afghanistanregional governors refused to send more than token assistance and so
Muzaffar Khan was left to face the full force of the Sikh attack alone. As
far as Ranjit Singh was concerned the conquest of Multan was more than
just another military campaign: it was his opportunity to exact retribu-
tion for Ahmad Shah’s pillage and desecration of the Sikh holy places
and the massacre of Wadda Ghalughara. In a curious twist of fate, one
of the cannons the Sikhs brought to bear on the walls of Multan was the
Zamzama, the monstrous artillery piece cast by an Armenian cannon
maker for Ahmad Shah Durrani, and which Timur Shah had left behind
when he fled Lahore.
The Multanis fought with the desperation of those who knew the
bloody fate that would befall them and their families if the Sikhs were
victorious, but Ranjit Singh’s army, trained and commanded by French
and Italian officers, was vastly superior in men and equipment. When
Muzaffarabad fell it was pillaged and its inhabitants massacred. Shujabad,
named after Muzaffar Khan’s father, was also besieged. Ranjit Singh himself
marched on Multan and on 2 June 1818, after a siege that lasted 82 days,
the Zamzama gun blew in Khizri Gate and the akalis, 45 the Sikh equiva-
lent of ghazis, stormed the breach. Muzaffar Khan, his five sons and one
daughter joined in the defence and fought to the death. When Multan’s
defenders were finally overwhelmed, the Sikhs slaughtered the populace
and pillaged everything in sight. Most of the Saddozai royal lineage was
Multan, once a major centre of Saddozai power and the birthplace of Ahmad Shah Durrani.
When the Sikhs sacked the city its citadel was destroyed and what little remains
of its walls today surround the medieval shrine of Shah Rukhn-i ‘Alam, c. 1324.