From the commencement of his reign he found himself involved in disputes with Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler of the Punjab, who used the dethroned Saduzai prince, Shuja-ul-Mulk, as his instrument. In 1834 Shuja made a last attempt to recover his kingdom. He was defeated by Dost Mahommed under the walls of Kandahar, but Ranjit Singh seized the opportunity to annex Peshawar. The recovery of this fortress became the Afghan amir's great concern.

Rejecting overtures from Russia, he endeavoured to form an alliance with England, and welcomed Alexander Burnes to Kabul in 1837. Burnes, however, was unable to prevail on the governor-general, Lord Auckland, to respond to the amir's advances. Dost Mahommed was enjoined to abandon the attempt to recover Peshawar, and to place his foreign policy under British guidance. In return he was only promised protection from Ranjit Singh, of whom he had no fear. He replied by renewing his relations with Russia, and in 1838 Lord Auckland set the British troops in motion against him.

In March 1839 the British force under Sir Willoughby Cotton advanced through the Bolan Pass, and on April 26 it reached Kandahar. Shah Shuja was proclaimed amir, and entered Kabul on August 7, while Dost Mahommed sought refuge in the wilds of the Hindu Kush. Closely followed by the British, Dost was driven to extremities, and on November 4, 1840 surrendered as a prisoner. He remained in captivity during the British occupation, during the disastrous retreat of the army of occupation in January 1842, and until the recapture of Kabul in the autumn of 1842.

He was then set at liberty, in consequence of the resolve of the British government to abandon the attempt to intervene in the internal politics of Afghanistan. On his return from Hindustan, Dost Mahommed was received in triumph at Kabul, and set himself to re-establish his authority on a firm basis. From 1846 he renewed his policy of hostility to the British and allied himself with the Sikhs. However, after the defeat of his allies at Gujarat on February 21, 1849, he abandoned his designs and led his troops back into Afghanistan. In 1850 he conquered Balkh, and in 1854 he acquired control over the southern Afghan tribes by the capture of Kandahar.

On March 30, 1855 Dost Mahommed reversed his former policy by concluding an offensive and defensive alliance with the British government. In 1857 he declared war on Persia in conjunction with the British, and in July a treaty was concluded by which the province of Herat was placed under a Barakzai prince. During the Indian Mutiny, Dost Mahommed refrained from assisting the insurgents. His later years were disturbed by troubles at Herat and in Bokhara. These he composed for a time, but in 1862 a Persian army, acting in concert with Ahmad Khan, advanced against Kandahar. The old amir called the British to his aid, and, putting himself at the head of his warriors, drove the enemy from his frontiers. On May 26 1863 he captured Herat, but on the 9th of June he died suddenly in the midst of victory, after playing a great role in the history of Central Asia for forty years. He named as his successor his son, Shir Ali Khan.

Ahmad Shah
Ahmad Shah Qajar for the Persian ruler (1909-1925).
Ahmad Shah (1724-1773), founder of the Durrani dynasty in Afghanistan, was the son of Sammaun-Khan, hereditary chief of the Abdali tribe. While still a boy Ahmad fell into the hands of the hostile tribe of Ghilzais, by whom he was kept prisoner at Kandahar. In March 1738 he was rescued by Nadir Shah, who soon afterwards gave him the command of a body of cavalry composed chiefly of Abdalis. On the assassination of Nadir in 1747, Ahmad, having failed in an attempt to seize the Persian treasures, retreated to Afghanistan, where he easily persuaded the native tribes to assert their independence and accept him as their sovereign. He was crowned at Kandahar in October 1747, and about the same time he changed the name of his tribe to Durrani.

Two things may be said to have contributed greatly to the consolidation of his power. He interfered as little as possible with the independence of the different tribes, demanding from each only its due proportion of tribute and military service; and he kept his army constantly engaged in brilliant schemes of foreign conquest. Being possessed of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, and being fortunate enough to intercept a consignment of treasure on its way to the shah of Persia, he had all the advantages which great wealth can give.

He first crossed the Indus River in 1748, when he took Lahore; and in 1751, after a feeble resistance on the part of the Muslim viceroy, he became master of the entire Punjab. In 1750 he took Nishapur, and in 1752 subdued Kashmir. His great expedition to Delhi was undertaken in 1756 in order to avenge himself on the Mughal empire for the recapture of Lahore.

