afghanistanKhan along with several other ringleaders were slain. When Shah Shuja‘
entered Peshawar, the head of Mukhtar al-Daula was borne beside him,
impaled on a spear. Shah Shuja‘ then marched on for Kabul, but on his
approach Khwaja Khanji and Qaisar Mirza fled to the Kohistan, while Shah
Mahmud made his way to Kandahar and joined forces with Fateh Khan.
Kabul fell with little opposition. Shah Shuja‘ defeated Shah Mahmud and
Fateh Khan in a subsequent encounter near Qalat-i Ghilzai, but instead
of attacking Kandahar and hunting down Fateh Khan, he returned to
Peshawar after hearing that a large mission from the East India Company
was on its way to the Durrani winter capital.
The Elphinstone Mission and the ‘Elphinstone Episteme’The Elphinstone Mission to Peshawar was the East India Company’s first
formal diplomatic embassy to the Durrani court, though the Governor
Generals had corresponded occasionally with Shah Mahmud and Shah
Zaman. The Company had even infiltrated a native agent, Ghulam Sarwar,
into the heart of Timur Shah’s administration. The mission was the third
initiative by Britain designed to counteract a possible French invasion
of northern India and Mountstuart Elphinstone’s instructions were to
secure Shah Shuja‘ al-Mulk’s agreement not to allow French or Russian
surveyors to enter his kingdom. While making his way slowly to Peshawar,
Elphinstone heard of Arthur Wellesley’s defeat of the French forces in
Portugal, which he noted in his journal as a great triumph and somewhat
relieved his fears of a French invasion.
Elphinstone reached Peshawar at the end of February 1809, but his
refusal to conform to the humiliating protocols enforced when ambas-
sadors were granted an audience with the king led to a delay of nearly a
month before he and the other officials were granted an audience with Shah
Shuja‘. A compromise was eventually worked out and the Europeans were
received by Shah Shuja‘ with all pomp and ceremony, for the king hoped
that the English would assist him against Shah Mahmud and even the
Sikhs, while court officials did their best to conceal Shah Shuja‘ al-Mulk’s
fragile hold on power and the systemic weakness of the Durrani kingdom.
This ploy appears to have worked, for Elphinstone reported that Shah Shuja‘
‘was considered as very firmly established on the throne’ and dismissed the
rebellions of Shah Mahmud, Fateh Khan and Mukhtar al-Daula as ‘feeble’. 28
When Shah Shuja‘ finally met Elphinstone face-to-face he declared that
their two kingdoms ‘were made by nature to be united’, 29 a statement that
he doubtless later regretted. A treaty was eventually signed, but it failed to