From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

Yár Muhammad, finding the country thus taken from him, set out from Herat to attack Ali Khán; but on arrival at Lásh was suddenly taken seriously ill, and died on the way back to his capital in 1851.

In the confusion following on this event, Ali Khán threw off his dependence on Kandahar, and sent an envoy to the court of Persia with a tender of allegiance. His messenger was well received, and returned with presents and the Persian flags as an emblem of his allegiance. Ali Khán hoisted the flag on his fort at Sihkoha, and then sent his sons as hostages to Mashhad in 1853. A few years later, after the siege of Herat by the Persians, Ali Khán proceeded to Tehran, where he met with a distinguished reception, and his loyalty was further secured by a matrimonial alliance with the royal family, a daughter of the Prince Bahrám, the Sháh’s cousin, being given to him in marriage.

In the spring of 1858, he returned to Sistan with his Persian bride and a military escort; but the new regime introduced by him, and the interference of his Persian companions in the internal affairs of the country, soon led to a general revulsion of feeling against him and his foreign supporters; and a plot, headed by Táj Muhammad, the brother of the deposed Lutf Ali, was formed to get rid of him and his myrmidons. The Sistani were raised in revolt, and, in a night attack upon Sihkoha, Ali Khán was surprised and slain by his nephew Táj Muhammad. His Persian supporters were then driven out of the country, and Táj Muhammad assumed the government as an independent chief in 1858. The Persian Government was restrained by treaty engagements from carrying out their purposed measures of retribution; and Táj Muhammad on his part expressing regret for the mishap that befell the Persian princess (she was slightly wounded in the head in her attempts to protect her husband), and pleading excuses in justification of his conduct against his uncle, was pardoned. Subsequently, through the medium of Mír Alam Khán, the Persian governor of Ghazn, he was conciliated and won over to the Persian interest; and in 1862, when the late Amir Dost Muhammad Khán advanced against Herat, he, fearful of losing his independence, and preferring allegiance to a distant master than to one close at hand, appealed to the Persian Government for protection, as a Persian subject, against the Afghan, and deputed his brother Kuhndil to the Persian court in earnest of his professions.

In the following year, Dost Muhammad, having restored Herat to his kingdom, died there on the 9th of June in a ripe old age, and was succeeded by the appointed heir, the present Amir Sher Ali Khán. He hastened to Kabul to take up the reins of government; but ere he reached the capital commenced those plots and divisions that presently involved the country in a long-foreseen anarchy and bloodshed.

At this juncture Táj Muhammad’s envoy to Tehran returned to Sistan, accompanied by some of the principal Persian officers who, on a former occasion, had come to the country with the late Ali Khán. The chief of these, Sartip Sálih Muhammad, not finding the Sistani quite so amenable as he had wished for, suddenly broke off his relations with them, and hastily retired from the country to Ghazn, vowing condign vengeance on the part of the Persian Government.

The Sárbandi chiefs, now fearful of the consequences, deputed one Sohráb Bey, a trusty agent, to the Kandahar governor, deprecating his neglect of Sistan affairs, and, as a part of Afghanistan, seeking protection against the encroachments of Persia. This was in 1864, at a time when the new Amir had his hands full of more important and more pressing troubles that threatened the very existence of his throne, and the affairs of Sistan were consequently left to adjust themselves as best they could; but an envoy, Ahmad Khán, Kákarr, was sent with the returning agent to reassure the people and learn the true state of affairs.

Táj Muhammad, now finding that there was no hope of support from Kandahar, again deputed his brother Kuhudil to Tehran. He was here detained as a hostage; and a Persian army invaded Sistan, and took possession of the country in the name of the Sháh in 1865. In the spring of 1867 Táj Muhammad was deposed and sent prisoner to Tehran, and Mír ’Alam Khán of Gháyn was appointed Persian governor of the district, with the title of Hashmat-ul-Mulk.

With the deportation of Táj Muhammad ended the influence of the Sárbandi in Sistan. Under the Persian rule the power of the local chiefs has become centred in Sharíf Khán, the Nahroe Baloch, who has risen from an insignificant position entirely by his Persian connection.

The Shahrki tribe, who were brought into Sistan at the same time as the Sárbandi, were first settled under their chief, Mír Chákar, at Dashtak, Pulkí, Wásilán, and other villages on the Hámún. Mír Chákar was succeeded by his son Mír Beg, and he by his son Mír Háshim, in whose time their possessions were considerably increased by encroachments on the lands of the rapidly declining Kayáni. Mír Háshim was succeeded by his son Mír Mahdi, and he by his brother Mír Muhammad ’Ali, who is now a hostage at Tehran. The tribe occupy twelve or fourteen villages, and number about three thousand families in Sistan.

By some accounts, the Shahrki are said to be a section of the Muhammad Hassani or Mammassání division of the Brahoe tribe; and according to local tradition, they were driven out of Sistan by the invasion of Tymúr, and sought refuge in the adjoining province of Kirmán. Tymúr’s son and successor, Sháh Rúkh, collected their scattered families, and located them at Búrújard, near Rúm, in Persia, where they were known by the name of Sháh Rukhi or Shahrki. From this they were resettled in Sistan and the adjoining districts of Kirmán and Lár by Nadír Sháh, at the same time that he transported the Sárbandi from the same locality near Hamadán to Sistan. The Sárbandi are supposed to be the descendants of the ancient Persians or Gabars (or Guebres), and in Persia occupied the lands adjoining those given to the Shahrki. Their name is said to be derived from that of the locality occupied by them.