Durrani Empire

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Durrani Empire
map The kingdom in 1747The kingdom under Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747.
Capital Kandahar (1747–1776)
Kabul (1776–1823, 1839–1842)
Peshawar (1776–1818; winter capital)
Herat (1818–1826)
Form of government kingdom
religion Islam
language Persian
founding 1747
resolution 1826

The Durrani Empire ( Pashtun د دورانیانو امپراتوري), also called Sadozai Kingdom or Afghan Empire (د افغانانو واکمني), was founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani . In its maximum territorial extent, the empire extended over an area which corresponds to the present-day areas of Afghanistan, eastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan as well as Pakistan and north-western India.

In 1747 the Persian King Nader Shah was assassinated , leaving a power vacuum in his huge empire, which stretched from Mesopotamia to India . In Kandahar, Ahmad Shah Durrani made use of this power vacuum in the east of the country. From there he began to conquer Ghazni, followed by Kabul. In 1749 the Mughal rulers had to cede sovereignty over a large part of north-west India to the Afghans. Ahmad Shah then made his way west to take possession of Herat , Nishapur and Mashhad , which was ruled by Shah Ruch , whom he would later use as a puppet for the region. Next he sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush, and in a short time all the different tribes began to join his cause. Ahmad Shah and his forces invaded India four times and took control of Kashmir and the Punjab region . In early 1757 he took Delhi, but allowed the Mughal dynasty to retain nominal control as long as Ahmad Shah's sovereignty over the Punjab, Sindh and Kashmir is recognized and Delhi remains under the influence of the Durranis.

After Ahmad Shah's death in 1772, his son Timur Shah Durrani became the next ruler of the Durrani dynasty, who decided to make Kabul the new capital of the empire, using Peshawar as the winter capital. The Durrani Empire is considered to be the foundation of the modern state of Afghanistan and Ahmad Shah Durrani is the "father of the nation".

From then on, the Abdali carried the name Durrani - derived from the Persian Durr-i Durran , pearl of pearls - to emphasize the special position of the tribe in Pashtun society (in part this guerrilla war between the two clans continues to this day).

Establishment of the Afghan state

Ahmad Shah Durrani, the father of Afghanistan .

In 1709, Mir Wais Hotak , chief of the Ghilzai tribe of Kandahar province, gained independence from the Safavid dynasty. From 1722 to 1725 his son Mahmud Hotak briefly ruled large parts of Iran and declared himself Shah of Persia. However, the Hotaki dynasty ended completely in 1738 after it was overthrown by the Afsharids led by Nader Shah Afshar from Persia.

The year 1747 marks the final appearance of an Afghan political unity that is independent from both the Persian and Mughal empires. In October 1747 a Loya Jirga (Grand Council) was decided near the city of Kandahar, in which not only Pashtuns but also Hazara and Baluch took part, in which Ahmad Shah Durrani was selected as the new leader of the Afghans. This is how the Durrani dynasty was founded. Although Ahmad Shah was younger than the other contenders, he had several determining factors in his favor. He belonged to a respected family with a political background, especially since his father served as governor of Herat and he himself already had experience as general of Nader Shah .

The first military successes

The bazaar and the citadel of Kandahar

One of Ahmad Shah's first military actions was to capture Ghazni from the Ghilzai and then wrest Kabul from the local ruler. In 1749 the Mughal ruler was induced to cede the Sindh region, the Punjab region and the region around the Indus to Ahmad Shah, which, however, was initially rejected by the Mughals. After conquering considerable areas in the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah turned west to take possession of Herat , Nishapur and Mashhad , which was ruled by Nader Shah Afshar's grandson, Shahrukh Afshar. Next, Ahmad Shah sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush Mountains. In a short time, Durrani's powerful army itself brought the Tajiks and the Turkic peoples in the north of what is now Afghanistan under its control, before they belonged to the Emirate of Bukhara . Ahmad Shah invaded the remnants of the Mughal Empire a third and then a fourth time, ultimately consolidating control of the Kashmir, Sindh and Punjab regions. He sacked Delhi in 1757 but allowed the Mughal dynasty to retain nominal control of the city as long as they recognized Ahmad Shah's sovereignty over Punjab, Sindh and Kashmir. Ahmad Shah left his second son Timur Shah Durrani in Delhi to protect his interests and left India to return to Afghanistan.

Relations with China

Ahmad Shah was alarmed by the expansion of the Qing Dynasty of China to the eastern border of what is now Kazakhstan and tried to get neighboring Muslim khanates and Kazakhs on his side in order to free the Muslims in China and bring them under his rule. Ahmad Shah stopped trading with the Qing Dynasty and sent troops to Qo'qon in what is now Uzbekistan. Since his campaigns in India were exhausting the treasury and his troops across Central Asia were thin, Ahmad Shah lacked sufficient resources for military action, so that he had no choice but to send envoys to Beijing for unsuccessful talks.

