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Production and Domination
Afghanistan, 1747-1901
Ashraf Ghani
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Columbia University
1982
@ 1984
ASHRAF GHANI
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ABSTRACT
PRODUCTION AND DOMINATION AFGHANISTAN
1747-1901
My objective in this work is to provide an anthopo1og
ica1 analysis of the historical processes through which
structures of production and domination were reproduced
as a totality from 1747 to 1901 in the present territory
of Afghanistan. To bring the changing articulation of
structures in the total system into sharper relief I have
opted for a combination of temporal and spatial frameworks.
The period from 1747 to 1901 forms the unit of long
duration for the first part of the study. Within that
period, depending on the changes in one or several of the
elements within a structure, I have chosen an appropriate
conjunctura1 unit - such as 1840-1901 for the changes in
the system of inter-territorial communication - to high
light the relevant changes. In part two f I deal with two
main units of long-durat~~n, roughly 1500-1722 and 1747-
1901. The choice of the conjunctura1 units within each
of these periods is, again, determined by changes in the
systematic relations among elements composing the struc
ture. Thus, for changes in the patterns of long-distance
trade, the years 1500-1622 are demarcated as being signi
ficantly different from the following one hundred years.
The second unit of long-duration, being the main focus of
analysis and an era of rapid restructuring and destructur
ing, is broken into four conjunctural units: 1747-1818;
1826-1839; 1843-1878; and 1880-1901.
Spatially, instead of taking the whole territory of
the state as the unit of analysis I have focused on six
regions. Within each of these regions I distinguish be
tween central and marginal ecological zones and then ex
plore the interrelations among these elements within re
gional, inter-regional and inter-territorial units.
In the first part of the study I provide an analysis
of geography and ecology; labor-process and technical or
ganization of production in agriculture; social organiza
tion of production; and circulation, transportation, and
markets. In the second part I first provide an histori
cal overview of the social relations and then analyze the
formation and reproduction of the Afghan state. I:n each
chapter the relevant theoretical literature is discussed
and in the conclusion the interrelation between structures
of production and domination is viewed from a comparative
perspective.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Dedication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. iii
Preface................................. ............. iv
PART I
Chapter I: Geography and Ecology: The Historical Setting ••••••• 1
Chapter II: Labor Process and Technical Organization of Production in Agriculture ..............•.....•..•... 32
Chapter III: Social Organization of Production •.•••••••••••••.••• 82
Chapter IV: Circulation, Transportation, and Markets ..•••.•••••• 158
PART II
Chapter V: Social Relations - An Historical Overview •••..•••.•• 226
Chapter VI: The Afghan State: Formation and Reproduction .••••.•• 292
PART III:
Chapter VII: Conclusion .......................................... 415
Bibliography ......................................... 427
i
ACKNOVlLE DGEMEN'l'S
As my research on this work has taken almost a decade
my debts to individuals and institutions are numerous, but
I will only name a few. I am grateful to the members of
my committee: Professors C. Arensberg, R. Bulliet, M. Cohen,
E. Embree, M. Fried, R. Murphy and J. Vincent who were all
generous with their time and patient with my style of
thinking and writing. I am also deeply indebted to
Professors Marvin Harris, Richard Lee, Jane and Peter
Schneider, Gerald Sider and other members of CUNY seminars
for intellectual stimulation. Many of my ideas were ham
mered in discussion with my fellow students at Columbia.
I will only name A. Barstow, L. Brock, G. Mescher, B.
Miller, and D. Nugent as a sample.
The straint imposed on Rula Saade Ghani since 1975
has been continuous. I am grateful to her for not com
plaining more than she did. My daughter Mariam was more
cheerful than she could have been. I cannot thank Susan
Mescher adequately for typing the final version of this
work.
ii
To the memory of Fouad Saade
iii
PREFACE
In his discussion of history and dialectics, Claude
Levi-Strauss argues that IIscientific explanation consists
not in moving from complex to the simple but in the re
placement of a less intelligible complexity by one which
is more SOli (1962/1966:248). Yet, in a moment of frustra
tion, the eminent anthropologist declared that "for me as
a European, and because I am a European, Mohammed inter
venes with uncouth clumsiness, between our thought and
Indian doctrines that are very close to it, in such a way
as to prevent East and West joining hands, as they might
well have done, in harmonious collaboration ••• The two
worlds are closer to each other than either is to the Mos
lem anachronism. Rational evolution would have been the
converse of what actually occured historically; Islam cut
a more civilized world in two. What appears modern to it
belongs to a bygone age; it is living with a time lag of
a thousand years" (1955/1974:466-467).
