Thread by @Pashz7

Currently reading "Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan" by William Dalrymple

In the acknowledgments of the book, Dr.Ashraf Ghani (then Finance Minister) is mentioned as an erudite historian. I did not know that, its a pleasant surprise.

In the acknowledgments, i have also noticed the name of Farrukh Husain who worked as a history researcher for William Dalraymple for this book. He has recently released a book on the same subject which i am planning to read soon.

"Years later Shuja remembered one present that particularly delighted him: ‘a large box producing noises like voices, strange sounds in a range of timbres, harmonies and melodies, most pleasing to the ear’. The Embassy (from EIC in 1809) had brought Afghanistan its first organ."

Dalrymple writes: "His (Ahmad Shah's) family came from Multan in the Punjab and had a long tradition of service to the Mughals."

He was born in Multan but his family was from Herat. The Saddozais of Multan who were mansabdars of Mughals since 1653, were just his clansmen.

"Because he [Timur Shah Durrani] was a man of short stature, a bejewelled stepstool was also made for him to mount his horse."

"The Afghans of Khurasan have an age-old reputation,’ wrote Mirza Ata Mohammad, "that wherever the lamp of power burns brightly, there like moths they swarm; and wherever the tablecloth of plenty is spread, there like flies they gather."

"Like Babur, the first Mughal Emperor, Shah Shuja crafted a beautifully written autobiography where he talks of his days as a homeless wanderer on the snow-slopes of the Safed Koh,..., waiting and planning for the right moment to recover his birthright."

Dalrymple writes: "In 1797, Shah Zaman, like his father and grandfather before him, decided to revive his fortunes and fill his treasuries by ordering a full-scale invasion of Hindustan – the time-honoured Afghan solution to cash crises."

My take: barmazid.com/2017/04/zaman-…

[In 1803 Shah Shuja forgave all except Ashiq Shinwari who had blinded his brother] . "Then for his sins, they filled his mouth with gunpowder, and blew him up",... "They strapped the offender’s wife and children to Shuja’s artillery and blew them from the mouths of the cannon."

"Afghans still regarded themselves as sophisticates, and Mirza ‘Ata, the most articulate Afghan writer of the period, sounds like Babur when he talks proudly of Afghanistan as ‘so much more refined than wretched Sindh where white bread and educated talk are unknown’."

"Virtually no miniature painting survives from Afghanistan during this period, in striking contrast to the Punjab where Pahari artists were then producing some of the greatest masterpieces of all Indian art."

"Rehman Baba was the great Sufi poet of the Pashtun language, the Rumi of the Frontier. ‘Sow flowers, so your surroundings become a garden,’ he wrote. ‘Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet. We are all one body"

"There is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach, But alas! I cannot swim."

In the footnotes William Dalrymple writes: "Though widely attributed to Khushhal, many scholars doubt the authenticity of this celebrated couplet"

Its not attributed to Khushal Khattak at all

"He imagined the Afghans to be like the wild Germanic tribes, while the ‘decadent Persians’ were the soft and dissolute Romans. Yet when he was finally led in to see the Shah, Elphinstone was astonished by how different the cultured Shuja was "

In 1803 anti-Qizalbash rioting broke out in Kabul when some Qizalbashes raped a Sunni Afghan boy. William Dalryample calls it a Sunni source but Siraj-al-Tawarikh was authored by Faiz Mohammad Katib Hazara, a Shia. issuu.com/bloomsburypubl…

"William Fraser wrote to his parents about the impression Shuja had made on him: issuu.com/bloomsburypubl…

[In 1803 Shah Shuja] disdained to exercise the customary punishment of blinding his defeated half-brother, Shah Mahmoud. ‘We find greater sweetness in forgiveness than in revenge,’ he wrote in his memoirs."

"The tribes’ traditions were egalitarian and independent, and they had only ever submitted to authority on their own terms. Financial rewards might bring about co operation, but rarely ensured loyalty"

"Yet even the tribal leaders had frequently been unable to guarantee obedience, for tribal authority was itself so elusive and diffuse. As the saying went: Behind every hillock there sits an emperor – (or alternatively: Every man is a khan – har saray khan deh)."

"Even at the height of the Mughal Empire, for example, the emperors far away in Delhi and Agra had realised that it was hopeless even to think of attempting to tax the Afghan tribes." issuu.com/bloomsburypubl…

[Shah Shuja described Ranjit Singh as] ‘both vulgar and tyrannical, as well as ugly and low-natured’.

