With the Afghans Claud Herbert Alwyn Field
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of Nebraska Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Books in English Digitized Books 1-1-1908 With the Afghans Claud Herbert Alwyn Field Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/afghanuno Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Recommended Citation London: Marshall brothers, ltd., 1908 vi p., 3 ℓ., 221, [1] page, plates, ports., map, 22 cm This Monograph is brought to you for free and open access by the Digitized Books at DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Books in English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WITH THE AFGHANS A Street in a Native City. I'/ WITH THE AFGHANS BY CLAUD .FIELD, lVIA Author of "Heroes of Mi~sionaryEnterprise? (Late C.M.S. Mlsaionary at Peahawar) WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP LONDON r MARSHALL BROTHERS, LTD KESWICK HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW, EC R. W. SlhIPSON AND CO.,LTD., PRINTILRS, RICHDIOND AND LONDONl PREFACE S the train toils slowly along the thousand miles from Bombay to the North-West Frontier at Peshawar and approaches the terminus, one becomes aware of a different type of native entering the carriages to the mild Hindoo. Stalwart bearded men over six feet high and clad, if it be winter, in " posteens," i.e., rough sheep skins worn with the hair inwards, stalk up and down the platforms as if they and not the English were the lords of the country. These are the Pathans or Afghans, an attempt to describe mission work among i whom is made in the following pages. This mission work has been slow in commencing, and has proceeded amidst great difficulties. It is nearly a hundred years since William Carey, at Calcutta, employed a Pathan hlunshi to translate the New Testament into Pushtu (1818). As one looks at the coarse paper and bad print, one is astonished at the far-seeing faith of the great Baptist missionary, for at that time the English 1 Frontier had not touched the Panjab, and it was not till 1849 that that vast territory was annexed, nor till 1853 that the Peshawar mission was founded. In the latter year the Rev. Robert Clark, of the Church Missionary Society, arrived in Peshawar. He at once realised I 1 the immense strategic importance of the place in the 1 I missionary campaign, and that it was principally from I Preface Peshawar that the Gospel was destined to penetrate into Afghanistan and Central Asia. His anticipations are now, more than half a century afterwards, being fulfilled, chiefly by the agency of the medical missions at Peshawar and Bannu, to which numerous tribesmen resort from trans-frontier districts, and from which they are known, in more than one instance, to have carried the Gospel message back to their fellow-countrymen, Politically Afghanistan is still a closed country, and no missionary is allowed to cross the frontier, but as Abdur- rahman, the Afghan poet, says:- " Na ba shi tarali pa znnzir Sara haw%," " No chain can bind the wind," v and the Gospel goes where the missionary cannot. The writer well remembers a young A€ghan from Ningrahar, v 1 beyond the frontier, telling him that the first time he VII had come in contact with the Gospel was by someone I: having brought a torn copy of St. Matthew from Peshawar to his remote village. As regards the type of convert made from among the Pathans, unsatisfactory as some doubtless are, the writer X can only say that having worked nine years among the XI lower classes in London and nine in Peshawar, he has XI1 never among the former seen converts of such "grit" and XI' character as he saw in what has been perhaps not unjustly termed <'the vilest city in Asia."* The very darkness of the background throws such characters into strong and bright relief. C. F. Blackwor~d'sMagazine," 1879. vi CONTENTS CI~APTI~R PAGE I. The Afghans : Their Origin and History. The Ailleer Abdtlrrahman - - 3 11. Afghan Custon~sand Characteristics - - 17 111. I'esharvar City and Cantonment: The IChyber Pass 35 IV. The Religion of the Pathans - - 49 V. Mission Work : Early Converts : Education - - 77 VI. Mission Work : I tineration - - 87 VII. Preaching Across the Frontier - - - 103 VIII. An Afghan Hcretic - - 117 IX. Ttvo Soldiers of the Guicles (Dilawar I$l~an and Fazi-i-Haqcl - - I33 X. The Frontier Rising of 1897 : The Pesllawar Medical Mission - I53 XI. Converts ai~dEnqnirers : An Afghaa Martyr - 169 XII. Persian Influences on the Afghans: Sufism - - 183 XIII. Afghan Poets - - 193 X I V. Afghan Fables - - 209 LIST ILLUSTRATIONS I'AGB A Street in a Native City - - I;rontis$iece Afreedee Villages sl~owingthe Towers from which Afreedees fire at each other - 21 Cabuli Gate, Peshawar City - - 35 Main