Yale University Press NEW HAVEN & 9 780300"089028 - Sito Mistero

10 ~ TALIBANgious mix that was to make Afghan nation-building extremely difficult.Western Afghanistan was dominated by speakers of Persian or Dari as theAfghan Persian dialect is known. Dari was also spoken by the Hazaras incentral Afghanistan, who were converted to Shiism by the Persians,thereby becoming the largest Shia group in an otherwise Sunni territory.In the west the Tajiks, the repositors of Persia's ancient culture also spoke jDari. In northern Afghanistan the Uzbeks, Turcomans, Kyrgyz and others jspoke the Turkic languages of Central Asia. And in the south and east thePashtun tribes spoke their own tongue Pashto, a mixture of Indo-Persianlanguages.It was the southern Pashtuns who were to form the modern stateAfghanistan at the historical conjuncture when the Persian Safavid dyiasty in the west, the Moguls in India and the Uzbek Janid dynasty wereall in a period of decline in the eighteenth century. The Pashtun tribeswere divided into two major sections, the Ghilzai and Abdali who latercalled themselves Durrani, which frequently competed against each other.The Pashtuns trace their genealogy to Qais, a companion ofProphet Mohammed. As such they consider themselves a Semitic racalthough anthropologists consider them to be Indo-Europeans, who haveassimilated numerous ethnic groups over the course of history. TheDurranis claim descent from Qais's eldest son Sarbanar while the Ghilzaisclaim descent from his second son. Qais's third son is said to be theancestor of other diverse Pashtun tribes such as the Kakars inand the Safis around Peshawar. In the sixth century Chinese and Indissources speak of the Afghans/Pashtuns living east of Ghazni. These tribbegan a westward migration to Kandahar, Kabul and Herat from theteenth century. By the next century the Ghilzais and Durranis weralready fighting each other over land disputes around Kandahar. Tathe Ghilzai homeland lies south of the Kabul river between the SaKoh and Suleman range on the east to Hazarajat in the west and dovto Kandahar in the south. 5In 1709, Mir Wais, the chief of the Hotaki tribe of Ghilzai Pashtin Kandahar rebelled against the Safavid Shah. This was partly a resultof the Shah's attempts to convert the fervently Sunni Pashtuns inttShias - a historical animosity that was to re-emerge with the Taliban'^hostility towards Iran and Afghan Shias three centuries later.A few years later Mir Wais's son defeated the Safavids and conquerIran. But the Afghans were driven out of Iran in 1729. As Ghilzai poweebbed, their traditional rivals in Kandahar, the Abdalis, formedconfederation and in 1747 after a nine-day Loya Jirga or meeting of tribchiefs, they chose Ahmad Shah Abdali as their king. The tribalwrapped a turban around his head and placed blades of grass in it, si)nifying loyalty. The Loya Jtrga was to become the traditional legal instINTRODUCTION: AFGHANISTAN'S HOLY WARRIORS 11ment which legitimized new rulers thus avoiding a hereditary monarchy.The rulers themselves could claim that they were elected by the tribesrepresented in the Jirga. Ahmad Shah changed the name of the Abdaliconfederation to Durrani, united all the Pashtun tribes and began a seriesof major conquests, quickly taking control over much of modern dayPakistan.By 1761 Ahmad Shah Durrani had defeated the Hindu Mahrattas andcaptured the Delhi throne and Kashmir, thereby creating the first Afghanempire. Considered the father of the Afghan nation, Ahmad ShahDurrani was buried in an ornate mausoleum in his capital Kandahar,where Afghans still come to pray. Many Afghans have conferred a kindof sainthood on him. His son Taimur Shah moved the empire's new capitalfrom Kandahar to Kabul in 1772, making it easier to control thenewly conquered territories north of the Hindu Kush mountains and eastof the river Indus. By 1780 the Durranis had concluded a treaty with theAmir of Bukhara, the principal Central Asian ruler, which designated theOxus or Amu Darya river as the border between Central Asia and thenew Pashtun state of Afghanistan. It was the first border delineation thatmarked the northern boundary of the new Afghanistan.In the next century the Durranis were to lose their territories east ofthe Indus river while feuds between various Durrani clans dissipated theirpower. However, one or another Durrani clan was to rule Afghanistan forover 200 years until 1973, when King Zahir Shah was deposed by hiscousin Mohammed Daud Khan and Afghanistan was declared a Republic.Meanwhile the bitter rivalry between the Ghilzai and the Durrani Pashtunswas to continue and intensify in the aftermath of the Soviet invasionof Afghanistan and the subsequent emergence of the Taliban.The weakened and bickering Durrani kings had to hold off two newempires, the British in the east and the Russians to the north. In thenineteenth century, fearful of an ever expanding Russian empire in CentralAsia which might covet Afghanistan for a thrust against Britain'sIndian empire, the British made three attempts to conquer and holdAfghanistan until they realised that the intractable Afghans could bebought much more easily than fought. The British offered cash subsidies,manipulated the tribal chiefs and managed to turn Afghanistan into aclient state. What followed was 'the Great Game' between Russia andBritain, a clandestine war of wits and bribery and occasional military pressureas both powers kept each other at a respectful distance by maintainingAfghanistan as a buffer state between them.The feuds amongst the ruling Durranis which were fuelled by Britishintelligence officers ensured that Afghan kings remained weak anddependent on British largesse to make up for their inability to raise revenues.As a consequence the non-Pashtun groups in the north exercised