Ahmad Shah Durrani
Ahmad Shāh Durrānī (around 1722 in Herat or in Multan - October 16, 1772 ) (Pashto: احمد شاه دراني), also known as Ahmad Khān Abdālī (احمد خان ابدالي), was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is considered the father of the modern state of Afghanistan.
After the assassination of the Persian Shah Nader Shah in 1747, a power vacuum developed there. The later Ahmad Shāh Durrānī used this and founded his empire in Khorasan in the east of the country , which became the basis for today's state of Afghanistan. He gathered and unified the Afghan tribes and pushed east towards the Mughal and Maratha Empires of India, west towards the rest of the disintegrating Persia, and north towards the Bukhara Khanate . Within a few years he extended his control from Khorasan and what is now eastern Iran in the west to Kashmir and northern India to Delhi in the east and from Oxus in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.
Afghans often refer to him as Ahmad Shāh Bābā ("Ahmad Shah the Father"). Other titles are Padschah (of the Durrani Empire or Padschah-i- Ghazi ) and “Pearl of Pearls” (Dur-i-Durran) . His mausoleum is located in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the center of the city.
Historical situation before the rise of Durrani
The Persian Empire of the Safavids , which had existed since around 1500, encompassed large parts of today's Afghanistan and the Caucasus in addition to the area of today's Iran . At that time, however, the empire was in a phase of weakness. This contributed to the fact that the Sunnis in the empire were to be converted to the state religion, Shiite Islam. The Pashtuns in the east of the empire were predominantly Sunni, with their (hostile) largest tribes, the Ghilzai and the Abdali . In 1719 the Ghilzai rose. They succeeded in conquering the capital of the empire, Isfahan , in 1722 . The Safavid dynasty was essentially over.
The Ghilzai founded a new, but short-lived, dynasty, the Hotaki dynasty . Created in 1709 in the east, in Kandahar, after the uprising of 1719 it had also gained power in the central part of Persia in 1722. She lost this again in 1729 through a defeat against Nader Shah , to which she was finally defeated in Kandahar in 1736/1737 and in 1738.
Nader Shah was a military leader of the Afshars , a predominantly Shiite people in northeastern Iran. He fought formally first for the Safavids and put their dynasty again ( 1729-1732 , 1732-1736 ), but in 1736 he crowned himself and founded the Afsharid dynasty . This too was short-lived and after his death in 1747 mostly only ruled over part of the Persian Empire, from 1760 only over the province of Khorasan . In 1796 the dynasty ended there too.
youth
The later Ahmad Shāh Durrānī was probably born as Ahmad Khan in Herat or Multan in 1722 . He belonged to the Sadozai , a branch of the Abdali already mentioned. He was the second son of Mohammed Zaman Khan, clan chief of the Abdali, his mother was Zarghoona Alakozai. The Alakozai also formed a branch of the Abdali.
Like his older brother Zulfikar Khan, Ahmad Khan was a prisoner of Hussein Khan, the Kandahar governor of the Hotaki dynasty , in his youth . Both were only released when Nader Shah conquered Kandahar in 1736/1737.
Rise to power
The Abdali clan belonged early to the followers of Nader Shah. Ahmad Khan rose quickly, soon commanding a cavalry unit of about 4,000 men. When Nader Shah died in 1747, his empire fell apart. Ahmad Khan, who was appointed leader of the people by a loja jirga and was now called Ahmad Shah, was able to bring the East under his control in a short time. He soon conquered Ghazni from the Ghilzai and overthrew the local ruler of Kabul, now ruling most of what is now Afghanistan. He became the emir of the new empire thus created.
Between 1747 and 1753, Ahmad Shah invaded Punjab three times . In 1748 he crossed the Indus and threatened the Mughal Empire . Fearing an attack on their capital Delhi , the Mughals gave him the regions of Sindh and Punjab in 1749 . In 1750 Herat and in 1751 Nishapur and Mashhad came under his rule. Ahmad Shah's rule over the Punjab, however, was challenged by the Sikhs who conquered Lahore ; In 1751 he pushed them back again. The following year, Ahmad Shah led a campaign to Kashmir and wanted to conquer the area north of the Hindu Kush. On another campaign in 1756/1757 to India, Ahmad Shah plundered Delhi. He did not overthrow the Mogul dynasty, but instead installed a puppet, Alamgir II. He later became the father-in-law of Ahmad Shah's son Timur Shah .