Ahmad entered Delhi with his army in triumph, and for more than a month the city was given over to pillage. The shah himself added to his wives a princess of the imperial family, and bestowed another upon his son Timur Shah, whom he made governor of the Punjab and Sirhind. As his viceroy in Delhi he left a Rohilla chief in whom he had all confidence, but scarcely had he crossed the Indus when the Muslim wazir drove the chief from the city, killed the Great Mogul and set another prince of the family, a tool of his own, upon the throne. The Maratha chiefs availed themselves of these circumstances to endeavour to possess themselves of the whole country, and Ahmad was compelled more than once to cross the Indus in order to protect his territory from them and the Sikhs, who were constantly attacking his garrisons.

In 1758 the Marathas obtained possession of the Punjab, but on the 6th of January 1761 they were totally routed by Ahmad in the great battle of Panipat. In a later expedition he inflicted a severe defeat upon the Sikhs, but had to hasten westward immediately afterwards in order to quell an insurrection in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the Sikhs again rose, and Ahmad was now forced to abandon all hope of retaining the command of the Punjab.

After lengthened suffering from a terrible disease, said to have been cancer in the face, he died in 1773, leaving to his son Timur Shah the kingdom he had founded.

Timur Shah

Timur Shah (1748 - 18 May 1793), the second son of Ahmad Shah and the second of the Durrani Dynasty, was the King of Afghanistan from 16 October 1772 until his death.

Timur had a quick rise to power; marrying a daughter of the Mughal Emperor Alamgir II he received Sirhind as a wedding gift, and later his father made him governor of Punjab, Kashmir and the Sirhind district in 1757. He ruled from Lahore with the help of his Wazir, the general Jahan Khan. he administered these territories for approximately one year, from May 1757 until April 1758, but was never able to establish law and order.

Adina Beg Khan, governor of the Julundur Doab, along with Raghunath Rao leading the Maratha empire, forced Timur from Punjab and put in place their own government under Adina Beg Khan. In 1759, Ahmad Shah finally conquered Punjab, invading with a force of 60,000 against the Marathas 45,000. The conflict reached its conclusion in the battle of Panipat on January 14, 1761. The deciding factor was not the numerical superiority. As usual with the Mongols, it was their discipline, their firepower, their communications, and their mobility that proved decisive. The Marathas were given a humiliating defeat which cost them the flower of their youth as well as 50,000 horses. They were not to recover from the blow.

When Timur succeeded his father in 1772, the regional chieftains only reluctantly accepted him, and most of his reign was spent fighting a civil war to resist rebellion. During his reign, the Durrani Empire began to crumble forcing the move of its capital from Kandahar to Kabul.

Timur died in 1793, and was then succeeded by his fifth son Zaman Shah.

Zaman Shah

Zaman Shah, the fifth son of Timur Shah was the Shah of Afghanistan from 1793 until 1801.
He seized the throne of the Durrani Empire on the death of his father. He defeated his rivals, his brothers, with the help of Sardar Payenda Khan, chief of the Barakzai. He extracted an oath of allegience from the final challenger, Mahmud, and in return relinquished the governership of Herat. In so doing, he divided the power base between Herat and his own government in Kabul, a division which was to remain in place for a century. Kabul was the primary base of power, while Herat maintained a state of quasi-independence. Kandahar was fought over for the spoils.

He attempted to repeat his father's success in India, but his attempts at expansion brought him into conflict with the British. The British induced the Shah of Persia to invade Durrani, thwarting his plans by forcing him to protect his own lands.

In his own lands, things went well for Zaman, at least initially. He was able to force Mahmud from Herat and into a Persian exile. However, Mahmud established an alliance with Fateh Khan, with whose support he was able to strike back in 1800, and Zaman had to flee toward Peshawar. But he never made it--on the way, he was captured, blinded and imprisoned in Kabul, in the Bala Hissar.

Sayed Jamalludin Afghan

Sayed Jamalludin Afghan was a great author who wrote books that are well known all around the world, books like Afghan History and Muqalat; he was a great poet with a taste and had great interest in stars and the universe. Life of Sayed Jamalludin Afghan's was filled with adventurous repeated and long travels. It was for this reason that during his life he was nicknamed "The Prodigy of the East". He traveled to England, France, Germany, USA, Egypt, Turkey, India and Russia. He was a very moderate person for his times. He is considered one of the most important and effective pioneers of the awakening in the east. He is remembered as fighter for the Islamic unity and against colonialism by the western powers of the last century. Sayed Jamalludin had no fear of the power or influence of any government. Nevertheless, he did not think any government was more dangerous than the colonizing British government for the Muslim nations of the east, and he believed that with unity and alliance, the Muslims could smash the great power of British colonization. Consequently, no government feared the views and struggles of Sayed Jamalludin as much as the British government. Many books, pamphlets, articles and reports have been written and published concerning his life and political ideas. The number of such written books and pamphlets which are in Farsi, Arabic, Turkish and English and other European languages is more than hundreds, and if we include the short and long articles printed in newspapers and journals, the number goes beyond several thousands.

