Rahmatullah Khan Afshar and Yulduz Khan Afshar, rulers of the Andkhoi Khanate (Henry H. Howorth, 1880)

Rahmatullah Khan Afshar and Yulduz Khan Afshar, rulers of the Andkhoi Khanate

Andkhud is situated between Herat and Bukhara, and is accounted as belonging to Khorasan. It retained its allegiance to the Afghans for a long time, and the Khutbeh was said in the name of Timur Shah, on whose behalf it was governed by Rahmet Ulla of the tribe Afshar. He was killed in a struggle with the troops of Shah Murad bi, of Bukhara, and was succeeded by his son Ilduz Khan.† Ilduz was ruling there when Izzet ulla travelled in these parts.‡ He had a body of 1,000 troops, and seems to have secured a practical independence, for, Schefer says, he paid no one tribute.§ Andkhud remained tolerably flourishing till about the year 1840, when it was dependent on Bukhara. Yar Muhammad besieged it when on his way to Oxus, and captured it after a siege of four months. It was then plundered and reduced to a heap of ruins, and the greater part of the inhabitants who would not otherwise escape, were put to death by the Afghans. When Vambery visited it, its governor Gazanfer Khan was a protégé of the Afghans, and at issue with the rulers of Bukhara and Meimeneh.‖ He says the town then contained about 2,000 houses and 3,000 tents scattered about, and its population was about 15,000, principally Turkomans. Its climate is notoriously bad, and is summed up in a Persian verse. “Andkhoi has bitter salt water, scorching sand, venomous flies, and even scorpions. Vaunt it not for it is the picture of a real hell.” It was there that Moorcroft died, apparently of fever. ¶

^† Schefer, op. cit., 249.

^‡ Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc., vii., 333.

^§ Op. cit., 249.

^‖ Vambery, Travels, 241.

^¶ Id., 240.

Henry H. Howorth, History of the Mongols from the 9th to the 19th century. Part II. The so-called Tartars of Russia and Central Asia. Division II. — London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1880, p. 868.