. [*Husain Shāhi*, 14-15.]*
v1.c10.s4.3
∗ An ancestor of Ahmad Shāh was a disciple of the saint Khwājah Abu Ahmad Abdāl of the Chishti order, and so pleased his master by his devotion that the holy man blessed him and called him *Abdāl*, a word which means a man free from earthly bonds by reason of his close communion with God. The conqueror Ahmad Shah took the title of *Durr-i-durrāni* or 'Pearl among Pears'; and hence his dynasty is also called *Durrāni* [Husain Shāhi, 6.]
v1.c10.s4.4
∗ *TAh.*, 3b, has a marginal addition :—"This Ahmad at first served Nādir Shāh as his pipe-bearer, and was one day sitting down outside the lattice-door near the Diwan-i-am of Delhi fort where Nādir was then in residence, when Nizām-ul-mulk Asaf Jāh, who knew the art of reading a man's future from his face, looked at him and predicted that he would become an Emperor. On this
v1.c10.s4.5
After murdering Nādir at midnight, the Qizilbāsh conspirators planned to keep the fact a secret from the rest of the army till next morning, in order to attack his favoured Afghān troops by surprise, crush them and plunder their camp, and then seize all the property of the late king without a sharer. But so great a secret could not be kept. Ahmad heard of it before morning, stood on his defence during the rest of the night, and early next morning marched in battle array towards Nādir’s tent. There he found the Qizilbāsh soldiers and camp-followers engaged in indiscriminate plunder. The Uzbak and Afghān contingents at once plunged into the game and ‘‘in four hours from the dawn no trace remained on the ground of the tents and property of Nādir Shāh. Everything had been dispersed and had disappeared’’. [Mujmil, 20-21; Jahānkushā 461.]
v1.c10.s4.6
The Afghān soldiers, seeing their patron dead and themselves surrounded by hostile rivals in a foreign land, marched away rapidly from Kuchān in a compact body for self-defence against any Qizilbāsh attack. At the end of the third day, they halted and held a council. Their captains said among themselves, "On the long journey before us we need a man whose commands all shall obey. It would be difficult, nay impossible, for us to reach Qandahār with the entire body of our women children and servants, in the face of the hostility of the Persians, unless we have a supreme chief. We must obey such a leader with all our power, whatever happens." All the Abdālis took this view and chose Ahmād as their commander, hailing him as Ahmad Shāh. (Mujmil, 74.)
v1.c10.s4.7
¹ speech being reported to Nādir, he, knowing the Nizām’s powers as a soothsayer, cut off both ears of Ahmad with his dagger, remarking, ‘When you become Emperor, this will remind people of me.’ ’ ’ ! !
v1.c10.s4.8
Spiritual blessing was also secured by the new king. Three days before the murder of Nādir, Ahmad had met on the way a darvish from Lāhor named Shāh Muhammad Sābir,* who had prophesied to him, "On your forehead I read the marks of royalty." The holy man then proved his supernatural powers by a miracle. After the death of Nādir, Ahmad did not forget to take the saint with him in his flight. At the first halt the darvish pressed Ahmad to make himself king. The Khān pleaded his incompetence and lack of materials befitting royal grandeur. But the holy man was not to be so put off. Piling up a small mound of earth, he seized Ahmad's hand and seated him on it saying, "This is your throne".
v1.c10.s4.9
∗ Shāh Sābir was the grandson of Ustā Halālkhor, a well-known farrier of Kābul, adored by the Turānis as a darvish. (Siyar, iii. 16.)
v1.c10.s4.10
Then strewing some barley-shoots on his head, he declared them the aigrette on his crown and styled him Durrāni Pādishāh, or ‘Pearl among kings’. [Siyar, iii. 16; Husain Shāhi, 17-18, 20; Bayān, 225; Mujmil, 74.]
v1.c10.s4.11
§ 9. Ahmad Abdāli gains Qandahar and Kabul.
v1.c10.s4.12
Arrived at Qandahār, Ahmad published the news of Nādir Shāh’s death. The Ghilzāi Afghān whom the Persian king had left as his governor in this fort, plotted to kill Ahmad by treachery. But the blow was anticipated. Abdāli killed the leading conspirators and took possession of Qandahār, where he crowned himself with full pomp and struck coins in his own name. (Mujmil, 75; Siyar, iii. 16.)
