by Tamim Ansary
Young Afghans coming to maturity in Kabul in the early twentieth century were hungry to hear such ideas, thirsty to learn about the great wide world, ready to leap into the never imagined. Maybe the young always have this sort of energy, but it erupts with special intensity in some places at some times. From all the stories I’ve heard, Kabul just before and during World War I seems to have been one such place and time. For the young men of Kabul, their city must have felt like the Athens of Pericles’s time, the Baghdad of the Abbasid era, the Florence of the Medici, Paris in the Jazz Age. And Tarzi was at the center of it all, the match that lit the flames.
Protégés from among the young aristocrats formed a coterie around Tarzi, and no one drank from the fountain more avidly than the amir’s third son Prince Amanullah. Tarzi was the father this firebrand never had: so much so that Amanullah married his daughter, the beautiful and accomplished Soraya, which made Tarzi his father-in-law.
But Tarzi and his followers were not the only movement bubbling at court. The amir’s brother Nasrullah personified a different current. Nasrullah had matured into a zealous orthodox Muslim. He disdained his brother’s indolence and concupiscence but lived with it. Nasrullah had inherited his father’s energy and must sometimes have resented not inheriting the throne, but he lived with it. Nasrullah felt a kinship with all those traditional clerics whom Abdu’Rahman had tried to crush or co-opt. Nasrullah knew they were neither crushed nor co-opted but were still shaping public opinion, still molding the passions of the people out there in the countryside. They were still the ocean; the government and its minions still just the foam on the waves. Nasrullah reached out to the conservative clerics and let the strongest of them know they had a friend at court. They in turn assured him that he had friends in the countryside. Nasrullah hated the British on religious grounds and sometimes suggested an Afghan jihad against them. In these last days of Afghan subservience to the British—who still controlled Afghan foreign policy—Nasrullah embodied the most deeply conservative posture.7
Nasrullah had no official job title, but he sometimes acted as though he were king. He once remarked casually to a companion that he might set Habibullah aside one day. He didn’t do it though, because he didn’t have to. He could bide his time. Habibullah’s heir apparent, his eldest son Enayatullah, was an easygoing nonentity who didn’t look like king material to any of the possible contenders.
The big issue for the court in this era was the Great European War, later known as World War I. Which side should Afghanistan take? Both Nasrullah and Tarzi thought Afghanistan should oppose Britain, Nasrullah for religious reasons and Tarzi out of an anti-imperialist passion.8 But Habibullah said, no, Afghanistan must declare itself neutral. That was the smart play. Afghanistan was Britain’s client and Russia’s neighbor: it couldn’t side against those powers. On the other hand, a leading member of the Axis group was the Ottoman Empire. Afghanistan could not declare war against the leading Muslim power, still considered by many to be the seat of the Khaliphate (a.k.a. Caliphate): it wouldn’t look good to the locals.
Besides, privately, the British knew what neutrality meant. It meant Afghans could fight for Britain by filtering across the Durand Line and joining the “Indian” army. Some seven hundred thousand Indians went to Europe to fight for Britain, one-third of whom were Muslims, and, of those, over 80 percent came from the lands bordering or straddling Afghanistan: in short, many were Afghans.9 That’s a lot of Afghans fighting in World War I. When the war ended, Amir Habibullah claimed some credit for the British victory and suggested that Afghanistan take part in the Paris Peace Conference, but the viceroy called the idea preposterous.10
We come now to a mysterious event as riveting as any detective novel. In late February 1919, just after the peace conference began in Paris, Amir Habibullah went on a grand hunting expedition. February is an odd time for such a trip, because the mountains are still choked with snow, but the amir loved adventure. His mustaufi stopped in the city of Jalalabad, but the amir’s party went on into the mountains. After the king left (witnesses reported), the mustaufi received a private message that made him pale. Immediately, he wrote a letter to the king and gave it to a messenger. He ordered the messenger to wear black and ride a black horse so as to cut a striking figure that the king would notice. He wanted to make sure the king would read the letter at once. But the king was busy having fun and put the envelope in his pocket unopened.
