The Cave of the Moonbat lies in a part of the United States in which buildings constructed in the 1850s are considered impossibly old, and the Pueblo ruins over in the Four Corners (ca. 900-1300 CE) ancient almost beyond reckoning. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess, but it doesn't change the fact that the Buddhas of Bamiyan had been standing for 800 years by the time the space aliens came and took the Anasazi away, and that Babur and his boys were contemporaries of the first conquistadors to set foot in the American Southwest.
Join me, if you will, for a long-overdue return to the history of Afghanistan. In this episode, your resident historiorantologist will spend about 400 years – or roughly the same amount of time as the founding of Jamestown to the present – in that Bush-benighted land, as everyone from Tamerlane to the aforementioned Babur to Nadir Shah tries their hand at exerting influence over the World's Most Unconquerable People...
Historiorant: Many thanks to guyermo, who graciously allowed me to catch up on a backlog of ungraded exams by minding the Cave last week and posting History for Kossacks: Westward Expansion Edition - a great look at politics in the era of the Mexican-American War. Next week, it's pico's turn in the guest-hotseat – and methinks mesmells a hint of borscht in the air...
When we last visited Afghanistan lo, these many weeks ago, the story cliffhung with the death of Tamerlane in 1405, but even though he rightfully ranks in any top ten list of all-time swath-burning conquerors, the control of Afghanistan by Timur's descendents proved no more permanent than that exercised by all the would-be rulers of the Hindu Kush that came before him. Since ancient times, the various tribes and armies that occasionally swept into and settled upon this land exerted influence upon its cultural makeup in a rate roughly proportional to the amount of time they were able to exert a physical, military presence in the region. At the first sign of distraction or disinterest by a far-off nominal monarch, the tribes of Afghanistan invariably asserted their independence and dared their overlords to come and take it back. Sometimes the faraway emperors were successful, and re-crushed the tribes back into submission for a time; sometimes the tribesmen were victorious, and the empire's decline was hastened as its borders shrank.
Such a venue – with all its opportunities for public bravado and armed, righteous, militant defiance – is the sort of place from which great leaders emerge. When the Romans threatened Gaul, the Celts produced Vercingetorix; in Britain, Boadicea. England had groomed itself a Churchill to counter the Germans' Hitler, and eight centuries before them, the Holy Land had for a few decades spat out leaders of the caliber of St. Louis, Saladin, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Richard the Lionheart. Any region in which cultures clash and vie for supremacy is a breeding ground for such kings, queens, and generals – and Afghanistan, with its perpetual clashing and vying, has given rise to its fair share of inspiring (or terrifying, or [insert adverb]) Leaders of the Millennium.
Succession, Suction, and Power Vacuums
Tamerlane's dynasty – the Timurid (after his non-nickname, Timur) – suffered the typical border adjustments after the death of its founder (lost Baghdad to the Black Sheep Turkmen), but by the 1415 or so, Tamerlane's sole surviving son, Shah Rukh, had secured the eastern end of his father's holdings. Most importantly, Shah Rukh maintained control of the Silk Road, and even though it would turn out that the 15th century would be the last hurrah for the overland silk trade (Zheng He's explorations in the 1420's made trade by sea much more feasible, but went for not due to xenophobes among the Ming – unaware that a few years later, Henry the Navigator would set up a school to research the matter from the other end, and which would eventually render moot the isolationist policies of not only China, but several Asian nations), it was still good for a few more pounds of protection gold.
Shah Rukh established capitols at Samarkand (modern Uzbekistan) and Herat (modern Afghanistan, but back then usually considered part of Eastern Persia), though he favored the one at Herat. Both cities enjoyed a flowering of science and learning under the patronage Shah Rukh, and his wife, Gowhar Shad, who herself funded mosques and theological colleges in Herat and Mashad. When he died in 1447, his son, who had been serving as governor at Samarkand, became Sultan of the Timurids.
Historiorant: There's a great map collection located here; as I'm unsure about the copyright status, I'll just invite the cartographically inclined to use the link. – u.m.