On his way back to Afghanistan in 1757, Ahmad Shah attacked the highest sanctuary of the Sihks, the Golden Temple in Amritsar , and caused a bloodbath.
With the fall of the Mughals, other Indian principalities became stronger, and the British colonization of India began at this time. The Marathas grew stronger and invaded Punjab in 1758. They drove out Timur Shah and his administration. Ahmad Shah then declared a jihad against the Marathas, which earned him some Muslim support. 1759 he reached Lahore and in January 1761 came at Panipat to Third Battle of Panipat . Ahmad Shah won - this was the height of his power. He now ruled the largest Muslim empire after the Ottoman Empire.
However, power over the Punjab was uncertain. At the end of 1761 and again in 1764, Ahmad Shah had to put down Sikh rebellions. And she remained uncertain: In a later campaign, the Afghans under General Jahan Khan lost to the Sikhs with heavy losses (5,000 dead).
Ahmad Shah was already ill at that time. In 1764 his cancer , a tumor on his face, began to emerge. He spent his last time in Afghanistan and died in June 1772.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Habibo Brechna: The history of Afghanistan: the historical environment of Afghanistan over 1500 years . Vdf Hochschulverlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-7281-2963-1 , p. 69 ( excerpt (Google) )
- ^ Frank Clements: Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia . ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2003, ISBN 1-85109-402-4 , p. 79
- ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ^ A b Ahmad Shah and the Durrani Empire . Library of Congress Country Studies on Afghanistan . 1997. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
- ^ A b Friedrich Engels : Afghanistan . In: Andy Blunden . The New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. I. 1857. Archived from the original on October 18, 2010. Retrieved on September 23, 2010.
- ^ Frank Clements: Conflict in Afghanistan: a historical encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 978-1-85109-402-8 , p. 81 (accessed September 23, 2010).
- ^ Sarah Chayes: The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban . Univ. of Queensland Press, 2006, ISBN 978-1-932705-54-6 , p. 99 (accessed September 23, 2010).
- ↑ Ganda Singh: Ahmad Shah Durrani: Father of Modern Afghanistan . Asia Publishing House, 1959, ISBN 978-1-4021-7278-6 , p. 457 (Retrieved August 25, 2010).
- ↑ Ahmad Shah Abdali . In: Abdullah Qazi . Afghanistan Online. Archived from the original on August 12, 2010. Retrieved September 23, 2010: “ Afghans refer to him as Ahmad Shah Baba (Ahmad Shah, the father). "
- ↑ Meredith L. Runion: The history of Afghanistan . Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007, ISBN 978-0-313-33798-7 , p. 71 (accessed September 23, 2010).
- ^ Safavid Dynasty. Accessed April 13, 2020 (English).
- ^ John C. Griffiths: Afghanistan: A History of Conflict . Andre Deutsch, 2002, p. 12, ISBN 978-0-233-05053-9
literature
- Habibo Brechner: The History of Afghanistan . VDF Hochschulverlag AG 2005, ISBN 3-7281-2963-1 , pp. 69-74
- Conrad J. Schetter: Small history of Afghanistan . CH Beck 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-51076-2 , pp. 44-50 ( excerpt (Google) )
- Ganda Singh: Ahmad Shah Durrani. Father of Modern Afghanistan . Asia Publishing House, Bombay 1959
- Hafiz: Shahnamah-i Ahmad Shah Abdali (Da Pashto Akedemi da matbu ° ato silsilah)
- Munshi Abdul Karim: Waquiyat-i-Durrani . Lahore 1963
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Durrani, Ahmad Shah |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ahmad Shah Abdali; Ahmad Shah Baba; Ahmad Khan (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Afghan emir; first emir of the Durrani dynasty (1747–1772) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1722 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Herat or Multan |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 16, 1772 |
| Place of death | Kandahar (today: Afghanistan ) |