Afghanistan's history suggests that women's rights are integrally connected to cultural norms and political power. Known as the worst place for women and having the highest level of gender inequality in education, Afghanistan and its people are often portrayed in the Western media as passive and backward individuals with sexist and uncivilized cultural values. This study examines the questions of women's access to education in post-2001 Afghanistan based on the narratives and accounts of schoolgirls and their parents in one of the most insecure provinces of Afghanistan. The study was conducted in the summer of 2018. It draws on 18 semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews with schoolgirls and their parents in Kandahar, a southern province of Afghanistan that was the battlefield for the Taliban and American forces for over twenty years. The findings suggest that pragmatic reasons such as security, poverty, and access were the most significant barriers to girls’ education, challenging the traditional assumptions that perceive Afghan cultural values as the only obstacle to girls’ education. I argue that contrary to the stereotypical depiction of Afghanistan and its culture, local actors and cultural values played a vital role in promoting girls’ education.
{"title":"Why Parents Sent their Daughters to School: A Qualitative Study of Girls’ Schooling in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan in 2018","authors":"Neela Hassan","doi":"10.3366/afg.2023.0102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2023.0102","url":null,"abstract":"Afghanistan's history suggests that women's rights are integrally connected to cultural norms and political power. Known as the worst place for women and having the highest level of gender inequality in education, Afghanistan and its people are often portrayed in the Western media as passive and backward individuals with sexist and uncivilized cultural values. This study examines the questions of women's access to education in post-2001 Afghanistan based on the narratives and accounts of schoolgirls and their parents in one of the most insecure provinces of Afghanistan. The study was conducted in the summer of 2018. It draws on 18 semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews with schoolgirls and their parents in Kandahar, a southern province of Afghanistan that was the battlefield for the Taliban and American forces for over twenty years. The findings suggest that pragmatic reasons such as security, poverty, and access were the most significant barriers to girls’ education, challenging the traditional assumptions that perceive Afghan cultural values as the only obstacle to girls’ education. I argue that contrary to the stereotypical depiction of Afghanistan and its culture, local actors and cultural values played a vital role in promoting girls’ education.","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48960722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article studies the global and transnational history of the Afghan constitutionalist (mashrūṭah) movement in the early twentieth century. It aims to contribute to the intellectual history of Afghanistan and examine it within the history of modernity, Islam, and reforms in the region, particularly in the late Ottoman Empire. It rejects the notion that the Afghan mashrūṭah movement was an indistinct group of people with a unitary ideology and argues that the Afghan mashrūṭah was an intellectually, socially, ethnically, politically diverse and complex movement, the product of intellectual, political, religious, and economic interactions of Afghans with multifaceted global ideologies such as colonialism, nationalism, Ittihad-i Islam, and top-down modernization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
{"title":"The Genesis of the Afghan Mashrūṭah Movement","authors":"Hakeem Naim","doi":"10.3366/afg.2023.0104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2023.0104","url":null,"abstract":"This article studies the global and transnational history of the Afghan constitutionalist (mashrūṭah) movement in the early twentieth century. It aims to contribute to the intellectual history of Afghanistan and examine it within the history of modernity, Islam, and reforms in the region, particularly in the late Ottoman Empire. It rejects the notion that the Afghan mashrūṭah movement was an indistinct group of people with a unitary ideology and argues that the Afghan mashrūṭah was an intellectually, socially, ethnically, politically diverse and complex movement, the product of intellectual, political, religious, and economic interactions of Afghans with multifaceted global ideologies such as colonialism, nationalism, Ittihad-i Islam, and top-down modernization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44209330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article considers how marriages were utilized in early Ghaznavid history to forge political alliances, establish relationships of power and to bind together different royal family households. Marriage was employed as a diplomatic tool to ease political tensions and to strengthen coalitions. The Ghaznavid ruler Maḥmūd (r. 388–421/998–1030) utilized marriage alliances with great success to consolidate and expand his territories. In 391/1001, he forged a coalition with the Karakhanids through a marriage to the daughter of Naṣr b. ʿAlī (d. 403/1012–3). In 406/1015–16, Maḥmūd married his own sister Ḥurra Kāljī to the Khwarazmshah al-Maʾmūn II (r. 399–407/1009–17). This paper attempts to answer unstudied questions concerning the role of marriage and the influence of female royal family members in the construction of imperial polities of the medieval period in Central Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan. It shows that the effective creation of strategic marriage alliances was a key factor in the success of the early Ghaznavid empire.
