Siege of Bost (1638)
31°33′57″N 64°21′03″E / 31.565961°N 64.350822°E
| Siege of Bost (1638) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Mughal–Safavid War (1637–1638) | |||||||||
Surrender of the Safavids under Mihrab Khan to the Mughal general Qulij Khan Turani at the Siege of Bost (1638). Padshahnama (c.1640).[1] Musée Guimet (MA 3318) | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Safavid Iran | Mughal Empire | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Shah Safi Mihrab Khan |
Shah Jahan Qulij Khan Turani | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 12,000 | |||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 100 †, 300 wounded | |||||||||
The Siege of Bost, from July 28 to September 3, 1638, was a siege of the fortress of Bost (modern Lashkari Bazar) led by the Mughal Empire general Qulij Khan Turani sent by Shah Jahan, against the Safavids under Mihrab Khan, an Armenian ghulam of the ruler of Iran Safi of Persia.[2][3][4][5][6] The siege was part of the Mughal–Safavid War (1637–1638), and followed the Fall of Kandahar in March 1638.
The siege
Qulij Khan Turani, the governor of Multan, had only arrived in Kandahar with imperial decrees on May 3, several months after the Fall of Kandahar, in order to take possession of the fortress as imperial governor.[7] He then campaigned to capture several smaller Safavid fortresses in the area.[8]
The Padshahnama (1646) relates in detail the events of the siege of Bost and also provides a detailed miniature illustration.[9] Qulij Khan Turani arrived at the fortress of Bost on July 26, 1638, and started to establish troops around it.[2] He led a force of about 12,000 troops.[10] Tunnels and trenches were dug out, attempting to mine the foundations of the walls. Meanwhile, the defenders fired at the attackers.[2] Finally two tunnels were run under the walls and consolidated, and then packed with gunpowder.[2] On August 18, the explosives were lit, and their explosions opened a proper way into the fortress.[2] The attackers, properly armored, ran into the fortress. The rest of the Mughal attackers used ladders to climb the walls.[2] Many of the enemies were killed, but the Mughals also lost about a hundred men in the offensive, with an additional three hundred wounded.[2] The Safavids fled towards the central citadel while the Mughal took positions on the outers walls.[2] Mihrab Khan was also entrenched in the citadel, with little water resources.[2] New tunnels were dug towards the citadel, and their explosives were lit on September 2. The towers of the central fortress were blown up, and tunnels were soon dug under the central citadel itself.[2]
Seeing no possible exit Mihrab Khan sued for amnesty. He turned over the citadel to the Mughals on September 3, and surrendered to Qulij Khan Turani.[2] Qulij Khan Turani hosted Mihrab Khan and his followers for one day, none of the surrendering were killed, and he gave them robes.[2] Finally, he returned them to Persia as they had requested.[2]
The scene of the battle appears in a 1646 Mughal painting from the Padshahnama, in which the various stages of the siege can be seen, including the breaching of the outer walls with mines, the Mughals climbing the walls and invading the inner fortress, and the surrender of Mihrab Khan.[11]
Aftermath
Bost would be recaptured by the Safavids after about 10 years, in the summer of 1648, as Shah Abbas II led an army numbering 40,000 against the Mughals.[14] The Mughals had been weakened by their disastrous campaigns in Balkh and Badakhshan.[14]
Kandahar was also recaptured by the Safavids in the same campaign, in the Siege of Kandahar (1648–1649). The Mughal armies were unable to ever recapture these fortresses, despite repeated sieges during the Mughal–Safavid War (1649–1653).
Sources
- Matthee, Rudi; Mashita, Hiroyuki (2010). "KANDAHAR iv. From The Mongol Invasion Through the Safavid Era". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XV/5: Ḵamsa of Jamāli–Karim Devona. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 478–484. ISBN 978-1-934283-28-8.
- Thackston, Wheeler M. (2025). Padshahnama: A Chronicle of the Reign of Shahjahan (Volume 2: 1637–1647). Singapore: Springer. ISBN 978-981-96-5924-1.
References
- ^ a b Welch, Stuart Cary (1985). India: art and culture, 1300-1900. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. pp. 247–248. ISBN 978-0030061141. "In the miniature, Qulij Khan accepts the keys of a conquered city, probably Bust, which was captured in the eleventh year of the reign from Mihrab Khan, one of the Iranian shah's abler generals. (...) . In the foreground, the Mughal general accepts his enemy's submission, while the background itemizes incidents of the siege"
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thackston 2025, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Thackston 2025, pp. 28–30, 61 p.28: "The next day Qilich Khan and the army commanders toured the fortress, and he stationed his liegeman Fulad Beg there with five hundred riflemen and yeomen to guard it. After reassuring himself of the security of all the ways in and out of that installation and of the others he turned his attention to conquering the Bust fortress. He arrived at the foot of that bastion on the 14th of Rabi‘ I [July 26], and on the 18th [July 30] he assigned battle stations around the fortress to the troops." p.61: "When the Qandahar fortress came under the control of the agents of the empire this Mihrab Khan had been the castellan of Bust, and Qilich Khan took Bust from him by force and gave him amnesty and leave to return to Iran."
- ^ Khan, Nawwab Samsam-ud-daula Shah Nawaz (1952). The Maathir -ul-umara Vol.ii. p. 1001.
(Mirza) Yusuf Khan Radavi (...) In the 11th [1638-1639] year when the Qandahar fort came into the royal possession, he was deputed with the Faujdar of Siwistan for settling that area. He performed valuable services in company with Qulij Khan the Governor of the area in connection with the capture of the Bust fort.
- ^ Welch, Stuart Cary (1985). India: art and culture, 1300-1900. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. pp. 247–248. ISBN 978-0030061141. "In the miniature, Qulij Khan accepts the keys of a conquered city, probably Bust, which was captured in the eleventh year of the reign from Mihrab Khan, one of the Iranian shah's abler generals. (...) Qulij Khan Turani, the devoted follower of the emperor, whose army boasted an elite corps of one thousand Uzbeks"
- ^ "La reddition de Kandahar". Musée Guimet (in French).
- ^ Thackston 2025, p. 25 "After the imperial decree and Qilich Khan arrived in Qandahar, Alimardan Khan came out of the fortress with his followers and camped outside the city on the 18th of Dhu’l-Hijja [May 3]."
- ^ Thackston 2025, p. 25.
- ^ Thackston 2025, pp. 28–35.
- ^ Islam, Riazul (1979). A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations, 1500-1750. Iranian Culture Foundation. p. 348.
Qilij Khan with a force of 12,000 troops to besiege Bust.
- ^ Welch, Stuart Cary (1985). India: art and culture, 1300-1900. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. pp. 247–248. ISBN 978-0030061141.
- ^ The Archaeology of Afghanistan from earliest times to the Timurid period. London ; New York : Academic Press. 1978. p. 310. ISBN 978-0-12-050440-4.
- ^ Schlumberger, Daniel (1952). "Le Palais ghaznévide de Lashkari Bazar". Syria. 29 (3/4): 257. ISSN 0039-7946.
- ^ a b Iranica 2010.