Dost Muhammad Khan

Dost Muhammad Khan (1792 to 1863) was the Barakzai ruler of Kabul and the main Afghan rival of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The two states fought over Peshawar and the Khyber approaches, and the Khalsa army held the Peshawar valley against him to the end of Ranjit Singh's reign. He was born on 23 December 1792 at Kandahar, took Ghazni after his brother Fateh Khan's death, added Kabul in 1826, and in time took the title Amir.

Key moments

• 1823: the Afghans lose the Peshawar valley to Ranjit Singh's army at Nowshera.
• 1834: Dost Muhammad defeats Shah Shuja at Kandahar, but Ranjit Singh annexes Peshawar. Hari Singh Nalwa takes over the governorship from Dost Muhammad's brother Sultan Muhammad Khan.
• 1835: he declares a holy war on the Sikhs to win Peshawar back. Sultan Muhammad Khan, who distrusted him, goes over to Ranjit Singh's camp.
• 30 April 1837: Afghan forces besiege Jamrud. Dost Muhammad sent his sons with the army, and Wazir Akbar Khan commanded. Hari Singh Nalwa is mortally wounded in the fighting. Historians disagree on who won, but the Afghans fell back to Jalalabad and Peshawar stayed under Sikh rule.
• After Jamrud: he sent an apology saying his sons had acted without his authority and asked for control of Peshawar. The Sikh Durbar refused, and Paolo Avitabile became governor of Peshawar.
• 1838 to 1842: the British invade to put Shah Shuja on the throne. Dost Muhammad is exiled to Mussoorie in November 1840 and returns after Shah Shuja is murdered in 1842.
• 30 March 1855: makes an alliance with the British. He stays out of the 1857 rising.
• 9 June 1863: dies at Herat, shortly after taking it in May.

Sources differ on how Hari Singh Nalwa died at Jamrud. Hari Ram Gupta says Nalwa was hit by two bullets, taken into the fort and ordered his death kept secret until reinforcements arrived, while the Afghan chronicle Siraj al-Tawarikh says he fell in a duel with Akbar Khan. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he received four gun wounds while fighting the Afghans under Akbar Khan on 30 April 1837.

He is remembered in Punjab history as the Amir who could not win back Peshawar from the Khalsa, and in Afghan history as the founder of the Barakzai dynasty.