本文研究了早期伽色尼人如何利用婚姻来建立政治联盟,建立权力关系,并将不同的王室家庭联系在一起。婚姻被用作缓和政治紧张局势和加强联盟的外交工具。伽色尼统治者Maḥmūd (r. 388-421/998-1030)利用婚姻联盟非常成功地巩固和扩大了他的领土。在391/1001年,他通过娶Naṣr的女儿(公元403/1012-3年)与卡拉汗王朝结盟。在406/1015-16年,Maḥmūd将自己的妹妹Ḥurra Kāljī嫁给了Khwarazmshah al-Ma - mūn II (r. 399-407/1009-17)。本文试图回答有关中世纪中亚、伊朗和阿富汗帝国政治建设中婚姻的作用和女性皇室成员的影响等未被研究的问题。这表明,有效地建立战略婚姻联盟是早期伽色尼帝国成功的关键因素。
{"title":"Marriage, Political Alliance, and Imperial Polities in Early Ghaznavid History","authors":"B. Auer","doi":"10.3366/afg.2023.0101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2023.0101","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers how marriages were utilized in early Ghaznavid history to forge political alliances, establish relationships of power and to bind together different royal family households. Marriage was employed as a diplomatic tool to ease political tensions and to strengthen coalitions. The Ghaznavid ruler Maḥmūd (r. 388–421/998–1030) utilized marriage alliances with great success to consolidate and expand his territories. In 391/1001, he forged a coalition with the Karakhanids through a marriage to the daughter of Naṣr b. ʿAlī (d. 403/1012–3). In 406/1015–16, Maḥmūd married his own sister Ḥurra Kāljī to the Khwarazmshah al-Maʾmūn II (r. 399–407/1009–17). This paper attempts to answer unstudied questions concerning the role of marriage and the influence of female royal family members in the construction of imperial polities of the medieval period in Central Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan. It shows that the effective creation of strategic marriage alliances was a key factor in the success of the early Ghaznavid empire.","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48341786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Abbreviations used in Afghanistan","authors":"","doi":"10.3366/afg.2023.0107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2023.0107","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47821150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the history of information control in the first half of the twentieth century in Afghanistan. This was a period of great turmoil. The world fought two devastating wars and Afghanistan went through major political and social transformations that included several violent regime changes. Despite being a neutral state, the Afghan capital attracted European rivals who campaigned for the hearts and minds of Afghans. In addition to foreign intrigues, the Afghan rulers, too, used certain information practices as part of their surveillance regimes to suppress political dissent and public unrest. A contribution to media history in Afghanistan, this article looks into how the state tried to control the flow of information in this period through surveillance, censorship, and the spread of misinformation. This was an era when print and other media technologies gained significant popularity in Afghanistan but people continued to use mostly word-of-mouth to communicate information. Despite its best efforts, which often involved brute force, the article argues, the state was not always successful in preventing people from talking with each other.
{"title":"Information Control in Afghanistan, 1901–1946","authors":"A. Karimi","doi":"10.3366/afg.2022.0092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2022.0092","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the history of information control in the first half of the twentieth century in Afghanistan. This was a period of great turmoil. The world fought two devastating wars and Afghanistan went through major political and social transformations that included several violent regime changes. Despite being a neutral state, the Afghan capital attracted European rivals who campaigned for the hearts and minds of Afghans. In addition to foreign intrigues, the Afghan rulers, too, used certain information practices as part of their surveillance regimes to suppress political dissent and public unrest. A contribution to media history in Afghanistan, this article looks into how the state tried to control the flow of information in this period through surveillance, censorship, and the spread of misinformation. This was an era when print and other media technologies gained significant popularity in Afghanistan but people continued to use mostly word-of-mouth to communicate information. Despite its best efforts, which often involved brute force, the article argues, the state was not always successful in preventing people from talking with each other.","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44648360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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.