"Slowly, Ranjit increased the pressure [for Koh-i-Noor]. At the lowest ebb of his fortunes, Shuja was put in a cage, and, according to his own account, his eldest son, Prince Timur, was tortured in front of him until he agreed to part with his most valuable possession"

" [After seizing Koh-i-Noor] Ranjit Singh reneged on his promise to release Shuja. Shah Shuja’s jewels were not all that was of value; the deposed Shah too was potentially a lucrative asset. So the Maharajah kept him under house arrest "

"It was on the return journey that Shuja had his camp plundered by a group of armed robbers who descended on the royal tents in the middle of the night. When one of the dacoits was captured by Shuja’s Afghan bodyguard, he revealed that he was working for Ranjit Singh himself."1/2

"We were astonished and horrified at this evidence of the heartless treachery of these crass, ignorant Sikh dogs,’ commented Shuja. He then wrote to Ranjit: ‘What sort of behaviour is this?" 2/2

"After these repeated betrayals, we entertained no further hopes of any help coming from these monsters [Sikhs]. But given that our womenfolk and our honour were held hostage in Lahore, we had to submit, though sick at heart."

His [Shuja's] first action, as after his defeat, was to ensure the safety of his womenfolk, and before escaping himself he decided to smuggle his harem out of Lahore. This he did with the help of a Pashtun horse dealer and the Lahori traders "

"Fraser was quick to note the great changes that had taken place in the Shah since their last meeting in Peshawar. Seven years of defeat, betrayal, humiliation, torture and imprisonment had taken their toll, and it was clear that Shuja had become damaged,difficult and depressive"

Shah Shuja in 1816 as described by William Fraser: "He has not fifty armed attendants and is greatly changed since I saw him last, having greatly increased in bulk and acquired a heavy, almost inanimate look"

"In his memoirs, he [Shah Shuja] recounted how he took comfort in the example of previous monarchs who had lost their kingdoms only to regain larger dominions later in life"

[Harlan] "claimed that Shuja had developed the habit of removing pieces of his household’s anatomy whenever they failed to perform: many of the ears, tongues, noses and genitals of Shuja’s servants had been forfeited at different points"

"Ranjit Singh’s power rested on his remarkable army, the Sikh Khalsa, 85,000 strong, which in turn was trained and officered by a small group of French and Italian Napoleonic veterans."

"Ranjit Singh is an old fox,’ he [French traveller Victor Jacquemont] wrote, ‘compared with whom the wiliest of our diplomats is a mere innocent ."

"Jacquemont also noted that the Maharajah [Ranjit Singh] has a passion for horses which is almost a mania; he has waged the most costly and bloody wars for the purpose of seizing a horse in some neighbouring state which they had refused to sell or give to him . . .

[Jacquemont wrote] "He is also a shameless rogue who flaunts his vices as Henri III did in our country. Ranjit has frequently exhibited himself to his good people of Lahore with a Moslem public woman, indulging in the least innocent of sports with her on the back of an elephant "

"The British generally got on well with Ranjit Singh, but they never forgot that his army was the last military force in India which could take on the Company on the field of battle: by the 1830s, the Company had stationed nearly half the Bengal army... along the Punjab frontier"

"Burnes, coming to it with fresh eyes, saw things differently. On his way through Ludhiana to see the Governor General, in between saying goodbye to Ranjit Singh and setting off for Afghanistan, he had come to pay court to Shah Shuja and had been unimpressed."

Despite Shuja telling Burnes that ‘had I but my kingdom,how glad I should
be to see an Englishman at Kabul, and open the road between Europe and India’,
Burnes remained unconvinced.‘I do not believe that the Shah possesses sufficient energy to seat himself on the throne of Kabul'

[Burnes about Shah Shuja] "His manners and address are certainly highly polished; but his judgement does not rise above mediocrity. Had the case been otherwise, we should not now see him an exile from his country and his throne, without a hope of regaining them"

[Burnes about Afghans] "The Afghans cannot control their feelings of jealousy towards men in power: for the last thirty years, who has died a natural death? To be happy under government they must either be ruled by a vigorous despot, or formed into many small republics"

"A vigorous despot was, however, exactly what Burnes had found in Kabul. Burnes had met all the Barakzai brothers on his travels, but there was no question in his mind who was the most impressive. Dost Mohammad Khan"..."Burnes was unequivocal in his admiration"

"On 28 January 1833, ten years after his previous attempt, having armed his men with the new weapons from Delhi, Shah Shuja rode out from Ludhiana at the head of a small force of Rohilla cavalry. "

"To lead and train his troops, Shuja hired the services of a dogged old Anglo-Indian mercenary named William Campbell. Their first destination was again the financial centre of Shikarpur on the borders of the Punjab and Sindh"

"Six months later, on 9 January 1834, Campbell’s troops saw off an attack by a force of Baluchi tribesmen sent by the Amirs of Sindh to arrest Shuja. ‘A party of Baluch danced with their swords as they came into the fight,’ recorded Mirza ‘Ata, who was an eyewitness.

