History of Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s opium production has soared despite eradication efforts. This is partly due to a prolonged drought linked to climate change. But it is also due to the collapses of traditional irrigation systems and the social cohesion upon which the maintenance of those systems depend. This crisis, in turn, raises deeper questions about prevailing notions of the “natural” and the “social” as dichotomous and distinct.

This book is now available in paperback and has been revised, updated along with a few minor corrections. It is available from all the usual outlets or from Reaktion Books website. In Australasia it is distributed by New South Wales Books, in the USA from Chicago UP.

The book is now available in Simple Chinese.

It is also in the process of being published in Persian (Afghanistan Dari) and should appear early 2024.

The book challenges colonial and Afghan nationalist preconceptions of the rise of the Durrani monarchy; its claim to Pushtun identity; colonial policy Afghanistan's internal and external relations. The work is aimed at both undergraduate and postgraduate students; as well as aid workers; diplomats and those wishing to dig deeper into the history of Afghanistan. It has over 100 illustration and includes maps and genealogical charts and index.

It is seen that Nadir Shah once enthroned as a king in 1148/1736 in Persia, added his own name to the coins. Four types of coins were produced by him during his twelve years rule of Persia.
During the period of Ahmad Shah (Durrani) Abdali weight of silver coins (rupee) remained quite stable around 11g.
The weight standard is kept as per the practice of Mughals. Though the whole range of coinage of Durranis is of good and artistic quality, but the coins of Shah Zaman specially earn appreciation on account of theri high artistic quality, variety, stability in weight and are well struck. Second in beauty comes the issues of Ahmad Shah minted in Qandhar. No copper coins are included in the volume therefore these are not discussed here.

When Muhammad b. Tekesh became Khwarazmshah in 1200, he needed some years to consolidate his position. In the process, a tactics of winning over local power-holders is particularly striking. The paper gives some examples and a brief analysis of the relationship between imperial ruler and local power-holders.

The Hazāras
By Hassan Poladi

Several American scholars have studied the Hazara culture and tradition, but the most important among them is a noted anthropologist, Dr, Robert L. Canfield. Professor Canfield lived among the Hazaras for several years during which time he learned their languages and studied their culture and history in detail. Basing his doctoral thesis on his findings, he received his doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Canfield has read The Hazaras and has this to say about the book:

"The Hazaras are a minority people in Afghanistan where customs and historical experience have been treated lightly in most studies of the regions; their own memory of their past has scarcely been recorded. and much of what is recorded comes from outsiders. Hassan Poladi has produced the first comprehensive monograph on the Hazaras. Drawing from a diversity of sources in several languages, Poladi presents what is known about the history and culture of the Hazaras peoples and adds valuable new material from his own experience as a Hazara. he has thus given us a distinctive and authoritative viewpoint of his own people and culture, This is an individual Hazara's attempt conscientiously to record the historical experience of his own people."


"It has become common in recent years for third-world people to write histories from their own point of view. These works have provided a valuable new perspective on the past that have usefully counterbalanced the more familiar histories produced from European sources. some of which have been hostile. Hassan poladi is to be congratulated for producing a comprehensive examination of the Hazaras that will surely stimulate new discussions about Hazaras origins and history and provoke a fresh interest on their experience as a minority people in Afghanistan."

ROBERT L. CANFIELD

Professor and Chari Department of Anthropology,

Washington University in St. Louis.

Volume:
1
Year:
1989
Edition:
1989
Publisher:
Mughal Publishing Company
Language:
English
Pages:
431
ISBN 10:
0-929824-00-8
File:
PDF, 53.99 MB

