History of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - Modern History

Modern History

See also: Military history of the North-West Frontier

Under Toramana and Mihirakula they held Northern India, ruling at Sagala, which may be Sialkot in the Punjab. Mihirakula penetrated far into India, but about 528 was defeated by a confederacy of Indian princes under Yasodharman, and was driven back to the Punjab and Indus valley. There were two distinct streams of Muslim invasion towards India. The earlier had resulted in the conquest of Khorasan ; but, though Kabul had been assailed as early as 655 and made tributary in 683, it regained its independence before 700, and the stream of invasion was deflected towards Multan and Sindh. Ghazni was only taken in 870; and in 902 we find the Kashmir forces deposing the rebellious ruler of Udabhandapura (Ohind) and giving his kingdom to Toramana, son of Lalliya, with the title of Komaluka-the Kamalu of Muslim historians.

In 974 Pirin, the slave-governor of Ghazni, repulsed a force sent from India to seize that stronghold; and in 977 Sabuktagin, his successor, became virtually independent and founded the dynasty of the Ghaznivids. In 986 he raided the Indian frontier, and in 988 defeated Jaipal with his allies at Laghman, and soon after possessed himself of the country up to the Indus, placing a governor of his own at Peshawar. Mahmud of Ghazni, Sabuktagin's son, having secured the throne of Ghazni, again defeated Jayapala in his first raid into India (1001), Battle of Peshawar, and in a second expedition defeated Anandpal (1006), both near Peshawar. He also (1024 and 1025) raided the Afghans, a name that now appears for the first time as that of a people living in the hills between Ghazni and the Sulaiman range. The present territories of the North-West Frontier Province, excluding Hazara, thus formed part of the Ghaznivid empire.

In 1179 Muhammad of Ghor took Peshawar, capturing Lahore from Khusru Malik two years later. After Muhammad was assassinated (1206), his able general, Taj-ud-din Yalduz, established himself at Ghazni, the Kurram valley being his real stronghold, until he was driven into Hindustan by the Khwarizmis (1215). The latter were in turn overwhelmed by the Mongols in 1221, when Jalal-ud-din Khwarizmi, defeated on the Indus by Genghis Khan, retreated into the Sind- Sagar Doab, leaving Peshawar and other provinces to be ravaged by the Mongols. Yet in 1224 we find Jalal-ud-din able to appoint Saif-ud-din Hasan, the Karlugh, in charge of Ghazni. To this territory Saif-ud-din added Karman (Kurram) and Banian (Bannu), and eventually became independent (1236).

In the same year Altamsh set out on an expedition against Banian, but was compelled by illness to return to Delhi. After his death Saif-ud-din attacked Multan, only to be repulsed by the feudatory of Uch, and three years later (1239) the Mongols drove him out of Ghazni and Kurram, but he still held Banian. In his third attempt to take Multan, he was, however, killed (1249), whereupon his son Nasir-ud-din Muhammad became a feudatory of the Mongols, retaining Banian. Eleven years later (1260) we find him endeavouring to effect an alliance between his daughter and a son of Ghiyas-ud-din Balban, and to reconcile the Mongol sovereign with the court of Delhi. By this time the Karlughs had established themselves in the hills.

In 1398 Timur set out from Samarkand to invade India. After subduing Kator, now Chitral, he made his devastating inroad into the Punjab, returning via Bannu in March 1399. His expedition established a Mongol overlordship in the province, and he is said to have confirmed his Karlugh regent in the possession of Hazara. The descendants of Timur held the province as a dependency of Kandahar, and Shaikh Ali Beg, governor of Kabul under Shah Rukh, made his power felt even in the Punjab. But with the decay of the Timurid dynasty their hold on the province relaxed.

Meanwhile the Afghans were rising to power. Implacably hostile to the Mongols, they now appear as a political factor. At the close of the fourteenth century they were firmly established in their present seats south of Kohat, and in 1451 Bahlol Lodi's accession to the throne of Delhi gave them a dominant position in Northern India. Somewhat later Babar's uncle, Mirza Ulugh Beg of Kabul, expelled the Khashi (Khakhai) Afghans from his kingdom, and compelled them to move eastwards into Peshawar, Swat, and Bajaur. After Babar had seized Kabul he made his first raid into India in 1505, marching down the Khyber, through Kohat, Bannu, Isa Khel, and the Derajat, returning by the Sakhi Sarwar pass. About 1518 he invaded Bajaur and Swat, but was recalled by an attack on Badakhshan.