v1.c10.s4.13
The Afghān tribesmen flocked to Ahmad Abdāli’s standards in the hope of finding a national hero who would lead them on to a career of successful rapine as in the days of Sultān Mahmud of Ghazni. The various bodies of Nādir’s soldiers scattered in different places in the Panjāb and Afghānistān were drawn together by Taqi Khān Shirāzi (Beglar-Begi) and induced to enter Abdāli’s service. In these ways a band of 40,000 hardy warriors (only a minority of them being Qizilbāshes) soon gathered under Ahmad.
v1.c10.s4.14
He then looked out for money to maintain them and found it very soon.
v1.c10.s4.15
After arranging for the administration of Qandahār and taking oaths of allegiance from all the Abdāli tribesmen, Ahmad set out to conquer the provinces of Afghanistan from Nādir’s officers. He first took possession of Ghazni after some fighting and installed his own governor there. Nāsir Khan, a hereditary servant of the Delhi empire, had been forced by Nādir Shāh to continue as his governor of Afghanistan when that country was ceded to Persia by the treaty of 1739. In May 1747 he had left Kābul for Khurāsān at Nādir’s call to deliver the accumulated revenue of Kābul, Peshāwar and Sindh, amounting to 30 lakhs of Rupees. When he reached the neighbourhood of Qandahār, the news of Nādir’s murder had already spread abroad, and this treasure was looted and divided among themselves by some neighbouring tribal chiefs. But soon afterwards Ahmad arrived there, arrested these chieftains and forced them to disgorge the money.
v1.c10.s4.16
Abdāli sent Nāsir Khān back to Kābul to act as governor on his behalf, but Nāsir’s heart was averse to this service, and he left Kābul for Peshāwar (his winter headquarters) in order to be within easy reach of Delhi. Abdāli then advanced north and took unopposed possession of Kābul, from which Nāsir’s deputy had fled away.
v1.c10.s4.17
Ever since his accession to the throne, Ahmad Abdālī had been issuing invitations to the Afghān clans all over the country to join him and help to recover the lost sovereignty and empire of their race. Many of these tribal chiefs flocked to his standard to share in the alluring career of plunder under such a born general and national leader. From Kābul Ahmad sent an advanced detachment to occupy Peshāwar and plunder the country up to Attock on the Indus. At the news of the invaders’ approach, Nāsir Khān evacuated Peshāwar, crossed the river and took refuge in the land of Chach Hazāra; but he was driven out of this district by another Afghān force under Ahmad’s commander-in-chief Sardār-i-Jahān, and fled to Lāhor (Nov.) giving up all his property to plunder.
v1.c10.s4.18
Abdālī now established his own rule in Peshāwar, which city served as a very convenient starting point for the invasion of Hindustan, with the man-power of Afghanistan behind him and no great physical obstacle in front. The Khaibar Afghans quickly gathered round him and a plan of invasion was matured. [Anand, 300-302; Siyar, iii. 16-17; Bayān, 224.]
v1.c10.s4.19
§ 10. *Abdali invades the Panjab and captures Lahor.*
v1.c10.s4.20
Meantime, at the news of Abdālī’s march towards Peshāwar, Hayātullah had issued from Lāhor and taken up an entrenched position on the bank of the Rāvi, appealing to the Emperor to send him reinforcements, which never came.
v1.c10.s4.21
Leaving Peshāwar about the middle of December 1747, Ahmad Abdālī crossed the Indus by a bridge of boats, and the Jhilam and the Chināb by the same device, and arrived near Lāhor on 8th January 1748, his track being marked by a line of sacked and burning villages. Twelve thousand picked horsemen followed him, the core of them being composed of 6,000 devoted and veteran soldiers of his own clan who had accompanied him from Persia. A number of Afghān adventurers from the frontier also joined him on foot, in the hope of plundering the rich plains of India. This raised the invading force probably to 18,000 men, but they were absolutely without cannon.
v1.c10.s4.22
Abdālī’s religious guide Bābā Sābir entered Lāhor alone, avowedly to visit his mother who was living in that city, and also to make a pilgrimage to the local saints’ tombs, but really to deliver to Hayātullah an invitation from Abdālī to join him. His fame as a magician had preceded him, and people talked how his spells had turned a number of toy tents and horses into real cavalry and war equipment for Ahmad immediately after Nādir’s death. It was now reported that Sābir had come to Lāhor in order to render the Mughal artillery powerless by his charms. So formidable an enemy could not be suffered to escape. He was at once arrested by order of Hayātullah, and next day put to death by a subordinate officer without the governor’s knowledge. [Bayān 225, Siyar iii. 17-18, Anand 325.]