Bazaar, Peshawar City - - 37 Grain Market, Peshawar - - 39 Jumrood Fort, Mouth of the Khyber Pass - - 35 Fort of Ali Musjid in Khyber Pass - - 46 The Principal Mosque, Peshawar - - 69 Missionary Conference at Peshawar, 1901. - - 77 The Rev. A. E. Day and Rev. H. J. Hoare, with group of Native Masters and Students - - 81 An Ekka - - 87 Peshawar District (Map) - - - 89 Pathans of Yusufiai - - rzg Former Nedical Mission Hospital, Peshawar - - 161 A Patient from Ningrahar in the Medical Mission Hospital - 163 The Rev. W. Thwaites, C.M.S.,Mr. A. Brooks, and Group of Native Christians, 1895 - 169 Bihishti (Water Carrier) - - 171 PREFATORY NOTE Y best thanks are due to the Editor of the "Church Missionary Review" for pernlission to use material from the Cl~urchMissionary publications, and for the loan of photographs. Other photographs have been lent by private friends. Dr. Hastings has kindly allowed the inclusion of a paper which appeared in the " Expository Times." The Afghans: Their Origin and History The Ameer Abdurrahman CHAPTER I WRITER on the Afghans is at once confronted with the question of their origin. According to A their own tradition they are "Bani Israel," children of Israel, and trace their descent back to Afghana, said to be the commander-in-chief of I<ing Solomon. Wild as this assertion may appear at first sight, Dr. Bellew, who resided for years in Afghanistan, and made a careful study of the people, is inclined to credit it. He adduces in support of his positiol~ the striking fact that many of their customs are not enjoined by their religion, Islam, and have a striking resemblance to Jewish ones. Thus at a time of pestilence it is a common thing to slaughter a sheep and syrinltle the blood on the door-posts, or to lead a heifer round the village, and then dismiss it into the wilderness. Their lands are periodically distributed by lot, and a widow becomes the wife of her deceased husband's brother. The striking Jewish cast of countenance which they nearly all possess lends considerable countenance to this theory. On the other hand, linguistic experts like Dr. Trumpp have pronounced their language Pukhtu or Pushtu to be unmistakably Aryan, not semitic. The term Pukhtun (or Pathan, as the natives of India pronounce it) is probably derived from " Pukhta," a mountain ridge, and therefore properly applies to these hill-dwellers. Dr. Bellew identifies it with the Pactiyes mentioned by Herodotus- It is a term of wider range than Afghan. Every Afghan 3 With the Afghans is a Pathan, but not every Pathan is an Afghan, just as every Scotchman or Welshman ranks as an Englishman, but every Englishman is not a Scotchman or Welshman. Thus the Hazara tribe, though of Mongol descent, count as Afghans, since they reside in the same country. Besides the explanation of the name Afghan given above, another is that this word, which in Persian mcans " lamentation," was applied to this people by reason of their constantly lamenting their deportation from their ancient home in Syria. The name " Pathan " is said to have been given by Mohammed to I<ais, the ancestor of the Afghans, when he went with some of the Afghan elders to Arabia to enquire into the truth of Islam. The term " Pathan" means in the Syrian language the rudder of a ship, Mohammed implying by it that Kais would guide his I people in the right way. At any rate, the Afghans seem from an early date to have become zealous supporters of I Islam, as they are to this date. Their earliest appearance I in history is in the Suleiman mountains, in the district of Ghor, on the west of Afghanistan. I11 the eleventh century Mahmud of Ghazni enlisted Afghan auxiliaries in his repeated descents upon the rich plains of Hindustan. When he took Lahore and Delhi he is said to have left some Afghans settled there to spread Islam. After the death of Mahmoud, Bahram, one of his successors, put to death with great cruelty an Afghan prince of Ghor, Kutb-ud-din Sur. His death was avenged by Ala-ud- din, his brother, who utterly destroyed Ghazni, at that time one of the most magnificent cities in Asia. Ala-ud- din became the founder of the Afghan dynasty of the House of Ghor. His son, Shahab-ud-din, founded the Mahommeda~empire in India after crushing the Rajputs (A.D. 1193). During the continual political upheavals 4 Their Origin and History which subsequently took place, scveral Afghan chiefs carved out kingdoms for themselves in Bellgal and Orissa. In the fifteenth century the Afghan dynasty of pnt Lodi obtained possession of the throne of Delhi itself. This dynasty was in its turn overthrown by the Emperor Baber (A.D. 1526), founder of the Moghul empire. While Afghan adventurers were seeking their fortunes in India, the bulk of the nation rcmained in the mountains.