I have no desire to examine the motives that led
Levi-Strauss to his proclamation. At issue are his use of
the notion of structure and the relation between anthro
pology and history. Social structure, in his view, has
IInothing to do with empirical reality but with models which
are built up after it" (1963:279). Social relations pro
vide the raw material out of which the model is constructed
iv
but the social structure can not be reduced "to the ensem
ble of the social relations to be described in a given so
ciety" (Ibid). A model must meet several requirements.
Exhibiting the characteristics of a system, the elements
in the structure are related in such a way that changes in
one effects changes in others and, for any given model,
there should be a possibility of ordering a series of trans
formations resulting in a group of models of the same type.
These properties should make it possible to predict the re
actions of the models if one or several elements are sub
mitted to change (Ibid). Lastly, it should be possible to
"experiment" on models (Ibid:280).
Experimentation is closely linked to observation. He
affirms that "on the observational level, the main -- one
could almost say the only -- rule is that all the facts
should be carefully observerd and described, without allow
ing any theoretical preconception to decide whether some
are more important than others, This rule implies, in turn,
that facts should be studied in relation to themselves (by
what kind of concrete process did they come into being?)
and in relation to the whole (always aiming to relate each
modification which can be observed in a sector to the glob
al situation in which it first appeared)" (Ibid).
From the last observation, it might be inferred that
time should constitute an important element of the defini
tion of structure, but this is not so. Levi-Strauss in-
v
sists that "anthropology uses a 'mechanical' time, rever
sible and non-cumulative .•• On the contrary, historical
time is 'statistical'; it always appears as an oriented and
non-reversible process" (Ibid:286).
Fernand Braudel, in an essay on history and social
sciences, states that "for historians, a structure certain
ly means something that holds together or something that
is architectural; but beyond that it means a reality which
can distort the effects of time, changing its scope and
speed. Certain structures live on for so long that they
become stable elements for an indefinite number of genera
tions: they encumber history, they impede and thus control
its flow. Others crumble away faster. But all operate si
multaneously as a support and an obstacle" (1958/1972:17-
18). Responding specifically to Levi-Strauss's notion of
non-temporal structure, he writes that "the essential thing
is to define the role and limits of the model (which cer
tain ventures run the risk of over-extending), before set
ting up a joint programme for the social sciences. Hence
the need to confront models, too, with the idea of duration;
for their depth of meaning and explanatory value depend, in
my view, largely on the duration they imply" (Ibid:27).
Furthermore, Levi-Strauss's emphasis on the non-reversibil
ity of historical time misses the essential point that, in
fact, it is history that provides the greatest examples of
transformation as well as breakdown of social structures.
vi
My acceptance of Braudel's notion of duration as the
defining criterion of structure has determined the order
of presentation in this work. By focusing on movements of
concomitant structures, I have attempted to isolate the
systemic relations among the changing or non-changing ele
ments that combine to form a structure, as well as the ar
ticulation of different structures in a total system of
reproduction. The period from 1747 to 1901 forms the unit
of long duration for the first part of the study. Within
that period, depending on the changes in one or several
elements within a structure, an appropriate conjunctural
unit -- such as 1840-1901 for changes in the system of in-
ternational communications is chosen to highlight the
relevant changes. In part two, I deal with two main units
of long duration, roughly 1500-1722 and 1747-1901. The
choice oftheconjunctural units within each of these per
iods is, again, determined by changes in the systemic re
lations among the elements composing the structure. Thus,
for changes in the patterns of long-distance trade, the
years 1500-1622 are demarcated as being significantly dif
ferent than the following one hundred years. The second
unit of long duration, being the main focus of analysis
and an era of rapid restructur~ng and destructuring, is
broken into four conjectural units: 1747-1818; 1826-1839;
1843-1878; and 1880-1901. Avoidance of years, such as
1818-1826, 1839-1843, and 1878-1880, is deliberate. These
vii
periods were times of intense violence and, although I dis
cuss their impact on the process of reproduction of the
total system, greater concentration on the events would not
have enriched the analysis
In general, structures analyzed in part one show great
er stability through the period 1747-1901 than those exa-
mined in part two.
der of presentation.
This is one of the reasons for the or
Had the changes been equally rapid
in the two sets of structures, I would have opted for a
different order of presentation.
