Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned

w. b. yeats, ‘The Second Coming’, 1919

hmad Shah’s death was neither sudden nor unexpected, yet
the transition of power was far from smooth or bloodless. A few
months before he died, Ahmad Shah had summoned his second
eldest son, Timur Mirza, from Herat and publicly declared him as his
heir apparent, a decision he made without consulting his tribal council
or other government officials. The announcement consequently created a
rift between the king and some of the most powerful military and tribal
leaders, a faction of whom supported the claim of Ahmad Shah’s eldest son
and Timur’s full brother, Sulaiman, governor of Kandahar (see Chart 2).
Among the leading members of the Sulaiman faction were Begi Khan
Bamizai, known as Shah Wali Khan, Ahmad Shah’s wazir-i ‘azam, or prime
minister, and Sardar Jahan Khan, sardar-i sardaran of the Durrani ulus
and Sulaiman Mirza’s father-in-law. They argued that as the eldest son,
Sulaiman had the superior right to the succession and urged Ahmad Shah
to reverse his decision while making it abundantly clear that they were
dissatisfied at not having been consulted on such a vital issue. Ahmad
Shah ignored their plea, claiming that Timur was ‘infinitely more capable
of governing you than his brother’ and accused Sulaiman of being ‘violent
without clemency’ and out of favour with the Kandahari Durranis. 1

Timur Shah and the Durrani revolt

The king’s justification of his choice of successor, though, does not stand
up to scrutiny. Timur Mirza’s record as governor was poor and his mili-
tary record undistinguished. He had been defeated by the Sikhs, forced

four

Fragmentation: Timur Shah and

his Successors, 1772–124

A