That son, who became known as "Ulugh Beg" ("'Great' or 'Patriarch' Ruler"), might have done better had he just stayed a math geek in charge of Transoxiana. Ulugh Beg was, in fact, one of the greatest of the medieval astronomers – though some might consider it cheating that he built himself a sextant that had a radius of 36 meters (118 feet). He also worked out horrendously complex calculations that your Moonbat is powerless to explain, except that they did things like figure the length of the sidereal year with a less-than-one-minute inaccuracy. Regrettably, he let his Klingon Mongol-ness get the better of him when the people of Herat were urged to question his right to rule by a rival, and he ordered them massacred. He paid the price for this less than two years later: in 1449, while on the way to Mecca, he was captured and beheaded by his own eldest son, Abd al-Latif, whose subsequent reign lasted all of six months.
The guy that the soldiers placed on the throne to replace him, 'Abdullah, was the sort who inspired revolt himself. In 1451, he was defeated, captured, and executed by Abu Sa'id, another great-grandson of Tamerlane, who had stormed down from the area around Bokhara. Assuming the throne for himself, he led the Timurids in their defense against the Black Sheep and White Sheep Turkomen who were then having their way with Persia. A Sufi with Shiite tendencies, Abu Sa'id allied himself with the Persians in their struggles with the Turks, and paid dearly for it: he was executed by a White Sheep chieftain when he was captured during fighting in Azerbaijan. Back east, this allowed a White Sheep prince, Yagadir Muhammad, to seize power in Heart (another prince grabbed Samarkand), though he lasted less than a year before another Timurid, Husayn Bayqarah, defeated, captured, and executed him.
Husayn's rule lasted a respectable three decades, though he was forced to contend with multiple insurrections, especially toward the end of his reign. North of the Oxus, the Timurids in Samarkand were trying and failing to contend with the Uzbeks, the newest rising power in the world of Central Asian nomads; Samarkand fell in 1501, and an elderly Husayn didn't do much about the raids they started launching into his territory of Khorasan. When he died in 1506, his sons fought over the inheritance instead of worrying about the Uzbeks – even though the retreating army of the Northern Timurids fleeing was probably a pretty good indication that they were next.
Weird Historical Sidenote: The Uzbek khan who took first Samarkand, then Herat, from the Timurids was the recipient of a particularly brutal comeuppance. Abu 'I-Fath Muhammad Shaybani Khan was an avowed enemy of the Persian Safavid Ismail I, and when the latter was victorious in the Battle of Marv in 1510, Shaybani's remains were dismembered and sent to all corners of the growing Safavid realm. According to an unfootnoted story on Wikipedia, Ismail then had Shaybani's skull dipped in gold and encrusted in gems for use as a drinking vessel.
Meet Babur
Though there was technically one more Southern Timurid ruler, Badi' al-Zaman was on the throne less than a year before abdicating in 1507; he died in exile in Istanbul ten years later. More important to subsequent history is a Timurid named Babur, was at the head of the army that decided not to defend the squabbling brothers in Herat from Uzbek attack. He was in the midst of the early, defeat-ridden portion of his career (lost both Samarkand and his power base at Fergana when he was a teenager, and often faced rebellion in the unsettled, shifting, and often violent political landscape.
"They" say he was immensely strong, and would carry a man on each shoulder while running up steep hills for exercise. That didn't keep the people he conquered from getting in a few subtle digs on him: the guy's real name was Zahir ud-Din Mohammad, which the local Chagatai (descendents of the hordes of Genghis Kahn's brother) found difficult to pronounce, and so nicknamed him "Babur" ("beaver"), as noted by his cousin, Mirza Muhammad Haydar:
At that time the Chaghatai were very rude and uncultured, and not refined as they are now; thus they found (his given name) Zahir-ud-din Muhammad difficult to pronounce, and for this reason gave him the name of (Babur).