本文调查了著名学者Fakhr al- d n al-Rāzī(公元606/1210年)在大约591/1195年至602/1206年期间为Ghūrid苏丹服务的十年左右的智力生产。这部作品完全在宗教学科——神学、法律和古兰经ān训诂学——中进行,并表现出明显的修辞和辩证特征,与他早期和后期的作品形成鲜明对比,后者最显著的表现是与哲学更密切的接触。有人认为,al-Rāzī作品中的“Ghūrid插曲”反映了他在领导苏丹脱离社会和文化边缘Karrāmiyya并将自己塑造成一个复杂和世界主义正统的拥护者的项目中的作用,并且进一步与他的赞助人的跨地区政策保持一致,包括他们的亲阿巴斯立场。Al-Rāzī被哈里发al-Nāṣir冠以“召唤人们到真主那里去的人”的头衔(al- dahu ā ā li-l-khalq ilā l-ḥaqq),更常见的证明是“召唤真主的人”(al- dahu ā ā ilā llāh)。文章还提供了一个新的审查al-Rāzī的Ghūrid-period知识分子传记和作品。
{"title":"Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Ghūrid Self-Fashioning","authors":"A. Shihadeh","doi":"10.3366/afg.2022.0095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2022.0095","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42478396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article looks into the tradition of bachah-bāzī, namely, showing interest for or having liaison with beardless young males, and contextualizes it within Afghan society and culture (and beyond). Complicating some widely held accounts of bachah-bāzī, the article suggests that the “unavailability of females” alone cannot adequately account for the persistence of the tradition in Afghanistan, and that bachahs (beardless young males) are not necessarily “underage boys” but have historically been perceived as distinct gender figures in addition to women and men. More broadly, the article reveals that studying the practice of bachah-bāzī will open up discussions on a range of related subjects, from male friendships and power play among men to gender and family relations and the construction of male desire and (homo)sexuality in Afghanistan. Studying bachah-bāzī may also lead to conversations about the aesthetics of male dance-forms, regional folk songs, music and musical creativity, Sufism and (homoerotic) poetry, histories of war and militarism, and state-building and development and reconstruction projects.
{"title":"Bachah-bāzī: A Socio-Erotic Tradition","authors":"Ali Abdi","doi":"10.3366/afg.2022.0091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2022.0091","url":null,"abstract":"This article looks into the tradition of bachah-bāzī, namely, showing interest for or having liaison with beardless young males, and contextualizes it within Afghan society and culture (and beyond). Complicating some widely held accounts of bachah-bāzī, the article suggests that the “unavailability of females” alone cannot adequately account for the persistence of the tradition in Afghanistan, and that bachahs (beardless young males) are not necessarily “underage boys” but have historically been perceived as distinct gender figures in addition to women and men. More broadly, the article reveals that studying the practice of bachah-bāzī will open up discussions on a range of related subjects, from male friendships and power play among men to gender and family relations and the construction of male desire and (homo)sexuality in Afghanistan. Studying bachah-bāzī may also lead to conversations about the aesthetics of male dance-forms, regional folk songs, music and musical creativity, Sufism and (homoerotic) poetry, histories of war and militarism, and state-building and development and reconstruction projects.","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43931780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines Hazara history writing, exploring how Hazara authors highlight the community’s formerly low socio-economic status and stigma attached to “being” Hazara. It also shows how in the 1980s and 1990s a shift in ethnic consciousness among Hazaras led to a new sense of pride and confidence, which continues to the present. The analysis focuses on two websites, Hazara.net and Hazara International, which are key social spaces for engagement with Hazara historiography. These websites are central to the ongoing production of an indigenous community history. These online spaces allow for the documentation, preservation, and propagation of Hazara history from a community-oriented lens.
