Shujah Shah's tenure was anything but stable — by 1812 he was already deep into a losing struggle to hold the Durrani throne, having been deposed once, briefly restored, and perpetually challenged by his half-brother Mahmud Shah and the rising power of Ranjit Singh's Sikh Empire to the east. The Peshawar mint continued striking in his name during these fractured years, making regnal attribution on these issues more a reflection of who briefly controlled the city than any settled political reality.
Shujah would eventually flee to British India in 1816, where he remained in exile for over two decades before being reinstalled by British force in 1839 — an intervention that ignited the First Anglo-Afghan War.
Shujah Shah's tenure was anything but stable — by 1812 he was already deep into a losing struggle to hold the Durrani throne, having been deposed once, briefly restored, and perpetually challenged by his half-brother Mahmud Shah and the rising power of Ranjit Singh's Sikh Empire to the east. The Peshawar mint continued striking in his name during these fractured years, making regnal attribution on these issues more a reflection of who briefly controlled the city than any settled political reality.
Shujah would eventually flee to British India in 1816, where he remained in exile for over two decades before being reinstalled by British force in 1839 — an intervention that ignited the First Anglo-Afghan War.