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Maulaana Jalalludin Balkhi

Maulaana Jalalludin Balkhi was born in 1207 in Balkh, Mazar-i- Sharif. His name was Jalalludin Mohammad. Even though he was born in Afghanistan, in Turkey and ancient Rome he was known as 'Rumi' meaning "from Rome". In the wake of Mongolian attacks his family moved to Anatolia, Turkey. He known mostly as Maulaana Jalalludin Balkhi in Afghanistan but in Turkey, to oppose his birthplace claims, Turkey is claiming that Jalalludin Balkhi is from Turkey and not Afghanistan. It is true that the far northern part of Afghanistan's area where he was born was known as Turkistan one time but to conclude he was an Afghan to the end.

Jalalludin Balkhi had great influence on people around the world from his great works. His father was his first teacher. He was however greatly impressed by Shams Tebriz, whose shrine is close to Maulaana Jalalludin Balkh's shrine. Maulaana traveled far and wide, however, after the Mongolian invasion of Afghanistan, Konya, Turkey remained his permanent settlement till his death on December 17, 1273. His mausoleum exists in the garden presented to his father by a king of the time.

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Ahmad Shah Durrani

Ahmad Shah (1722-72), Abdali Durrani. First Emir of Afghanistan and founder of the Sadozai dynasty of the Abdali tribe. In October 1747 elected King (Shah) of Afghanistan by an assembly of Pashtun chiefs the new leader of the Afghans changed his title from khan (chief) to shah (king in Persian) and assumed the name Durrani (Pearl of Pearls). Immediately he began to consolidate and enlarge his kingdom. He seized Kabul. He wrested from the Moghuls their territories west of the Indus. The Pashtun tribesmen rallied to his banner, and Ahmad Shah led them on nine campaigns into India in search of booty and territorial conquest. He added Kashmir, Sind, and the Western Punjab to his domains and founded an empire which extended from eastern Persia to northern India and from the Ammu Darya to the Indian Ocean. In 1756 he occupied Delhi and carried off as much wealth as possible, thereby enriching his treasury. By 1761, his kingdom was larger than present Afghanistan.

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Mahmud Of Ghazni
971 A.D. - 1030 A.D.

Sultan of the kingdom of Ghazna (998-1030), originally comprising modern Afghanistan and northeastern modern Iran but, through his conquests, eventually including northwestern India and most of Iran. He transformed his capital, Ghazna, into a cultural centre rivalling Baghdad.

Mahmud was the son of a Turkish slave, who in 977 became ruler of Ghazna. When Mahmud ascended the throne in 998 at the age of 27, he already showed remarkable administrative ability and statesmanship. At the time of his accession, Ghazna was a small kingdom. The young and ambitious Mahmud aspired to be a great monarch, and in more than 20 successful expeditions he amassed the wealth with which to lay the foundation of a vast empire that eventually included Kashmir, the Punjab, and a great part of Iran.

During the first two years of his reign Mahmud consolidated his position in Ghazna. Though an independent ruler, for political reasons he gave nominal allegiance to the 'Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, and the caliph, in return, recognized him as the legitimate ruler of the lands he occupied and encouraged him in his conquests.

Mahmud is said to have vowed to invade India once a year and, in fact, led about 17 such expeditions. The first large-scale campaign began in 1001 and the last ended in 1026. The first expeditions were aimed against the Punjab and northeastern India, while in his last campaign Mahmud reached Somnath on the southern coast of Gujarat.

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Khushal Khan Khattak

Khushal Khan Khattak (b.1613-1690) wrote in Pashtu during the reign of the Mongol emperors in the seventeenth century. He lived in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains. He was a renowned fighter who became known are the Afghan Warrior Poet. A famous Afghan warrior, poet, and tribal chief of the Khattak tribe who called on the Afghans to fight the Moghuls then occupying their land. He admonished Afghans to forsake their anarchistic tendencies and unite to regain the strength and glory they once obsessed. Khushhal Khan was born near Peshawar, the son of Shahbaz Khan, a chief of the Khattak tribe. By appointment of the Moghul emperor, Shah Jehan, Khushhal succeeded his father in 1641, but Aurangzeb, Shah Jehan's successor, kept him a prisoner in the Gwaliar fortress in Delhi. After Khushhal was permitted to return to Peshawar he incited the Pashtuns to rebel. His grave carries the inscription: "I have taken up the sword to defend the pride of the Afghan, I am Khushal Khattak, the honorable man of the age." The Khattak tribe of Khushhal Khan now lives in the areas of Kohat, Peshawar, and Mardan.