Wikipedia; the footnote cites the following article: (1898) Tarikh-i-Rashidi: A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, Elias & Denison Ross (Ed. & Trans.).
Babur – whose other, more flattering animal nickname was "The Tiger" – went from Herat to Kabul, which he seized, lost, and seized again within the span of a couple of years. In the case of both cities, Babur's respect for things Afghani is pronounced; he deeply admired the learned men of Herat, while Kabul came to occupy a truly special place in his heart. Even as he ruled the vast empire he would later assemble from a capitol at Delhi, his heart always pined for Kabul.
Indeed, it could be tough to know the way of Babur's heart. He adopted the manner, custom, and dress of a Shi'a as part of his alliance with Ismail I of Safavid Persia, but this sometimes resulted in problems in administering conquered Uzbek (Sunni) populations, so he often found himself straddling very uncomfortable fences as a Central Asian warlord. Even if he was successful in retaking his former holdings at Fergana (modern Uzbekistan, in the eastern region near Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and China), he risked Uzbek attack from the west, and could expect no help from the Ming to the east, while the Safavids were both friendly and too strong to attack. He thus turned his attention further afield, far away from Uzbeks and rival Timurids both.
Of Gun-Wielding Mughals and Arrow-Shooting Hindus
Babur cast about in his genealogy for a claim to a throne somewhere, which led him to recall the Delhi Sultanate (moonbatified in Part II of this series – u.m.). See, Babur – like just about everyone else in Central Asian leadership circles - claimed descent from Timur, and it was Timur who had placed a guy named Khizr Khan in charge of Timurid vassals in the Punjab. Khizr Khan had gone on to usurp the throne of the Delhi Sultanate and found the Sayyid Dynasty (1414-1451), and when his descendents lost it to a family of Ghilzai Afghans named Lodhi (dynasty 1451-1526), clearly the only option open to Babur was to head down there and take it back.
He took his time about it, though: first, the siege and taking of Kandahar – a vital first step in protecting one's rear if one is planning on crossing the Indus – took about 3 years longer than expected, and he seems to have spent at least some of the next ten years introducing his troops to matchlocks and cannon. Hindustan, to coin a phrase, would never know what hit it.
Weird Historical Sidenote: Both Babur and Ismail were quick to incorporate gunpowder-based weaponry into their arsenals, especially after the Safavids had their asses handed to them by matchlock-armed Ottomans at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. Babur hired just such a matchlock-proficient Ottoman, Ustad Ali, to train a few good men in their use.
Since they could see no projectile launched despite the roaring sound of their enemy's weapons, Hindu warriors in northern India at first mocked the raiding and recon parties Babur was sending, but they were soon eating their words. Babur, who had been busy putting down revolts in Kandahar and Kabul, now noticed that the small units he'd been using to test the waters in India were in fact blasting deep paths into Rajput territory. In late 1525, he gathered around 12,000 troops and followed them through the Khyber Pass.
Owing to the fact that he was a jerk, the man on the throne of the Delhi Sultanate, Ibrahim Lodhi, was widely disliked by his vassals, and several of them joined Babur's army as he moved closer to Delhi. By the time advance parties from the two armies began to encounter one another in February, 1526, Babur's ranks had perhaps doubled, but this was a minuscule force compared to that raised by Ibrahim Lodhi, who brought 100,000 soldiers and 100 elephants to the fray.
Interesting thing about these advance parties: in one of the larger skirmishes in February, 1526, Babur's son Humayun won a hard-pressed by decisive victory, and captured about 100 men and 8 elephants as a result. Rather than apply the standard catch-and-release policy...
"Ustad Ali-quli and the matchlockmen were ordered to shoot all the prisoners, by way of example; this had been Humayun's first affair, his first experience of battle; it was an excellent omen!".
Babur's memoirs, via Wikipedia
It's also probably the first recorded use of a firing squad.
To Panipat...and Beyond!
