Mohammed Shah did not reply to our letter. ‘Ameen,’ we said to ourselves, ‘but we will not allow an Islamic kingdom to be despoiled by heathens just because it has the misfortune to be ruled over by a man who thinks that paradise is a garden where fountains spout grape-juice and common harlots are as bewitching as houris.’

We sent another letter to Mohammed Shah. In the letter we stated our terms clearly enough to pierce his besotted skull. We told him that we would soon be taking the road to Delhi to put the House of the Mughals in order and to restore the Kingdom of Hindustan to Islam. Our price for so doing would be four crore rupees in silver and the ceding of four northern provinces of the Mughal empire to Iran. Our experience of Mohammed Shah’s earlier conduct persuaded us to append a warning. ‘We expect a reply within forty days,’ we wrote.

Forty days went by. Then the whole year. Not only did we get no answer, but our envoy was not allowed to leave Delhi.

We ordered a general muster. Men were drawn to our ever-victorious standard as moths are drawn to a lamp and they were as willing to sacrifice their lives for us as winged insects are for the love of the flame. There were Quzilbashes and Turks and Georgians, Uzbegs, Afghans, Pathans and Biloches. We enlisted engineers and gunners from Inglistan, France and Italia. Very soon we had 1,25,000 men under our command.

On 6 November 1738, kettle drums were biaten and we started our long march to Delhi. It had already turned cold. In the valleys through which we passed the nights were bitter with frost. The tribes which inhabited the region between Kabul and plains of the Punjab, being robbers by nature, often looted our baggage. We would have liked to have taught them a lesson but the affairs of Hindustan demanded that we quicken our steps.

We arrived at the western mouth of the Khyber. We had been told that this pass was like a trap and that large bands of robbers had assembled on the mountaintops to prey on us. We made a brief halt and joined our men for the maghreb prayer. As the sun was about to set we gave orders to strike camp and proceed forward. While the robbers slept in the warmth of their quilts we rode through the fifty miles of the treacherous defile with no light to guide us save that of the stars that twinkled in the clear, cold sky. By the time the robbers were rubbing their eyes to the rising sun we were on the outskirts of the city of Peshawar. We captured Peshawar without any difficulty.