nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47a possible Persian attack on Herat, fearing that Mahmud Mirza and Firoz
al-Din might ally themselves with Persia and march on Kandahar and
even Kabul. 16 Fortunately for the embattled Shah Zaman, nothing came
of the threat. Agha Muhammad Qajar withdrew from Mashhad and Nadir
Mirza, another of Nadir Shah’s grandsons, regained control of the city and
reaffirmed his loyalty to the Durrani king.
The following year Agha Muhammad Qajar was assassinated and was
succeeded by his nephew Fath ‘Ali Shah. Shortly after Agha Muhammad’s
death, Firoz al-Din Mirza, fearing his brother planned to assassinate him,
left Herat on the pretext of going on Hajj and went to Tehran, where Fath
‘Ali Shah received him warmly. Meanwhile Shah Zaman decided to regain
control of Herat and install a loyal governor in order to secure his western
frontier against the Persian threat. Shah Zaman defeated Mahmud in a
battle near Girishk and besieged Herat, but the city held out. Eventually
Mahmud’s mother brokered an agreement between the two siblings, under
the terms of which Shah Mahmud acknowledged Shah Zaman as king
in return for remaining as governor of Herat. No one, though, appears
to have informed Mahmud’s son, Kamran Mirza, of the peace agreement
despite the fact he was leading the defence of the city. When he saw Shah
Zaman’s army head back down the road to the Helmand, Kamran set
out in hot pursuit. Once Kamran was well away from the city, Qilij Khan
Timuri, the garrison commander, rebelled and opened the gates to Shah
Zaman. When Kamran heard of the fall of Herat, he and Shah Mahmud
fled to Tehran.
Shah Zaman’s campaign in the Punjab and the East India
Company’s responseIn November 1796 Shah Zaman, believing that the fratricidal war had
ended, set out to attack Lahore and in January of the following year he
managed to regain control of the city. He was, however, out of touch with
the shifting balance of power in northern India. By the mid-1790s the East
India Company was increasingly the dominant power in the region and
the British had no wish to see a repeat of the invasions of Nadir Shah and
Ahmad Shah. Shah Zaman did not help his cause when he wrote to the
Governor General suggesting that the Company join his war against the
Sikhs. As far as the British were concerned, it was Shah Zaman who posed
the threat to their interests while the overtones of jihad, implicit in every
Durrani campaign in northern India, raised fears that the Durranis might
form an anti-British Muslim coalition with other Muslim powers of the