But the method of presentation also aims at building
an increasingly more complex model of the interrelationship
between structures. In treating relations of production
and domination as relations between people, I have followed
Karl Marx who wrote that "the exchange-value of things is
a mere expression, a specific social form, of the produc
tive activity of men, something entirely different from
things and their use as things" (1863/1971:181). Levi
Strauss, in a comment on a passage from Marx on the issue,
asserts that "as soon as the various aspects of social
life -- economic, linguistic, etc -- are expressed as re
lationships, anthropology will become a general theory of
relationships. Then it will be possible to analyze so
cieties in terms of the differential features characteris
tic of the systems of relationships which define them"
(1963:95-96). In another essay, he elaborates on this no-
viii
tion by stating "anthropology considers the whole social
fabric as a network of different types of orders" (Ibid:
312). He contrasts orders such as kinship, socialorgani
zation, economic relations, etc, defined as "lived-in" or
ders that can be studied from outside, to those orders de
fined as "thought-of" orders that can be analysed only in
relation to "lived-in" orders. "The 'thought-of' orders are
those of myth and religion. The question may be raised
whether, in our own society, political ideology does not
belong to the same category" (Ibid:313).
Two important questions are raised in these remarks:
the degree to which "horne-made" models, constructed as
explanations of the "thought-of" orders, are helpful in
the grasping of a system by an analyst, and the degree to
which the categories employed in the analysis by an anthro
pological observer are the "home-made" models of another
culture. Levi-Strauss argues that the study of "home-made"
models is indispensable (Ibid:282), but he does not reflect
on the imposition of cultural biases in the guise of anthro
pological analysis. His Eurocentric view of Islam, des
cribing it as a "barrack religion" that has "no economic
or social character" (1955/1974:460), should serve as a
warning on the adequacy of a structuralism that refuses to
confront its constructs against the test of duration. Levi
Strauss's remarks on Islam are an extreme case and their
relevance may be considered dubious in the assessment of a
ix
"non-temporal" structuralism. The more formalistic exer
cises of his structural-marxist followers, however, reveals
the sa1"ne inadequacy. Having inherited the categories of
infra-structure and super-structure, these analysts (e.g.,
Friedman,J.1975:46-63iGodelier,M.1977:3-l3,13-29) through
a series of mental gymnastics, attempt to demonstrate that,
in one synchronic instance, it is religion that forms the
infrastructure, in another, kinship, and yet in another,
politics.
Edward P. Thompson's observations on Louis Althusser's
work describe, in fact, the methodological orientation of
the whole field of structural-marxism. He notes that, be
fore analysis starts, Althusser's categories have "already
been de-socialized and de-historicized ••• we are off.ered an
arbitrary selection of categories -- as 'economics', 'poli
tics', 'ideology' - and neither the principle of selection
nor the categories themselves are examined •.• If we scarce
ly hear about the state or about class, we can not expect
to hear about particular state formations or about which
classes or about alternative and conflicting beliefs with
in 'ideology'. The talismanic concepts are 'relative au
tonomy' and 'in the last instance determination'" (1978:
287). In a passage which comes close to Braudel's notion
of structure, Thompson insists on "defining 'determine'
in its sense of 'setting limits' and of 'exerting pressures'
and of defining 'law of motion' as 'logic of process'"
x
(1978:351) .
The object of this work has been to provide an analy
sis that mediates between theoretical discourse and de
tailed historical investigation. It is an ethnography.
The endeavor, in more than one sense, has involved a
journey to the origins. A large body of current notions
in the social sciences, notwithstanding the unawareness of
some practitioners, have been inherited from the Classical
Pol tical Economy and Jurisprudence of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. I have tried to make the nexus ex
plicit and, although I have been considerably influenced
by the works of Marx, I have treated his notions with the
same degree of critical scrutiny as those of any other in
fluential thinker in the social sciences. I find his treat
ment of the labor-process inspiring, but consider his occa
sional pronouncements on relations of domination not to
form a coherent theory and his notions of Asiatic mode of
production and Asiatic society as relevant as Levi-Strauss's
portrayal of Islam. The works which have conditioned the
direction of the inquiry have been discussed at the begin
ing of each chapter.