Third Battle of Panipat

Ahmad Shah Durrani [Ahmad Shah Durrani] and his army decisively defeat the Maratha during the third Battle of Panipat and reinstall the Mughal dynasty in Delhi.
Afghan soldiers of the Durrani Empire

The influence of the Mughals in northern India had declined sharply after the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707 and after the rise of the Durranis. Deep in India, however, there was another regional power that the Durranis had faced several times, the Hindu Maratha . These controlled most of India south of Delhi. The Marathas now endeavored to expand their control area to Delhi and northwest India. To counter the Afghan rule in northwest India and Delhi, the Maratha sent thousands of troops to Delhi. As King Ahmad Shah Durrani was in his capital in Kandahar, the attack was a complete success and the Maratha ousted Timur Shah Durrani from his court in India. Especially Delhi came under the rule of the Maratha. The Maratha now demanded huge amounts of taxes from Delhi from the Muslim Mughal rulers there. The Mughals, however, were still loyal to the Durranis because they saw them as their Muslim allies and preferred their status as vassals to the rule of the Marathas in general. Delhi asked several times for another invasion of India from Durrani in order to free it from the Maratha. Ahmad was forced to return to India and face massive attacks by the Maratha Confederation. Ahmad Shah declared a jihad, a holy war against the Maratha Empire, and warriors from various tribes joined his army, including the Baloch people under the command of the Khan of Kalat Mirir I. Suba Khan Tanoli (Zabardast Khan) became the army chief of all Armed forces selected. In 1759, Ahmad Shah and his army had reached Lahore and were ready to face the Marathas. By 1760 the Maratha groups had formed a sufficiently large army under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau. Once again Panipat was the scene of a confrontation between two belligerent aspirants for control of northern India. The third Battle of Panipat (January 14, 1761), which was fought between predominantly Muslim and largely Hindu armies, was fought along a twelve-kilometer front. The Afghans decisively defeated the Indian Marathas in the third Battle of Panipat on January 14, 1761. The defeat at Panipat led to heavy losses for the Marathas and was a big setback for their king Balaji Rao. In addition to several important generals, he had lost his own son Vishwasrao in the Battle of Panipat. However, the Afghans also suffered some losses in the battle.

Last years

Bala Hissar Castle in Peshawar was one of the main residences of the Durranis royal family.

The victory at Panipat was the culmination of Ahmad Shah's - and Afghan - power, during which time the Durrani rulership, the second largest Islamic empire, was only surpassed by the Ottoman Empire . Shortly before his death, the empire began to fall apart. Since the rise of the Sikhs in Punjab, rule and control over the empire, especially in Punjab, began to loosen. Durrani and his generals attacked Lahore in Punjab, massacring thousands of Sikh residents and destroying the Harmandir Sahib temple in Amritsar . Within two years, the Sikhs rebelled again and rebuilt their holy city of Amritsar. Ahmad Shah tried several times between 1759 and 1762 to permanently subjugate the Sikhs, but failed. Durrani's forces and generals killed tens of thousands of Sikhs in the Punjab region in 1762, which the Sikhs remembered as Vaḍḍā Ghallūghārā (The Great Massacre). Ahmad Shah also faced other uprisings north of the Oxus , but there he and the Uzbek emir of Bukhara agreed that the Oxus should mark the borders of their countries. Ahmad Shah retired to his home in the mountains east of Kandahar, where he died on April 14, 1773.

Other Durrani rulers (1772–1826)

Ahmad Shah's successors ruled so incompetently at a time of profound unrest that within only fifty years of his death the Durrani Empire per se came to an end and Afghanistan became embroiled in internal wars. Much of the territory conquered by Ahmad Shah fell to other powers during that half century. Until 1818, the Sadozai rulers (Pashtun tribe) who followed Ahmad Shah controlled little more than Kabul and the surrounding area within a radius of 160 kilometers. Not only did they lose the remote areas, but they also alienated other tribes and clans among the Durrani Pashtuns themselves.

Timur Shah (1772-1793)

Timur Shah Durrani

Ahmad Shah was replaced by his son Timur Shah, who was previously responsible for the administration of the Conquered Territories in Northwest India. After Ahmad Shah's death, the Durrani leaders were reluctant to accept Timur's succession. He spent most of his reign waging civil war and opposing the rebellion. Due to the uprising, Timur was even forced to relocate his capital from Kandahar to Kabul and to raise an army of 12,000 Qizilbash in order to make himself independent from the countless Pashtun tribes. Timur Shah proved to be an ineffective ruler and during his reign the Durrani Empire began to fall apart. He is known to have had 24 sons, some of whom became rulers of the Durrani territories. Timur died in 1793 and was then succeeded by his fifth son, Zaman Shah.