That night, after feasting on grilled meats and subtle side dishes cooked by the royal chefs, the king retired to his tent, happy and spent. His commander in chief Nadir Khan—the eldest of those five Musahibban brothers—was guarding the camp. The king’s older brother Nasrullah was in camp too. Guards were posted at each of the four cardinal points around the tent. A fifth man, a Colonel Reza, stood sentry at his very door. Three men went into the tent with the king to carry out his bedtime ritual: two were masseurs to rub his feet, one a storyteller to lull him with fantastic tales.11
Once the king began to doze, these three slipped out of the tent; but they had gone only a few paces when they heard a bang. A dark figure burst from the doorway. Colonel Reza grabbed the mystery man’s arm but could not make out his features. At that moment, General Nadir Khan and the king’s brother Nasrullah came running up, almost as if they had been hovering nearby, waiting for something to happen. In the confusion, the presumptive killer wrenched loose and went running off, never to be seen again. Some would later say the king’s brother and his henchman Nadir helped the assassin escape—for assassin he was: when the men went into the tent they found the king lying dead, shot through the heart. The assassin must have gotten into the tent earlier and lain in wait. But how could the amir’s security have failed so utterly? Was some high-ranking figure complicit in the crime?
The next day, Nasrullah hastened to Jalalabad and declared himself amir. The king’s mild-mannered eldest son stood next to him and pledged his loyalty, giving up the throne just like that. The dead king’s second son had left the hunting party a few days earlier, saying he had business in Kabul. Had he gone straight home, he would have been in Kabul when the king was killed, in position for a power play, but he fell ill along the way and stopped in some village to recover. The messenger carrying word of the assassination to the capital must have ridden right past the house where he lay moaning.
When the news broke in the capital, therefore, only the third son was on the spot to take advantage: Prince Amanullah, that modernist firebrand. Amanullah wasted no time seizing the treasury, taking command of the army, and announcing a hefty pay raise to ensure the allegiance of the troops. Then he assembled the city’s notables for a passionate speech. Drawing a sword from his scabbard, he swore that “I will not sheath it again until I have brought my father’s killer to justice.”12
That Friday, when Nasrullah went to the mosque in Jalalabad, he was astonished to hear the sermon read in the name of “Amir Amanullah.” Moments later, Amanullah’s men arrived to arrest him and charge him with complicity in the amir’s murder. Amanullah then rounded up his father’s top advisers, anyone who might pose a threat to him, and put them on trial. The poet Khalilullah, who was a twelve-year-old boy then, reports that his father was among those called to court for interrogation by Amanullah himself. Witnesses saw Amanullah pull out a letter—presumably the one Mustaufi Hussein had sent the king on the day of his murder. Apparently, in this letter, the mustaufi had said something incriminating. The new king was demanding that he account for his words. The mustaufi shouted back for all to hear, “It was you! You killed your own father!”13
Amanullah ordered that the exchequer be dragged into the garden and hanged. A couple of draftees were brought in to do the deed, simple peasants from the north. As one of them fitted the noose around Mustaufi Hussein’s neck, his fingers trembled. The once-mighty moneyman scoffed at him. “I’m the one who’s being hung here. Why are your fingers trembling? Do your job, boys: don’t flinch. But when you leave here, tell the world you
acted on the orders of Amanullah!”14
A violent end was not uncommon for Afghan rulers, but most were killed in wars or executed after losing wars. The killing of Habibullah was a murder mystery. Who ordered it? Who plotted it? Who carried it out? No one knows. Early armchair detectives suspected Nadir and Nasrullah. Nasrullah had motive, Nadir had opportunity. Perhaps the two were in cahoots. Then again, although Amanullah made a lot of noise about hunting down his father’s killers, the only men he actually moved against were those who had pretensions to the throne, not those whom credible evidence implicated in the murder. Very suspicious.
Naturally, no one voiced suspicions about Amanullah at the time because he was the king. Instead they confined themselves to muttering dark accusations about Nadir. Later, Amanullah fell from power and Nadir became king. After that no one voiced suspicions about Nadir anymore. Instead, many now said Amanullah must have plotted the crime. In short, the mystery got intertwined with the political fortunes of the possible suspects, which is why no one knows whodunit to this day. But that is getting ahead of our story.
