nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47breach its thick walls, so he asked Hajji Bi Ming to negotiate a Bukharan
withdrawal. 17 Hajji Bi sent a deputation of senior religious leaders to Rahim
Bi, offering him safe passage back across the Amu Darya in return for the
peaceful evacuation of Aqcha. Rahim Bi agreed to the terms and returned
to Bukhara, whereupon ‘Ata Allah Khan Turkman went to Shibarghan,
probably to secure Izbasar’s submission, only for Izbasar to go behind his
back and open negotiations with Nawab Khan Alakozai. The hakim agreed
to pardon Izbasar on condition he put ‘Ata Allah Khan to death, something
that Izbasar was only too pleased to do. The sipar salar was duly killed and
peace was restored.
A few years later, there was a rebellion in Qataghan and Badakhshan.
Ahmad Shah sent 6,000 troops commanded by Shah Wali Khan to deal
with the situation. Shah Murad Manghit, the new Khan of Bukhara,
responded by marching to Qarshi on the Amu Darya and threatened
to attack Aqcha. Ahmad Shah then sent a second military division to
Maimana and forced Shah Murad to negotiate. In the end Shah Murad
agreed that the wilayat of Balkh was within the Durrani sphere of influence
and the amirs of the region agreed to send an annual tribute, or nazrana,
to the Durrani monarch. 18
To seal this agreement, Shah Murad gifted Ahmad Shah one of
Bukhara’s most sacred relics, the Khirqa-yi Sharif, or Noble Cloak, which
was reputed to have been worn by Muhammad himself. This relic not
only had immense religious significance but its ownership had a political
dimension, since Ahmad Shah used it to provide the religious legitimacy
his dynasty lacked. As the cloak progressed from Balkh to Kandahar,
Ahmad Shah made donations of auqaf, or tax-free lands, to various shrines,
and erected qadamgahs to commemorate the places where it had rested
during its translation. The crowds that came to perform pilgrimage to
the relic in Kabul were so vast that the procession had to be halted for
several days. When it finally arrived in Kandahar, Ahmad Shah ordered the
khirqa to be placed in his own mausoleum, which was under construction,
but this displeased Kandahar’s ‘ulama’, who issued a fatwa declaring the
cloak should not be exploited for political or dynastic ends. Consequently,
Ahmad Shah built a shrine for the khirqa adjacent to his tomb. This in
turn gave rise to the tradition that anyone seeking sanctuary within the
precincts of Ahmad Shah’s mausoleum was immune from arrest.