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DRESSING for the FUTURE in ANCIENT GARB the Use of Clothing in Afghan Politics Willem Vogelsang Universiteit Leiden / National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden

DRESSING for the FUTURE in ANCIENT GARB the Use of Clothing in Afghan Politics Willem Vogelsang Universiteit Leiden / National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden

KHIL{A 1 (2005), pp. 123-138

DRESSING FOR THE FUTURE IN ANCIENT GARB The use of in Afghan politics Willem Vogelsang Universiteit Leiden / National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden

Hamid Karzai as a idol Karzai has become a favourite of the world press. Foreign politicians like to be photographed in his In January 2002, Tom Ford, creative director of the presence. His silvery or golden brown qarakoli Gucci fashion house, told the media that the (astrakhan) headdress and the wide flowing, green recently appointed chairman of the interim govern- and purple thrown loosely across his shoul- ment of the Islamic State of , Hamid ders present a very attractive picture indeed. Perhaps Karzai, was the “most chic” politician on this planet journalists and foreign diplomats are unconsciously (Fig. 1).1 In March 2004, on the eve of an interna- surprised to see a well-educated and attractive man tional donor conference in Berlin, the German fash- in beautiful clothing emerging from a ‘backward’ ion designer Wolfgang Joop correspondingly praised country such as Afghanistan.3 According to Karzai for his impeccable style and added that Wolfgang Joop in Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel (1 April other world leaders could learn a lesson or two from 2004), “President Karzai is a shining example of the Afghan president.2 how a man can maintain the role of a gentleman even while wearing the dress of his ancestors.”4

1 BBC Worldservice, 17 January 2002. was born on 24 December 1957 from a wealthy and high-rank- ing and fiercely royalist Pashtun family. He studied at the Himachal University in Simla between 1979 and 1983. After the fall of the Marxist regime of President Najibullah in 1992 he was appointed deputy minister for foreign affairs of Afghanistan under President , He left his post out of discontent with the growing political disorder. At first he was supporting the emerging movement and had several meetings with Mullah Omar. In the end however, he refused the offer of becoming Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United Nations. He joined his father and other family members in the Pakistani town of Quetta and started to work against the Taliban. In 1999 his father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was murdered, reportedly by Taliban followers. In early December 2001, after the fall of the Taliban, he was appointed chairman of the interim administration of Afghanistan and in December 2004 he was inaugurated as the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan. 2 Deutsche Welle, 2 April 2004. 3 People’s appreciation of the qarakoli was (understand- ably) somewhat marred however, when it became known that the -quality headdresses are made of the skins of Fig. 1 President Hamid Karzai on NATO’s assumption of unborn lambs and that the sheep are beaten in order to command of the ISAF Forces in Afghanistan, 11 August abort their foetuses. 2003 (photograph courtesy NATO) 4 Reuters, 1 April 2004.

123 Attractive and politically highly useful port for his war-torn country. More importantly, Karzai’s qarakoli cap and chapan told his own While international couturiers and the media focus people that as a tribal Pashtun leader from the on the attractiveness of Karzai’s clothing, the real southeast of the country, by adopting a type of dress objective of the Afghan president’s sartorial presence that is more ‘northern’ and ‘non-Pashtun’ than of course goes beyond the mere production of a anything else, he strove to be the president for all pretty picture. The well-dressed Karzai follows in the Afghans. He did not want to come across as a the footsteps of other popular politicians who typical Pashtun chief. According to an Afghan understood the importance of dress. Nelson refugee in America, “[Karzai] wears them [the dif- Mandela, the great hero of casual clothing, won the ferent garments] all together because he wants peace hearts of the foreign media and world opinion with between Pashtun, Kabuli, Uzbek. He’s showing peo- his colourful Madiba .5 He knows very well ple we are the same, no more tribal divisions, one that his attire expresses his policy of optimism, nation, no difference between us anymore.”7 happiness and equality. Another statesman who Whether the amalgam of ethnic, regional and reli- used his (rather minimal) dress for political purposes gious groups of Afghanistan accepts this was Mahatma Gandhi, who regularly wore just sartorial ‘trick’ or not (and some people ridicule him a loin-cloth, even when visiting Buckingham for it), the fact remains that Karzai used, as he still Palace.6 In this way Gandhi showed his simplicity does, his clothing to position himself in, and above and his disapproval of British rule and dislike of Afghan society and thus to present his pan-Afghan British culture. There is also the late Palestinian policies. leader Yasser Arafat, whom hardly anyone would have recognised without his scrubby beard and the kafiyah that was sewn onto his military-style The language of dress in the shape of Palestina. The red tie of President Clothing being used for political ends is merely George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair one aspect of dress.8 Clothing constitutes an essen- adds to their (wished for) image of assertiveness and tial part of people’s life and is clearly more than manliness. All these politicians consciously use or merely a means to protect and cover the body. used their dress as a trademark and a means to pres- Without saying a word it tells the outside world ent their policies. Image, after all, is everything, and who we are and what we want. Dress provides that dictum applies especially to politicians. information about our gender, social standing, The positive impression Karzai’s appearance age, religion, ethic origin, relatives, political opin- made on the Western world helped him to gain sup- ions, and many more aspects that define our posi- tion in society. The study of clothing and all that goes with it therefore concentrates on the language of dress. And as in the case of ‘real’ languages, 5 The garments (cotton or , and always with long sleeves) there are three basic elements that should be dis- are named after Mandela’s tribe, and they are produced tinguished, namely a) the medium, which is the by the firm of Yusuf Surtie. Mandela adopted this type of dress after a visit to President Suharto of Indonesia, clothing itself; b) the wearer, and c) the spectator. who always used to wear similar types of . See also All three elements are closely related and one does http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/archive/zaf/html/southafrica15069 not exist without the others. It is therefore essen- 9.html tial to bear in mind the three basic questions when 6 Incidentally, Gandhi is one of Hamid Karzai’s idols. 7 New York Times, January 2002. See also Seierstadt’s The studying the language of a particular piece of Bookseller of (2002/2004:148): “He so as to clothing: what kind of clothing are we talking represent all of Afghanistan: lambskin cap from Kandahar about? What does the wearer want to say with it? in the south, from the north and shirt from the west- And how do the onlookers interpret or misinter- ern provinces bordering .” 8 I use the term dress to indicate all forms of body covering, pret this message? body ornament and body modification, including clothing, The language of dress has always played an hair style, tattooing, , etc. important role in Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai is 9 Amanullah, born in 1892, was the son of Amir Habibullah not the first Afghan to understand its significance. and grandson of Amir Abdal Rahman Khan, the virtual founder of the state of Afghanistan in the late nineteenth Highly interesting and perhaps amusing is the century. Unlike his predecessors, Amanullah advocated clothing sometimes worn by the Afghan ruler a policy of greater liberalisation and westernisation. He Amanullah (emir and king between 1919-1929).9