As an analysis of a society in which I grew up and
spent most of my life, this analysis has involved yet an
other journey to the origins. At the outset, I must make
it clear that, while I consider the grasping of the "home
made" model of a culture to be an important part of anthro-
xi
pological theory, I do not think that the participant in a
culture is in any privileged position to provide an account
of either the genesis or the contradictory process through
which the system is reproduced. The merits of this study
if any -- are based on the relevant archival research and
fieldwork as well as the comparative framework which has
guided the inquiry.
The archival research, on which this study is based,
began with reading through the extensive collection of
British official documents on the Middle East, Central and
South Asia that were available in the library of the Ameri
can University of Beirut, where I acquired my B.A. and M.A.
degrees. Between 1973 and 1977, I conducted archival and
field work in Afghanistan. Most of the historically rele
vant material in the Afghan state archives had been, in
the course of the 1929 civil war, stolen or destroyed. In
addition to the National Archives of Afghanistan, I have
had, therefore, to rely on the available private collections.
My most helpful instructors in learning about and acquiring
access to the relevant manuscripts and printed works of the
period were the booksellers in the old section of the Kabul
bazar. It was through these individuals that I acquired
the valuable set of archives from the valley of Kunar which
prov:;.des the greatest amount of details on the interrela
tions of state and society in an area fairly remote from a
central place. The most valuable printed work on the per-
xii
iod is the three-volume account of Mulla Faiz Muhammad en
titled Saraj ul-Tawarikh (The Lantern of History) written
on the orders of Amir Habibullah (1901-1911) and covering
the period from 1749 to 1896. The third volume -- 862
pages of print -- is entirely devoted to the reign of Amir
Abdur Rahman (1880-1901) and contains an enormous amount
of information on the implementation of state policies in
every region of the country as well as the resistance to
these measures. The printed edition is arranged in chrono
logical order, but the original manuscript from which the
author worked, and which only recently became available to
me, discusses the events in each major region separately.
The author had been given access to all state archives and,
as such, his work can be viewed as a compilation rather
than strict history.
Next to archives and manuscripts, the most valuable
source of information on the period is the collection of
contemporary autobiographical, biographical, and historical
works, that have been published by the Historical Society
of Afghanistan, either as pamphlets or as series in Aryana
and Afghanistan, the two journals published by the society.
Of works published outside Afghanistan, biographical, auto
biographical, historical works, and collection of original
documents published in India, Iran, Pakistan, and the So
viet Union, contain valuable information on all aspects 'of
life in various regions of Afghanistan. I have systemati-
xiii
cally read most of the material available in libraries in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Great Britain, and the United States,
and although only a limited number are referred to in the
text, my generalizations have been based on information con
tained in the larger set.
I have had to exercise the same degree of selection in
the use of accounts of contemporary travellers and British
archival material. The former set has been invaluable in
the determining of commonly travelled routes in each con
juncture, and in revealing the identity of groups that were
able to impose costs of protection on the roads. Malcolm
Yapp's essay entitled "The India Office Records As a Source
For the Economic History of the Middle East" (1970:501-513),
has been a very useful guide on the type of material avail
able on different periods of Afghanistan. The collection
in the American University of Beirut as well as the collec
tion in London were consulted between 1979 and 1982. Host
of the available information was digested in a series of
Gazetteers. Yapp claims that the "Gazetteer is probably
the most important single work on Afghanistan for the per
iod before 1914, and in many ways comparable to the great
Description de l'Egyptf" as a source" (Ibid:508). I have
consulted the original editions which were issued between
1908 and 1914 but, for the volumes already printed, I have
quoted from the recent edition prepared by Ludwig Adamec.
Despite the value attached to the Gazetteer by Yapp,
xiv
its use entails two problems. Editors, including the re
cent one, often do not give the precise point in time in
which the information was collected and, for regions which
did not fall under British occupation during the two Anglo
Afghan wars, the accuracy of the information has to be
checked against Afghan sources. Indeed, during the first
two decades of the twentieth century, the British compilers
of Gazetteers on Afghanistan and India, two sets of which
were issued in 1885 and 1907-1908 containing invaluable
information on the relations between regions in Afghanistan
and neighboring regions under British occupation, were still
quoting the figures on prices and wages that were provided
by Elphinstone which are an indispensable source for the
eighteenth century. In order to overcome these obstacles,
I have, in as many instances as possible, tried to consult
the original copies of the reports or determined the period
through other means. The Gazetteers are most useful for
the period from 1826-1878 and, with some exceptions, rather
inadequate for periods either before or after these dates.