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Abdul Ahad Mohmand

Abdul Ahad Mohmand is the first Afghan astronaut. Before he became an astronaut, Mohmand served in the Afghan Air Force. Mohmand became an astronaut in 1988. He became the first citizen of Afghanistan to go into space. In 1988, Mohmand spent 9 days in space aboard the Mir space station. He made observations of Afghanistan during this mission. Abdul Ahad Mohmand was an Afghan citizen, he was born in Afghanistan and he trained in USSR as a pilot. The original plan was for him to be join by Mohammad Dauran Ghulam Masum. But before the launch Mr. Dauran was diagnosed with appendicitis and his trip was cancelled.

Graduated from Polytechnical High school in Kabul; graduated from Air Force Academy; Colonel Air Force; he currently lives in Stuttgart, Germany.

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KING KANISHKA
78 A.D. - 144 A.D.

Greatest king of the Kushan dynasty that ruled over the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, and possibly regions north of Kashmir in Central Asia. He is, however, chiefly remembered as a great patron of Buddhism.

Most of what is known about Kanishka derives from Chinese sources, particularly Buddhist writings. When Kanishka came to the throne is uncertain. His accession has been estimated as occurring between his reign is believed to have lasted 23 years. The year 78 marks the beginning of the Saka era, a system of dating that Kanishka might have initiated.

Through inheritance and conquest, Kanishka's kingdom covered an area extending from Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan) in the west to Patna in the Ganges Valley in the east, and from the Pamirs (now in Tajikistan) in the north to central India in the south. His capital was Purusapura (Peshawar). He may have crossed the Pamirs and subjugated the kings of the city-states of Khotan, Kashgar, and Yarkand (now in Chinese Turkistan), who had previously been tributaries of the Han emperors of China. Contact between Kanishka and the Chinese in Central Asia may have inspired the transmission of Indian ideas, particularly Buddhism, to China. Buddhism first appeared in China in the 2nd century A.D.

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Sher Shah "Suri"

Babur's victories at Panipat and Gorga did not result in the complete annihilation of the Afghan chiefs. They were seething with discontent against the newly founded alien rule, and only needed the guidance of one strong personality to coalesce their isolated efforts in to an organized national resistance against it. This they got in Sher Khan Sur, who effected the revival of the Afghan power and established a glorious, though short lived, regime in India by ousting the newly established Mughul authority.

The career of Sher Khan Sur, the hero of Indo-Muslim revival, is as fascinating as that of Babur and not less instructive than that of the great Mughul, Akbar. Originally bearing the name of Farid, he began his life in a humble way, and, like many other great men in history, had to pass through various trials and vicissitudes of fortune before he rose to prominence by dint of his personal merit. His grandfather, Ibrahim, an Afghan of the Sur tribe, lived near Peshawar and his father's name Hasan.

Ibrahim migrated with his son to the east in quest of military service in the early part of Buhlul Lodi's reign and both first entered the service of Mahabat Khan Sur, jagirdar of the paraganas of Hariana and Bakhala in the Punjab, and settled in the paragana of Bajwara or Bejoura. After some time Ibrahim got employment under Jamal Khan Sarang Khani of Hissar Firuza in the Delhi district, who conferred upon Ibrahim some villages in the paragana of Narnaul for the maintenance of forty horsemen in his service.

Farid was born probably near Narnaul. Farid was soon taken to Sasaram by his father, Hasan, who had been granted a jagir there by his master, Umar Khan Sarwahi, entitled Khan-I-Azam, when the latter got the governorship of Jaunpur. Hasan, like the other nobles of his time, was a polygamist, and Farid's step-mother had predominant influence over him. This made him indifferent to Farid whereupon the latter left home at the age of twenty-two and went to Jaunpur. Thus the Afghan youth was forced into a life of adventure and struggle, which cast his mind and character in a heroic mould.

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Amir Abdur Rahman Khan

Abdur Rahman had been almost twelve years in Russian exile, and wore a Russian uniform when he rode to Kabul. The British gambled that he would resist any Russian interference in his affairs just as fiercely as his predecessors had resisted the British. The success of this gamble, which made Afghanistan a buffer state between Russia and British India, was in no small measure due to the wisdom of the Amir himself, for he understood very well the role he was to play.