"To the Amirs of Sindh who were still trying to raise a new army to oppose him, he [Shuja] sent a challenge which reflected his bullish confidence. ‘Execrable dogs!’ he wrote. ‘God willing, I will give you such a lesson that you shall be an example to the whole world" 1/2

"The only way to treat a rabid dog is to put a rope around his neck. If you are coming to attack us, by all means come. I do not fear you. God is the disposer of events. The country shall belong to the conqueror " 2/2

" He [Shah Shuja] ridiculed the Amirs of Sindh, ‘these short-sighted people who forget that I am under special protection of God’, and expressed optimism that victory over the Barakzais was near: ‘By the divine favor, victory will continue to open her gate for me.’

"The secret report drawn up at the Governor General’s request to analyse the policy failure in Afghanistan summed up the position with devastating brevity. ‘Shah Shuja has been engaged in a series of unfortunate attempts to regain his throne,’ it stated, listing.. "1/2

"Shuja’s four great defeats: the first army ambushed at the Mughal gardens of Nimla, the second frozen in the snows of Kashmir, the third blown up in Peshawar by its own exploding ammunition and now the fourth taken by surprise in the gardens of Kandahar." 2/2

" As so often in international affairs, hawkish paranoia about distant threats can create the very monster that is most feared" books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

"In the three years since his conquest of Peshawar at the time of Shah Shuja’s attack on Kandahar in 1834, Ranjit Singh had moved half his army into the city, turning the former Durrani winter capital into a massive Punjabi barracks."

"Burnes recorded that one of Ranjit Singh’s former Napoleonic officers, Paolo Avitabile, now governed Peshawar, ‘and the Sikhs had changed everything: many of the fine gardens around the town had been converted into cantonments; trees had been cut down"

"Burnes also noted that, despite the massive army of occupation garrisoning the Peshawar valley, the Sikhs had found it very difficult to rule the rebellious Pashtuns who inhabited the area.." 1/2

"... and that there had been so many tribal uprisings, assassinations and acts of insurrection in and around the city that the occupation of Peshawar had become a major drain on Sikh resources." 2/2

" According to the Siraj ul-Tawarikh, ‘In the heat of the furious combat, Akbar Khan encountered Hari Singh. Without recognising each other, they exchanged blows and after much thrusting and parrying, Akbar Khan won out, knocking Hari Singh to the ground, and killing him "

"In the event, the rabble were no match for the beautifully drilled and disciplined troops of the Khalsa and succeeded in doing little except provoking a massacre of the Muslim citizens of Peshawar by an angry Sikh soldiery." books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

"[Akbar Khan] showed more interest than any other Afghan in the Hellenised Gandharan Buddhist sculptures that Masson had been excavating from the Kushan monasteries around Jalalabad. ‘He was enraptured with two female heads,’ wrote Masson in his memoirs " books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

" In the Afghan sources, Burnes is always depicted as a devilishly charming but cunning deceiver, a master of zarang, of flattery and treachery – an interesting inversion of British stereotypes of the devious Oriental "

" Auckland took the factually inaccurate position that the town [Peshawar] was unequivocally a Sikh possession, and that Dost Mohammad was being unreasonable and aggressive in wanting it back " books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

"Auckland told the Amir [Dost Muhammad] he must forget Peshawar and ‘relinquish the idea of governing that territory’. He must also ‘desist from all intercourse with Persia, Russia and Turkistan’ ".....1/2

" All the British would do in return, ‘which is all I think that can in justice be granted’, would be to persuade the Sikhs not to invade Kabul and so save the Amir ‘from a ruinous war’." 2/2

"[Amir Dost Muhammad] was now being told he could not correspond with Persia and Russia except with British permission, that he must surrender all claims to Peshawar and Kashmir and, most unpalatable of all, beg Ranjit Singh for forgiveness "

"One subject that fascinated the Maharajah [Ranjit Singh] in particular was the private life of the British, and as the negotiations got under way the handsome Captain Osborne had to go through intermittent grillings on his sexual preferences " books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

"But given the trouble he was already having holding his new conquests in Peshawar, Ranjit had little enthusiasm for Lord Auckland’s invitation to invade Kabul. "books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

" In early June [1838], Macnaghten reported discouragingly that Ranjit [Singh] ‘would not dream of marching a force to Kabul’.