The two general works in English that cover the whole
length or a major section of my unit of long-duration are
both based on very inadequate research. Louis Dupree's
(1973/1980) work is largely based on secondary sources in
English and the utility of his work is largely confined
to his discussion of geography and archeology of the coun
try. Vartan Gregorian (1969), whose work is far more ser-
xv
ious in intention and who attempted to use sources in Per
sian, was unfortunately not given help in locating even
the published sources -- such as the third volume of Saraj
ul-Tawarikh. Consequently, his generalizations on internal
developments are usually unfounded. He, however, provides
a useful survey of the foreign relations of the state. Both
of these authors have largely based their works on the pub
lished material on Afghanistan but have neglected most of
the relevant data contained in the British archives. A
symptomatic sample of the unwarrantable trust in some secon
dary material is provided by Gregorian's assertion regarding
wages of laborers in Afghanistan. He quotes the relevant
figures from the 1908 edition of the Imperial Gazetteer of
India thinking that they applied to the year in question.
The same figures had been quoted in the 1885 edition and,
in fact, had not been updated since the time of Elphinstone
(1839,vol.I:391).
The only historical work covering the entire length
of the period of long-duration for the northern region is
Robert D. McChesney's unpublished Ph.D. dissertation on
waqf at Balkh. He has consulted all the relevant litera
ture available at the time of his writing and his work is
a very serious attempt at providing a dynamic interpreta
tion of one of the most important institutions of Muslim
societies.
Hasan Kakar's two volumes (1971,1979) on the reign of
xvi
Amir Abdur Rahman, (1880-1901), are based on an extensive
survey of the relevant Afghan and British sources. The
utility of the bocks is, however, confined to the de scrip-
tion of the relevant events and institutions, facts and
figures. The most useful part of the work for my purpose
has been an appendix in which he compiled the data contained
in British sources on the prices of commodities in various
regions of the country.
Value of historical works published in Afghanistan
mainly lies in their utility as source material and as docu-
ments of the ideological tendencies prevailing in any par-
ticular period. Thus, Fofalzai (1958,1976) who reproduced
an extremely useful collection of documents for the period
1747-1818 from his family archives, attempts in his own
writings to imitate the style of court scribes of the period.
The only work which aims at providing a systematic survey
of the social forces in society and the state is Mir Ghulam
Muhammad Ghubar's book entitled Afghanistan Dar Masir-i
Tarikh (Afghanistan in the Course of History, 1967) and is
an attempt to provide an interpretation of the history -~ VL
the area from mythical times to the rebellion of 1929. Un-
til the coup of 1978, the book w~s considered prejudicial
to the interests of the royal lineage and officially banned
in Afghanistan. Yet, it was probably the single most widely
read book in the country. My initial interest in the his-
tory of Afghanistan was mainly fostered by this work, but
xvii
its relevance to the present project has been marginal.
Having realized the meagerness of secondary historio
graphical literature on the period, I soon was forced to
gather the relevant primary material. It is research on
those sources and my own fieldwork that have provided the
empirical foundations of the present study. The impetus
for fieldwork stemmed from disenchantment with the fashion
able literature in political science which I found totally
inadequate for the understanding of Afghanistan, and from
the theoretical stimulation provided by works of Perry An
derson on the absolutist state (1974), Marc Bloch on feudal
society (1971), Barrington Moore on social origins of dic
tatorship and democracy (1966) and Eric Wolf on peasantry
in general and peasant wars in particular (1969). The
attractive feature of these works was their attempt to link
the processual changes in macro-structures of society with
the system of relations and institutions prevailing in peas
ant society. I was, therefore, gradually led to formulate
a project on the investigation of the total system of re
production of state and society. My choice of variables
to be investigated was determined by Max Weber's definition
of pre-conditions of a politically centralized state. In
his view, the pre-conditions are: n(l) monopolization of
the means of domination and administration based on: (a)
the creation of a centrally directed and permanent system
of taxation; (b) the creation of a centrally directed and
xviii
and permanent military force in the hands of a central,
governmental authority: (2) monopolization of legal enact
ments and the legitimate use of force by the central au
thority; and (3) the organization of a rationally oriented
officialdom, whose exercise of administrative functions is
dependent upon the central authority" (Bendix,R.1962:383).