124 He advocated a policy of drastic reforms, in imita- tion of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey (1881- 1938) and Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran (1878-1944). Amanullah liked to have himself portrayed in a fanciful Western-style , in order thus to show that he wanted to break with the traditional past (Fig. 2). More recently, the strict dress codes imposed on men, and in particular upon women, under the Taliban regime were promulgated in order to show the Taliban’s adherence to their distorted version of Islam.10 The fragmented state of Afghanistan Modern Afghanistan is a highly fragmented society in which political and social organisation concen- trates in the main on the immediate circle of acquaintances of the individual (the so-called qaum). The qaum may be determined by family links, but could also be based on wider ethnic, religious or local characteristics. There is in the same context a wide gap between the ruling elite in the capital and the main cities on the one hand, and the people living in the countryside on the other. For the local people, the capital and its rulers were always the enemy, or at best an external force to Fig. 2 King Amanullah of Afghanistan (1919-1929). hide from. The rulers and their followers only came Print private collection author. to the villages to collect taxes; to pick up boys for the army and girls for the harem. started to close in the decades before the start of the During the late-nineteenth and early twentieth civil war. century, Afghanistan slowly developed into a more centralised state. The traditional gap between Kabul Afghanistan’s population and the countryside never disappeared, but contacts Estimates of Afghanistan’s population vary, but intensified and Afghanistan seemed to be on the most observers accept a figure of some twenty-eight road to become a state in a Western sense. However, million.11 In neighbouring countries there are still the Marxist coup of 1978, the Soviet invasion (spring 2004) some three million refugees. Not all of Christmas 1979, the ensuing civil war and the of them will return to Afghanistan, but Iran and creation of Afghanistan as an arena for the final both put pressure on the Afghan refugees stages of the Cold War, and last but not least the emergence of the Taliban in the 1990s, stopped the process of nation-building. During all these secured Afghanistan’s independence from Britain following chaotic years the capital and the state no longer the third Anglo-Afghan war of 1919 (which provided him with the epithet Ghazi). In 1923 he gave Afghanistan its had anything positive to offer but violence and first written constitution, giving equal rights to all Afghans. oppression. People were again thrown back for their In 1926 he assumed the title of King. From late 1927 until protection to their immediate circle of men and the middle of 1928 he toured Iran, Turkey and Western women they could trust, be it because the latter Europe. Upon his return he ordered that from March 1929 all men in Kabul, and all visitors to the city, should wear originated from the same region, because they western dress, and women need no longer go veiled. On 14 belonged to the same ethnic group, adhered to the January 1929 he was forced to resign following a series of same religion, or for other reasons. Hence the rise revolts. He died in exile on 26 April 1960, and was buried of local commanders and the so-called warlords. in , Afghanistan. 10 Literature on the Taliban is plentiful. In this instance I refer The dramatic events of the last twenty-five years to the famous book by Ahmed Rashid, 2000. thus widened the many fault lines in Afghan 11 Compare the CIA-factbook for 2003: society that had always been there, but had slowly http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/af.html