The Timurid (read: Afghan Mongol) army deployed against the far larger army of the Sultan of Delhi on a dusty plain near the town of Panipat. Combining his new cannon, matchlocks, and fearsome Mongol bows, Babur was able to first isolate, then nearly envelop a body of around 6000 Indian soldiers, including Ibrahim Lodhi and several elephants. The elephants panicked at the sound of the cannon, and trampled their own troops even as the Afghans advanced from three sides, and the Sultan, unable to bring his superior numbers to bear, died with a sword in his hand.
Babur secured Delhi and Agra (and basically all of Hindustan), but he faced a clear and present danger from the Rajput kingdoms to the south. One Rajput lord in particular, Rana Sanga of Mewar, was determined to act on rumors he'd heard that Lodhi had considerably weakened Babur's army before he went down, and so formed up an alliance of Rajput kings around a central promise of the reconquest of Hindustan, in Muslim hands lo, these past 350 years.
And they might have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling Arthasastra. This ancient text of warfare, subcontinent-style, is sometimes compared to Sun Tzu's Art of War, but it differs significantly from the Chinese master in matters related to what is ethical in warfare. Assassination, the targeting of civilians, and use of poison are all fair game, according to Kautilya, the author of the Arthasastra; one can get a hint of how he viewed things from this 2003 Journal of Military History article:
In his section on foreign policy, Kautilya wrote a startling sentence: "Of war, there is open war, concealed war and silent war." Open war is obvious, and concealed war is what we call guerrilla warfare, but silent war is a kind of fighting that no other thinker I know of has discussed. Silent war is a kind of warfare with another kingdom in which the king and his ministers—and unknowingly, the people—all act publicly as if they were at peace with the opposing kingdom, but all the while secret agents and spies are assassinating important leaders in the other kingdom, creating divisions among key ministers and classes, and spreading propaganda and disinformation. According to Kautilya, "Open war is fighting at the place and time indicated; creating fright, sudden assault, striking when there is error or a calamity, giving way and striking in one place, are types of concealed warfare; that which concerns secret practices and instigations through secret agents is the mark of silent war." In silent warfare, secrecy is paramount, and, from a passage quoted earlier, the king can prevail only by "maintaining secrecy when striking again and again." This entire concept of secret war was apparently original with Kautilya.
Open warfare, Kautilya declared, is "most righteous," but he was willing to use any and all kinds of warfare to achieve consolidation and expansion of the kingdom. There is no question of morality here—other than the general good of one's kingdom—but only of strategy. Kautilya advised the king that "When he is superior in troops, when secret instigations are made (in the enemy's camp), when precautions are taken about the season, (and) when he is on land suitable to himself, he should engage in an open fight. In the reverse case, (he should resort to) concealed fighting." How different all this is from the image of war, certainly exaggerated, found in the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata, or the Ramayana, of the central figure being the great hero in the chariot who frightened all before him.
Kautilya's Arthasastra on War and Diplomacy in Ancient India (edited to remove footnote links – u.m.)
If there's anything one can say about Babur, it's that he was a quick study. His first problem was with the weary soldiers of his army, who were finding the heat of the Indian summer and the near-constant fighting a little lethargy-inducing, so to get that ole' fightin' spirit goin' again, he declared the conquest of the Rajputs to be a religious grudge match against the kafirs (non-Muslims), assumed the title "Ghazi" ("Holy Warrior"; used by Timur, back in the day), and had his men line up and swear on the Quran that they would die before even contemplating retreating.
He apparently employed some of this Arthasastra Technique when facing down Rana Sanga – details are sketchy, but it looks like a Rajput general might have switched sides at a critical moment, and Rana Sanga was denied an almost certain victory as his army began deserting him. Within a year, he was dead, probably by poisoning, and the other Rajput princes fell quickly into line. Babur spent the next couple of years reorganizing and consolidating his conquests under feudal lines, living the high life, and giving away far too much of his stolen wealth. He fended off one final assault in 1529, when Ibrahim Lodhi's brother assembled an army of the disaffected, and in the process secured, once and for all, all of northern India for his son, Humayan. He died in 1530, and lay in a mosque in Agra until 1539, when his remains were moved to his beloved gardens in Kabul. Upon his tomb is inscribed (in Persian):
If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this!
