Swat (princely State) - History

History

• See also History of Swat

The Swat region has been inhabited for more than two thousand years and was known in ancient times as Udyana. The location of Swat made it an important stopping point for many invaders, including Alexander the Great and Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. The second century BCE saw Swat forming part of the Buddhist civilisation of Gandhara.

Swat was a center of Hinayana Buddhism and of the Mahayana school that developed from it. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hsien, who visited the valley around 403 CE, mentions 500 monasteries. After him, Sun Yun (519 CE), Hsuan-tsang (630 CE), and Wu-kung (752 CE) visited Swat as well and praised the richness of the region, its favourable climate, the abundance of forest, flowers and fruit-trees and the respect in which Buddhism was held.

The Kushan dynasty ruled for four centuries until it was overrun by the White Huns in the 5th century CE and the glory of the Gandhara era came to an end. Hsuan-tsang recorded the decline of Buddhism. According to him, of the 1400 monasteries that had supposedly been there, most were in ruins or had been abandoned. The monks still quoted from the scriptures but no longer understood them. There were grapes in abundance but cultivation of the fields was sparse.

From the 8th century CE onwards, Muslim Arabs started to exert pressure from the west in the most eastern-Iranian lands where the Hindu Shahi Dynasty still ruled. At the beginning of the 8th century, the Gabari Royal Tajik tribe advanced through Laghmanat, Ningarhar, and Dir to invade Swat, defeating the Bhudists and the Hindus. This war was headed by Sultan Pakhal Gabari and later on by Sultan Behram Gabari, both Jahangirian sultans. Rulers of Kuner Pich and cousin of Rulers of Balkh and Kashmir. Later some Dilazak encroached on the area and settled among the Gabaris, who in 1519 and 1520 were ousted in their turn by the Yusufzais backed by the Mughal Badshah Zahiruddin Muhammad Baber,the fierce super power. It is a historical paradox that the Yusufzais were ousted from Kabul by Mirza Ullegh Beg, the uncle of Baber, and killed 600 Malak of Yusufzai, whereas the Gabaris warmly welcomed Yousofzai refugees and settled them within Gabari sultanate areas of Bajour, Dir and Swat. The Yusofzais forgot the generosity of the Gabaris and encroached on their state with the plotted help of Zahiruddin Muhammad Babar.And thus, In 1519 they demolished the Gabar-Kot fortress in Bajour killed the Sultans including Sultan Mir Haider Ali Gabari.Further advanced into Swat, forcing the last Gabari ruler, Sultan Awais Gabari Manglaware Fort, to Retire to Upper Dir. He established his rule in Upper Dir, Chitral Wakhan, Badakhshan and other petty states of the Upper Oxus.

In 1001 CE, the Ghaznavid ruler Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni began a series of invasions into South Asia, conquering Swat amongst other areas and the Muslim period of Swat began.

The modern area of Swat was ruled sporadically by religious leaders, who took the title of Akhoond, also spelt Akhund or Akond. The Akhund of Swat who died in 1877 was particularly famous as the subject of a well known humorist poem by Edward Lear, The Akond of Swat. The nonsensical poem suggests a far away place and a mystical person, at least through the eyes of a Victorian poet and painter.

The Islamic State of Swat was established in 1849 under Sayyid Akbar Shah with Sharia law remaining in force, but the state was in abeyance from 1863 to 1915. Sayyid Abdul-Jabbar Khan was made ruler by a local Jirga and had trouble exercising power. In 1917 another Jirga appointed Miangul Golshahzada Abdul-Wadud. The British recognised the state as a princely state in 1926. Following the Partition of India in 1947, the ruler acceded the state to Pakistan, while retaining considerable autonomy. The ruler of Swat was accorded a 15-gun hereditary salute in 1966, but this was followed by the abolition of the state in 1969 due to the policy of Government of Pakistan.