125 to go back to their country. Consequently the languages, that in its turn is related to other Indo- population of Afghanistan will rise steeply in the European languages, as for instance Latin, Greek, years to come, also because of a great improvement Russian, English, German, Dutch, etc. The Pashtun of healthcare. are very proud of their perceived ancestry and their The civil war and the enormous streams of language, which distinguishes them from the Turkic people coming and going, and the resulting popu- languages spoken in (North) Afghanistan, and from lation growth of the capital of Kabul, have upset the the Semitic languages, as for instance Arabic and traditional relations between the various regions and Hebrew.14 groups of people in the country. People no longer The second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan live where their ancestors used to live. At the same is that of the . Strictly speaking they do not time it is still very important for the individual form a group. It is mainly the outside world, in this to know his qaum, his ethnic and religious back- case the ruling Pashtun, who tends to class all, or ground, and the locality where his family used most of the Persian-speaking Afghans as Tajik. They to come from. Without this knowledge he hardly mainly live in the north and west of the country exists. and, as said, they speak Persian, another Iranian Most of the twenty-eight million Afghans are language like Pashto. In Afghanistan the local consequently keenly aware of their background. Persian dialect is known as . Persian is also the That is their lifeline. Next to religion, local origins main language of the Islamic Republic of Iran in and other aspects, it is ethnicity that constitutes the west and the Republic of Tajikistan in the north. a person’s identity. There are more than fifty recog- The Tajiks generally identify themselves on the basis nised ethnic groups in the country (Fig. 3).12 Some of their place of origin. Ahmad Shah Massud, the of them, like the Arab population,13 are very small, legendary leader of the Afghans in the civil war, was but others, like the Pashtun, are very large. The a Tajik, but identified himself as a Panjshiri, after Pashtun mainly live in the south and southeast the valley where he lived, namely the Panjshir of the country. They make up some forty per cent valley northeast of Kabul.15 of the population. Roughly the same number of Another important ethnic group speaking Pashtun (some ten million) live across the border Persian is that of the . They live in the with Pakistan. The Pashtun used to constitute the mountainous centre of the country. They claim to dominant ethnic group of Afghanistan. Both the ex- descend from the armies of the Mongol leader king of the country, Zahir Shah, and the president, Genghiz Khan who in the early thirteenth century Hamid Karzai, are Pashtun. The Pashtun speak invaded the country. The physiognomy of the Pashto, which belongs to the Iranian family of Hazaras is indeed Mongoloid, and their language, albeit Persian, still contains many Mongol words. Their number is estimated at some 1.5 million. They used to constitute the most down-trodden 12 See Erwin Orywal (ed.), 1986. For a full discussion of ethnic group in the country. For centuries their the ethnic groups in Afghanistan, see Vogelsang 2002, homelands were encroached upon and occupied by pp. 16-39. 13 There are reportedly still some Arabic speaking groups in the (nomadic) Pashtun, until they were forced to the north of the country. Their origins are unclear. These withdraw to the poorest and least-productive parts ‘Arabs’ should not be confused with the Arabs who settled of the country.16 The civil war however, has given in the country in recent years, since the 1980s. Many of them a new elan, and one of the vice-presidents of them, especially in the Kunar valley in the east of the coun- try, have mixed with the local population and married local the country, Abdul , is a Hazara. women. Most of the modern Afghans use the term ‘Arab’ There are also some important Turkic speaking to indicate all newcomers to the country from the Muslim ethic groups in the country, including the world, including those from Chechnya. and the Turkmen. They both live in the north of 14 The old idea of the that they descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel (compare Caroe 1958) is hardly ever the country. The Uzbeks count some 1.5 million, mentioned again. and the Turkmen about half a million. They 15 He was eventually killed following a on 9 constitute a group of relative newcomers to the September, 2001, two days before the al-Qaida attack on country, the Uzbeks arriving since the early six- New York and Washington. 16 For the expansion of the Pashtun and the fate of the teenth century. Most of the Turkmen came to the Hazaras, see also Vogelsang 2002b. country after the Russian Revolution in 1917.

126 Fig. 3 The main ethnic groups in Afghanistan (Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood)

Dress in Afghanistan enjoyed Western education and a Western environ- ment (and in some cases still carry American pass- Ethnic affinity is the main factor influencing ports). Good examples are Ashraf Ghani, the former Afghan dress traditions.17 Different clothing helps Minister of Finance,18 and Ali Ahmad Jalali, the Afghan to distinguish him or herself from other Minister of the Interior.19 On the other hand, ethnic groups. Dress is consequently very much part Mohammed Fahim, the former Minister of Defence, of his or her identity. With his dress the Afghan can is invariably seen wearing a traditional headdress. He show whether he is a Pashtun, an Uzbek, a Tajik, a was generally regarded as the most powerful man in Turkmen, or whether he belongs to yet another group. Distinctive clothing is consequently also important for Afghanistan’s modern leaders. With his clothing the Afghan politician may show 17 For Afghan clothing, see the pertinent lemmata in the to which ethnic group he belongs. In this way he Encyclopaedia Iranica: Dress; Dress in Afghanistan (by can more easily attract and represent his potential Nancy Hatch Dupree). 18 Before he moved to Afghanistan to take the position followers. of Minister of Finance, he was Adjunct Professor in The Afghan politician may also, with his cloth- Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, Washington. ing, deny his ethnic background. He may thus show, 19 Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former colonel in the Afghan army who for instance, that he wants to develop the central fled Afghanistan after the Russian invasion and made a career in the US, returned to Afghanistan after the Loya government. In that case he is of course not likely of June 2002. He was described by Douglas Birch in to wear regional clothing, but garments that the Baltimore Sun of 10 April 2004, while sitting in his are accepted all over the country or that even are Kabul office when listening to disquieting news from the regarded as being ‘international’. Some of the northwest of the country: “wearing a crisp blue and red tie, betrayed no emotion as he listened except to begin ministers in Karzai’s government consequently wear fingering his cranberry-colored worry beads just a little bit Western clothing, thereby indicating they have faster.”