After Timur Shah's death, his sons fought for the throne. The consequences were permanent fratricidal wars and territorial losses. The decline of the dynasty began with the outbreak of power struggles around 1800, especially since the viziers of the Baraksai tribe (also known as Mohammedzai) gained increasing influence. In 1817 the dynasty split into the lines of Kabul and Peshawar . Weakened in this way, the rule over Kashmir, the Punjab and the Indus Valley could no longer be maintained by the Durrani against the Sikhs . The fighting with the Baraksai tribe also escalated. At the beginning of the 19th century, Afghanistan was divided into several principalities. In 1826, however, Dost Mohammed Khan , from the Baraksai tribe, prevailed in Kabul, founded the Baraksai dynasty and subsequently established the emirate of Afghanistan .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jonathan L. Lee "Afghanistan: A History from 1260 to the Present", page 132, page 134, page 124
  2. ↑ Jonathan Lee, The "Ancient Supremacy": Bukhara, Afghanistan, and the Battle for Balkh, 1731–1901. Page 190.
  3. ↑ Zutshi, Languages ​​of Belonging 2004, p. 35.
  4. ↑ Hanifi, Shah Mahmoud. "Timur Shah transferred the Durrani capital from Qandahar in 1775-76. Kabul and Peshawar then shared time as the dual Durrani capital cities, the former during the summer and the latter during the winter season." p. 185. Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier . Stanford University Press , 2011. Retrieved August 4, 2012.
  5. ↑ a b Singh, Sarina (2008). "Like the Kushans, the Afghan kings favored Peshawar as a winter residence, and were aggrieved when the upstart Sikh kingdom snatched it in 1818 and leveled its buildings." p. 191. Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway . Retrieved August 10, 2012.
  6. ↑ Jonathan L. Lee: The Ancient Supremacy: Bukhara, Afghanistan and the Battle for Balkh, 1731-1901 , illustrated. Edition, BRILL, 1996, ISBN 9004103996 , p. 116 (accessed on March 8, 2013): "[The Sadozai kingdom] continued to exist in Herat until the city finally fell to Dost Muhammad Khan in 1862."
  7. ↑ Jonathan L. Lee: The "Ancient Supremacy": Bukhara, Afghanistan and the Battle for Balkh, 1731-1901 ( en ). BRILL, January 1, 1996, ISBN 9789004103993 , p. 116.
  8. ↑ Louis Dupree , Nancy Dupree et al .: Last Afghan empire . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  9. ↑ Archived copy . Archived from the original on February 7, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
  10. ↑ Jonathan Lee, The "Ancient Supremacy": Bukhara, Afghanistan, and the Battle for Balkh, 1731–1901. Page 190.
  11. ↑ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/afghanistan-x-political-history#prettyPhoto [sidebar] / 1 /
  12. ^ Afghanistan . In: The World Factbook . CIA . Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  13. ↑ D. Balland: Afghanistan x. Political History . 1983. Retrieved August 8, 2012.
  14. ↑ Meredith L. Runion The History of Afghanistan , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007, ISBN 0313337985 , p. 69.
  15. ↑ Ho-dong Kim: Holy war in China: the Muslim rebellion and state in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877 . Stanford University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-8047-4884-1 , p. 20 (accessed August 25, 2010).
  16. ^ Laura J. Newby: The Empire and the Khanate: a political history of Qing relations with Khoqand c. 1760-1860 . BRILL, 2005, ISBN 978-90-04-14550-4 , p. 34 (accessed August 25, 2010).
  17. ↑ SM Ikram (1964). "XIX. A Century of Political Decline: 1707-1803". In Ainslie T. Embree . Muslim Civilization in India. New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
  18. ↑ GSChhabra: Advance Study in the History of Modern India (Volume 1: 1707-1803) . Lotus Press, January 1, 2005, ISBN 978-81-89093-06-8 , pp. 29-47.
  19. ^ Kaushik Roy: India's Historic Battles: From Alexander the Great to Kargil . Orient Blackswan, 2004, pp. 84-94.
  20. ↑ Purnima Dhavan, When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699 , (Oxford University Press, 2011), 112th
  21. ↑ ^ Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume I: 1469-1839, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1978, pp 144-45.
  22. ↑ ^ .According to the Punjabi-English Dictionary, eds. SS Joshi, Mukhtiar Singh Gill, (Patiala, India: Punjabi University Publication Bureau, 1994) the definitions of "Ghalughara" are as follows: "holocaust, massacre, great destruction, deluge, genocide, slaughter, (historically) the great loss of life suffered by Sikhs at the hands of their rulers, particularly on 1 May 1746 and 5 February 1762 "(p. 293).
  23. ↑ Syad Muhammad Latif, The History of Punjab from the Remotest Antiquity to the Present Time, New Delhi, Eurasia Publishing House (Pvt.) Ltd., 1964, p. 283; Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume I: 1469-1839, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 154.
  24. ↑ L. R Reddy: Inside Afghanistan: end of the Taliban era? . APH Publishing, 2002, ISBN 978-81-7648-319-3 , p. 65 (accessed August 25, 2010).