During his reign the British and Russians reached a settlement of the whole long border between Russian and Afghanistan from the Pamirs to Iran. The border between Afghanistan and British India to the southeast was also demarcated by the famous Durrand Line, which clarified the respective areas in which the Afghans and the British would be responsible for controlling the Pushtun tribes living on the frontier.

Abdur Rahman's achievement during his reign were impressive. His main task was the integration of rebellious tribes into a single polity. He weakened the autonomy of the tribes by transferring many of the military and administrative functions of the chiefs to the central government. He transferred loyal tribesmen as settlers into rebellious regions, and crushed the Hazaras and Nuristanis (formerly known as Kafirs or atheists) by invading their lands. He converted the Nuristanis by sword-point to Islam.

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Nadir Shah

Nadir Khan had served in Amir Habibullah's royal bodyguard, and eventually rose to be commander-in-chief of the army. When Habibullah was assassinated, Nadir Khan continued to serve Aminullah for some years, but he was living in virtual exile in France when the news of Kabul's capture by Bacha-i-Saqao reached him. Nadir Khan immediately sailed for India. Without funds, and at first without either foreign or tribal support, he and his brothers journeyed to the Khost frontier to rally the tribes. He finally won enough support among tribesman on the Indian side of the frontier to defeat Bacha-i-Saqao and seize Kabul. An assembly of tribal chiefs proclaimed him "King of All Afghans".

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King Zahir Shah

Zahir Shah was nineteen at the time of his accession-still very young to assume control of so turbulent a country. In keeping with Afghan tradition, the late king's brothers assumed control, although they did not contest the throne. The power struggles of the past were abandoned.

In 1953 the kings' uncle stepped down, to be replaced by first cousins of the king's generation. Prime Minister Daud, himself a professional soldier, and Foreign Minister Naim controlled the administration, the police, and the armed forced for a decade. In the early 1960s quarrels with Pakistan over the rights of the Pashtun tribes living in the frontier areas led to border closings and severe dislocations in Afghanistan's normal trade. As the border crisis dragged on from 1961 to 1963, it became clear that a change in cabinet policy was necessary to negotiate the reopening of the trade routes to the Indian subcontinent. At the king's request, Prime Minister Daud Khan quietly stepped down from his powerful position at the head of the government.

In appointing new prime minister and council of ministers, the king excluded all members of the Afghan royal family for the first time. At the same time, he announced that a new constitution would replace that of 1931. Clearly he had decided that the time had come to bring the educated people of the country into the governing process. The constitution was written and approved in 1964 by a Loya Jirga (grand assembly) was a far more precise document than its predecessor, creating separate and independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches, excluding all close relatives of the king from high office and providing for the establishment of political parties and a free press.

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Ahmad Zahir

Born on June 14, 1946 in the province of Laghman, Ahmad Zahir was destined to bring his talents and influence to Afghan music. Ahmad Zahir began his involvement with the musical arts at a very young age. In the early 1960s at Habibia High School in Kabul, he was part of the amateur musical band where he began performing and giving concerts. The 1960s was an ideal time for this new form of music dubbed "amaturi" (amateur) or non-professional because the musicians and performers were not from traditional families that made their living on music.

By the late 1960s, Ahmad Zahir began to fully contribute to his new musical movement. Blessed with an extraordinary tenor voice and acute musical instincts, Ahmad Zahir directed Afghan music to new depths. Ahmad Zahir also had the opportunity to work with the best individuals in the Kabul music scene such as the late saxophonist Ustad Ismail Azimi, trumpeter Ustad Nangalai and composers Naynawaz, Taranasaz, and Mas'hour Jamal.

With a strong passion and determination, Ahmad Zahir recorded 22 albums. Along with singing some of the best compositions of love songs, ghazals and free verse poems, Ahmad Zahir also selected to sing poems that had compelling meaning and depth that rendered social political themes; these songs include Zendagi Akher Sarayad (Life Comes to an End), Ma'ra az en Qafas Azad Konad (Free Me From This Cage) and many others. Ahmad Zahir's vision was beyond other artists because he sought to awaken his people through his lyrics and music.

Unfortunately, Ahmad Zahir's life came to an end on his 33rd birthday on the morning of June 14, 1979; he was murdered by the Khalq regime. With a legacy left behind, Ahmad Zahir influenced a whole generation of makers and lovers of music, which still continues. His humanity, talent, radiance, voice and spirit will always remain in his people's heart proving that the spirit of culture can never be killed--it lives forever.