127 the country, with his own militia, his own group of followers (from the ) and his own secure source of income.20 Another well-known ‘local’ leader is from Herat, one of the so-called war-lords, whom, as far as I know, has never yet been spotted in ‘international’ clothing. Birth of the Karzai-look Karzai’s clothing is a wonderful example of dress being consciously used for political objectives. Yet, Karzai showed his acuteness as to the power of dress at an earlier stage. On the eve of his appointment as chairman of the interim government, early December 2001, he was still a local commander try- ing to stir up his own Pashtun tribe of the against the ruling, and equally Pashtun Taliban leaders in nearby Kandahar, South Afghanistan. Karzai had only recently returned to Afghanistan after having spent many years in Pakistan and America. By family descent he was a leading chief among the small, but influential Popalzai,21 but the long civil war and Karzai’s absence from the coun- try had made him a stranger to many of his own people. Karzai had to convince his Popalzai that he was one of them, before he could make them to attack the Taliban. One of the tools Karzai used was clothing. In the weeks while he was moving among his Popalzai north of Kandahar he was wearing the Fig. 4 Afghan Mujahedin wearing (photograph author, summer 1982) 20 Mohammed Fahim is the successor of Ahmad Shah Massud and the most important man of the so-called Northern typical Pashtun dress of baggy and shirt Alliance that with the help of the Americans removed the (the so-called shalwar kamiz),22 the Taliban in late 2001. He is often linked to extensive net- works in the drug trade. (waskat), a blanket (pattu) and (patkay or 21 The Popalzai constitute a division of the confed- ; ) (compare Fig. 4).23 Yet, as soon as he eracy of the Pashtun. The Popalzai, and in particular the heard by satellite telephone that Afghan and foreign Sadozai branch, ruled the country between AD 1747 and diplomats meeting at that time in Bonn, Germany, 1817, when they were replaced by the Muhammadzai branch of the division of the . The pres- had appointed him as chairman of the interim gov- ent ex-king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, belongs to the ernment of Afghanistan, he threw off his Pashtun latter branch. clothing. He adopted a dress that was also accept- 22 The term shalwar kamiz is generally used in Pakistan and able to the non-Pashtun peoples of Afghanistan. beyond, also in Afghanistan. The Persian speaking Afghans use the words tanban or ezar (Dari) or partog (Pashto) for The Karzai-look was born. So what exactly did he their trousers, and peran or korta (Dari) for their shirt. start to wear, and consciously not wear? 23 These are the words now used in the Pashtun tribal along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. The word lungi is Afghan headdress and its political implications often also used to indicate the piece of cloth wound around the waist. In fact, the same garment can be used for both The various Afghan ethnic and regional groups tend purposes. to have different forms of headdress. Omnipresent 24 They are generally rounded or semicircular. In the east, however, is the skull-cap (kolah/kulah in Dari; qolay among some of the , the men wear pointed in Pashto), which has different shapes and forms . Other Pashtun tribes, as e.g. the Shinwaris, used to 24 prefer tall, cylindrical caps made of straw (druzaw qolay) of ornamentation. Traditionally most Afghan (Dupree 1973, p. 240). men also wear a turban (langota or dastar in Dari,

