Thread by @cbkwgl

One of the most elusive kingdoms which is in the thick of fight all it's career but about which we literally know nothing is the Kabul Shahis, especially when they are ruling from Kabul. What we have is nothing more than a mass of names and dates, and nothing more.

The Last Nezuk Hun king is Yudhistira who ruled till around 670 while the last king ruling Kabul area is considered to be Narendraditya Khingala who ruled till 630. The one who succeeded him is known only as Ho-Hsieh-Chi and it is possible that he is either Yudhistira himself or

a governor of his. In 653, Abdurrahman ibn Samura, in an attempt to catch Peroz, the Crown Prince of Persia, raided and plundered Kabul and Zabul among other places. The Sun Temple of Zamindwar is desecrated. The king of Kabul was forced converted to Islam.

Immediately after the raid, we see rebellions in both Kabul and Kashmir - Karkota Empire came to power in Kashmir in 657 and Barha Tegin, a Turk occupied the throne in Kabul and executed the king in 661. Thus we see, after the Sassanid Persia, Hunnic Empire took a death blow in

the hands of Arabs. The kingdom fragmented into multiple entities - Khost, Bamiyan, Kabul etc and each waged it's own war with the Arabs. All of them except Kabul was subdued by 710, the same time Sind fell to Muslims. Not much is known about Barha Tegin.

Legend tells of a person from Tibet who is seen coming out of a cave clothed in Turkish dress in the presence of people who looked upon him as a “new born baby”. People honoured him as a being of miraculous birth, destined to be a king. He ejected the Muslims out of Kabul area

only to invite another invasion in 665 when Kabul was taken after an year long siege. By the next year, we see the Arab forces routed and pushed back out of Kabul. Going by the fact that the kingdom of Zabul was set up in 667 by the brother of Barha Tegin,

it is possible that a kingdom was carved out, centred around the famous Temple of Zamindwar from the territories Arabs lost. If so, it can be seen as one of the very first permanent territorial reversals in the whole of Islamic history.

The advance continued till Zaranj before the armies of Kabul were stopped. Though the Kabul Shahi enterprise, also known as Kushano-Hephthalites is doomed to fail from day one as it is carved out from a kingdom collapsing in an invasion.

And coming from an area which is not known for providing much historic material, it is but natural that nothing much is known about these kingdoms except chroniclers of the Islamic Empire started catching up. It is important to note that, though there is a level of infighting,

we should look at history of both the kingdoms together, and not separately because of the close coordination between both the kingdoms.
Kabul king list goes thus -
Barha Tegin(661-680)
Wu-san Te Chin Shai(Khurasan Tegin Shahi)(680-739)
Fu-lin-chi-po(Phrom Kesar)(739-746)

Deva Shahi Khingala or Bo Fuzhun
Shahi Javuvlah
Lakhana Udayaditya
Naina Chandra(around 862)
Lagturman(last)
There is no way to know how many of them are names and how many are titles, and of them, how many are repeated.

Again, there is a problem here. Tochi Valley Inscriptions mention the name of the king ruling in 862 as Naina Chandra, meaning the Shahis are completely indigenized by this time. The name Laghu-Toramana as the king 15 years hence makes absolutely no sense.

Zabul is called Zamindwar or al-Rukhkhaj by the Arabs and Hsieu-yo-kou or Ko-ta-lo-chih(name change happening in 670s) by the Chinese. The Arabs called the kings Zunbils or Rutbils.
Again, nothing is known of their kings -
Rutbil(670-683) Killed in a battle with Arabs

Shih-yü or Shiquer(720-738) Nephew of Khurasan Tegin Shahi of Kabul
Ju-mo-fu-ta or Rumofuda who succeeded him.
Both the kingdoms were under Chinese suzerainty from 719 and the last embassy was sent in 753. The whole history of these kingdoms is a slugfest with the Arabs

till the Arabs gave withdrew from the areas first, and then with the local Turkic kingdoms.
673: Zunbil agrees to pay a tribute of 1 million dirhams in the face of an Arab raid.
681: Yazid ibn Ziyad, brother of Salm ibn Ziyad, the governor of Sistan invades Zabulistan.

The army is crushed in the Battle of Ghazni, Yazid is killed and his brother Abu Ubayda captured. The relief army sent under Taha ibn Abdillah al-Khuzhai is also a failure and they had to ransom off Abu Ubayda and other prominent Arabs for 500000 dirhams

683: The first Zunbil raids Sistan but is killed
697-98: Ubaidullah ibn Abi Bakrah invades Zabul with an army consisting of Kufans and Basrans. The Kufans are led by Shurayh ibn Hani al Harithi al-Dabibi and Basrans by Ubaidullah himself.