{"title":"Deconstructing Afghan Historiography: A Case Study of Hazara History Writing","authors":"R. Khan","doi":"10.3366/afg.2022.0093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2022.0093","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Hazara history writing, exploring how Hazara authors highlight the community’s formerly low socio-economic status and stigma attached to “being” Hazara. It also shows how in the 1980s and 1990s a shift in ethnic consciousness among Hazaras led to a new sense of pride and confidence, which continues to the present. The analysis focuses on two websites, Hazara.net and Hazara International, which are key social spaces for engagement with Hazara historiography. These websites are central to the ongoing production of an indigenous community history. These online spaces allow for the documentation, preservation, and propagation of Hazara history from a community-oriented lens.","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45177711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The acclaimed “autobiography” of the late nineteenth-century ruler of Afghanistan, Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan (r. July 1880–October 1901), The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, G.C.B., G.C.S.I., has had a remarkably long and influential, if unexamined, history. Published in 1900 in two volumes, it was to include in its first volume a translation of Pandnāmah-i dunyā wa dīn, a genuine composition of the amir published in Kabul circa 1304 a.h. (1886–1887 c.e.). The Pandnāmah or Book of Advice, an unfinished 140-page work, recounts his life from the age of nine to the age of thirty-seven, just before he came to the throne in the summer of 1880. The English version found a receptive audience and was itself translated very quickly into Russian and back into Persian in 1901 and 1903. The fundamental question this paper raises: is the first volume of The Life of Abdur Rahman a translation of “every word of the Amir’s own narrative of his early years” as Sultan Muhammad (Mahomed), its editor, claimed?
19世纪末阿富汗统治者阿米尔·阿卜杜勒·拉赫曼·汗(生于1880年7月- 1901年10月)的自传《阿米尔·阿卜杜勒·拉赫曼,阿富汗的阿米尔,g.c.b., g.c.s.i.的一生》虽未经考证,却有着相当长的历史和影响力。这本书于1900年出版,分两卷,第一卷将包括Pandnāmah-i dunywa d n的翻译,这是大约公元1304年(公元1886-1887年)在喀布尔出版的埃米尔的真实作品。《忠告书》(Pandnāmah)是一部140页的未完成作品,讲述了他从9岁到37岁的生活,就在1880年夏天他登上王位之前。英文版找到了接受它的读者,并在1901年和1903年很快被翻译成俄语和波斯语。本文提出的根本问题是:《阿卜杜尔·拉赫曼的一生》的第一卷是否如其编辑苏丹·穆罕默德所宣称的那样,是“阿米尔自己早年叙述的每一个字”的翻译?
{"title":"Translation and Transformation: The “Autobiography” of ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan","authors":"R. Mcchesney, A. Tarzi","doi":"10.3366/afg.2022.0094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/afg.2022.0094","url":null,"abstract":"The acclaimed “autobiography” of the late nineteenth-century ruler of Afghanistan, Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan (r. July 1880–October 1901), The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, G.C.B., G.C.S.I., has had a remarkably long and influential, if unexamined, history. Published in 1900 in two volumes, it was to include in its first volume a translation of Pandnāmah-i dunyā wa dīn, a genuine composition of the amir published in Kabul circa 1304 a.h. (1886–1887 c.e.). The Pandnāmah or Book of Advice, an unfinished 140-page work, recounts his life from the age of nine to the age of thirty-seven, just before he came to the throne in the summer of 1880. The English version found a receptive audience and was itself translated very quickly into Russian and back into Persian in 1901 and 1903. The fundamental question this paper raises: is the first volume of The Life of Abdur Rahman a translation of “every word of the Amir’s own narrative of his early years” as Sultan Muhammad (Mahomed), its editor, claimed?","PeriodicalId":40186,"journal":{"name":"Afghanistan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48432895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}