The Qizilbash population of Afghanistan
The population of Kandahar is Afghan; in Kabul there
are perhaps eighteen or twenty thousand Kuzzelbashes. Their history has been
often written. When Nadir Shah marched towards Delhi, he had twelve thousand
fighting Kuzzelbashes with him. When he quitted that city, on his return, he
left behind him three hundred of these, who, with other troops, were directed
to bring away his treasure, and follow him. They passed through Kabul; but when,
within two days’ march of Kandahar, they heard of his death, ― and, a few days
afterwards, Achmed Shah, Nadir’s lieutenant, arrived himself, attended by five
or six hundred Duranis, ― he seized the treasure, and took the Kuzzelbashes
into his service; and his kind treatment of them induced others to come from
the neighbourhood of Tabriz, Mushid, Kerman, and Shiraz, in Persia; where the
true Kuzzelbashes exercise the profession of horse-breeders, shepherds, and
cultivators. There are perhaps about ten thousand Kuzzelbashes in the city of
Kabul, who are ever ready to draw their swords as mercenaries. Their leaders
are by far the most wealthy, the most intelligent, and the most influential men
at Kabul.
Vigne, Godfrey Thomas, A personal narrative of a visit to Ghuzni, Kabul,
and Afghanistan, and of a residence at the court of Dost Mohamed, with notices
of Runjit Sing, Khiva, and the Russian expedition. ― London: Whittaker &
Co. Ave Maria Lane, 1840, pp. 167―168.
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