he skill of Mir Mannu, called Muin ul Mulk, gave the advantage
to the Moghals. Ahmad Shah retreated, and Muin ul Mulk was rewarded
with the governorship of the Panjab. He was soon forced to cede to the
Afghan the revenue of four districts. His failure to fulfil his compact
led to a third invasion in 1752, and Muin ul Mulk, after a gallant
defence of Lahore, had to submit. In 1755-56 Ahmad Shah plundered Delhi
and then retired, leaving his son, Timur, to represent him at Lahore.
Meanwhile the Sikhs had been gathering strength. Then, as now, they
formed only a fraction of the population. But they were united by a
strong hatred of Muhammadan rule, and in the disorganized state of the
country even the loose organization described below made them
formidable. Owing to the weakness of the government the Panjab became
dotted over with forts, built by local chiefs, who undoubtedly lived
largely by plunder. The spiritual organization under a Guru being gone,
there gradually grew up a political and military organization into
twelve _misls_, in which "a number of chiefs agreed, after a somewhat
democratic and equal fashion, to fight under the general orders of some
powerful leader" against the hated Muhammadans. The _misls_ often fought
with one another for a change. In the third quarter of the eighteenth
century _Sardar_ Jassa Singh of Kapurthala, head of the Ahluwalia
_misl_, was the leading man among the Sikhs. Timur having defiled the
tank at Amritsar, Jassa Singh avenged the insult by occupying Lahore in
1756, and the Afghan prince withdrew across the Indus. Adina Beg, the
governor of the Jalandhar Doab, called in the Mahrattas, who drove the
Sikhs out in 1758. Ahmad Shah's fifth invasion in 1761 was rendered
memorable by his great victory over the Mahratta confederacy at Panipat.
When he returned to Kabul, the Sikhs besieged his governor, Zin Khan, in
Sirhind. Next year Ahmad Shah returned, and repaid their audacity by a
crushing defeat near Barnala.

They soon rallied, and, in 1763, under Jassa Singh Ahluwalia and Raja
Ala Singh of Patiala razed Sirhind to the ground. After the sack the
Sikh horsemen rode over the plains between Sirhind and Karnal, each man
claiming for his own any village into which in passing he had thrown
some portion of his garments. This was the origin of the numerous petty
chiefships and confederacies of horsemen, which, along with the Phulkian
States, the British Government took under its protection in