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78 Prince, he had entered on in 1833, but had abandoned because of his father's death. Pretext for attack was found in ancient claims of the Persian dynasty over the Herát valley; and in the seizure and sale by the Herátis of Persian subjects into slavery.

In Herát was Sháh Kamrán, an old debauchee, nephew to Sháh Shujá-ul-Mulk. This latter prince in his person (his elder brother, Sháh Zamán, being blind) now represented the Suddozái clan of the Durání tribe; and claimed the rightful occupancy of the Durání throne in Kábul. During the first decade of the century, Shah Shuja had once failed, but had ultimately succeeded, in regaining the throne of Kábul, from which in 1801, his brother, Sháh Zamán, had been expelled. In the last year of that decade he had been again driven out; had passed through the hands of Mahárájá Ranjít Singh, leaving the Koh-i-Núr in the old Sikh's claw; had found asylum in British India; had again in the fourth decade, with the connivance of Ranjít Singh, invaded, and had been repulsed from Afghánistán. Now, discredited in the eyes of all Afgháns as a man possessed by evil fortune, a man whose  'ikbál'  was bad, he rested, with his blind brother, at Ludhiána, the British frontier station on the Sutlej, and watched events. Their nephew, Sháh Kamrán, meanwhile, was to defend Herát as best he might against the Persian King.

The Durání tribe, to which Sháh Shujá, Sháh Zamán and Sháh Kamrán belonged, comprises among its sections the Populzái and the Bárakzái. To