By the Order Of

(By the order of) {His Highness, the Lamp of the Nation and of the Religion} (The Just and Righteous Ruler) The Excellent Book, the Lamp of Histories, which has drafted a record of events thanks to the concern of the ineffable royal personage. 2 Fayz Muhammad Printed at the Hurufi Press, Kabul, the capital In the year 1331 (translated R. D. McChesney) Sir�j al-taw�rıkh volume one 3 He is God, the Most High In the Name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate Praise be to God, who made the stories of the good and evil people of the past a lesson to those who come after and are perceptive. Full and perfect prayers and praises on our Lord, Muhammad the Chosen, and on his virtuous family and pious Companions as long as day follows night and night follows day through all ages and epochs. To begin: The worshipper of the Creator of sun and moon, the one who gives thanks to the Lord, giver of crown and rank, and the protector of all those who reside and dwell in the community of reciters of the good words, “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God” His Highness, the Lamp of the Nation and the Religion, Amir Habib Allah Khan, the independent ruler of Afghanistan and (Afghan) Turkistan, clearly expresses himself to those who read of the doings of previous generations, “For a long time I have had it in mind and deemed it necessary to write down the events and circumstances of Afghan rulers beginning with His Highness, Ahmad Shah Durrani and proceeding down to our own day. As the reins of the office of the amirate of Afghanistan have now come into the capable grasp of this worshipper of the Creator Most Glorious, thanks to His grace and favor, a decision has been made 4 Fayz Muhammad to proceed with the recording of those events. But since I consider myself excused from this because of my involvement in state matters and in improving the army and the lot of the subjects, I have appointed Fayz Muhammad Katib, the son of Sa’id Muhammad Mughul, known as a Hazarah of the Muhammad Khwajah, to write a narrative account of the Afghan rulers and to compile a book which would remain a memorial through time. Notwithstanding my deep involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan, I myself have reviewed the book, section by section, as it has been written. Having made deletions and corrections, I now give permission for its publication. Whatever errors are noticed should be blamed only on my pre-occupation with state affairs. “Mortal man becomes eternal when he lives a life of good repute, For after him, remembrance of the good makes his name immortal” In accordance with these exemplary lines, His Highness, whose refulgent light is always directed towards the improvement of the army and the citizenry and whose world-adorning attention is always turned towards rebuilding the nation and the kingdom, one day summoned this most humble of sinners /3/ and bestowed on him his favor, honoring him by elevating him from the dust of humbleness to the zenith of glory through the felicitous direction of such an illustrious command. He ordered (this humble servant) to compile a book on the reigns and conquests of Afghan sovereigns and to record therein the former boundaries of the territory of Afghanistan even though this might differ from what is found in history books and to give as well the ranges of temperature and the latitude and longitude of each region of this territory. Having compiled a true representation of these and having correlated them with the present demarcated borders of the country by means of measuring instruments and then after assembling a genealogy of the Afghan clans and an enumeration of their luminaries, this humble servant was to make them an appendix to this book. Sir�j al-taw�rıkh volume one 5 Rulers prior to Ahmad Shah were not to be included because history books already mention them and including them would be repetitious and lengthen the book to no end. After saying, “I hear and obey” to the felicity-causing orders of the noble one, this humble servant began to write. First, in order to allay the doubts of his contemporaries, he assembled the historical works which are in use and which go some way towards explaining Afghan events. These include: 1) Jah�n Gush�-yi N�dirı, 2) T�rıkh-i Sir John Malcolm 3) T�rıkh-i A˛madı, 4) Khiz�nah-yifi◊mirah, 5) the Qajar volume of N�sikh al-taw�rıkh, 6) the Arabic treatise of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghanistani, 