Famous King of Kartli Giorgi XI (Shahnavaz II, Gorgin/Gurgin Khan) was destined to waste his own efforts, talents and his life for the Safavid Empire fighting to whom he had lost Kartli’s reign. In this letter we tried to express a modest opinion on the whereabouts of the famous Georgian king.
In historiography it is well known that on April 21, 1709 the King of Kartli was tragically killed in the distant Afghanistan by Haji Mir Weiss been a Kalentar of Kandahar who organized an insidious plan for getting this awful result. Mir Weiss could leave the Beglarbeg Georgian squad alone by sending Georgian troops against one of the “rebel” tribes.
The historical sources do not provide information about the location of George 11th’s tomb. It is known that Mir Weiss carried the king’s body to the Georgians. They took it to Girishk, but then his trace is unknown. It is possible the king’s body would be buried there because for the Georgians found in difficult circumstances would be difficult taking it either to Isfahan or Qum where Shahnavaz I had buried, if at all in Kartli. However, the hottest season of the year was coming, and that would made things worse. General Tengiz Epitashvili who was in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the 1st half of the 1980’s, recalls that he had the opportunity to visit the symbolic tomb of King George near Kandahar. But modern Kandahar is located about 30 kilometers from the old Kandahar, therefore the tomb is naturally symbolic. Thus, the tomb should be on the territory of modern Afghanistan, in Girishk or the surrounding areas, if not forever lost.

More than 20 years after its initial report, Afghanistan submitted its second periodic report to the Committee against Torture (CAT) in 2016. While highlighting political and legal challenges as well as relevant legislation, the state report falls short in addressing
the most pressing issues when it comes to the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment. In order for the CAT to gain a better picture about the problems
and challenges in the fight against torture, a number of Afghan civil society organizations, upon the initiative of the Civil Society and Human Rights Network (CSHRN), formed an Anti-torture coalition to draft and submit the first civil society shadow report to the CAT Committee. 
The report has been published in OHCHR website and it is accessible through the following :
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CAT/Shared%20Documents/AFG/INT_CAT_CSS_AFG_27015_E.pdf

This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years. The book covers the complex history of the diverse societies and economies of Iran against the background of dynastic changes, revolutions, civil wars, foreign occupation, and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Abbas Amanat combines chronological and thematic approaches, exploring events with lasting implications for modern Iran and the world. Drawing on diverse historical scholarship and emphasizing the twentieth century, he addresses debates about Iran’s culture and politics. Political history is the driving narrative force, given impetus by Amanat’s decades of research and study. He layers the book with discussions of literature, music, and the arts; ideology and religion; economy and society; and cultural identity and heritage.



For further details about this book, including the Table of Contents and selections from chapters, please visit: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300112542/iran. For ebook (including Kindle) and audio version (both Audiobook and audio CDs) please see: https://www.amazon.com/Iran-Modern-History-Abbas-Amanat/dp/0300112548/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=amanat+Iran&qid=1557691542&s=gateway&sr=8-1. The audio version can be listened  concurrent with highlighted ebook through Audible. A paperback edition by Yale University Press appeared in August 2019.  For audio sample (4 hours) go to: https://play.google.com/books/listen?id=AQAAAECMBkxG0M.

For reviews please search online: New York Review of Books, Economist, Times (of London), Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal, and International Journal of Middle East Studies.

This study aims to analyze the ethnic dilemma in the Pamir region, or Badakh Mountains of the Badakhshan region, that became the reason for the call of independence of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region from Tajikistan. This paper also examines the socio-political linkages among the various Pamiri groups in Badakhshan Region. Likewise, the impact of a declaration of independence by Gorno-Badakhshann region on Pamiri ethnic groups in other geographically linked countries, especially in Gilgit- Baltistan is also highlighted in this study.

La guerre par le droit Les tribunaux Taliban en Afghanistan E t si les Taliban, aux capacités militaires et technologiques bien inférieures à celles des armées occidentales, avaient gagné la guerre par le droit ? Tandis que la coalition internationale a mis sur pied un système juridique inadapté et miné par la corruption, les Taliban ont installé des centaines de tribunaux dans les campagnes : en insistant sur le respect des procédures, l'impartialité des juges et l'application des verdicts, ce système de justice s'est imposé comme une des rares sources de prévisibilité dans le quotidien des Afghans. « Le tribunal des Taliban est pour tous, mais le tribunal du gouvernement est seulement pour les gens riches », confie un habitant de la province du Wardak. De quelles manières les Taliban ont-ils gagné la confiance de la population ? Comment sont-ils parvenus à se mettre en position de réguler les rapports sociaux ? Et avec quelles conséquences pour la société afghane ? Nourrie par un travail de terrain au long cours dans différentes provinces en Afghanistan, cette enquête offre de nouvelles perspectives sur un pays en guerre depuis quatre décennies et propose une réflexion novatrice sur la place du droit dans les guerres civiles.