Mongols, Indian-Style
"My son take note of the following: Do not harbour religious prejudice in your heart. You should dispense justice while taking note of the people's religious sensitivities, and rites. Avoid slaughtering cows in order that you could gain a place in the heart of natives. This will take you nearer to the people.
Do not demolish or damage places of worship of any faith and dispense full justice to all to ensure peace in the country. Islam can better be preached by the sword of love and affection, rather than the sword of tyranny and persecution. Avoid the differences between the shias and sunnis. Look at the various characteristics of your people just as characteristics of various seasons."
-- Babur's Will
Babur laid the groundwork for a synthesis of Central Asian, Persian, Muslim, and Hindu architecture that would result in some of the most awe-inspiring buildings on the planet. All other considerations – like the fact that empires were bankrupted trying to pay for them – aside, structures like the Taj Mahal, the Pearl Mosque, and Humayan's Tomb represent an amazing fusion of intellect, skill, and culture – and during an age that saw the construction of the great Renaissance buildings of Europe, Mughal architects and engineers were among the finest.
That's not to say their leaders were the same, however. Starting with Humayan (who loses most of his father's winnings, is exiled to Persia, rebuilds an army and retakes most everything, only to die by falling down a flight of stairs), the Mughals went through the typical ebb-and-flow of empire. Humayan's 13-year old son, Akbar (r. 1556-1605), goes on to invent graduated income taxes and to be suffixed "the Great," but after that, things slip a bit. Jangahir (r. 1605-1627) was so busy spending money and building stuff that he lost Kandahar to the Safavids, and his son, Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658), bled the empire dry of currency as he simultaneously tried to extend the into the Deccan Highlands, re-assert authority west of the Khyber, and engage in a spate of treasury-draining Taj Mahal-building.
Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughal leaders (r. 1658-1707), expanded the Mughal Empire to its greatest extent, conquering lands further south than any Timurid had ever managed, but faced at the same time significant uprisings both on and within its borders. In Afghanistan, where confrontation with the Safavids was already a fact of life (the early alliance between Babur and Ismail was a relic of the distant past), the Pahatan tribe refused to be brought to heel - and sensing weakness, princes in southern India and the Deccan (in addition to the occasional city governor here and there) launched frequent insurrections.
To counter this, Aurangzeb got religion, and obligated it for everyone in his empire, too. He re-introduced a brutal tax on non-Muslims, despoiled Hindu temples, and forced conversions – with the predictable result of pissing off even more people. The last twenty years of his reign saw Mughal power diminish rapidly, as a group of Marharshtra-based Hindu peasants called the Marathas launched a sustained rebellion. In the end, Aurangzeb saw the power of the Mughals broken, though successors would continue to adopt the titles worn by his predecessors until as late as 1857.
Revenge of the Tribes
Throughout the period that the Mughals were ruling India, they were casually disregarding their estranged Afghan brethren as savages on the hinterlands, useful only as pawns in the ongoing struggle for trade route dominance with the Safavids. A Persian/Mughal relationahsip that had begun in alliance was now an intense rivalry, and the tribes of Afghanistan were both caught in the middle and able to play the two sides off on one another with great aplomb. Kandahar – guardian of the southern, Hindu Kush route to Mughal India – changed hands several times in the 16th and 17th centuries, even as the Uzbeks pushed toward Herat and into the north, where neither the Persians nor the Mughals were deployed in strength.
For the most part, the Pashtun tribes in the Kandahar area preferred the Safavids to the Mughals, but this doesn't mean that they necessarily liked one another all that much. Fighting between the Ghilzai and Abdali (both Pashtun-speaking) tribes finally led the Persians to forcibly remove most of the Abaldi to the area of Herat by 1600 or so, which might have left the Ghilzai in control of the area, but planted the seed of long resentment in the minds of the Abaldi.