Mohammed Omar

Mullah Mohammed Omar (born 1959) is the reclusive leader of the Taliban of Afghanistan and Afghanistan's former de facto Head of State who has been in hiding since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. He is wanted by US authorites for harboring international terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaida organization.

Omar is described as very tall (some say 1.98m (6'6")) and considered to be a fierce commander by many. He was wounded four times as a fighter with the Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami faction of the anti-Soviet mujahideen, leaving him with only one eye. Omar gives few interviews, rarely meets with non-Muslims, and there are only a few known pictures of him. Diplomats describe him as shy and untalkative with foreigners. Omar says he has one son.

He was born the son of a peasant farmer, and grew up in mud huts around the village of Singesar (some reports say Nodeh), near Kandahar. He lost his father when he was young and the responsibility of fending for his family fell on him. He was relatively unknown in Afghanistan until 1994. In the wake of the Soviet withdrawal, Mullah Omar created the Taliban to overcome what he saw as Afghanistan's descent into warlordism and lawlessness. His recruits came from the Koranic schools within Afghanistan and in the Afghan refugee camps across the border in Pakistan. Reportedly, Omar started the Taliban after a dream in which Allah came to him in the shape of a man, asking him to lead the faithful.

Omar is known for a pure devotion to Islam. He was a mullah with a village madrassah near Kandahar. In April 1996, Omar accepted the title of Amir al-Mu'minin ("commander of the faithful"). Later, he removed a cloak said to belong to the Prophet Mohammed from its Kandahar shrine; something that had not been done in 60 years. This move was seen as conferring dynastic legitimacy on himself.

Even after the Taliban conquered Kabul, Omar remained in Kandahar, an unusual move for the commander of Afghan forces with a desire to rule the entire country.

Omar's dedication to Islam led him to order the destruction of two large statues of Buddha which stood at the cliffs of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, which were archaeological and historical treasures, but which he characterized as idols. Osama bin Ladin commended Omar for ordering this action.

Many ordinary ethnic Pashtun followers see him as a repository of piety, and say: "It is our duty to follow Omar, he is our father, the first man to take the cloak of the prophet."

Some quotes by Mullah Omar:

"I am ready to sacrifice everything in completing the unfinished agenda of our noble jihad...until there is no bloodshed in Afghanistan and Islam becomes a way of life for our people."
"God says he will never be satisfied with the infidels. In terms of worldly affairs, America is very strong. Even if it were twice as strong or twice that, it could not be strong enough to defeat us. We are confident that no one can harm us if God is with us."
This is not a matter of weapons. We are hopeful for God's help. The real matter is the extinction of America. And, God willing, it will fall to the ground.

Ustad Mohammad Hashem Cheshti

Famous contemporary Afghani classical musician and composer, born in Kharabat area of Kabul Afghanistan, died 1994 in Germany under unclear circumstances.

Ustad Hashem was born and brought up in an extremely musical family. Several of his close family members, including his brothers and his father are/were also famous musicians in their own right.

Ustad Hashem mastered many different traditional Afghani and Indian instruments, but his greatest passion was for the tabla, his mastership of which was supreme.

Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan he had to flee his home country and emigrated to Germany where he died in 1994, murdered by one of his former students for reasons unknown.

Ustad Hashem left many important compositians, following closely Classical Indian style, but with clear Afghani elements.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

(born 1947 in Imam Saheb, Kunduz province, Afghanistan) is an Afghan warlord. He is a Ghilzai Pashtun of the Kharoti tribe, speaks several languages (including English), has three wives and several children. He has stated that he prefers an Afghan civil war rather than occupation by foreigners and foreign troops. Human rights groups allege that he is responsible for murdering more Afghans than the Soviet Union killed. He served as prime minister twice in the 1990s. He is currently in hiding.

Gholam Serwar Nasher who thought of Hekmatyar as a bright young man sent him to a military school and then to Kabul University's engineering department in 1968, earning the nickname of "engineer Hekmatyar" among his followers. However, on his return to Kunduz he was jailed by Nasher for several days. It was Hekmatyar's father who requested Lord Nasher to do so in order to discipline the boy for toying too much with the communist ideology. At this time, Hekmatyar showed no sign of religious fundamentalism. In 1970, he joined the Muslim Youth. He was a member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) until he was accused in 1972 of the killing of a Maoist student. He was found guilty and sent to jail for two years. During the Daoud coup (1973) he escaped to Pakistan and was recruited by Pakistani intelligence.

