nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47after Ahmad Shah had withdrawn to Kashmir to recuperate, they attacked
Sirhind and Jullundar Duaba and raided the hinterland of Lahore.
After several months of convalescence, in October 1762 Ahmad Shah
again attacked Amritsar on the day before the Feast of Diwali, but this time
it was the Sikhs who won the day. When Ahmad Shah was informed of yet
another insurrection in Kandahar, he ordered his army to march on the
Durrani capital, leaving the Punjab to be once again overrun by the Sikhs.
In the spring of the following year, Sardar Jahan Khan attempted to regain
some of the lost territory but the tide had turned. In November 1763 Jahan
Khan suffered a heavy defeat at Gujranwala and the Sikhs followed up their
victory by sacking Malerkotla and Morinda. In January of the following
year Zain Khan, governor of Sirhind and the man the Sikhs held respon-
sible for the Wadda Ghalughara massacre, was also defeated and slain. The
Sikhs then stormed Sirhind, slaughtered its population and burnt public
buildings to the ground. In order to prevent Lahore suffering the same fate,
its governor agreed to pay tribute and accept Sikh suzerainty. The Sikhs
next besieged the reputedly impregnable citadel of Rohtas, which fell after
four months. Sarbaland Khan Saddozai, who commanded the fortress,
was taken prisoner but was reinstated after he agreed to accept Sikh suzer-
ai nt y. 11 An even more disastrous blow to Saddozai power followed with the
submission of Multan, with Sikh raiders penetrating as far as the hinterland
of Dera Isma’il Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan.
When Ahmad Shah heard of the disasters he flew into a paroxysm of
rage and wrote to Nasir Khan, beglar begi of Kalat, calling him to join a
jihad against ‘the accursed dogs and lustful infidels’, and to ‘destroy this
faithless sect, and enslave their women and children’. At the time Nasir
Khan was about to leave for the Hajj, but he abandoned his plans and
joined the Holy War after Ahmad Shah declared that ‘Jihad... is more
meritorious that Hajj’. 12 However, when Ahmad Shah returned to the
Punjab in October 1764 the jihad came to nothing. The advance guard was
ambushed and routed by the Sikhs outside Lahore and Beglar Begi Nasir
Khan was lucky to escape with his life after his horse was shot from under
him. The Sikhs then retreated into the jungle, so Ahmad Shah sacked and
desecrated Amritsar for the third time. The Sikhs, though, refused to be
drawn into another set-piece battle and instead raided the Afghan army’s
flanks and attacked parties gathering fodder.
Ahmad Shah pushed on to Sirhind, plundering and destroy-
ing everything in his path, but by February 1765 his troops refused to
march any further. Their pay was in arrears and Ahmad Shah’s relentless
campaigning had led to disaffection among the officer corps and the rank