The army advances deep into Zabul but is crushed. Ubaidullah dies of grief
699: To wipe out the shame of the last invasion, Abdurrahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ashath was sent with a new army of Kufans and Basrans. This army, 40000 strong, was equipped with

the best possible equipement and aptly named the Peacock Army. Abdurrahman advances till Kandahar and stops there to consolidate the gains. But the Governor is not ready for that and forces them to advance. When the soldiers understand that the actual reason for the invasion

is settlement in the hills, the army rebelled and advanced till Iraq where it was defeated by the Syrians. Abdurrahman flees back to Zabul and dies as a refugee there in 704.
711: Qutayba ibn Muslim advances against the Zunbil. The Zunbil submits without a fight.

It is possible that the Zunbil helped Qutayba to invade Kabul – the king of Kabul is defeated and forced to surrender.
Before 723: Kabul bounces back – the Zunbil is killed and Zabul is occupied by Kabul.

Huei-ch’ao who visited Gandhara between 723-729 writes
“the father of the T’u-chüeh [Türk] king surrendered to the king of Chi-pin [Kapisa– Gandhara] together with all sections of his people, with his soldiers and his horses.

When the military force of the T’u-chüeh strengthened later, he killed the king of Chi-pin and made himself lord of the country.”
He further says that the king of Zabul is the nephew of the ruler of Kapisa.

The king issued coins with the title “Sri Hidibira Kharalaca Paramesvara Sri Shahi Tigina Devakaritam (His Highness, the Hidibira(Iltabar), the Kharalaca, the Supreme Lord, His Highness the Shahi Tegin, the Majesty has [the coin] minted)”
738: Zabul defeats the Arabs

739-746: Kabul defeats the Arabs and imposes a tribute upon them. Some coins are overprinted in Bactrian with the legend “Fromo Kesaro, the Majestic Sovereign [is] who defeated the Arabs and laid a tax [on them]. Thus they sent it”.

The extent of the defeat made Phrom Kesar a folk hero in Tibet and Turkic lands and is immortalized as King Gesar in the famous Epic of King Gesar.
750: The slaughters in Afghanistan(653-750), Gujarat in India(712-740) and the Battles of Defile(731) and Ardabil(730) depleted

the core fighting force of the Umayyads and the Empire finally gave way.
814: Caliph al-Mamun sent an expedition - Zabul surrendered unconditionally and Kabul was forced to submit. The king of Kabul was converted to Islam.

We see 822 AD as start of a new era can indicate establishing Udabhandapura as a second capital.
Arabs retreat and now, it's local kingdoms fighting.
850: Daud al Abbas of Balkh advances till Ghazni but retreats

865: Salih, the dispossessed Amir of Bust retreated into Zabulistan. Salih and the Zunbil fall in the battle against Yaqub bin Lais, the founder of the Saffrids. End of Zabul as a kingdom, the Zunbil’s family captured

867: A cousin of the Zunbil, who is made the Saffrid governor of Zabul rebels unsuccessfully.
869: Zunbil’s son escapes and raises an army in Zabul. He was forced to flee to Kabul
870: Yaqub bin Lais attacks. Panjway, Tiginabad, Ghazna(Ghazna’s fortress is destroyed),

Gardiz(ruled by Abu Mansur Aflah), Bamiyan and Balkh(ruled by Daud Al Abbas) and Kabul. The Zunbil’s son is captured in Kabul. 50 standing statues of gods made of gold and silver are said to have fallen into his hands and were sent to the Caliph in Baghdad

and the king forced to convert to Islam.
879: The Shahis retake Kabul from the Saffrids
900: Zabul is retaken
900: Kabul and Zabul, both are lost.
Sometime after this, Bhimadeva sets up Lawik as the ruler of Zabul.
962: Zabul falls after four months of siege to the Ghaznavids

under Alaptagin, Lawik escapes to Kapisa
963: Kabul counter attacks, Zabul falls and the Ghaznavid ruler Abu Ishaq is forced to flee to Bukhara
965: Abu Ishaq regains Kabul

The shift in capital city from Kabul to Udabhandapura in 870 is taken as the start of a new dynasty.

https://twitter.com/cbkwgl/status/1179347477771821056

From 661 till 965, we see the Shahis holding their ground before the Islamic armies, stopping them in their tracks for more than 300 years, an achievement unparalleled but completely lost to history. That is in spite of the fact that the enterprise itself is designed to fail.

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