afghanistancousin and son-in-law, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib and his descendants, were the right-
ful heirs. Who came up with this grotesque solution is not stated, but given
Murad Bibi’s penchant for bloodthirstiness it was probably her idea. Four
of the Persians duly had their throats slit and the three survivors set free
and returned to Kandahar where they recounted the horrific events they
had witnessed. 38 The Persian governor responded by attacking Qal‘a-yi
Safa but the Saddozais, commanded by Murad Bibi, defeated them with
heavy loss of life. During the attack, Murad Bibi is said to have killed the
Persian general with her own hands.
The increasing state of lawlessness that prevailed in the Kandahar and
Helmand regions eventually led to another Persian attempt to restore some
semblance of order in eastern Khurasan. In 1680 a large Safavid army
arrived in Herat. One column was dispatched against the ‘Abdali strong-
hold of Obeh, while a second division was sent to reinforce Kandahar
and subsequently took Qal‘a-yi Safa by storm. Sultan Hayat Khan fled to
the upper reaches of the Hari Rud where he tried to prevent the Safavids
taking control of Obeh, only for the lightly armed ‘Abdalis to be decimated
by the Persian artillery. In the aftermath of this victory the Persian general
conducted a ruthless search-and-kill operation. Sultan Hayat Khan, who
had been badly wounded in the battle, eventually made his way to Multan
where he later married a Hindu nautch girl and lived off the income of a
jagir conferred on him by the Mughal emperor. He finally died in 1729,
at the age of 81 years old. What fate his mother, Murad Bibi, suffered is
not recorded but the events of Hayat Khan’s blood-soaked reign passed
into Saddozai mythology, with members of the rival Sarmast Khel family
relishing relating stories of Hayat Khan’s depravity, including the scur-
rilous story that he allowed his son or grandson be raped by the Persian
governor of Herat. 39
Following the devastating defeat at Obeh and the loss of Safa, the
‘Abdalis decided they had had enough of Sultan Hayat Khan and the
Khudakka Khan lineage and appointed Ja‘far Khan, the eldest surviving son
of Sarmast Khan, as mir-i Afghaniha. Sultan Ja‘far Khan sued for peace with
Persia and a treaty was agreed, but Safa remained in Persian hands while
Sultan Ja‘far probably lived in Herat under close surveillance. However,
the peace treaty did result in more than a decade of relative peace for the
‘Abdali tribes, which allowed them to recover from the disasters of Sultan
Hayat Khan’s reign.
When Sultan Ja‘far died in 1695 he was succeeded by his younger
brother, Daulat Khan, who broke the peace treaty by resuming raids
on qafilas in Girishk and Farah. After defeating two Persian forces sent