nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47
Despite Fateh Khan’s advisers warning him that Kamran could not be
trusted, Fateh Khan ignored them. Then one morning Fateh Khan went
to breakfast with Kamran as usual only to find that all the guests were his
sworn enemies. Despite this, Fateh Khan sat down and ate, but as the meal
progressed the guests took it in turns to hurl abuse at him and recount
the various crimes he and his family had committed against them. When
Fateh Khan rose in anger to leave he was pinned to the tablecloth while
‘Ata Muhammad Khan, Mukhtar al-Daula’s son, thrust his dagger into the
wazir’s eyes. He was then thrown into prison in the arg and a few days later
his eyes were plucked out and the sockets cauterized with a red-hot iron.
After several months of incarceration, Fateh Khan was sent in chains to
Ghazni to be judged in person by Shah Mahmud. When he appeared before
the king and an assembly of his chief enemies, Shah Mahmud offered to
spare his life on condition he ordered his brothers to come in person and
swear fealty to Shah Mahmud. Fateh Khan, fearing his brothers would
suffer the same fate as himself, refused and defiantly retorted that he had
never sought to usurp the throne. The king retaliated by striking him with
his sword, whereupon the other members of the assembly took it in turns
to cut off one of Fateh Khan’s limbs. Yet despite being slowly dismem-
bered, Fateh Khan is said not to have uttered a single cry of pain. Finally,
Shah Mahmud put him out of his agony and cut off his head; the mangled
remains were rolled up in the blood-soaked carpet, taken out and buried.
Fateh Khan’s death may have satisfied the king and his enemies’ desire
for vengeance, but politically the wazir’s execution was an act of short-
sighted folly. Shah Mahmud’s hold on power was fragile and Fateh Khan
and his brothers controlled all the key governorships in the kingdom.
When they heard of their brother’s death they immediately rebelled, deter-
mined not only to depose Shah Mahmud, but to overthrow the Saddozai
dynasty. Following Fateh Khan’s execution, the headship of the Barakzai
family, better known by its regnal name of Muhammadzai, fell to Fateh
Khan’s younger uterine brother, Muhammad ‘Azim Khan (see Chart 3).
In an attempt to enlist support for his cause, Muhammad ‘Azim Khan
sought an alliance with Shah Shuja‘ al-Mulk, but the ex-king demanded the
sardar pay the homage due him as king, so ‘Azim Khan turned to another
of Timur Shah’s sons, ‘Ayub Mirza, who was far more pliant. ‘Make me but
king,’ he is reported to have said, ‘and permit money to be coined in my
name and the whole power and resources of the kingdom may rest with
yourself; my ambition will be satisfied with bread, and the title of “king”.’ 40
Sardar Muhammad ‘Azim Khan then renewed the war against the Sikhs
in Kashmir, a decision that led to a bitter row with his half-brother, Dost
nandana
(Nandana)
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