128 patkay or pagri, or lungi in Pashto) that is wound the pakul was forbidden and the turban was made around their cap, or directly around the head (com- obligatory. Between 1996, when Kabul was taken pare Fig. 4).25 Boys wear a cap only, until they by the Taliban, and the winter of 2001/2 when the are circumcised when they are allowed to don the Taliban were driven out again, the pakul was not turban over their cap; girls wear the cap until they seen in the city. However, after the retreat of the have reached puberty when they don a . The religious students the men of Kabul, mostly of non- turban itself may also take an important political Pashtun background, not only shaved their beards, significance. When Hamid Karzai, after his father’s but many also threw off their turbans and donned assassination in 1999, was appointed by the a pakul. For a while, turban dealers in Kabul had Popalzai Loya Jirga as their new leader, he was given nothing to do, while pakul traders could hardly a silk turban.26 keep up with the demand for these caps. In the late twentieth century, the fashion of The pakul was still, by 2004, the of the headgear changed rapidly. Between 1978 and 1992, ruling elite of post-Taliban Afghanistan. But many Afghanistan was ruled by a Marxist regime that Afghans felt uneasy about the influence of the Tajiks could remain in power with the massive assistance in the government of the country. In particular the from the side of the former . During Pashtun tend to feel humiliated. In Kandahar, and in that time, many of the local resistance, the the rest of southern Afghanistan where most of the Mujahidin, started to wear a local type of head-dress Pashtun live, very few men wear a pakul, and the called a pakul. It is a flat and pork-pie cap with turban is still dominant. a rolled-up edge and consists of a length of woollen material being sewn into a tube, with a circular Osama bin Laden piece of cloth forming the . It is placed over On 10 September 2003 the Middle Eastern televi- a circular bolster and rolled up to form a round sion station of al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape brim (Fig. 5). reportedly showing Osama bin Laden and his right- All over Afghanistan this garment, often known hand man, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri. Bin as a Chitrali or Nuristani cap, became the symbol Laden was shown wearing a pakul. Many observers of the mostly young men who took up arms against have commented upon this point, namely that it the Red Army and the Marxist regime in Kabul. would be totally unheard of for an Arab fundamen- Between 1980 and 1990 it was thus being worn by talist linked to the Taliban to wear a pakul, rather resistance fighters as a symbol of their political and than a turban or simply a skull cap.28 Consequently military position (Fig. 6). It was made particularly suspicions arose as to the origin of the tape and the famous by Ahmad Shah Massud from the Panjshir how and where of its recording. Suggestions were valley, who resisted both the Soviets in the 1980s made that the tape showed Bin Laden years ago and the Taliban in the 1990s. During the 1980s, when he was still trying to ingratiate himself with the pakul was also being worn by many of the the northern (Tajik), pakul-wearing leaders. Another Pashtun from the south and east of the country, explanation was that the tape showed Bin Laden who are traditionally more inclined to wear a tur- hiding in a transitional area in Afghanistan, between ban on their heads. Pashtun and Tajik dominated parts of the country, The pakul is still very popular among where some of the Pashtun also tend to wear the Pashtuns in Pakistan. However, in Afghanistan a pakul. Such a part of Afghanistan can be located fashion changed once again when in the 1990s north of the East Afghan city of Jalalabad, as the Taliban took over control in the country. The for instance in the Kunar valley where Islamic Taliban (“religious students”) were predominantly fundamentalists of Arabic origin have long made of Pashtun origin from the south of the country, especially from the area around the city of Kandahar. They fought against the influence of the 25 Before World War II turban cloth used to be white, with Tajiks from the northeast of the country, who in black cloth being used in the main by the nomads. 1992 had taken over control of the capital Kabul 26 The Sunday Times, 23 January 2003. 27 after the fall of the Marxist regime. This was one of Real ‘Taliban’ wear the dark coloured turban that is tradi- tional for the Kandahar region. the reasons why the Taliban deliberately opted to 28 Compare B. Raman, in paper 805 of the South Asia Analysis wear turbans, rather than the pakul.27 Eventually, Group, 30 September 2003.

129 Fig. 5 Pakul (RMV 5975-2)

Fig. 6 Mujahedin wearing a pakul (photograph author, summer 1982)

130 themselves a safe refuge and married into the com- munity. Whatever the case, if the tape indeed shows Osama bin Laden and dates to recent times, his clothing does certainly tell something about the place where it was recorded. This would either be in Pakistan, where the pakul is universally worn, or in an area where both his brand of the Islam and the pakul are accepted. The qarakoli So what did Hamid Karzai put on his head when he was appointed chairman of the new Afghan gov- ernment? In the first place, he is seldom seen wear- ing a turban nor does he don a pakul.29 The turban would make him unacceptable to the Tajiks. It would link him to the Pashtun and the hated Taliban. But Karzai could not don a pakul either, for that would have antagonised the Pashtun who Fig. 7 Qarakoli (RMV 5975-5) had dominated Afghan politics for such a long time. Karzai therefore opted for the so-called qarakoli, or sleeve-cuffs and hems. The embroidered are Jinnah cap, as it is also called, after Mohammed Ali often home-made. The coat is normally made of Jinnah (AD 1876-1948), the founding father of cotton or a synthetic material. For special occasions modern Pakistan (Fig. 7). The qarakoli is somewhat a chapan is worn that is made of silk, often -pat- cylindrical in shape and traditionally made of the terned. Similar types of simple coat are known from fleece of Persian lamb (astrakhan), and in the (Turkic) Qashqai nomads in Southwest Iran and Afghanistan worn especially, but not exclusively, the people of the Hunza in the far north of among the Uzbek from the north and in Kabul.30 Pakistan.33 Comparable garments also used to be The highest quality is golden brown in colour, and worn in the Panjab in the Indian subcontinent, and that is the type of qarakoli that Karzai prefers to wear. among the upper classes in Kashmir. The qarakolis are worn in Afghanistan and beyond by the well-to-do people. They use this form of headgear to demonstrate their wealth and 29 31 Karzai was seen wearing a turban during the Loya Jirga important position. The qarakoli is not bound to of December – January 2003/2004, when he needed the a specific ethnic or religious group in the country support of the Pashtun leaders to pass the new constitution. and therefore eminently suitable for Karzai to wear. 30 Also known as qarakol; the word qarakoli is mostly used for In this way he puts himself above the various eth- the urbanised form of the headdress. 31 The father of the main character in Khaled Hosseini’s The nic groups of the country. Kite Runner (2003, p. 13), a well-to-do Pashtun from Kabul in the 1960s and 1970s, when he opened the orphanage The chapan that he had built in the Afghan capital, “was wearing The most conspicuous garment worn by Hamid a green suit and a caracul .” 32 Beige coloured come from the town of Sar-i Pul; Karzai is undoubtedly the chapan: the long cloak Bordeaux red coats from Aqcha; indigo blue ones from with empty sleeves hanging down the shoulders Khanabad; green and purple from Mazar-i Sharif (compare Fig. 8). It is a garment particularly pop- (Steinmann 2003, pp. 80-83). Mountstuart Elphinstone ular among the people in North Afghanistan and (1815, p. 469) describes an Uzbek from North Afghanistan adjoining regions. It is produced in various types as wearing: .. a shirt and trowsers of cotton, a coat or 32 (called chuppaun) of silken or woollen cloth, tied on with and variations of colours. The typically Afghan a girdle; and over it a of woollen cloth, posteen or chapan is a fairly simple garment. It is made of felt…” a single length of material that is folded in half. 33 Compare Veronika Gervers-Molnár 1973. The traditional male of the Hunza (choka; shoka) was made of wild It has separate sleeves and extra side-panels inserted ibex, but this animal is nearly extinct. Nowadays the chogas below them. The chapan normally has woven and are made of sheep’s wool. The long sleeves are often used, embroidered bands around the neck-opening, not to cover the arms, but to be wrapped around the neck.

