'Military Report on Persian Seistan' [‎61r] (126/188)

DEH—DOS
DEH YAR MUHAMMAD KHAN— _ « .
A village eituated on the Alamdar Caral, possessing 5 ploughs of culti-
' vable land. Government revenue 50 kharwars.— (AAmad Lin.)
DEH ZULFIKAR— , , „ ,
A ha'nlet on the Sehkuha Canal, possessing 1^ ploughs of cultivable Jand.
Government revenue 18 kharwars of grain. — (Ahmad Din.)
DIHKAN— , .
Term applied to cultivators of all tribes and nationalities in Seistan.
Amongst them are found Turk, Tatar, Uzbeg, Kurd, Mozhul, and Arab
families; together with the Tajik and Farsivvan, and stray families of the
Afghan, Pathan, Hazara, Drahui, and Baluch. The first category were
probably introduced by the Arab conquerors nnd the invasions of Chinghiz
and Timur. The Tajik and Farsi wan, who are also found in all parts of
Afghanistan and Baluchistan, may represent the early Persian inhabitants
of the country, whilst the last named are recent immigrants exiled from
their own tribes by blood feuds or other reverses of fortune.
The principal tribes of which the present Dihkans in Seistan aie composed
are, Kihba, Buzi, Saiyad, Panjalla, Sargazi, Sangburi, Sangchuli, Shaikh-
lanji, Karakui, Kazak, Bamari, Kawar, Bahrai, Jauri, Khushdad, etc.,
etc.— (Bellew.)
DOSHAKH on DAHSHAKH —
Extensive ruins, about 9 miles from the Helmand, extending north
east from Boleh. These ruins, with those of Pulgi Nadali, Peshawaran
and Zahidan, are the most extensive in Seistan, and mark the sites of
once populous cities, the like of which are not to be found at the piet-ent
time in all the country from the Indus to the Tigris. f l heir melancholy
solitudes now merely exist as the silent memorials of the destruction wrought
bv that e( scourge of God, ^ Tamerlane. This Tartar invader, whose real
name was Timur, is said to have been wounded in the ankle by an arrow
at the siege of Doshakh, from the effects of which he became permanently
lame. Hence the epithet “lang” added to his name “Timurlang, or
Timur the lame, or Tamerlane.”
According to local tradition, Tamerlane was so enraged at the opposition
he experienced here, that he destroyed every city in the province, mas
sacred its people wholesale, and reduced the whole country to a desolate
waste; it has never since regained its former prosperity. “ Memoir of the
Persian Empire/' supposes the ancient Zarani of Ptolemy to be the same as
Doshakh or Dahshakh from native information, from the ten branches of
the canal which were at the spot taken from off the Helmand.
Zarani or Doshakh was the residence of Yakub- bin-Lais, the founder of
the Sufari dynasty of Seistan, who made it the capital of his kingdom
about 868 A.D. It was ultimately sacked and destroyed by Tamerlane m
1384 A.D., and has ever since remained a desolate waste of ruins, amongst
which stands the modern town of Jalalabad, which at the commencement of
the present century was the seat of the Kayani chief, Bahram Khan.—
(Bellexo.)
Ill