Weber was offering a list of the formal characteris
tics of the absolutist state. In his account on the genesis
of that structure, Perry Anderson has singled out the threat
of peasant unrest and the pressure of mercantile or manufac
turing capital within western Europe (1974:23-24). He also
points out that the new state apparatus was capable of
"breaking or disciplining individuals and groups within the
nobility itself. The arrival of Absolutism was ••• never a
smooth evolutionary process for the dominant class itself:
it was marked by extremely sharp ruptures and conflicts
within the feudal aristocracy to whose collective interests
it ultimately ministered. At the same time, the objective
complement of the political concentration of power at the
height of the social order, in a centralized monarchy, was
the economic consolidation of the unit of feudal property
beneath it" (Ibid:20).
In the conclusion of his comparative study, Barrington
Moore argues that although there was no universal connection
between the replacement of subsistence farming with produc
tion for the market and the creation of a strong central
xix
government, it was, nonetheless, the combination of the two
processes that "has yielded modernization in various parts
of the world since the fifteenth century" (1966:468). He
points out that, in these changes, three aspects were politi
cally important: "The character of the link between the
peasant community and the overlord, property and class divi
sions within the peasantry, and the degree of solidarity,
or cohesiveness displayed by the peasant community" (Ibid).
The state/society is the effective analytic unit for
both Anderson and Moore. Wolf, on the other hand, focuses
on the disruptive role of the world market in areas of pe~
ripheral capitalism and links the differences in response
to these changes to the eco-systems in which peasants worked.
Three aspects of my fieldwork (1973-1977) have been
relevant to the purposes of this work. Through archival re
search and interviews, I managed to gather the relevant ma
terial affecting the military, political, and fiscal organ
ization of the state. Secondly, focusing on these institu
tions, I soon discovered that the state did not monopolise
the control of these functions; other institutions in the
society had considerable autonomy in these spheres. The
religious stratum and the clans were the most important of
these groups. Thirdly, attempts at determining production
for markets led me to consider patterns of cooperation and
conflict engendered in a system of agriculture dependent
on irrigation. It was here that Robert Murphy's (1971)
xx
emphasis on Georg Simmells interpretation of conflict as
a social relationship and the importance of ambiguity in
social relations, was useful.
By 1977, I had managed to amass a large body of his
torical and modern material on different aspects of social
life in Afghanistan. Although I have travelled in all re
gions of the country and gathered the initial data for more
intensive subsequent examination, most of my fieldwork was
concentrated on the eastern region. Instead of lessening
my analytic confusion, the amassing of data only managed
to increase it. It finally dawned on me that the problem
was a theoreticnl on; and I was, again, in need of a com
parative framewo:ck to make sense of a massive body of facts
that could not be related to each other systematically.
Between 1977 and 1982, most of my readings have been
on other areas of the world and, although limitations of
time and space have prevented me from making all the com
parative links explicit, in all relevant junctures the ar
gument has been made possiblf~ by a comparative concern. As
I have discussed the relevar't theorE"tical material in the
context of each chapter, I do not need to dwell on those
points here. Yet, before closing this preface, I must
make explicit my choice of presenting the material through
a combination of multiple spatial and time frameworks.
In 1936, ChIao Ting Chi presented an analysis of the
political power in China that focused on regional relations
xxi
(1936/1970:2). He argued that the "unity or centralization
of state power in China could only mean the control of an
economic area where agricultural productivity and facilities
of transport would make possible the supply of a grain tri
bute so predominantly superior to that of other areas thCl.t
any group which controlled this area had the key to the
conquest and unity of all China" (Ibid:5). Chi defended
such an area as a key economic area. Moving from the des
cription of key economic areas in the course of Chinese his
tory to the character of the Chinese state, he wrote that
"a state of this nature is entirely different from the modern
state. The looseness of its internal organization and self
sufficient character of its regional divisions greatly mag
nified the importance and difficulty of the problem of re
gional relationships and the vital necessity of a Key Eco
nomic Area as a material basis for unity. It is a state
which properly regards its public works for control as a
weapon, and its policies are consciously or unconsciously
guided •.. for strengthening its Key Economic Area" (Ibid:
149) .
Peter Schran, in his recent reassessment of inland
cornrnuni,:ations in Ch'ing China, argues that "wherever pos
sible, movement by junk was the cheapest form of transpor
tation by far, followed by the cart, various pack animals,
the wheelbarrow, and the human carrier" (1978:37-38). Wa
ter transport had yet another advantage. The boats men-
xxii
tioned ranged in size from those carrying 16 cwts to "large
junks of 40-50 or even 70 tons dead weight, which could be
found on the major arteries" (Ibid:37). Schran notes that
there seems to have "been "very limited involvement of the
Ch'ing government in matters of transportation" (Ibid:41),
and affirms that sections of the gigantic waterway known
as the Grand Canal were used by different dynaties to move
the surplus of grain from the Yangtze region to their capi
tals (Ibid:43).
