nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47in the king’s name, Shah Zaman allowed him to assume virtually all the
duties of the hakim. In return, the Mir Wali allowed the sardar to remain
in Balkh city as a token Durrani presence, but his lot was not a pleasant
one. The local population refused to supply him or his bodyguard with
food, fodder or fuel and subjected them to all kinds of verbal abuse, insults
and humiliations. By the end of Timur Shah’s reign, no self-respecting
Durrani wanted to be posted to Balkh. The only reason the Mir Wali of
Khulm did not expel the hakim was that he was his insurance against an
attack by Bukhara, Maimana or Qataghan while Timur Shah secured ‘the
protection of his frontiers from the Uzbeks’. 13
The death of Timur Shah and the civil war between Shah Mahmud
and Shah ZamanBy the early 1790s the incipient weakness of the Durrani kingdom was
all too evident. Kashmir had rebelled, Sind had broken away and, though
the Sikhs were eventually thrown out of Multan, the decade of prolonged
sieges had drained the kingdom’s financial resources. Towards the end
of his reign, Timur Shah become increasingly obsessed by fear of assas-
sination, a paranoia doubtless exacerbated by the fact that he was more
than likely an alcoholic. In April 1793 the king left his winter quarters in
Peshawar to return to Kabul, but as he passed through the Khyber Pass
his horse stumbled and the regnal jigha fell to the ground – an omen that
he, and everyone else, regarded as a harbinger of his imminent downfall.
When he arrived in Jalalabad, the king was seized by a pain in the kidneys
and suffered from a severe fever, headaches and acute depression. Despite
being bedridden and in great pain, Timur Shah ordered the march to Kabul
to continue, but by the time his son Shah Zaman came out to meet him
at Chahar Bagh, both the king and his courtiers knew that he had only a
few days left to live.
Timur was only 46 years old when he died, but despite fathering dozens
of sons, he had made no formal provision for the succession. Shortly before
breathing his last, Timur Shah summoned his sons and senior counsel-
lors to his bedside and declared that Shah Zaman, the eldest son of his
favourite, Saddozai, wife, was to succeed him. Shah Zaman then swore that
his two half-brothers, Homayun and Mahmud, would remain as gover-
nors of Kandahar and Herat respectively. Timur Shah was laid to rest in
a grandiose, octagonal mausoleum that was still under construction on
the right bank of the Kabul river in the centre of what had once been a
Mughal garden.