The question of legality of the Durand Line is not much of an interest for the international political and academic community. Most of the Global Powers readily buy Pakistan’s legal argument and agree that the Durand Line is a sacrosanct international boundary separating Afghanistan and Pakistan and that it has existed as it is for more than a century now.They also assert that Afghanistan had no legal rights to repudiate any agreement pertaining to their border unilaterally. However, there is a new line of scholarly investigation on the legality of the Durand Line as an international border and it questions the nature of the agreement and treaties pertaining to the Line. This paper intends to pursue the investigation further and challenge the legality of the Durand Line. For the purpose, all the original treaties and agreements signed between the Amirs of Afghanistan and the Government of India, and since 1919 between the two Governments have been studied in the paper.

Во второй половине 1918 г. Туркестанская советская республика, отрезанная от Центральной части России белогвардейскими
войсками в силу своего важного стратегического положения, оказалась в поле внимания Дели и Лондона, с одной стороны,
и Стамбула и Берлина – с другой. Враждующие стороны отправили в Ташкент собственные дипломатические миссии,
которые должны были вступить в переговоры с туркестанским правительством и выяснить его планы, а также установить
контакты с подпольными элементами. В статье описывается работа обеих миссий, анализируется дипломатическая практика
и своеобразный протокол эпохи Гражданской войны в России.

Turkistan, Afghanistan, Civil War, Diplomatic mission, protocol, Bailey, Barakatullah, Kazim Bey

The British Government of India took a decision in 1838 to relinquish the Afghan ruler Dost Muhammad Khan, whom he claimed to be approaching Russia and Iran, and to return Shah Sjuha, the ex-emperor Shah, who was in exile, to the throne. In order to emphasize this determination, an agreement was signed between the parties with Sind's ruler Ranjit Singh and Shah Sjuha in Tripatrie. The armies of one of the British and allies shipped to Kabul via Peshawar-Jalalabad from the Bolan Pass through KandaharGhaznah and the other through the Khyber Pass occupied Kabul in a short period of time. Dost Muhammad Khan was removed from power and in place of him Shah Sjuha who was under British patronage was throned. However the Afghan people who were not satisfied with the attitudes and behaviors of the occupation army in the neighboring provinces started a great struggle in a short period of time. National forces headed by Mohammad Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan and the other important Serdars forced the army of the occupation to withdraw from Afghanistan giving them big casualties in a short time. The British army, which agreed to retreat, was virtually destroyed by the attacks of the tribes in the steep and narrow passages of Afghanistan. In this study, the causes and consequences of the British Afghan War that occurred between 1839-1842 were tried to be put forward.

En 1989, las últimas tropas soviéticas cruzaron, sin muchos honores, la frontera entre Afganistán y la URSS, de vuelta a sus hogares. Esta es la historia de cómo vivieron y murieron, de cómo lucharon, y de cómo lucharon sus oponentes. Esta, en suma, es la turbia y polvorienta historia de "Afgán".

This book offers a new Persian edition and the first English translation of the Ibrat-afza, the memoirs of Hasan Ali Shah, the 46th Imam of the Nizari Ismailis and the first Ismaili Imam to bear the title of Aga Khan. The Ibrat-afza was composed in the year 1851, following the Imam’s departure from Persia and his permanent settlement in India.

The text recounts the Aga Khan’s early life and political career as the governor of the province of Kirman in Iran, and narrates the dramatic events of his conflict with the Qajar establishment in Iran and his subsequent travels and exploits in Afghanistan and British India. The Ibrat-afza provides a rare example of an autobiographical account from an Ismaili Imam and a first-hand account giving a window into the history of the Ismailis of Iran, India and Central Asia at the dawn of the modern era of their history. Consequently, the book will be of great interest to both researchers and general readers interested in Ismaili history and in the history of the Islamic world in the nineteenth century.