131 Fig. 8 Chapan (RMV 5975-12)

132 More intricate types of chapan include two narrow widths of cloth, being sewn together leaving a seam down the centre of the back-panel. In fact, var- ious coats of this type may have even more widths of cloth, creating a wide-flowing garment. The latter used to be more popular in , while the more sim- pler version, akin to the Afghan chapan, used to be par- ticularly known from further northwest, in the Khiva area, whence it was exported to the Turkmen roaming the deserts and semi-deserts northwest of modern Afghanistan. This may be the type now adopted by the Afghans in the north of the country.34 History of the chapan The chapan-style coat was in Afghanistan not only worn by Turkic groups. Illustrations in Mounstuart Elphinstone’s famous book on Afghanistan (1815) show proud and obviously affluent Pashtuns riding a horse and wearing what seems to be a chapan-style coat (Fig. 9). Wearing a long and wide coat with Fig. 9 Pashtun wearing chapan-type coat, from empty sleeves was and is clearly wide-spread in this Mountstuart Elphinstone 1815 (opp. p. 414) part of the world. In 1973 the Canadian dress historian Veronika Gervers-Molnár dedicated a special monograph to the subject, tracing back its origins to the first millennium BC. She showed how there are many depictions of this type of coat from the time of the Persian Achaemenid kings (c. 550-330 BC), all reflecting the dress of people on the Iranian plateau and in Central Asia (Fig. 10). The ancient Greeks, in their stories about those parts of the world, called it the kandys. They tell that it was normally worn with empty sleeves, but in the presence of the king the subjects had to put their arms into the sleeves, as a sign of respect, and obviously also to make sure they could not use their weapons. The famous Oxus Treasure, that at the end of the nineteenth century was found along the north- ern borders of Afghanistan and most of which has ended up in the British Museum in London, includes some beautiful depictions of men wearing the kandys. One of these is a man standing in a chariot. All these objects date back to the second half of the first millennium BC.35 Fig. 10 Iranian/Central Asian kandys, worn by priest The kandys, or a coat of the same type, was also (5th century BC, relief at Kizkapan, Iraq). worn in China from the second half of the first millennium BC. It was regarded as the typical garment of the people from the steppes and deserts 34 The origins of the simple, Afghan chapan certainly along China's northern and western borders. All of need more research. Compare a short introduction to the problem in: www.transasiart.com/Textiles/textiles_ this illustrates the origin of the kandys: the steppes turkestan/ttkvetct.htm of South Central Asia. 35 Dalton 1964.

133 Scythian origins come across as a pan-Afghan politician, but he also, Classical authors tell how in the early half of the perhaps unknowingly, adopted a type of coat that first millennium BC horse-riding bowman occupied used to be worn by his Pashtun forebears in cen- what is now Iran and Turkey.36 They carried Iranian turies past, and that ultimately has its origins in the names and became known as the and vast steppes of Central Asia some 3000 years ago. the Cimmerians. The Scythians were known to the The khil‘a people on the Iranian plateau as the Sakas. They originated from the steppes of Central Asia, where The chapan also leads us to the title of this new Iranian-speaking groups had lived since at least the journal. In June 2003, the Afghan Minister for second millennium. When they discovered the use Refugees and Repatration, , pre- of horse riding and how with their herds they could sented the Australian Foreign Affairs minister, travel across the wide expanse of the Asian steppes, Alexander Downer, with a chapan. The presentation they soon extended their lands and spread their of clothes, and in particular coats, is an old way to way of life across a vast expanse, stretching all the confirm or establish political or social relationships. way west towards the banks of the Danube River. In the Middle East and far beyond, the Arabic term They also moved south towards the Iranian plateau, Khil‘a (plural Khila‘) was often used to describe a where they came into contact with other Iranian- set of clothes, and most often a coat, that was given by a king or other high authority to his depen- speaking groups that had settled there long before 37 them. The newcomers introduced horse riding and dants. The garments were presented in order to all that goes with it: trousers, composite bows, short honour the receiver and for instance to indicate his swords, axes, and, apparently, the long coats with new rank, but also served to show the superior posi- empty sleeves. tion of the giver and the subservient place of the receiver. The system was widespread and became The Hungarian szür known in the Anglo-Saxon world under the term The Central Asian origin of the coat with empty of Khilat, which was the word used in (British) sleeves is also indicated by the Hungarians, as to describe the colourful coat, or ‘Robe of discussed in the study by Veronika Gervers-Molnár. Honour’, given by the king to his servants. This ethnic group migrated in the early Middle In written history, there are some wonderful Ages from Central Asia to the valley of the Danube examples of the Khil‘a. One of the most famous and in Eastern Europe, where they still live. They intro- well-known tales derives from the Biblical Book of duced various Central Asian traditions, including a Esther. It was probably written around the begin- coat with very long sleeves. The garment was later ning of the modern Era and reflects the time of the known among the Hungarians as the szür, but also Persian Achaemenid kings. It tells about the Jew as the szür-köntös. The latter name is also fund Mordecai and his opponent, the Persian official among the Ottoman Turks, who used the word Hamam. kontos for a garment worn by Tartar leaders from north of the Black Sea. The Polish used the word So Hamam came in, and the king said to him, “What kuntusz or kontusz for a similar long coat with empty shall be done to the man whom the king delights to sleeves. An interesting aspect of this is the fact that honour?”And Hamam said to himself, “Whom would all these words are similar to the word kandys used the king delight to honour more than me?”And by the Greeks thousands of years earlier. Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the Hamid Karzai, by adopting the chapan as his king delights to honour, let royal be brought, trademark, therefore not only showed his wish to which the king has worn, and the horse which the king has ridden, and on whose head a royal crown is set; and let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s most noble princes; let him array the man 36 Compare Vogelsang 1992. whom the king delights to honour, and let him 37 In Persian: Khil‘at. Translated by Steingass (Persian-English conduct the man on horseback through the open square dictionary 1892): “A robe of honour; a honorific dress with which princes confer dignity upon subjects, consisting at of the city, proclaiming before him: ‘Thus shall it be the least of turban, robe, and girdle.” done to the man whom the king delights to honour.’ ”

