afghanistandepose Sultan Muhammad Khan and install a Sikh governor, Hari Singh, in
his place. When Dost Muhammad Khan returned to Kabul in the autumn
of 1834 he found the capital full of refugees, including Sultan Muhammad
Khan Tela’i, his halfbrothers and the devious Hajji Khan Kakar. They
had already taken advantage of Dost Muhammad Khan’s absence to stir
up the Sunni, antiQizilbash faction who now demanded the Amir renew
the jihad against the Sikhs and retake Peshawar. Such was the clamour
for war that Dost Muhammad Khan, against his better judgement, felt he
had no option but to send Hajji Khan Kakar and the Peshawar sardars to
Jalalabad to raise the tribes of Nangahar and the Khyber.
Once his rivals were out of the way, Dost Muhammad Khan upstaged
them by having himself formally proclaimed king. A private ‘coronation’
was hastily organized, attended by a few carefully selected officials and
family members and without the usual fanfare. Towards evening Dost
Muhammad Khan went to the Puli Kheshti mosque where Mir Mas’um,
known as Mir Hajji, who had succeeded his father Khwaja Khanji as Mir
Wa’is, placed ‘two or three blades of grass’ in the Amir’s turban in what
appears to have been a deliberate harking back to the coronation of Ahmad
Shah Durrani. 29 Dost Muhammad Khan was declared to be padshah, King,
and Amir al-Mu’minim, Commander of the Faithful. Mir Hajji concluded
the ceremony by reading out a fatwa of jihad against the Sikhs, which
urged every Muslim to assist ‘the promotion of so righteous a cause’ by
giving money.
The appeal for funds, however, fell on deaf ears since, as Masson wryly
remarked, ‘however the Máhomedans of Kâbal were attached to their reli
gion, they were quite as partial to their gold’. 30 Instead Dost Muhammad
Khan ordered the Hindu moneylenders to pay two years’ jizya poll tax
in advance, an imposition that led many to flee back to Shikapur, taking
their gold with them. Others buried their cash and property or fled to the
hills. The Amir also imposed a levy of between five and ten rupees on all
shopkeepers; even his wives sold or pawned their jewellery. Yet despite
the threat of imprisonment and torture, the war tax raised a meagre three
lakh rupees, while the imposition came at a terrible economic cost as the
overland trade was interrupted, letters of credit were no longer issued or
honoured and investment in trade caravans dropped alarmingly.
The renewal of the war with the Sikhs did not endear Dost Muhammad
Khan to officials in Calcutta and reinforced Wade’s advocacy for the restor
ation of the Saddozai monarchy. The situation was not improved when,
on Masson’s advice, the Amir wrote to the Governor General requesting
he use his good offices to persuade Ranjit Singh to restore some of the