The whole Afghan Population is particeps criminis in a great national

crime.

lord lytton 1

During the reign of Peter the Great... were not lakhs of people put to

death, and launched into oblivion... My work is like that of those times

and so I am reducing the disorderly people to a state of new order.

amir ‘abd al-rahman khan

F

ollowing the death of Sher ‘Ali Khan, Ya‘qub Khan was declared

Amir in Kabul and a number of sardars suspected of favouring the

Afzalids were arrested. In Mazar-i Sharif, Sher ‘Ali Khan’s courtiers

pledged their loyalty to Ya‘qub Khan’s eldest son, Muhammad Musa’,

who attacked and subdued the mutineers in Takhtapul, forced them to

take the oath of loyalty to Amir Ya‘qub and sent their leader to Kabul

in chains, where he was put to death. In Herat, ‘Ayub Khan too recog-

nized his brother’s succession, but many of the officer corps in Balkh and

Herat favoured the Samarkand exiles. Since military discipline had all but

broken down in Herat, there was little ‘Ayub could do to enforce loyalty to

his brother, especially as his treasury was almost empty. In an attempt to

pacify the troops, ‘Ayub sent an urgent message to Mazar-i Sharif plead-

ing for more cash and issued the garrison with one month’s pay, only for

the troops to riot and pelt their officers with stones. Even when the cash

did arrive, ‘Ayub still did not have sufficient money to pay all the arrears

of wages, while the regiments recently arrived from Maimana and the

Murghab received nothing at all. In order to get rid of the unruly troops,

‘Ayub ordered the two Maimana regiments to Kabul, promising that once

there Amir Ya‘qub would pay them.

eight

8 ‘Reducing the Disorderly People’, 1879–1901

1879–1901