As empires are wont to do, the Safavids grew decadent with time, and by 1700, the carefree, spendthrift attitude being showcased in Isfahan had translated to the provinces. The more decadent the regional governors became, the more restless the tribes got, and in 1707, the Safavids were finally forced to employ the tried-and-true method of sending a hard-ass, old-school military guy to put down the rebellions. Upon his arrival, the Georgian Gurgin Khan had the Ghilzai mayor of Kandahar, Mirwais Khan Hotak, arrested and sent to Isfahan in chains. Thinking no more of threats to his administration, he turned his attention to persecuting and killing Afghans.
Imagine his surprise, then, when Mirwais returned, wearing the robes of one who has won imperial favor. Apparently, the Afghan had charmed the Persian into allowing some sort of dual-rule, with Mirwais (as a local who understood the way things work in Afghanistan, no doubt) assuming the preeminent leadership role. Biding his time until April, 1709, Mirwais launched a coup that involved knifing Gurgin while he was passed out and drunk, then fended off Isfahan's attempts to first negotiate, then militarily recapture, the city. The weakened state of their military thus exposed, the Persians could do little but watch as Mirwais established the Hotaki Dynasty and united (however briefly) the tribes around Kandahar.
Mirwais died in 1715, leaving his small empire in the hands of his 18-year-old son Mahmood (d. 1725), who had expansionist plans. In 1722, he foolishly surged upon the Safavid capitol at Isfahan, and though he indeed captured the throne for a time (his successor, cousin Ashraf (r. 1725-1730) sat on it, too), the Persians would wind up exacting some serious vengeance. With Ghilzai and Abaldi Afghans now running rampant across Iran, an Afshar Turkmen named Nadir Shah arose to take command of the Persian armies; by December, 1729, the country was liberated. By 1738, Nadir Shah had solidified previously contested borders with the Ottomans, and was marching on Afghanistan and India.
My Army Went to India and All I Got Was This Lousy Peacock Throne
Nadir Shah – who is sometimes ascribed the nickname "Persia's Napoleon" – conquered and razed Kandahar, and took Kabul, Ghazni, and Lahore for good measure, before descending upon (you guessed it!) India. His army's weaponry vastly outclassed that of the all-but-collapsed Mughals, and in February, 1739, the rulers of Delhi were obligated to present him with the keys to the city. His men didn't really need them – an estimated 30,000 people were killed in the rioting and looting – but Nadir wisely used the keys to open up India's treasury, which was then carted back to Isfahan lock, stock and barrel (he suspended taxation in his empire for three years in celebration of the vast loot his army hauled back on thousands of seized horses and elephants). Among the prizes taken during this particular sacking of Delhi was the Peacock Throne, which thereafter became the symbol of the Iranian monarchy.
When Nadir Shah took Kandahar, he freed several prisoners that the Ghilzad governor had been holding in a fortress; among these was Ahmad Shah Durrani, an ethnic Pashtun of Sadozai line, who joined Nadir Shah's army and quickly distinguished himself as a cavalryman. He seems to have earned the special favor and respect of Nadir Shah, but was powerless to help when the general was assassinated in 1747. Leaving Persia to its own fate, Ahmad returned home, where a Loya Jirga ("grand assembly") of the Pashtun tribes convened, and in October opted to crown him the first King of Afghanistan. To signify this, Ahmad adopted the title "Durr-i-Durrani" ("pearl of pearls"); thereafter, the Abaldi tribe was known as the Durrani.
Historiorant:
Okay, gonna have to end this one here, since Ahmad Shah goes on to have a career and legacy that I'd estimate will take 2 pages to moonbatify, and I can already see the dealine looming. Look for the conclusion of the Afghanistan saga in a couple of weeks – and do please be kind during pico's first stint as a Cave-sitter.
images were gathered from Wikipedia Commons, unless otherwise noted.
Uber-interested speleohistorians can find entrances to the Cave of the Moonbat at Daily Kos, Progressive Historians, Never In Our Names, and The Impeach Project