11
King of the Radicals
AFGHANISTAN HAD NEVER SEEN A KING LIKE AMANULLAH. BACK WHEN HE was still just a prince, people said, he used to disguise himself in peasant’s garb and roam the bazaars, mingling with the common folks—the story sounds apocryphal, but it has the ring of authenticity to me: it would have been in character.1 The amirs before Amanullah all had a relationship with the British that didn’t jibe with the sentiments of the people. Those royals hobnobbed with the foreigners, took their subsidies, and used their military aid to control their own subjects. Twice, the Afghans had gone to war with Britain, and each time it was the tribes and common folks, not the royals, who had done the successful fighting. The Afghan elite got along with the British; the Afghan street hated them and wanted them gone. On this issue, Amanullah was with the street.
Amanullah’s mentor Tarzi, an ardent nationalist, had passed on the virus to his student. Even if the new king had not sincerely longed for his country’s independence, he might have used this issue to cement his position. Whatever his motive, in 1919, as soon as he had power, Amanullah declared total independence from Britain. His subjects were dazzled: at last, a king who was not a stooge of the foreigners!
Amanullah declared independence by sending a letter to the viceroy in India announcing that the “independent and free nation of Afghanistan” hoped to build good relations with Great Britain on the basis of treaties mutually beneficial to both, language that implied a dialogue between two equal parties.2 The British high command had a good laugh over that naïve note and never bothered to answer it.
Another letter from Kabul followed shortly, announcing that Afghanistan was establishing a Foreign Ministry headed by Mahmoud Tarzi. This was a slap. British India was supposed to be Afghanistan’s foreign ministry. This was the one point the British had demanded of every amir since Dost Mohammed. The government of India decided to deal with the upstart by ignoring him.
A few weeks later, letters went out to the United States, France, Persia, Japan, Turkey and Russia, announcing that Afghanistan now had its own Foreign Ministry. Here was provocation indeed! Yet, even so, the British treated Amanullah like a mouse squeaking behind the woodwork.
Clearly, he had to do something more dramatic. And on April 13, 1919, he got his chance. That day, in Amritsar, India, a British general named Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to shoot into the thick of a crowd of peaceful demonstrators who were calling for Indian independence. The ten-minute fusillade left 379 dead and over 1,200 injured.3 Amanullah seized the opportunity to declare a jihad against the British. The Pushtoon tribes responded enthusiastically. Disorder erupted throughout India’s frontier region. The Third Anglo-Afghan War had begun.
At least it is remembered as the Third Anglo-Afghan War, but it wasn’t much of a war, really. Amanullah had retained Nadir Khan as his commander in chief, and he sent this general and two others to attack British border posts. Some inconclusive skirmishes were fought, but no territory changed hands.
The British, however, feared that if hostilities dragged on “the tribes might rise.” This was the enduring British nightmare: The Tribes Might Rise. They decided to end the war quickly by demonstrating a lethal new weapon of theirs: they sent airplanes over the city of Jalalabad to drop bombs. The terrified population evacuated the city, and Jalalabad turned into a ghost town overnight.
Two British warplanes—unsophisticated biplanes like the one Snoopy is seen flying in the Peanuts cartoons—then dropped bombs on Kabul. Few were killed, but I can attest to the psychological impact: forty years later, when my father needed to know his age for some document (which was tough to specify because Afghans do not celebrate birthdays), my grandmother was able to tell him exactly when he was born: it was one year before the British bombed Kabul. She knew because she was nursing him when the explosions erupted.
As soon as the bombs fell, Amanullah wrote to the Indian viceroy. War was no way to settle differences, he said: the British and the Afghans should sit down and talk like civilized people. The British did not bother to reply. In another context, this might have been a frustrating humiliation, but Amanullah was able to use it to his advantage: he had sued for peace and the British had not even answered, which violated the code of Pushtoonwali! What kind of savages were these Farangis? Amanullah had achieved the status of hero by calling for national independence and the status of saint by calling for jihad, and now he acquired the halo of a martyr by calling for peace and being snubbed. His stature in Afghanistan was growing by the day.