134 New studies on Khilat but the concept of Khilat may be even older than The study of the concept of Khilat has received new suggested and be linked to the introduction of the impetus by two recently published volumes, edited chapan-style coat in the early first millennium BC. by Stewart Gordon. In the first book (2001, p. 5) From the reliefs in Southwest Iran, dated he lists a number of aspects that define the concept to the mid-first millennium BC, it is clear that the of Khilat: a) it was a personal gift; b) it was pre- Scythians used to wear such a coat which, together sented in public; c) the gift often included weapons, with other garments and horses, were periodically horses and ; d) the Khilat was a sewn garment, given to the king to indicate their submission. From suitable for riding. written sources it is equally evident that the Persian The author and editor suggests that the idea of Achaemenid king used to present his subjects with the Khilat originated among the nomads of Central garments, including a cloak. The custom of present- Asia and became firmly established on the Iranian ing a coat may therefore be much older than sug- Plateau and beyond from the early centuries of the gested by Stewart Gordon, and in fact date back to modern Era. That was the time when large groups the time of the Scythian invasions of the Iranian of nomads again descended from the Chinese plateau in the early first millennium BC. borders in the north to the oases of Iran and Would Muhammad Ali know? Afghanistan. The Robe of Honour, according to Gordon, was later adopted by the Sasanian dynasty In November 2002, Hamid Karzai received the of Iran (AD 224-651), and slowly spread its way to United Nations Messenger for Peace, Muhammed the Byzantine empire, where it started to form an Ali (formerly called Cassius Clay), at the presiden- essential part of secular and ecclesiastical investiture. tial palace in Kabul. On that occasion Karzai said that “to have the champion of a century here will Central Asian Khilat add to the great honour of history that Afghanistan There is much to be said for Stewart Gordon’s has.” He subsequently put a chapan on the old box- hypothesis about the Central Asian origin of the ing champion’s shoulders, thereby using the age-old concept of the Robe of Honour. In fact, through- Central Asian garment and the age-old Central out history Central Asia has been a constant source Asian custom to honour one of the greatest boxers of innovations on the Iranian plateau and beyond, of all times. including that of the chapan and related garments,