" Recently, he [Shah Shuja] had lost his remarkable wife, the formidable Wa’fa Begum, and, to add to the pain, fanatical Sikh akalis almost immediately desecrated the tomb he built for her at the dargah [shrine] of Sirhind. "

"He [Shah Shuja] also alarmed his British minders by referring to the Afghans, his future subjects, as ‘a pack of dogs, one and all’. ‘We must try’, noted an exasperated Macnaghten, ‘and bring him gradually round to entertain a more favourable view of his subjects.’ "

Nafees Ur Rehman deconstructs the myth of a Pashtun love-song wrongly attributed to Khushal Khan Khattak. qissa-khwani.blogspot.com/2019/01/chasin…

" Nott was impressed by the fearlessness of the Achakzai tribesmen, who strode proudly and proprietorially into the British camp and began interrogating their would-be colonisers. ‘They are very fine looking fellows indeed,’ wrote Nott to his daughters. ‘Quite the gentlemen.’ "

"Lieutenant Thomas Gaisford’s Indian orderly was asked by one Pashtun visitor to the camp, ‘“Do they really call these Feringhees, ‘Sahibs’ [Sir]?” The inquirer asked in such a way as if he thought “Dog of an Infidel” might have been a more appropriate appellation.’"

" Haji Khan Kakar was a slippery, ambitious and unscrupulous figure even by the standards of nineteenth-century Afghan power politics."

A note on early career of the notorious Haji Khan Kakar : barmazid.com/2018/01/haji-k…

"This was the shrine built by Abdali for Afghanistan’s most sacred relic, the woollen khirqa or mantle said to have belonged to the Prophet Mohammad. This Shuja took in his hands and hugged to his chest, tears streaming down his face."

barmazid.com/2017/07/khirqa…

[Mohammad Husain Herati wrote] "A girl from a good family [in Kandahar] was going about her business when an inebriated foreign soldier [of British-Indian army] crossed her path, grabbed her and dragged her into a near-by water-channel where he took her virginity."

" Herati went on to explain that: The people of Kandahar have always taken pride in their valour and self-respect, and regarded this incident as too serious to be dismissed with just an apology."

"Though the girl’s family and supporters were bullied into silence by the display of British power, the Durrani clan was seething with anger because their pride and honour had been compromised, and their blood was boiling in their veins. "

[After Ranjit Singh died] "His four wives, all very handsome, burnt themselves with his body, as did five of his Cashmerian slave girls "

Sikhs practiced Sati ?

"Mirza ‘Ata [of Shah Shuja's camp], who like many Afghans began to feel his own loyalties turning at this point [after battle of Ghazni]....books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

‘The Storming of Ghuznee.’ After forcing the Bolan Pass and capturing Kandahar, the Army of the Indus advanced on the formidable fortified walls of Ghazni.

"According to George Lawrence, the Kabulis showed ‘the most complete indifference [at the return of the Shah], expressing no sign of welcome or satisfaction at his accession to the throne. Evidently their hearts and affections were with their previous sovereign"

"[English troops] eating meat and rice, almond marzipan, faluda, grilled meats and kababs, with various fruits, grapes of the sahebi and khalili varieties, and the finest of all, khaya-e ghulaman, young men’s testicles."

Young men's testicles? human's? @DalrympleWill

@NafeesRehmanDr @awmk95 @gypsy_heart6 is it my weak English or they were really serving human testicles as a dish in Kabul?

Much thanks to @DawoodAzami for correction and clarification. Its indeed a variety of grapes in Afghanistan. documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/334…

"The security that Dost Mohammad had been able to guarantee in his kingdom and the tolerance he had shown to religious minorities meant that Kabul had become a major centre for Hindu traders from Sindh and especially the Sindhi banking capital of Shikarpur "

"A group of wealthy Hindus of Kabul" , 1879's photo by John Burke bl.uk/onlinegallery/…

British troops played cricket in Kabul in 1839. "they [Afghans] looked on with astonishment at the bowling, batting and fagging out of the English players" books.google.com.pk/books?id=32Q4A…

"Equally sensitive was [marriage] between Lieutenant Lynch, the Political Agent at Qalat, and the beautiful sister of Walu Khan Shamalzai......" ..books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

@NafeesRehmanDr have you ready any thing about it?. I suspect there's more to this than meets the eye.

