Dost Mohammad Khan

Dost Mohammad Khan Barakzai, (23 December 1792 – 9 June 1863) nicknamed the Great Emir, was the founder of the Barakzai dynasty and one of the prominent rulers of Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War. With the decline of the Durrani dynasty, he succeeded his brother Sultan Mohammad Khan, and became the Emir of Afghanistan in 1826. An ethnic Pashtun, he belonged to the Mohammadzai branch of the Barakzai tribe. He was the 11th son of Payandah Khan, chief of the Barakzai Pashtuns, who was killed in 1800 by King Zaman Shah Durrani.

At the beginning of his rule, the Afghans lost their former stronghold of Peshawar Valley in March 1823 to the Sikh Khalsa Army of Ranjit Singh at the Battle of Nowshera. The Afghan forces in the battle were led by Mohammad Azim Khan, half-brother of Dost Mohammad Khan. By the end of his reign, he had reunited the principalities of Kandahar and Herat with Kabul. Dost had ruled for a lengthy 36 years, a span exceeded only by Mohammad Zahir Shah more than a century later.

A brilliant strategist, and ruthless fighter from a young age, Dost Mohammad is regarded as one of the greatest rulers in the history of Afghanistan, his myriad of campaigns had successfully forged the cities of Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat into one state, which all his predecessors, with the exception of Ahmad Shah Durrani and Timur Shah Durrani, had failed to do.