During Cold War era, the US supported the armed groups in Afghanistan in terms of training and ammunition against the Soviet Union by fuelling Islamic jihadism. After failed invasion of Soviet Union, the US withdrew completely leaving the armed groups from the region and it created a threat to the whole world. The US became one of the biggest targets and victims of its own policy with 9/11 attacks, Afghanistan was one of the countries the US occupied in order to fight against terrorist organizations and to bring democracy to countries that feed and support terrorism within the framework of the Bush Doctrine. The US did not carry out this invasion alone and for the first time in its history, NATO took action within the scope of Article 5 and engaged in a collective intervention. The point reached at the end of the 20-year invasion, where humanitarian loss and economic costs are too heavy to be overcome, the US, who sat at the table with the Taliban, quickly retreated from the region by leaving everything else-once again-just as how it was while disappointing its NATO allies.

this chapter assesses the enduring structural features of Afghanistan's chronic instability. Many of Afghanistan's problems are deeply rooted in the country's history such as its underdevelopment, weak ability to raise
revenue and perennial vulnerability co predatory near and far neighbors. At different times in the country's modern history, its leadership has pursued centralized modernization policies which have inevitably resulted in an armed uprising against the state. For this reason, this chapter next recounts significant historical events that undergird the path dependency of the state 's myriad challenges. [n the third section, the chapter draws out from the historical discussion several enduring sources of instability that bode ill for the country's future ability to achieve peace, including perennial economic dependence, sustained and deepened military dependence, and inability to sustain a stable and sovereign role within the comity of nations due in part to predatory near and far neighbors.
This chapter concludes with a discussion of the current security challenges and the dim prospects for future stability.

Sandy Gall’s biography of Ahmad Shah Massoud arrived in bookshops just as the humiliating events of August 2021 unfolded. It was Massoud’s assassination by Al Qa'ida just two days before 9/11which deprived Afghanistan of its most skilful military commander. What, one wonders, would have happened if NATO had had an Afghan strategist of his calibre to work with during these past 20 years?

This 2005 article discusses the value of the Guy Liddell diaries, 1939-45. Liddell dictated these as a kind of rolling aide memoire. One part of the question posed at the conclusion of the artlcle - whether he continued the practice in peacetime - was eventually answered with the release of postwar volumes up to his departure in 1953. The other - whether he kept such diaries before the war - has not.

This article investigates the intellectual production of the celebrated scholar Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) during the decade or so he spent in the service of the Ghūrid sultans, from ca. 591/1195 to 602/1206. Operating exclusively within religious disciplines – theology, law and Qurʾān exegesis – and displaying pronounced rhetorical and dialectical features, this production contrasts significantly with his earlier and later production, which most notably exhibits much closer engagement with philosophy. It is argued that this “Ghūrid interlude” in al-Rāzī’s production reflects his role in spearheading the sultans’ project of divesting from the socially and culturally peripheral Karrāmiyya and fashioning themselves as champions of a sophisticated and cosmopolitan orthodoxy, and is furthermore aligned with his patrons’ transregional policies, including their pro-Abbasid stance. Al-Rāzī was in return invested by the Caliph al-Nāṣir with the title “he who summons people to the True One” (al-dāʿī li-l-khalq ilā l-ḥaqq), more commonly attested as “he who summons to God” (al-dāʿī ilā llāh). The article also offers a new examination of al-Rāzī’s Ghūrid-period intellectual biography and oeuvre.

In Search of Peace for Afghanistan is a collection of twenty-two essays on war and peace making in contemporary Afghanistan. The volume is inspired by the discovery in 2019 of three historical letters of President Najibullah and historian M. Hassan Kakar. In the correspondence, exchanged in 1990, Najibullah and Kakar speak candidly about hopes and desires of the Afghan people for peace, about plans to bring peace to Afghanistan, and about actors, factors, and obstacles vis-à-vis the states of war and peace, then in post-Soviet Afghanistan. The contributors, all established and emerging Afghan and international scholars, public intellectuals, and former and current members of the civil society, policy, and state institutions, offer analyses of the correspondence in the contexts of the past and present peace making processes, and insights on modern Afghan state-society relations, public and political spaces, and development. They also offer renewed perspectives on the role of wider global and regional geopolitics and non-state actors in the current war in Afghanistan, as well as provide comparative examples of successful peace negotiations and best practices from international conflict resolution and history.

