Barha Tegin (665 - 680 CE) was the first ruler of the

Turk Shahis The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko- Hephthalite, origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity."The new rulers of Kabu ...

. He is only known in name from the accounts of the Muslim historian

Al-Biruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...

and reconstructions from Chinese sources, and the identification of his coinage remains conjectural.

Rule

Barha Tegin appears in history following the capture of Kabul by the Arabs under

Abdur Rahman bin Samara ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Samura ( ar, عبد الرحمن بن سمرة, died in Basra) was a general of the Rashidun caliphate and the succeeding Umayyad Caliphate, and caliphal governor of Sijistan in the 7th century CE. Biography According to ...

circa 665 CE. The ruler of Kabul at that time was

Ghar-ilchi Ghar-ilchi (Chinese: 曷撷支 ''Hexiezhi'', also transliterated as ''Ko-chieh-chih'', 653-661 CE) was, according to Chinese and Arab sources, a local king of Kapisi and the twelfth and last known ruler of the Nezak Huns. Ghar-ilchi may have been ...

of the

Nezak Huns The Nezak Huns ( Pahlavi: 𐭭𐭩𐭰𐭪𐭩 ''nycky''), also Nezak Shahs, formed a major principality in the south of the Hindu Kush region, active from circa 484 to 665 CE. Despite being traditionally identified as the last of the Hunnic stat ...

. The Arab conquest mortally weakened the Nezak Dynasty. The Turk Shahis under Barha Tegin, who were already ruling in Zabulistan, were then able to take control of

Kabulistan Kabulistan (Pashto: کابلستان) is a historical regional name referring to the territory that is centered on present-day Kabul Province of Afghanistan. In many Greek and Latin sources, particularly editions of Ptolemy's ''Geography'', the ...

. Some authors attribute the rise of Barha Tegin precisely to the weakening of the last Nezak Hun ruler

, after the successful Arab invasion under Abd al-Rahman ibn Samura. They then mounted a full counter-offensive and repulsed the Arabs, taking back lost territory as far as the region of

Arachosia Arachosia () is the Hellenized name of an ancient satrapy situated in the eastern parts of the Achaemenid empire. It was centred around the valley of the Arghandab River in modern-day southern Afghanistan, and extended as far east as the In ...

and

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a List of cities in Afghanistan, city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population ...

. Barha Tegin also moved the capital from Kapisa to

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Chinese account

According to the 726 CE account of the Korean monk

Hyecho Hyecho (; 704–787), Sanskrit: Prajñāvikrama; pinyin: Hui Chao, was a Buddhist monk from Silla, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Hyecho studied esoteric Buddhism in Tang China, initially under Śubhakarasiṃha and then under the famous In ...

who visited the region, Barha Tegin was a former ally of the ruler of Kabul, who then usurped the throne: According to Shōshin Kuwayama, the "A-yeh" (阿耶) in the text is not a personal name but means "father", implying that the leader of the cavalry described by Hiecho was "the father of the (current) Turkish King" (突厥王阿耶). Since the Turkish king at the time of Hyecho was

Tegin Shah Shahi Tegin, Tegin Shah or Sri Shahi (ruled 680-739 CE, known to the Chinese as 烏散特勤灑 ''Wusan Teqin Sa'' "Tegin Shah of Khorasan") was a king of the Turk Shahis, a dynasty of Western Turk or mixed Western Turk-Hephthalite origin who ru ...

(680-739 CE), it is indeed his father Barha Tegin who led the "cavalry and allied himself to the king of Kapisa" before assassinating him. Regarding the description of the troops led by Barha Tegin, Kuwayama differs from the above translation (''"he took a defeated cavalry"...''), and gives: ''"he led an army and a tribe..."'', while Fuchs translates ''"with the troops of his entire tribe..."''.

Account by al-Biruni

Royal couple, Fondukistan, 7th century CE

, writing his ''Tārīkh al-Hind'' ("History of India") in the 11th century, attributes the story of Barha Tegin's rise to a stratagem: According to Shōshin Kuwayama the two accounts can be seen as a coherent whole, in which Hyecho's account describes first how Barha Tegin brought his military support and finally toppled the king in the ancient capital of Kapisi, and al-Biruni's account describes how Barha Tegin then took control of Kabul and became "Kabul Shah". From 680 CE,

, son of Barha Tegin, became the king of the Turk Shahis. Barha Tegin had a second son named Rutbil, who seceded, and founded the

Zunbil Zunbil, also written as Zhunbil, or Rutbils of Zabulistan, was a royal dynasty south of the Hindu Kush in present southern Afghanistan region. They ruled from circa 680 AD until the Saffarid conquest in 870 AD. The Zunbil dynasty was founded by R ...

dynasty in

Zabulistan Zabulistan ( fa, زابلستان ''Zābulistān''/''Zābolistān''/''Zāwulistān'' or simply ''Zābul'', ps, زابل ''Zābəl''), was a historical region in southern Afghanistan roughly corresponding to the modern provinces of Zabul and G ...

Coinage

The initial coinage of the Turk Shahi initially adopted the Nezak Hun types, with the bull-head crown, but with blundered

Pahlavi Pahlavi may refer to: Iranian royalty *Seven Parthian clans, ruling Parthian families during the Sasanian Empire *Pahlavi dynasty, the ruling house of Imperial State of Persia/Iran from 1925 until 1979 **Reza Shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944 ...

legends. Still the minting quality was fine, and the metal of the coins was of a higher quality. Some completely new types of copper coins soon appear, with a ruler in Central Asian caftan on the front, and an animal such as an elephant or a bull on the back, in place of the traditional

Sasanian The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

fire altar, together with the Turk Shahis

tamgha A tamga or tamgha (from otk, 𐱃𐰢𐰍𐰀, tamga, lit=stamp, seal; tr, damga; mn, tamga; ; ); an abstract Seal (emblem), seal or Seal (emblem), stamp used by Eurasian nomads and by cultures influenced by them. The tamga was normally the e ...

. According to Kuwayama, the coinage of Barha Tegin corresponds to the early silver coins marked "Shri Shahi" ( ''Srio Shaho'', "Lord King"), and to the copper coinage depicting a Turkic ruler with three-crescent crown and wolf-head with the

Brahmi script Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' o ...

legend "Sri Ranasrikari" ( Gupta_allahabad_shrii

''Sri Ranasrikari'', "The Lord who brings excellence through war"). File:Turk Shahis. Sri Ranasrikari. Late 7th to early 8th century CE.jpg, "Sri Ranasrikari" coin with portrait of the ruler, and Sasanian-type altar on the reverse. File:Une drachme d'un roi Turk Sahi (VIIIe siècle) (32818775084).jpg, Another coin in the name of "Ranasrikari" File:Turk Shahi-Drachm.png, Another coin example with the Bactrian legend "Srio Shaho" ("Lord King").

References

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * {{Afghanistan topics Turkic dynasties Dynasties of Afghanistan Kabul Shahi