nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47them militarily and made them less able or willing to oppose the Sikh
occupation of Peshawar.
Muhammad ‘Azim Khan fled to Jalalabad where he succumbed to an
even more deadly foe, cholera. Realizing he was dying, he proclaimed his
son Habib Allah Khan as the new wazir under the tutelage of his half-
brother Nawab Jabbar Khan. The succession, though, was disputed and
fighting broke out in Kabul between rival siblings. Dost Muhammad Khan
and the Jawanshir Qizilbash refused to accept Habib Allah Khan’s appoint-
ment, so the new wazir sought the aid of the Kandahar sardars. As for Shah
‘Ayub, his son Isma‘il urged him to confiscate the dead wazir’s treasure
and use this wealth to reassert Saddozai authority. Instead of aiding his
half-brother, Pur Dil Khan, backed by Kohistani levies, occupied the Bala
Hisar and in the ensuing struggle Isma‘il Mirza was shot dead and the
royal palaces looted. Shah ‘Ayub was then paraded through the streets on
the back of a donkey and treated to many other indignities. Pur Dil Khan
even threatened to put Shah ‘Ayub to death, but he offered to pay a ransom
of one lakh (100,000) rupees and he was allowed to leave for India. Over
the coming months hundreds of Saddozais followed him into exile, since
life under the Muhammadzais was intolerable.
The exile of Shah ‘Ayub marked the end of the Saddozai dynasty, for
though Shah Mahmud and his son Kamran continued to rule Herat, the
capital and all the other provinces from this point forward were under the
authority of the sons of Payinda Khan Barakzai. In 1839 the British tried to
revive the fortunes of the Saddozais by restoring Shah Shuja‘ to the throne,
but this experiment in regime change was a hiatus that was doomed to
failure from the outset and ended in his assassination.
By 1824 the civil war that commenced with the death of Timur Shah
had been dragging on for more than thirty years. All semblance of central
authority had broken down and most of the Durrani kingdom had been
lost to the Sikhs, Persians or Uzbeks. The country and government was now
in the hands of the Muhammadzais, the heirs of Wazir Hajji Khan Barakzai,
and it was now their turn to try and prevent what was left of the kingdom
from being absorbed by the surrounding nations and forge some form of
political unity out of the chaos for which they had been partly responsible.
The prospects were not good, for Hajji Jamal Khan’s descendants were as
divided and dysfunctional as the dynasty they displaced.