Buy Now: https://www.amazon.com/Search-Peace-Afghanistan-Historical-Najibullah/dp/B09328FD57

We found totally 1020 word with common meaning and pronouncing in Bulgarian and Hindi;
ancient Bulgarian ethnonims in India; and names of Vedic gods in Bulgarian language and family names.
We found 328 word with both similar meaning and pronouncing in Bulgarian and Hindi, consisting
3,5% of the most common words in Hindi. Correlation of Bulgarian with Sanskrit is far lower. This
suggests that there are traces of direct ancient contacts of Hindus with living Bulgarian language.
We determined 647 different Bulgarian ethnonims (names of towns and places (toponims) and water
bodies (hydronames) formed on the base of the national or clans names of the ancient Bulgarians
(Kutigurs, Utigurs, Onogurs, Kuchi- Bulgars, Dulo, etc.)) in India. We found also 45 names and
synonyms of 33 Vedic or Hindus gods in Bulgarian names or family names, or having functions
understandable in Bulgarian from their names (which are in Sanskrit). Names of these gods form 74
different Bulgarian family names.

The presence of Iranian émigrés in the Durrani Empire has garnered minimal attention, even though the formation of the polity by Ahmad Shah Durr-i Durran (r. 1747–72) was accompanied by a steady rise in Iranian migrations to the Durrani territories of Indo-Khurasan. Nejatie’s article seeks to better understand the movement of Iranians to the Durrani Empire and their ascendency therein, particularly during the reigns of Ahmad Shah and his son and successor, Timur Shah (r. 1772–93). It does so by inves- tigating some of the key factors that prompted the growth in Iranian migrations to the Durrani Empire and the considerable role they came to play in the extension and consolidation of Durrani authority in Indo-Khurasan. Although the influence of these Iranian émigré communities would gradually decline following the reign of Timur Shah, their contributions to the complex process of state building in Indo- Khurasan left a lasting mark on the political culture of the early Durrani state and its contemporary counterpart, Afghanistan.

Theories on the Iranian Theater History often name the Seleucid Amphitheaters as evidences on existence of Theatrical Traditions in Ancient Iran. But the archeological findings are largely ignored by researchers, who worked on this subject. And it itself has resulted to many theorizations in this area, which should be put in question.
Can we conclude from the archaeological finds that the existence of these amphitheaters has resulted, that some of Greek theatrical elements had become transferred into Parthian culture?  This article is willing to demonstrate that this conclusion should be put in question.

The work led by the Soviet-Afghan Mission directed by I. T. Kruglikova from 1969 to 1979 in northern Afghanistan, and especially the excavations made by V. I. Sarianidi, remains until today the base of any research on Iron Age in Central Asia. Some previously unpublished photographs taken by V. I. Sarianidi illustrate the excavations undertaken at two major sites, Tillya-Tepe and Naibabad, showing both architectural remains during the process of excavations and pottery. The researches acccomplished and published in the past few years allows a better understanding of this huge work that remains unique.

It is known to very few, that five hundred years ago, before the arrival of the Mughals, the demographics of the northern regions comprising Pakistan were much different. There existed a substantial and well established Tajik (Persian) farming population here from ancient times in the lush valleys of Peshawar and Swat (the Gandhara region). These areas formed part of a kingdom, ruled since Ghori times by a family of Muslim Tajiks known as Gibaris (also Swati and Jehangiri) who were converts from Zoroastrianism. They were the Sultans of the Kingdom of Swat or “Pakhli Sarkar” as it was known – which later became a dependency of the Sultanate of Kashmir founded by their kinsmen. Kashmir in turn was a “provincial sultanate” of the renowned Delhi Sultanate.
The violent displacement from Kabul of the Yusufzai Pashtuns by the Timurids resulted in their migration to the Swat Kingdom, and both this and the subsequent Timurid (Mughal) conquests of India brought about the fall of both the Delhi and Swat Sultanates. Although the Delhi Sultanate is world famous, that of Swat is shrouded in mystery. It is the objective of this paper to apprise the reader of that history, as well as explain why it has been obscured.