At the same time, Nadir set siege to a single British fort on the border not just with the regular troops under his command but with the collaboration of some twelve thousand armed tribesmen from that area.4 The British laughed about the tribesmen’s primitive guns—until Nadir’s forces managed to cut off the fort’s water supply.
Suddenly, the British realized something rather bad was happening. The news got worse: anti-British fever was spreading among the cross-border Afghans. This was the nightmare coming true: The Tribes Were Rising. Did the government of India really want to pile its plate high with tribal troubles now, in 1919, when Britain was still reeling from the costs of World War I and trying to regroup? It wasn’t Afghan military valor but the larger circumstances of world history that led the British to notice Amanullah’s letter finally. They agreed to meet his delegates at the city of Rawalpindi and discuss terms.
So ended the Third Anglo-Afghan War—a war that consisted of a few skirmishes, a handful of casualties, and four or five small bombs dropped on two cities. It wasn’t much, but the British figured it was enough, for it had brought the Afghans to their senses. They were begging for terms. In London, officials discussed what terms to impose on them. Some favored taking direct control of the country, but the Paris Peace Conference had just ended, and Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points were still hovering over the Western world. Talk of “self-determination” and the rights of “small nationalities” filled the air. Taking over Afghanistan would not look cool. If it were done, it would have to be done in a “veiled” manner.5 Such were the thoughts the British brought to Rawalpindi.
The Afghan delegation strutted into the peace talks with a swagger as if they didn’t realize they had lost the war. Hamilton Grant, head of the British delegation, led with a number of calculated insults, but Ali Ahmad, head of the Afghan delegation, deflected them suavely. He was by turns charming, disingenuous, conciliatory, offended, aggressive, and diplomatic. The talks lasted the entire summer. Over those months, Ali Ahmad maneuvered the British into meeting Amanullah’s bottom line: independence in his foreign policy. The final stroke came in the last days of negotiations, when Ali Ahmad asked that the document refer to Amanullah as “His Majesty” and not simply as “the Amir.” Grant refused. That honorific, he said, belonged exclusively to King George, but he offered a compromise. How about dropping all reference to monarchs and le
tting this be recorded as a treaty between “the Illustrious British Government” and the “Independent Government of Afghanistan.” Grant thought he had finessed something, whereas actually he had given away the store. All previous British treaties had been with an individual amir, not with an enduring state. As soon as one king died, all promises were moot. This treaty was with a country, no matter who ruled it—and it used the phrase “independent government.”
More importantly, Grant supplied Ali Ahmad with a separate letter affirming that the British government relinquished all control of Afghanistan’s foreign policy and recognized it as a sovereign state. “Liberty is a new toy to the Afghan Government,” Grant explained in a letter to his superiors back home, “and they are very jealous and excited about it.... Later on, if we handle them well, they will come to us to mend their toy when it gets chipped or broken They want the shadow of external freedom and don’t really worry about its substance.”6
The laughing stopped when Amanullah announced Afghan independence at a major mosque in Kabul with the British envoy on one side of him and the Russian representative on the other—a Bolshevik. The British realized he might be serious about this new toy of his. The final treaty between the two countries was not signed until November 21, 1921, but by then Amanullah had signed trade protocols and friendship treaties with various states including Japan, France, Italy, and Turkey.
Only one country spurned the Afghans: the United States. The Afghan delegation came to New York in 1922, but as it happened a ludicrous adventurer hit town at the same time: an old woman named “Princess” Fatima Sultana, who was descended from Shah Shuja. She came festooned in jewels and looking like every New Yorker’s image of a Theda Bera–style exotic from the mysterious East. Her jewels included one particularly large diamond she called the Darya-i-Noor (River of Light). She was traveling with a rascal who called himself the Crown Prince of Egypt—they were characters straight out of Mark Twain and belonged on a raft floating down the Mississippi.