In Pakistan, he founded the Hezbi Islami party (1975). It has been said that it was Hekmatyar who began the anti-Daoud movement's resurgement in the area of Panjshir. What triggered his actions was presumably the fact that Daoud put Gholam Serwar Nasher, Khan of the Kharoti (to which Hekmatyar belonged) to prison. However, members of Hezbi Islami and Hekmatyar himself denied he was ever involved with the communists.

In 1979, Mulavi Younas Khalis split with Hekmatyar and established his own Hezbi Islami, known as the Khalis faction, with its powerbase in Nangarhar.

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Hekmatyar received billions of dollars in military assistance from funds the CIA channeled to the mujahadeen through Pakistan's ISI. He was described as power hungry, ruthless and cunning by the Pakistani government.

After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Hekmatyar signed the Islamabad accords, which nominally made him Prime Minister. However, the accords fell apart and he aligned himself with Abdul Rashid Dostum's Hezbi Wahjat. Together they laid siege to Kabul, fighting Burhanuddin Rabbani and his Defense Minister Ahmed Shah Massoud. From 1992 to 1996, the warring factions destroyed 70% of Kabul and killed 50,000 people, most of them civilians.

The devistation and factionalization allowed the Taliban to take control in 1996, even when, a few months before the Taliban captured Kabul in September of that year, Rabani and Hekmetyar finally formed a power-sharing government in which Hekmetyar was prime minister. Hekmatyar fled to Iran where he continued to lead the Hezbi Islami party.

On September 18, 2001, Hekmatyar sided with Osama bin Laden and soon warned Pakistan for siding with the United States. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban, Hekmatyar (still operating in Iran) rejected the U.N.-brokered accord of December 5, 2001, saying the pact negotiated in Germany amounted to a U.S.-imposed government for Afghanistan.

February 10, 2002, all the offices of Hezb-e-Islami are closed in Iran. Hekmatyar was expelled him from his Iranian exile. His whereabouts became unknown. On March 11, through his deputy, Qutbuddin Hilal, Hekmatyar pledged support for Hamid Karzai. Hekmatyar also supported the return of the king.

The United States accuses him of urging the Taliban to re-form and to fight the United States. He is also accused of offering rewards for those who kill U.S. troops. He has been labeled a war criminal by members of the U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai's government. He is also a suspect behind the September 5, 2002 assassination attempt on Karzai that killed more than a dozen people.

Some reports have located him inside Tunisia, but in May 2002 the U.S. claimed that a CIA-operated Predator drone attacked Hekmatyar near Kabul, missing him but killing some followers.

In September 2002, Hekmatyar released a taped message calling for a jihad against the United States.

On December 25 of 2002, the news broke that American spy organizations had discovered Hekmatyar attempting to become a member of Al Qaeda. According to the news, he had said that he was available to aid them. However, in a video released by Hekmatyar September 1, 2003, he denied forming alliances with the Taliban or al-Qaeda but praised attacks against U.S. and international forces.

In October 2003 he declared a ceasefire with local commanders in Jalalabad, Kunar, Logar and Sarobi, and stated that they should only fight foreigners. Later that month (October 31) Hekmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani held talks in Badakhshan.

Mohammad Qasim Fahim

Mohammad Qasim Fahim became the defense minister of the Afghan Transitional Administration in 2002. While holding the position, he continued to command his own militia. However, on December 10, 2003, he ordered part of his militia to transport their weapons (including 11 tanks, 10 rocket-launchers and two scud missiles) to an Afghan National Army installation near Kabul.

Prior to the fall of the Taliban, Fahim was a factional leader of the Northern Alliance. On September 13, 2001, Fahim was confirmed as the senior military commander of the Northern Alliance, succeeding Ahmad Shah Masood. Masood had been assassinated four days earlier. By September 22, Fahim was in Tajikistan holding talks with Russian army chief Anatoly Kvashnin.

As defense minister he has tour army bases in the United Kingdom, negotiated security issues with U.S. General Tommy Franks and Canadian Defense Minister John McCallum, NATO Secretary General George Robertson, visited Moscow and Washington, DC. He also replaced 15 ethnic Tajik generals with officers from the Pashtun, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic groups In June of 2003, a bomb was found in front of his home. Later in the year, the head of his personal security died at the hands of a suicide bomber.

On September 12, 2003, Miloon Kothari, appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate housing rights in Afghanistan, announced that Fahim and Education Minister Yunus Qanooni were illegally occupying land and should be removed from their posts. However, three days later, Kothari sent a letter to Lakhdar Brahimi, the head of the U.N. in Afghanistan, saying he had gone too far in naming the ministers.

