Mir Wais Hotak

The Afghans make periodic attempts to gain independence from the Mughal or Safavid overlords.

Mir Wais Khan, a leader of the Hotaki clan of the Ghilzai Pashtun tribe, captures Qandahar in 1709 after defeating Gurgin Khan, the Safavid governor of the city, and establishes an independent Pashtun kingdom here, ruling Kandahar unofficially until his death in 1715.

Afghanistan, known to the classical world as Ariana or Bactria and to the medieval world as Khorasan, has long been a pawn of foreign empires and local emirates.

Afghanistan from the sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century has been part of three regional kingdoms: the Khanate of Bukhara in north, the Shi'a Safavids in the west and the remaining larger area ruled by the Mughal Empire.

Mir Wais Hotak, the son of Salim Khan and Nazo Tokhi (also known as "Nazo Anaa"), grandson of Karum Khan, and great-grandson of Ismail Khan, a descendant of Malikyar, the ancient head of Hottaki or Hotaks, was born in a well-known, rich and political family long involved in social and community services in the Kandahar area.

The Hottaki is a strong branch of Ghilzai, one of the main tribes among the Pashtun people.

The Ghilzai, originally residents of Ghor or Gherj, had later migrated to obtain lands in southeastern Afghanistan and multiplied in these areas.

Mir Wais was married to Khanzada Sadozai, who belonged to a rival tribe of Pashtuns, the Abdali, or Durrani.

Kandahar in 1707 had been in a state of chaos, fought over by the Shi'a Persian Safavids and the Sunni Moghuls of India.

Mir Wais, a Sunni tribal chief whose influence with his fellow-countrymen make him an object of suspicion to the Safavid rulers, had been held as a political prisoner by Gurgin Khan, former Georgian monarch and now governor of Kandahar, and sent to the Safavid court at Isfahan.

He has studied carefully all the military weaknesses of the Safavids while spending time in their court.

Eventually freed, Mir Wais had even been allowed to meet with the Shah, Sultan Husayn, on a regular basis.

Having ingratiated himself with the Persian Court, Mirwais had sought and obtained permission to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, currently a part of the Ottoman empire (after which he is known as Hajji).

Mir Wais Hotak, while in Mecca, had sought from the leading authorities a fatwa against the Shia Safavid rulers who are persecuting the Pashtun people in his homeland.

The Pashtun tribes rankle under the ruling Safavids because of their continued attempts to forcefully convert them from Sunni to Shia Islam.

The fatwa had been granted and Mir Wais had carried it with him to Iṣfahan and subsequently to Kandahar, with permission to return and make strong recommendations to Gurgin Khan, the Safavid governor.

Mir Wais begins organizing his countrymen in 1709 for a major uprising, and in April, when a large part of the Persian garrison is on an expedition outside the city, he and his followers fall on the remainder and kill the greater number of them, including Gurgin Khan.

After Gurgin Khan and his escort are killed, the Hotaki soldiers take control of the city, then the province.

A punitive expedition into the Afghan lands led by Gurgin Khan’s nephew, Kay Khusrau, ends disastrously in October 1711 with his death and the destruction of nearly his entire Persian force of thirty thousand.

Mir Wais has decisively defeated two larger Persian armies, one led by Khusraw Khán and the other by Rustam Khán, by 1713.

The armies had been sent by Sultan Husayn, the Shah in Isfahan (now Iran), to retake control of the Kandahar region.

Mir Wais dies of a natural cause in November 1715 and is succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who will soon be killed by Mir Wais' son Mahmud, allegedly for planning to return sovereignty over Qandahar to Persia.

Mahmud, the young son and successor of Mir Wais Hotak, is not content to hold only Qandahar.

He leads some twenty thousand men against Isfahan in 1722; the Safavid government surrenders after a six-month siege.