"Burnes was especially shameless,’ believed Mirza ‘Ata. ‘In his private quarters, he would take a bath with his Afghan mistress in the hot water of lust and pleasure, as the two rubbed each other down with flannels of giddy joy and the talc of intimacy"

Sir Alexander Burnes, 1834. By William Brockedon.

Ko-i-staun foot soldiery in summer costume. 1848's painting based on James Rattray's. bl.uk/onlinegallery/…

Often miscaptioned as 'Pashtun warriors', they are actually Kohistani Tajiks.

"For months, the British had been describing Shuja as lazy and ineffectual, yet when the crisis broke it was Shuja alone who took immediate action to suppress the uprising in the city before it got out of hand. He had sent into action against the mob the loyal and... " 1/2

"..and long-standing Anglo-Indian commander of his personal guard, William Campbell, at the head of a thousand troops[....] Indeed, Shuja was the only person to make any effort to try to save Alexander Burnes, despite the fact that he had been the Shah’s loudest critic " 2/2

Death of Alexander Burnes. books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

Assassination Of Sir Alexander Burnes by English School

"Soon after, Ghazni was surrounded and besieged by a large force of Ghilzais. Only Kandahar, under the watchful eye of General Nott, continued to remain peaceful. ‘I am not to be caught sleeping as my Kabul friends were,’ wrote Nott. ‘

Painting of Sir William Nott, c. 1844

"Akbar Khan’s troops tried twice more to assault the main gate of the Bala Hisar, but Shah Shuja’s household troops, whom the British had long disparaged as ‘a useless rabble’, successfully drove them back, inflicting serious casualties. "

"Akbar grabbed him, drew his thirsty sword, then tore open the Envoy’s liver and lopped off his head. The headless corpse of the illustrious Saheb Macnaghten, the Chief Minister, like the carcase of a rabid dog, was dismembered and dragged into the city"

Painting of Macnaghten

Akbar Khan kills Sir William MacNaghten, 1841. collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc…

"For the British, this surrender of their women into the hands of men they had come to regard as brutal savages was the moment of their greatest humiliation. For the Afghans, in contrast, the protection offered to the British memsahibs was seen as a mark of their own chivalry.

[Mirza Ata wrote] "It is no easy thing to invade or govern kingdom of Khurasan" books.google.com.pk/books?id=ud4_A…

"In all the Afghan accounts, and in several of the Indian Muslim ones too, Akbar Khan’s kindness to his prisoners is regarded as exemplary and in the epic poems he is depicted as a paragon of chivalry, a sort of Afghan Saladin, which is still how he is remembered in Kabul today."

" There is no doubt that Afghans and Europeans get on much better than Europeans and Hindustanis,’ wrote Colin Mackenzie during his captivity. ‘The Afghans are an extremely hardy, bold, independent race, very intelligent with a ready fund of conversation and pleasantry..."

"Pollock’s sepoys had begun the process of taking revenge for earlier Afghan atrocities by decapitating the dead Afridis they had killed and carrying ‘the heads into camp in triumph, stuck on the points of their bayonets’. There were also a number of Afridi women among the dead"

"When one of Pollock’s officers, Lieutenant Greenwood, remonstrated with the sepoys responsible, one of them replied simply, ‘Sahib I have lost twelve brethren in this accursed pass, and I would happily bayonet a Khyberi a month old at his mother’s breast. "

[Augustus Abbott dispatched to Gandamak wrote] ‘We destroyed all the vineyards, and cut deep rings around trees of two centuries’ growth. Their forts and houses were destroyed; their walls blown up and their beautiful trees left to perish."

[MacGregor wrote] " the destruction of trees – ‘a measure which might at first seem barbarous to the civilised mind’ – was the only way for the Afghans to be made to ‘feel the weight of our power, for they delight in the shade of their trees’."

"In a stark contrast to the treatment extended to the British prisoners, Mohan Lal [Kashmiri] was immediately thrown into solitary confinement, beaten and later tortured. "

"But after several troops were killed in one village after the Ghilzai elders had formally surrendered, a full-scale massacre ensued: all males over puberty were bayoneted, the women were raped and their goods plundered. ‘Tears, supplications, were of no avail,’ wrote Neville "

Ellenborough brought gates of Mahmud Ghaznavi's tomb to India, claiming it as gates of Somnath [which were actually Seljuk wood work], saying that they have avenged a historical insult Hindus by Muslim invaders.

Mirza Ata's reaction to it :

[Mirza Ata wrote] "The English with their crow-like Indian troops stayed with their bones scattered and unburied on the mountain-slopes of Afghanistan, while the brave Afghan fighters looked for martyrdom, and were victorious in this world and the next "