135 Appendix: The khilat of William Hay stories his body was subsequently hung in the Kabul Macnaghten bazaar. On 6 January 1842 the remaining British Clothing as a status symbol and as a means to troops were forced to withdraw from Kabul. They symbolise the relationship between politicians and tried to reach the British garrison in Jalalabad, some followers may be beautifully illustrated by a coat 150 km further to the east. Weakened by cold and that is housed in the National Museum of hunger and on all sides attacked by the Afghans, the Ethnology, Leiden (Fig. 11). According to the British army left the Kabul cantonment. They were museum archives this garment was granted around badly led by their commanders, and Shah Shuja was AD 1840 by the Afghan king of that time, Shah not in any position to offer help. They started their Shuja, to the British official, William Hay retreat with some 16,500 people. Only one British Macnaghten. The gift of this coat (if the informa- officer managed to reach Jalalabad. The others were tion is correct) was highly symbolic and confirmed either killed or taken prisoner. Soon after Shah the close relationship between the Afghan king and Shuja was killed by his own “subjects”. the British colonial officer, who had been appointed as “Envoy and Minister for the Government of Technical description: coat RMV 3934-1 (by Gillian India to the Court of Shah Shuja al-Mulk”. Vogelsang-Eastwood) Macnaghten however, was far more than an ambas- sador at the court of an oriental monarch. He rep- The coat RMV 3934-1 (see Fig. 11), reportedly resented British authority that in AD 1839, during given by Shah Shuja to William Macnaghten, is the First Anglo-Afghan War and with a large army, made out of a single length of material folded in had put the same Shah Shuja on the Kabul throne. half and then with added collar, sleeves, lower front In fact it was Macnaghten who ruled the country, panels, side panels and underarm gussets (Fig. 12). rather than Shah Shuja. Yet the British tried all they The cut of this garment is comparable with other men’s coats from nineteenth century Persia and could to convince the Afghans that they were there 38 merely to support the new king, rather than profil- western Afghanistan. ing themselves as the de facto rulers. That would The coat is made from a wool brocade woven in have only antagonised the Afghan people. The gift a 2/2 twill. It has an overall design of buteh in of the coat, therefore, symbolised the authority white, dark blue, turquoise and yellow (wefts; all of Shah Shuja, which the British were very happy z-spun), on a red wool warp (s-spun). This type of to accept, but which in reality hardly existed. cloth is called termeh and is regarded as typical for Shah Shuja's authority was very limited indeed. the region. The production of termeh still continues in Iran. The coat is lined with a red (cut on the That was made very clear soon after the gift of the 39 coat. In AD 1841 there were various local revolts bias) and a yellow silk cloth. against Shah Shuja and his British troops. In There is a large buteh embroidered onto the left December 1841 the British had to how one shoulder of the coat. It has been worked in a silver of their leaders, , was killed in metal thread (now black), which is wrapped around Kabul by an angry mob, while neither Shah Shuja a yellow silk core (s-spun). The embroidering was nor the British army could do anything about it. carried out using a simple couching technique over On 23 December of the same year, Macnaghten two strands of metal thread. tried to conclude a treaty with the Afghans that The braid down the front of the coat also has stipulated that the British would leave the country. two different silver metal threads incorporated into However, the Afghans suspected foul play and it; one is twisted around an orange silk core, the during the meeting along the banks of the Kabul other around a yellow silk core. The braid is sewn river Macnaghten was killed. According to the to the coat using a coarse backstitch. The buttons and corresponding loops are made from braid in the shape of butehs. There are traces of two official stamps on the cloth. One is just below the left sleeve; the other is 38 See for example the coats in the Hotz collection, RMV, smaller and on the yellow lining of the left front which were purchased in 1883. 39 Both the red and yellow silk cloth were made from s-spun panel. They have not yet been examined by a spe- threads. The cloth was woven in a tabby weave. cialist.

136 Fig. 11 Coat RMV 3934-1, reportedly given by Shah Shuja to William Hay Macnaghten c. 1840.

Fig. 12 Drawing of coat RMV 3934-1.

137 BIBLIOGRAPHY Orywal, Erwin (ed.), 1986, Die ethnischen Gruppen Afghanistans. Fallstudien zu Gruppenidentität und Bierman, Irene, 1982ff., ‘Khil’a’, in The Dictionary of the Middle Intergruppenbeziehungen, Wiesbaden. Ages, New York. Rashid, Ahmed, 2000, Taliban. Islam Oil and the New Great Caroe, Olaf, 1958, The Pathans, London. Game in Central Asia, London. Dalton, O.M., 1964, The Treasures of the Oxus (3rd edition), Steinmann, Axel, 2003, Afghanistan, Vienna. London. Stillman, Yedida Kalfon, 2000, Arab Dress. From the Dawn of Dupree, Louis, 1973, Afghanistan, Princeton (revised version Islam to Modern Times (edited by Norman A. Stillman), 1980). Leiden, Boston, Köln. Eicher, Joanne B. (ed.), 1995, Dress and Ethnicity, Oxford and Thompson, Georgina, Iranian dress in the Achaemenian Washinton. period: Problems concerning the kandys and other gar- Fairservis, W.A. 1971, of the East. ments, 1965, Iran 3, pp. 121-126. Gervers-Molnár, Veronika, 1973, The Hungarian Szür. Tilke, Max., 1922, Oriental Costumes. Their Designs and Colors, An Archaic of Eurasian Origin, Toronto. London. Seierstadt, Åsne, 2004, The Bookseller of Kabul. London Vogelsang, Willem, 1992, The Rise and Organisation of the (original version, Oslo 2002). Achaemenid Empire. The Eastern Iranian Evidence, Leiden, New York, Köln. Stewart Gordon (ed.), 2001, Robes and Honor. The Medieval World of Investiture, New York and Houndmills. Idem, 2002, The Afghans, Malden, 2002. Stewart Gordon (ed.), 2003, Robes of Honour. Khilat in Pre- Idem, 2002, The ethnogenesis of the Pashtuns, in: Warwick Colonial and Colonial India, Oxford. Ball and Leonard Harrow (eds.), Cairo to Kabul: Afghan and Islamic Studies, London. pp. 228-235. Hosseini, Khald, 2003, The Kite Runner, London. Idem, 2003, Political Clothing in Afghanistan. Digital publica- Lindisfarne-Tapper, Nancy, and Bruce Ingham (eds.), 1997, tion National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden (www.rmv.nl) Languages of Dress in the Middle East, Richmond. Weiner, Annette B. and Jane Schneider (eds.), 1989, Cloth and Maskiell, Michelle, and Adrienne Mayor, 2001, ‘Killer Khilats’, Human Experience. Washington and London. Electronic Journal of Folklore, April 2001. Mountstuart Elphinstone, 1815, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul and Its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India, Comprising a View of the Afghaun Nation, and a History of the Dooraunee Monarchy, London (reprint New Delhi 1998).

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