TAIMUR SHAH (1746-1793), son and successor of Ahmad Shah Durrani, was born in December 1746 at Mashhad, in Iran, where his father was in the service of Nadir Shah. Taimur was educated at home and received practical training in the art of warfare by accompanying his father on many of

AHMADlYAH MOVEMENT, started in the late nineteenth century as a reforming and rejuvenating current in Islam, originated in Qadian in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab. In the 1880`s, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, son of the chief landowning family of Qadian, after he had received revelations and preached a renewal of Islamic

TAZKIRAH (lit. memoir) by Anand Ram Mukhlis, a manuscript of much historical value containing an account of events that took place in North-West India during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The manuscript deals mainly with the Punjab, Nadir Shah`s invasion (1739), Zakariya Khan`s governorship of Punjab (1726-45),

AFGHAN SIKH RELATIONS spanning the years 1748 to 1849 go back to the first invasion of India by Ahmad Shah Durrani, although he must have heard of the Sikhs when in 1739 he accompanied Nadir Shah, the Iranian invader, as a young staff officer. Having occupied Lahore after a minor

TWARIKHIAHMADI, or Tarikhi Ahmad, is a book written by Abdul Karim Alavi and published by Mustafai Press, Lucknow, in 1850. Alavi was a prolific writer and his works include besides many translations from Arabic into Persian, the Tarikhi Ahmad which became the most popular of his works and was

AHMAD SHAH DURRANI (1722-1772), the first of the Saddozai rulers of Afghanistan and founder of the Durrani empire, belonged to the Saddozai section of the Popalzai clan of the Abdali tribe of Afghans. In the 18th century the Abdalis were to be found chiefly around Herat. Under their leader

VADDA GHALLUGHARA, lit. major holocaust or carnage, so called to distinguish it from another similar disaster, Chhota (minor) Ghallughara that took place in 1746, is how a one day battle between the Dal Khalsa and Ahmad Shah Durrani fought on 5 February 1762 with a heavy toll of life is

AHMAD, SHAIKH (1564-1624), celebrated Muslim thinker and theologian of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, was born on 26 May 1564 at Sirhind in present day Patiala district of the Punjab. He received his early education at the hands of his father. Shaikh `Abd al-Ahad, and later studied at Siaiko, now in

YAR MUHAMMAD KHAN (d. 1829), the Barakzai ruler of Peshawar. In November 1818, Ranjit Singh seized the city from him and placed it in the charge of Jahandad Khan another of the Barakzai brothers, but no sooner did Ranjit Singh return to Lahore than Yar Muhammad Khan emerged from

AHMAD YAR KHAN TIWANA (d. 1829), second son of Khan Muhammad Khan, the Tiwana chief of Mittha Tiwana, in Shahpur district, measured swords with Sikhs more than once during Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s time. Ahmad Yar Khan revolted against his father and, having succeeded in attracting most of the tribe to

ZAFARNAMAH MU\'IN UL-MULK, an unpublished manuscript, is a book written in 1748-49 by Ghulam Muhaiy ud-Din Khan. It gives an account of Ahmad Shah Durrani\'s first two invasions of India. Copies of the manuscript are available at the University of the Pahjab, Lahore, Khalsa College, Amritsar, and in the

ALA SINGH, BABA (1691-1765), Sikh mis leader who became the first ruling chief of Patiala, was born in 1691 at Phul, in present day Bathinda district of the Punjab, the third son of Bhai Ram Singh. His grandfather, Baba Phul, had been as a small boy blessed by Guru