Книга представляет собой первую в постсоветской историографии попытку изучения истории среднеазиатской эмиграции советского и пост-советского периодов. Основное внимание уделено почти миллионной массе таджиков, узбеков, туркменов, киргизов, казахов, а также русских, вытесненных революцией за рубежи своей родины – в Афганистан, Западный Китай, Иран, Британскую Индию и Турцию в 1917-1934 гг. Заключительная глава затрагивает также основные моменты военной эмиграции 1941-1945 гг., период «холодной войны», войны в Афганистане 1980-х гг., и доводит исследование до начала 2000-х гг.  В исследовании  делается попытка вскрыть причины, вызвавшие исход; даны основные этапы эмиграции; показано расселение эмигрантов за рубежом; представлен их количественный и национальный состав; изучена история эмиграции в  стране пребывания; политические течения, а также; попытки возвращения на родину. Книга предназначена для всех, интересующихся историей Центральной Азии.

According to local lore, modern day Pashtuns assert with a certain justification that they originally came from the Sulaymān mountain area in the Afghan-Pakistani border land, east of Kandahār. For this reason any reference of the name “Afghan” or “Pashtun” in a wide range of Islamic, non-Islamic, Classical, i.e. Latin and (Hellenistic-) greek, Sanskrit and Chinese sources, is seized upon as proof of the ancient origin of their nation. This “Protochronistic” approach – to borrow a term from the romanian national historiography – is rather futile, as the context is often, quite conveniently, left out in the discourse, not to mention, the reliability of these so-called “attestations” is rarely questioned. The aim of this contribution to the memory of the great iranist Gherardo Gnoli is to critically assess the existing suggestions and their context that link specific names cited frequently from these miscellaneous and diverse, historic sources, with the modern “Afghan” and “Pashtun” ethnic designations. The assessment also includes the nature of the historic linguistic interactions of Pashto with its Iranian sister-languages.

The Shansabānid dynasty of Ghūr (ca. 545–612/1150–1216) emerged from the mountains of Afghanistan to become a world power stretching from the Oxus River in Central Asia to the Ganges delta in Bengal. This study seeks to answer a central question in the Ghūrid expansion: How did the Ghūrid sultans seek to legitimate their rule and thus mobilize military support in the creation of their empire? It is commonly assumed that the ideology of ghazā played a central role in this process, but this thesis has not yet been systematically analyzed. The Ghūrids’ claims about their actions are reconstructed through an analysis of epigraphy, numismatics, historical chronicles, and other literary works. A special emphasis is placed on those works produced under Ghūrid patronage or by authors living under Ghūrid rule. The analysis suggests that the promotion of ghazā was a late development incidental to the ongoing wars of conquest. On the contrary, situated within the highly fractured religious and political milieu of the eastern Iranian world and becoming in time rulers of all of northern India, the Ghūrids required multiple strategies of political legitimation that varied in time and place: besides the image of the Muslim warrior-king, the Ghūrid rulers also projected themselves and appeared to their followers as Ghūrī chieftains, as traditional Perso-Arabic Islamic rulers, and as Indian rājas. This thesis contributes both to the debate over the meaning and importance of ghazā in Islamic history and to a growing body of recent research on the Ghūrids which is enriching our knowledge of the various forms of political legitimacy in the medieval Muslim world.

The main purpose of this work is to provide a cartographic representation of the process of Islamization of the vast area of “Kafir” cultures and Indo-European languages here styled “Peristan”. This area once extended from present-day Nuristan to the borders of Kashmir over a surface of some 80.000 square km. The Kalasha of lower Chitral are now the last surviving heirs of this area. Only recently scientific research has produced new elements to reconstruct the history of this process, which had so far remained obscure. After a brief analysis of the different forms of perception of ethnic and religious identities in the area, the paper deals with the relationship between the process of Islamization and that of subjection to the authority of states from ca. 1500 CE to this day. Then the sources on which the cartography is based are discussed. The result is a somewhat unexpected image of what was once “Kafiristan”, perhaps the most remote and tenacious barbaricum of the Asian continent, and one of the largest.