Grim internecine struggles, tribal revolts, and the rise of local rulers in the Indian provinces characterize this next period of Afghanistan's history. Sadozai fought Sadozai and the Barakzai backed first one and then another with bewildering reversals. Objections to Ahmad Shah's heir-designate, his second son, Timur (1772-1793), were voiced even as the Shah lay ill in the hills to the east of Kandahar and erupted with violence on his death. In struggling for control Timur Shah so alienated the tribal elite at Kandahar that he was forced to move his capital to Kabul (1776). His entire reign was spent in quelling revolts at home and in India, a hopeless task for he was too little regarded to command a loyal following and too weak and badly organized to govern through force alone.

His irresolute lack of foresight is vividly exemplified, for in-stance, by the fact that at his death he left 23 sons but no heir-designate. His own experiences should have led him to do this much at least toward preserving some semblance of order on his death. But there was no order, only chaos, as Timur Shah's unfinished mausoleum in Kabul attests. The fights began im-mediately and from the turmoil three sons emerged for the final contest. The others were either defeated in battle, murdered, blinded, imprisoned and lost forever within the dungeons of Kabul's Bala Hissar, or, aligned with one or another of the major combatants.

Prince Zaman, (1793-1800) the fifth son, was the first to triumph and he occupied his father's throne in Kabul with the help of Payenda Khan, chief of the Barakzai and son of that same Haji Jamal Mohammadzai who had stepped aside in favor of Ahmad Shah. Ousting a brother from Kandahar, Zaman Shah and his army marched on Herat where an oath of allegiance, in exchange for the governorship of Herat, was extracted from a reluctant Prince Mahmud, second son and Zaman Shah's most formidable rival at this juncture.

Thus was established a division which would persist, though with frequent shifts in the cast of characters, until the end of the 19th century: Kabul became the major seat of power; Herat remained a semi-independent state from which bids for Kabul's throne were constantly launched; Kandahar continued in a state of chaos, fought over by both Herat and Kabul. As the years of unrest eroded away the power of Kabul, the Ainir of Bokhara extended his influence over the local khanates north of the Hindu Kush and, east of the Indus all effective control was lost to local Indian rulers. The empire was gone and the Sadozai struggled to maintain authority at home.

In the beginning, however, things seemed to auger well for Zaman Shah: he was able to unseat his brother, Mahmud, and force him to flee Herat; he secured a treaty with the Amir of Bokhara in which the Amir agreed to stay north of the Oxus; and he even ventured on campaigns to restore Afghan power east of the Indus, frightening the British then busily establishing an empire in India just beyond his borders. The intricacies of palace intrigue, however, proved too much for Zaman Shah and he be-came inextricably enmeshed by ambitious factions jealous of Payenda Khan. Highly susceptible to suggestions of conspiracy, Zaman Shah ordered the chief assassinated and thereby signaled his own downfall-Payenda Khan Barakzai also had 21 sons and the assassination focused their combined wrath on Zaman Shah's destruction.

Fateh Khan, the ablest of the Barakzai brothers, sped to join Mahmud, by then in exile in Persia, and together they proceeded to Kandahar. Mahmud had a very small following at this time but his new ally not only had the powerful backing of the Barakzai, but the following of other influential tribes in the Kandahar area as well. Together they secured Kandahar and advanced on Kabul from which Zaman Shah fled towards Peshawar. On the way he was captured, blinded and imprisoned in Kabul's Bala Hissar. Three years later (1803), however, Shah Mahmud took his place in these dungeons. Zaman Shah's full brother, Shah Shuja, had come to avenge his brother's disgrace, and succeeded.

Fateh Khan, on the other hand, was wooed by the new occupant of Kabul's throne, for Shah Shuja realized that he must obtain the united consent of the tribes if he was to remain master on his throne. Fateh Khan was the all important key to that consent. His story, a fantastic series of vacillations between periodic accom-modation with Shah Shuja, peeved inactivity in his castle at Girishk, open rebellion as champion of both Zaman Shah's sons and Shah Mahmud's sons and renewed support of Shah Mahmud, vividly epitomizes this entire period of confusion.

Shah Shuja (1803-1809) survived for a full six years but in 1809 he was defeated by Shah Mahmud, who had been rescued from the Bala Hissar by Fateh Khan. Shah Shuja fled to exile in India. During his second reign (1809-1818) Shah Mahmud was seriously troubled by foreign incursions. The Sikhs, firmly in control at Lahore since Zaman Shah's appointment of Ranjit Singh as governor, conspired to add Kashmir and Peshawar to their do-mains. The Persians wanted Herat. Fateh Khan dashed from one battle to the next and in 1818 succeeded in defeating a Persian army harassing Herat. Though victorious over the Persians, he had yet, however, to fight his way into the citadel of Herat, tenaciously held by another brother of Shah Mahmud. During this battle one of Fateh Khan's brothers, Dost Mohammad, was accused of mis-conduct within the governor's harem. One of the ladies complained and Fateh Khan's fate was sealed.

Shah Mahmud's son, Kamran, the offended lady's brother and a discarded protégé of Fateh Khan's, had been seething with hatred and jealously for some time. He now seized upon the harem affair and convinced his father that Fateh Khan was pre-paring to usurp the power of the throne. Ordered to simply bring Fateh Khan to Kandahar for questioning, the obsessed youth overstepped his instructions and blinded Fateh Khan. Released, the awful wrath of the Barakzai once again converged on Kabul from every direction. These Barakzai brought with them minor members of the royal family to sit upon the throne, for the aura of Ahmad Shah still enveloped his sons and their sons with the mantle of legitimacy, but all pretense that they were anything but puppets was discarded. Sadozai rule was at an end.

Shah Mahmud and Kamran marched from Kandahar to the defense of Kabul with Fateh Khan in tow. Daily they entreated him to stem the wrath of his brothers but their impassioned pleas were met with dignified refusals. In the frenzied panic born of the certitude of defeat, father and son stoned and hacked their blinded prisoner to pieces near Ghazni and fled to Herat. The Barakzai took Kabul.

Fateh Khan is buried at Ghazni where tombstones lie broken and neglected on his grave. The towering walls of his castle at Girishk, however, still command the empty desert. The castle stands alone, dominating the scene for miles in every direction, symbol of the individual ambitions of its former occupant who dominated the history of Afghanistan during these turbulant years.