TANOL TIMES: Amb State

Amb was a princely state of the former British Indian Empire. Amb State was ruled by the chiefs of the Hindwal clan of the Tanoli tribe that inhabits the Trans Indus Tanawal region of the present day Hazara division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Though the princely state came into being when the title of Nawab was conferred on Nawab Muhammad Akram Khan Tanoli in 1858, the chieftainship of Amb has its roots in the mid seventeenth century when the ancestors of the Nawabs of Amb restored their authority in their ancestral region of Tanawal after successfully driving out the powerful Mughal vassals of Pakhli Sarkar. In the mid eighteenth century, the Tanoli secured political concessions and the right to taxation on a section of the lucrative Kabul-Kashmir trade route in return for military service with the Afghan King Ahmad Shah Abdali during his invasions of India. In the early half of the nineteenth century, the ancestor of the Nawabs of Amb Painda Khan Tanoli put up a fierce resistance to the authority of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Lahore Durbar. Various primary historical sources from Sohan Lal Suri’s Umdat ut Tawarikh to Mahtab Singh’s Tawarikh e Hazara and the travel accounts of Alexander Burnes and Edward Barry Conolly show how Upper Tanawal remained one of the few regions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where Sikh rule could not be established. In 1858, the British Empire recognized Amb as a semi independent principality with its own army and postal service that was ruled according to tribal customs and Islamic law. In 1913, Nawab Muhammad Khan e Zaman Khan Tanoli of Amb State was the biggest donor to Islamia College Peshawar after the Nizam of Hyderabad Deccan. In 1947, Amb State acceded to Pakistan during the reign of Nawab Muhammad Farid Khan Tanoli who was a close friend of Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

In October 1947, 500 Tanoli infantrymen from Amb State Forces participated in Kashmir’s war of liberation with their own artillery and transport, alongside other tribesmen from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

With a population of 50,000 persons and territory of 600 square kilometers in 1950, Amb State was the oldest among Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s four princely states, the others being Dir, Chitral and Swat. Amb State was merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 1969. In the 1970s, Amb State’s capitals at Amb and Darband were completely submerged by the damming of the Indus at Tarbela. The present Nawab of Amb, Nawabzada Salahuddin Saeed, maintains his residence at the Shergarh Haveli in Upper Tanawal.