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From Empire to Emirate - 1772-1823

By the time of Ahmad Shah's ascendancy, the Pashtuns included many groups whose origins were obscure; most were believed to have descended from ancient Aryan tribes, but some, such as the Ghilzai, may have once been Turks. They had in common, however, their Pashtu language. To the east, the Waziris and their close relatives, the Mahsuds, had lived in the hills of the central Suleiman Range since the fourteenth century. By the end of the sixteenth century and the final Turkish-Mongol invasions, tribes such as the Shinwaris, Yusufzais, and Mohmands had moved from the upper Kabul River Valley into the valleys and plains west, north, and northeast of Peshawar. The Afridis had long been established in the hills and mountain ranges south of the Khyber Pass. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Durranis had blanketed the area west and north of Qandahar.

After a reign of 26 years Ahmad Shah was succeeded by his weak and dissolute son, Timur, under whom, as was only natural, the Empire fell to pieces. On Timur's death there was a scramble for the succession amongst his sons and other relatives, governors of the outlying provinces. Zaman Shah, Governor of Peshawar, thej^ldest and ablest of his sons, eventually obtained the throne. Following the example of his predecessors, he at once turned his attention towards India, and in 1796 advanced as far as Lahore, from which he threatened Delhi. The disorder induced by his appearance in India was so great that the British, as guardians of the peace of Bengal and Oudh, felt bound to take some defensive measures and in consequence troops were embodied to meet the expected attack. Fortunately Zaman Shah's attention was diverted by troubles in his own dominions, in which one of his brothers had rebelled against him, and he soon returned to Afghanistan. But the feeble resistance he encountered from the Sikhs aroused considerable misgivings in the minds of those in authority at Calcutta.

Ahmad Shah's successors governed so ineptly during a period of profound unrest that within fifty years of his death, Afghanistan was embroiled in a civil war. Many of the territories conquered with the help of Ahmad Shah's military skill fell to others in this half century. By 1818 the Sadozai rulers who succeeded Ahmad Shah controlled little more than Kabul and the surrounding territory within a 160-kilometer radius. They not only lost the outlying territories but also alienated other tribes and lineages among the Durrani Pashtuns.

After the death of Ahmad Shah's successor, Timur, the three strongest contenders for the position of shah were Timur's sons, the governors of Qandahar, Herat, and Kabul. Muhammad Zeman, governor of Kabul, was in the most commanding position and became shah at the age of twenty-three. His half-brothers accepted this only by force majeure -- upon being imprisoned on their arrival in the capital for the purpose, ironically, of electing a new shah. The quarrels among Timur's descendants that threw Afghanistan into turmoil also provided the pretext for the intervention of outside forces.

After Timoor's death, his numerous sons made matters worse by trying to rule despotically; killing, imprisoning, or dismissing the representatives of the people who were their counsellors, and by fighting amongst themselves for the throne. Timoor had made a great mistake in dividing his dominions among his various sons during his lifetime, which misguided policy enabled them to oppose successfully the supremacy of any one individual among their number. The efforts of the Sadozai heirs of Timur to impose a true monarchy on the truculent Pashtun tribes and to rule absolutely and without the advice of the other, larger Pashtun tribes' leaders were ultimately unsuccessful. The Sikhs too, were particularly troublesome, and after several unsuccessful efforts to subdue them, Zeman made the mistake of appointing a forceful young Sikh chief, Ranjit Singh, as his governor in the Punjab. The "one-eyed" warrior would later become an implacable enemy of Pashtun rulers in Afghanistan.

Zeman's downfall was triggered by his attempts to consolidate power. Although it had been through the support of the Muhammadzai chief, Painda Khan, that he had come to the throne, Zeman soon began to remove prominent Muhammadzai leaders from positions of power and replacing them with men of his own lineage, the Sadozai. This upset the delicate balance of Durrani tribal politics that Ahmad Shah had established and may have prompted Painda Khan and other Durrani chiefs to plot against the shah. Painda Khan and the chiefs of the Nurzai and the Alizai Durrani clans were executed, as was the chief of the Qizilbash clan. Painda Khan's son fled to Iran and pledged the substantial support of his Muhammadzai followers to a rival claimant to the throne, Zeman's older brother, Mahmud. The clans of the chiefs Zeman had executed joined forces with the rebels, and they took Qandahar without bloodshed.

Zeman's overthrow in 1800 was not the end of civil strife in Afghanistan but the beginning of even greater violence. Shah Mahmud reigned for a mere three years before being replaced by yet another of Timur Shah's sons, Shuja, who ruled for only six years, from 1803 to 1809. On June 7, 1809, Shuja signed a Treaty of Friendship with the British which included a clause stating that he would oppose the passage of foreign troops through his territories. This agreement, the first Afghan pact with a European power, stipulated joint action in case of Franco-Persian aggression against Afghan or British dominions. Only a few weeks after signing the agreement, Shuja was deposed by his predecessor, Mahmud, whose second reign lasted nine years, until 1818. Mahmud alienated the Muhammadzai, especially Fateh Khan, the son of Painda Khan, who was eventually seized and blinded. Revenge would later be sought and obtained by Fateh Khan's youngest brother, Dost Mohammad.

From 1818 until Dost Mohammad's ascendancy in 1826, chaos reigned in the domains of Ahmad Shah Durrani's empire as various sons of Painda Khan struggled for supremacy. Afghanistan ceased to exist as a single nation, disintegrating for a brief time into a fragmented collection of small units, each ruled by a different Durrani leader. The principal cause which led to the ruin of Ahmad Shah's dynasty, was that Timoor in his lifetime divided his kingdom into provinces, appointing his sons as governors over them. Each son had his separate revenue, as well as his own army, and after the death of their father, they fought among themselves, thereby greatly reducing the strength of the kingdom. The last king, named Shah Shujah, whom the English wished to force upon the people against their wish, was killed by the Afghans. Many English also, who supported him, were killed.