Wazir Akbar Khan

وزير أكبر خان

– †

† Hijri date derived by computation from the Gregorian/Julian date; it may differ from the transmitted date by a day or two.

Barakzai prince and general, son of Emir Dost Mohammad Khan; Emir of Kabul from December 1842 to April 1843 and his father's vizier and heir apparent until his death. He won fame at the Battle of Jamrud in 1837 and led the Kabul national party in the First Anglo-Afghan War, whose forces destroyed the retreating British-Indian army in January 1842. He died of cholera at Jalalabad in 1847.

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At a glance

Roles
Ruler
Region
Persia & Central Asia
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Life in time

1780179018001810182018301840185018601870188018901900 c.
The Colonial Era · The Gunpowder Empires Contemporaries: Abd al-Ghaffar al-Akhras · Abd al-Ghani al-Maydani · Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri · Abd al-Qadir dan Tafa · Ahmad Akansus (Moroccan historian, 1797–1877)

Place in the story

    Unknown (unknown)

    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    Summary

    Mohammad Akbar Khan Barakzai (1816 – 10 December 1847), famous as Wazir Akbar Khan, was a Barakzai prince and general, son of the Emir Dost Mohammad Khan. He was Emir of Kabul from December 1842 to April 1843, and his father's vizier and heir apparent until his death. The birth year is disputed: the English article's text and the Arabic and Urdu articles give 1816, its infobox 1817, and the death year likewise (1847 in the English article, 1845 in the Arabic and Urdu infoboxes); both splits are recorded in the data file. 1 2 3

    Early life and Jamrud

    He was born at Mazar-i-Sharif to Dost Mohammad Khan and Merman Khadija Popalzai. His fame began at the Battle of Jamrud in 1837, where Afghan forces failed to retake the fort from the Sikh Empire but the Sikh commander Hari Singh Nalwa was killed; the Urdu article remembers the fight as single combat between the two men. 1 3

    The First Anglo-Afghan War

    In the war of 1839–1842 he led the national party in Kabul against the British occupation that had deposed his father. The British-Indian army under Elphinstone was permitted to retreat from Kabul in January 1842 and was destroyed in the passes; the assistant surgeon William Brydon, the famous sole survivor to reach Jalalabad on 13 January 1842, became the enduring image of the disaster. Akbar Khan took the Bala Hissar in May 1842 and held Kabul until his father's restoration. 1 2

    Emirate and death

    He ruled as Emir from December 1842 until Dost Mohammad's return in April 1843, and thereafter served as vizier and heir apparent. He died of cholera at Jalalabad on 10 December 1847 and was buried at the Blue Mosque, the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, in Mazar-i-Sharif. Kabul's diplomatic quarter, Wazir Akbar Khan, still carries his name. 1 2

    Faith record

    No article text names a school for him. The English article's infobox gives his religion as Sunni Islam; the Arabic article's infobox gives Islam generically and the Urdu article carries no religion field. Under the museum's two-source rule the record therefore stays unknown, with the single structured attestation preserved in the data file. 1 2 3

    Sources

    • The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
    • Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.

    Connections

    Explore the connections

    Child of
    Dost Mohammad Khan

    People and things also explored

    Kohan Dil Khan· Sher Ali Khan· هراة· Dost Mohammad Khan

    Sources

    1. Wazir Akbar Khan — English Wikipedia
    2. Wazir Akbar Khan — Arabic Wikipedia
    3. Wazir Akbar Khan — Urdu Wikipedia
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Wazir Akbar Khan”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/wazir-akbar-khan/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-27.

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    Kohan Dil Khan

    Barakzai sardar of Kandahar (1830–1839 and 1842–1855), one of the 'Dil brothers' who ruled the Principality of Kandahar collectively after its break from the Durrani Empire, and a half-brother of the Kabul amir Dost Mohammad Khan. Exiled with his brothers to Persia during the First Anglo-Afghan War, he returned and recovered Kandahar; his death at Herat in 1855 set off a succession struggle that opened the way for Dost Mohammad's conquest of Kandahar.