SHOJA' MIRZA,

SHOJA'-UL-MULK, Shoja' also spelled SHUJA' (born . 1780--d. April 1842, Kabul, Afghanistan), shah, or king, of Afghanistan (1803-10; 1839-42) whose alliance with the British led to his death.
Shoja' ascended the throne in 1803 after a long fratricidal war. In 1809 he concluded an alliance with the British against an expected Franco-Russian invasion of India but, the following year, was overthrown by his elder brother Shah Mahmud and went into exile in British India. He eventually fled to Lahore, where in 1813 he attempted to obtain the assistance of the Sikh emperor Ranjit Singh by offering him the giant Koh-i-noor diamond. Ranjit Singh accepted the offer but procrastinated with his assistance, using the time instead to consolidate the Sikh empire. Shah Shoja' in 1816 left for Ludhiana and placed himself under British protection. For 23 years he engaged in a number of unsuccessful schemes to regain his throne. Finally, in 1839, he was again placed on the throne by the British during the first Afghan War but was assassinated when the British occupation force withdrew from Kabul.

The new king, Shah Shoja', ascended the throne in 1803. The chiefs had become powerful and unruly, and the outlying provinces were asserting their independence. The Sikhs of the Punjab were encroaching upon Afghan territories from the east, while the Persians were threatening from the west.

Napoleon, then at the zenith of his power in Europe, proposed to Alexander I of Russia a combined invasion of India. A British mission, headed by Mountstuart Elphinstone, met Shah Shoja' at Peshawar to discuss mutual defense against this threat, which never developed. A treaty of friendship was concluded (June 7, 1809), the shah promising to oppose the passage of foreign troops through his dominions. Shortly after the mission left Peshawar news was received that Kabul had been occupied by the forces of Mahmud and Fath Khan. Shah Shoja''s troops were routed, and he withdrew from Afghanistan and found asylum with the British at Ludhiana in 1815.

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