Farhad Darya Born September 22, 1962. In age of 20, he became one of the prominent voices and a revolutionary brain behind the contemporary music of Afghanistan.

From an old-well known Afghan family, Farhad's grandfather "Shir Mohammad Khan Afghan" - known as "Nashir" (author) - is celebrated today as the "Father of Modernized Kunduz". He contributed enormously in the building of agriculture and industrial technology in the Northern Afghanistan.

Farhad continues to live in Kunduz, a love inspiring and an exhilarating province in the North, for the first 17 years of his life. He was connected to his surrounding and nature from childhood, which also results to inspire his intellect and works.

"Nayestan" (Reed-Bed) is the first ever-musical band that Darya founds while attending "Shir Khan" High School in Kunduz. Later, after graduating "Habibia" High School in Kabul, he attends the Polytechnic Institute from 1979 to 1982.

In the beginning of Soviet invasion, 1979, he moves with his family to Kabul where he stays until September 1990.

In 1980 Farhad appears for the first time on the sole TV station in the country just a year after the Soviet invasion. He can't stand the oppression against his people, and stands up to voice their pain. Farhad starts a professional life, which turns out to suffer as much as his compatriots have in the past two decades.

While also studying in Kabul University, Farhad forms "Goroh-e-Baran" (Rain Band), his first professional band, by grouping with 3 other university students, and starts rocking the routine in music and Afghan tunes (1983). The traditional Afghan society can hardly see the twenty-year-old Darya established enough as a classical singer, songwriter, composer, lyricist, band founder, and above all a trendsetter. Therefore, Darya decides to use the pseudo name "Abr" (Cloud) when writing and producing music for other artists.

From 1983 to 1987, Darya attends Faculty of Literature in University of Kabul.
In 1988 Farhad becomes an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Fine Art, University of Kabul, and teaches Classical Music for a year.

In fall 1990 he leaves Kabul for Prague, Czech Republic, and then for Hamburg, Germany. Farhad falls in love in Paris with his future wife, Sultana Emam, an Afghan born student of University of Sorbonne, and get married in 1993.
In November 1995 Darya moves to United States, and continues to reside in the state of Virginia.

He becomes father to his son, Hejran Darya in 1996.
Between the years of 1980 and 1990, Darya launches more than 15 albums in Afghanistan; and between 1990 and 2001, he pursues another 13 albums while in exile. He has performed in sold-out concerts in United States, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Italy, Turkey . . with an aim to keep Afghan culture, music, and the light of hope alive amidst the diaspora.

He has, times and again, received the title of "Best Singer of the Year", both at home and abroad, and most recently in summer 2001 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Despite inventing a new entity in the regional music, Darya learns from great Afghan music legends such as Ustad Qasim, Ustad Sarahang, Ustad Awalmeer, Ahmad Zahir, and other name worthy personalities, who inspire him at the first place.

Farhad Darya is a song writer, composer, singer, and music searcher who has written and sung a remarkable array of songs in most major Afghan and regional languages such as Dari, Pashto, Uzbek, Hazaragi, and Urdo. He wants to draw a rainbow of peace and harmony from the existing disparities for all these mosaics of people in his land.

For the last two decades, he has tried to mend the war-torn and disconnected Afghan nation towards unity, and is known for being one of the most daring and stringent musicians in the Afghan Resistance. He has sought to redefine an isolated people to the rest of the world. In response to the current developments in Afghanistan, he has planned a worldwide benefit tour, titled "I am Cold!" to help the much suffered and needy Afghan Children.

Rameen Sharif was born in an amateur musician family in Kabul. Supported by his uncle Habib Sharif a reputed musician of the time, at the age nine he started learning various modern musical instruments such as Kanga, Drums and Keyboard.

It was in a wedding when he was asked to play a piece and later on asked to sing a song that was very much liked by the audience. This encouragement ignited in this young boy a lasting passion for music. He furthered his training with the support of his uncle and father and excelled until he became a musician as his own. He has choreographed the new joint CD "Hina" by Habib Sharif, Rameen Sharif and Omar Sharif.

He has been living and studying in Canada since 1998 and continues to serve the Afghan community with his enchanting voice.

Sear Azizi was born in the capital city of Afghanistan, Kabul. He graduated from Downsview Secondary school in Toronto and attended Humber college for music programs. His interest in music and arts was always evident even as a young child. This talented young artist's overflowed love for music has touched the hearts of many devoted fans. His commitment to keep the Afghan culture and music alive is admirable.