v1.c10.s4.23
After this Abdāli could no longer think of conciliating Hayātullah. On 10th January his soldiers forded the Rāvi one by one and reached the Shālamār garden four miles east of the city. Next day they appeared in force on the plain of Shāh Balādil and the hermitage of Shāh Husain. The advanced posts of the defenders were two, the small fort of Hazrat Ishān held by Hayātullah’s pay-master and an entrenchment close to the hermitage of Shāh Balādil (in the Parvizābād suburb)* commanded by Mirzā Asmatullah and Lāchin Beg. These two divisions, totalling 16,000 men, now issued to the plain to meet the enemy. The Afghāns sent out only a thousand mounted musketeers, who galloped up to the Mughals, fired their pieces, and as quickly rode back beyond range. The battle raged in this manner till evening, neither side being able to make an advance from its position. About sunset, the Indian troops, regarding the fighting as over for the day, set out to return to their trenches in the careless disorder that usually marks their retirement, when the Afghān horsemen delivered a sudden attack, charging them at full speed and firing such sharp volleys from their muskets that the imperialists were completely taken by surprise and driven off the field in hopeless rout. The paymaster and other captains, without making any attempt to rally their men in the redoubt or the trenches, fled at once to the shelter of the walled city. Adina Beg alone stood outside the city during the first quarter of the night, firing his guns to keep the exultant Afghāns back from advancing nearer than the Hazrat Ishān. Then he came back to his master and reported the situation. Hayātullah found Lāhor untenable and fled away from the city at midnight,* and his officers and soldiers followed his example, each man only thinking how to save himself.
v1.c10.s4.24
∗ *Hazrat Ishān* is the saint Miān Mir. The fighting took place in the tract east of old Lahor which is thus described in the Lahore Dist. Gazetteer (ed. 1883), p. 149: "From the city walls to Shālamār Miān Mir and Ichra—a circle with a radius of some three or four miles—the ground is strewn with débris interspersed with crumbling mosques, tombs, gateways and gigantic mounds."
v1.c10.s4.25
∗ Siyar, 18, ascribes the defeat to the inaction of Adina Beg who did not support the bakhshi in the attempt to expel the Afghans from the trenches, and his cowardice in retreating to the 14
v1.c10.s4.26
The rich capital of the Panjāb lay utterly undefended. Next morning (12th January) Mir Mumin and other faithful officers of the late Zakariyā Khān, who had been kept in confinement by Hayātullah, went on a mission of entreaty to Abdālī’s tent. For a ransom of 30 lakhs of Rupees, the Afghān victor agreed to spare the city from a sack, and sent his provosts to keep his soldiers back from entering Lāhor. A good deal of plunder, however, unavoidably took place in the collapse of all government.
v1.c10.s4.27
The capture of Lāhor more than doubled the strength of Ahmad. Not only did he gain immense wealth in the form of the city’s ransom (Rs. 22 lakhs immediately paid) and the property of the governor and his family, but he was thus enabled to equip himself with all the imperial artillery and military stores in the fort, of which he had brought none from Peshāwar. Further,
v1.c10.s4.28
city in broad daylight. TAh., 4b, passes over the whole fight, merely stating that Hayatullah sent a force under Jumla Kh. Afghan of Qasur, who instead of opposing the Abdāli went over to him, and so Hayatullah being unable to fight fled away. I follow Anandram, a resident of Lahor.
v1.c10.s4.29
This Jumla Kh. was left by Abdāli in Lahor as his governor when marching to Sarhind. [Anand, 332.]
v1.c10.s4.30
he seized all the horses and camels that he could find in and near Lāhor, mounted his Afghān footmen on the horses and his swivel-guns on the camels, and in this way added five or six thousand hardy men to his mobile division, with a good number of rapidly portable light artillery.
v1.c10.s4.31
Thus completing his preparations and feeling confident that he could now face the regular army of Delhi on equal terms, he started from Lāhor on 19th February, at the head of 12,000 men, leaving his own governor in that city, and marching eastwards to Sarhind on the road to Delhi. [Anand., 312, 325-332; Bayan 227; Siyar, iii. 17-18; Husain Shāhi, 25.]
Linked texts (1)
- Bayān-i wāqiʿ — Khwāja ʿAbd al-Karīm Kashmīrī 1780, Persian