afghanistanMir Husain Khan had killed his half-brother, Hukumat Khan, during a
struggle for the succession and now Muzaffar Khan avenged his father’s
death by putting his uncle to death with his own hands.
For six weeks following the Shadyan meeting, Ishaq Khan and his
supporters secretly gathered their forces and somehow managed to keep
the plot hidden from the Amir. They were helped by the fact that at the
time ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan was suffering a relapse of his long-standing and
chronic illness, which led to periods of unconsciousness and on occasion
rendered him unable to speak. 26 When, in early August, reports reached
Mazar-i Sharif stating that the Amir was dying or already dead, Ishaq Khan
decided the time was ripe to stake his claim for the throne. On 10 August
1888, during Friday prayers, Ishaq Khan’s name was recited in the khutba
and a fatwa issued by the mutawalli and shaikhs of the Shah-i Mardan
shrine was read out that condemned the Amir and his government as a
kafir regime. Religious leaders were then sent through the province to
call the populace to join the jihad. Within a matter of days, Qataghan and
Saighan were in rebel hands and government forces fell back to Khinjan.
However, Muhammad Sharif Khan of Maimana, who had succeeded his
father, Husain Khan, refused to join the rebellion and held out, supported
by the Herati garrison, despite overwhelming popular support in the region
for the revolt.
The rebellion caught the Amir by surprise, but despite being seriously
ill he acted swiftly to prevent the revolt spreading. All of Ishaq Khan’s
extended family in Kabul, including his elderly Armenian mother, were
imprisoned and the Amir secured his own fatwa, declaring jihad on Ishaq
Khan. General Ghulam Haidar Khan, who had been instrumental in the
suppression of the Ghilzai revolt, was ordered to assemble an army at
Bamiyan, while in Herat ‘Abd al-Quddus Khan dispatched a relief force to
Maimana. Less than two weeks after Ishaq Khan had been declared Amir,
Ghulam Haidar Khan took the rebel outpost of Kahmard and sent the
garrison’s commander, Najm al-Din Khan, Ishaq Khan’s father-in-law, in
chains to Kabul, where he was executed by having boiling oil poured over
him. Following the fall of Kahmard, the Shaikh ‘Ali Hazaras submitted
and petitioned the Amir to allow them to emigrate en masse to Persia.
Instead they were offered the choice of resettlement near Kandahar or
Herat, or exile to India. In the end they opted to settle in Quetta rather
than remaining in a country ruled by ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan.
The Amir’s swift military response had taken the initiative away from
Ishaq Khan. He then made another tactical error by deciding not to oppose
Ghulam Haidar Khan’s advance. Hearing that the Herat army was already