7) T�rıkh-i sul†�nı, 8) the treatise by fiAli Quli Mirza-yi Ifitizad al-saltanah-yi Irani, 9) Ris�lah-i mu˛�rabah-i K�bul wa Qandah�r, 10) Kit�b-i man÷ümah of Hamid-i Kashmiri, ll) the journal of His Highness, Shujafi al-Mulk, 12) Kit�b-i ˘ay�t-i Afgh�nı by Deputy Hayat Khan, 13) Raw„zat al-ßaf�-yi N�ßirı, 14) the Arabic work, Mir√at al-wa∂iyah by the American, Cornelius Joseph Van Dyck, 15) Pand-n�mah-i duny� wa dın, by the Paradise-dwelling ruler, His Highness, Light of the Nation and the Religion, the late (fiAbd al-Rahman Khan), and 16) J�m-i jam by Farhad Mirza. Next, the writer compared all the events and attributed the variant accounts to the authors of each. (Finally) he collected and recorded descriptions of famous events related by reliable senior figures like Sardar Muhammad Yusuf Khan, the son of the late Amir-i Kabir, His Highness Dust Muhammad Khan; Sardar Nur fiAli Khan, the son of the late Sardar Shir fiAli Khan Qandahari; the Chief Qazi, (Qazi al-quzat), Safid al-Din Khan, son of the late Chief Qazi, fiAbd al-Rahman Khan, the “kh�n-i fiulüm”; and others. Some of these stories they had heard from their fathers and grandfathers and some events they had seen for themselves. Now, at the royal behest, they told them (to the author). The author named the work “The Lamp of Histories” (Sir�j al-taw�rıkh) for its namesake (the amir, Habib Allah, whose throne title is “Lamp (Sir�j) of the Nation and the Religion”). 6 Fayz Muhammad THE FORMER BOUNDARIES OF AFGHANISTAN: HOW THE COUNTRY WAS NAMED, ITS FAMOUS REGIONS, AND THEIR TEMPERATURE RANGES According to Hayat Khan, this territory was known as Kabulistan and Zabulistan in the time of Kayan and the Pishdadiyan. When Alexander the Great conquered it, it became known in Greek as Bactria, i.e. Bakhtar. Later it came under the sway of Islam and was divided into two sections, a western and an eastern. The western part was called Khurasan, the most famous city of which is Herat; it extended from Kabul and Qandahar as far as Iran. The eastern part was called “the land of Roh”, that is the mountainous region located east of the Indus River and extending as far as Hasan Abdal. During the time of Muhammad Akbar Padishah, this region was one of the districts of India and was registered as a sub-district of Kabul. At the time of Ahmad Shah, who came to the throne after the collapse of Nadir Shah’s regime in 1747, corresponding to the Hijri year 1160, it came to be more often designated “Afghanistan”. The simplest way to explain this is that in view of the large number of Afghans who lived in this territory, the phoneme (laf÷) “istan”1 is added to the word “Afghan” hence the name “Afghanistan”. This is analogous to “Arabistan” (Arabia), “gulistan” (flower garden), etc. which are so named because of the abundance of Arabs in the former and flowers in the latter. According to the author of J�m-i jam, the territory (of Afghanistan) is larger than France. From east to west, it is one thousand miles long and from north to south, seven hundred and eighty miles wide. It includes all the eastern part of Iran (today) and the northwestern part of India. In the east it is bounded by the Indus (2) River.2 Lengthwise, this vast territory stretches from the eastern boundary of Kashmir, which is at the longitude /4/ 77 degrees east to the western part of Herat which is 61 degrees east of Greenwich. From north to south it extends from Balkh to Baluchistan. 1 FM: –st�ns a place abounding in something. 2 FM: The Indus is the roiver of Sind and is also called the Attock. Sir�j al-taw�rıkh volume one 7 This region at times has been called “the sultanate of Kabul” after its capital and at other times “the sultanate of Qandahar” when that was the capital. Long ago it was called “the sultanate of Ghaznah” or “Ghaznin,” another of its capitals. This sultanate, in particular, includes Afghanistan, and generally comprises parts of Khurasan, Balkh, Sistan, Kashmir, a small piece of Lahore, and a large section of Multan. The population of the various communities, in all these provinces, amounts to fifteen million: Afghans—4,500,000; Hindus—5,500,000; Tatars— 1,500,000; Iranians—1,500,000; and others—2,000,000. This figure differs from what the author of Kit�b-i ˘ay�t-i Afgh�nı says. After stating that the land area of the territory is 300,000 square miles and that there are twenty-eight people per square mile, he writes that the population is 8,400,000.

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