Ahmad Shâh Abdâlî - named Ahmad Khân then Ahmad Shâh Durânî - is the founder of the Durânî dynasty which reigned on the Khorasan until the communist coup d'etat of 1978.

Biography

The young Ahmad Khân belongs to the tribe of Abdâlî. Captive fact by the Persian shâh of Nâdir Shâh, it becomes then one of its officers. In 1747 Nâdir Shâh is assassinated and Ahmad Khân at the time of a Loya Jirga with Kandahar proclaims shâh of Khorasan and its title is changed into an Ahmad Shâh Dur I Duran ( king Ahmad, the pearl of the pearls ). As from this day the Abdâlî tribe takes the name of Durânî.

In 1748, it takes Kabul, then continues in India where it seizes the Cachemire in 1753, makes six raids on the Panjâb, plunders Mathurâ in 1756 and, at the beginning of 1757, Delhi during one month. It becomes there aware of the weakness of the Empire moghol which it leaves in place after acceptance of its sovereignty on the Cashmere, Panjâb and the Sindh. It however takes for wife one of the princesses of the imperial family and grants some others of them to his/her son Timur Shah, whom it makes governor of Panjâb and the Sirhind. It leaves as vizier in Delhi a chief Rohilla who has all his confidence, but, hardly it crossed the Indus, which its man assassinates the emperor Azîz ud-DIN Âlamgir and installs on the throne the son of this last Shâh Âlam II, its puppet. Following a revolt, it shaves the Holy City sikh of Amritsar, massacres thousands of sikhs there, destroying their temples and soiling their holy places with blood of cow. It seizes the Aligârh in 1759.

In 1761, it beats the federation marathe and sikh with the Third battle of Pânipat putting a final time limit at the Hindu power in India.

In an ultimate forwarding, it inflicts a heavy defeat in Sikhs, but must turn over immediately to Afghanistan to subdue an insurrection there. Benefitting from this hitch, Sikhs are raised again and Ahmad is henceforth forced to give up any hope to maintain his influence on Panjâb.

He dies in 1773, victim, seems he, of a cancer of the face, leaving with his son Timur Shâh the kingdom which he founded.