nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47a grandson of ‘Abd Allah Khan, the former Sultan of Herat, deserted the
army along with two members of Ahmad Shah’s tribal council, Dilawar
Khan Ishaqzai and Zal Beg Popalzai. They went to the Barakzai strong-
hold of Girishk, announced that Ahmad Shah had been defeated and
declared ‘Abd al-Khaliq to be king. They then marched on Kandahar,
forcing Sulaiman Mirza, Ahmad Shah’s eldest son, who was in charge
of the Durrani capital, to flee. Shah Pasand Khan was dispatched post-
haste to put down the revolt. When he reached the outskirts of Kandahar
and informed tribal leaders that Ahmad Shah was still alive, support for
the rebellion evaporated. The ringleaders came to Shah Pasand’s camp
and sued for mercy, claiming that ‘Abd al-Khaliq had deceived them,
and some minor actors were pardoned. Zal Beg Popalzai and other ring-
leaders, however, were lured into Shah Pasand’s camp and executed, despite
assurances they would not be put to death. Dilawar Khan Ishaqzai fled
to Herat, where Timur Mirza defied his father’s order to put the rebel to
death and appointed him commander of his personal bodyguard. As for
‘Abd al-Khaliq, he was imprisoned but eventually escaped and made his
way to Multan, only to be thrown into prison once more. 20
One outcome of ‘Abd al-Khaliq’s rebellion was that Ahmad Shah
decided that the military cantonment of Nadirabad was not suitable as
the capital of his kingdom. Built three decades earlier as a temporary siege
camp by Nadir Shah, its mud walls were crumbling and indefensible against
even lightly armed troops. So Ahmad Shah ordered the construction of a
completely new capital to the northeast on land confiscated from Zal Beg
Popalzai. 21 It was built along traditional Central Asian lines in the form of a
chahar su, a cruciform with a gate in each of the four walls and four streets
meeting in a central covered bazaar. Ahmad Shah engaged Indian masons
to lay the foundations and the town was enclosed by a wall of compacted
mud, punctuated by bastions, ramparts and towers and surrounded by a
wet ditch. Ahmad Shah, however, spent very little time in his capital, an
absence that undoubtedly encouraged internal challenges to his leadership
from the tribes of the region.
Ahmad Shah’s ‘election’ by the nine-man military council was essen-
tially a power-sharing agreement with the other ‘Abdali ulus commanders.
As Ahmad Shah’s empire expanded, however, his increasingly autocratic
style of government and relentless pursuit of conquest led to discontent
within members of his majlis. A matter of weeks after being declared king,
and shortly before he set out to deal with the rebellious Nawab Nasir Khan
in Kabul, Ahmad Shah had a number of ‘Abdalis trampled to death by
elephants, a punishment traditionally meted out to rebels and traitors. 22