As the data in chapter four will make clear, the con
trast with Afghanistan could not have been greater. My
choice of regions has been conditioned by the fact that move
ment of grains to the central place of each region, in years
of ordinary harvest, is far less costly than to central
place(s) in other region(s). I have argued that the struc
ture of transportation formed one of the strongest obstacles
to the emergence of centralized states that were found on
a statewide economy of grain production. If one can accept
Chi's description of Chinese state as a loose organization
when such enormous quantities of grain were carried for such
long distances, the degree of looseness of polities in the
territory that became Afghanistan can hardly be contested.
Yet, the looseness of the state, as I have tried to demon
strate, did not mean a corresponding weakness of cultural
institutions that mediated the relations among the regions
of the country. Nor did the constraints imposed by the re-
xxiii
gional geography and ecology of the area prevent the rulers
of states from attempting to forge more oentralized insti
tutional means of government. It should be cle~r that these
states displayed different characteristics from those of
absolutist and post-absolutist states of Europe. It might
have been simpler to refer to them as empires but, as there
is no general agreement on the usage of that term, I have
used the term state consistently hoping that my descriptions
will make the difference clear.
xxiv
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
Geography and Ecology: The Historical Setting
Every inquiry in historical anthropology must, at its
very inception, corne to grips with the challenge of dura-
tion. The choice is between uniform and multiform consid-
erations of time. An eminent historian associates the first
modality with the approach of social scientists and the se-
cond with that of historians. Fernand Braudel (1958/1972:
37) clarifies his stand through an example:
"Economic cycles, the ebb and flow of material life, can be measured. A crisis in social structure must likewise be observed in time, and in its passage through time; it must be possible to locate it exactly, in itself, and even more important, in relation to the movement of concomitant structures. The historian's real interest is in the meeting points of these movements, their interaction and their breaklngpoints: and these are all things which can be recorded in relation to the uniform time of historians, which is the general measure of all such phenomena; they cannot be recorded in relation to multiform social time, which is merely the particular measure of each taken separately."
Perfect synchrony, "a momentary stop, suspending of all dura-
tion~ is considered totally artificial (Ibid:26). Instead,
multiplicity of time is fully recognized and three frame
works are delineated: short term, focusing on the individual
and the event; conjunctures, inquiring into cycles and semi-
cycles with a duration of ten, twenty, or fifty year periods;
and long duration, embracing hundreds of years (Ibid: 13-21) .
The depth and semi-mobility characteristics of long dura-
tion detach the analyst from the requirements of historical
1
time in order that (s)he may return to them with new in
sight.
Analysis over long duration is especially helpful
in revealing the operation of constraining structures.
Geography is one of the most enduring of such constraints
in Braudel's framework (Ibid:18). The conjectural unit,
by contrast, permits an investigation of structures that
undergo rapid change. The combination of the two frame
works of time, by focusing on the simultaneous movement of
concomitant structures, their meeting - and their breaking
points, allows for an analysis of social reproduction that
reveals both the constraints and potentials under which
historical actors shape their destiny.
The requirements and implications of this mode of in
quiry are radically different from the common social science
exercises in.ahistorical model-building. Maurice Godelier' s
pronouncement on the rules of anthropological method serves
as an example of the dissimilarity. He proclaims that so
cial relations must be analyzed as "systems" and that "the
inner logic of these systems must be analyzed before their
origin is analyzed" (1966/1972,xxij emphasis in the original).
According to him, Marxist, structuralist, and functionalist
approaches, all share these "principles."
That Godelier's stand echoes an earlier generation is
revealed in the contrast drawn by Radcliff-Brown between
functional and historical explanations. He insisted that
2
"for any particular system as it exists at a certain time
we can make a study of how it works .•• When we succeed in
discovering the function of a particular custom, i.e., the
part it plays in the working of the system to which it be
longs, we reach an understanding or explanation of it which
is different from and independent of any historical explana
tion of how it came into existence" (1950:3). He defined
synchronic analysis as "dealing with a system as it exists
at a certain time, abstracting as far as possible from any
changes that it may be undergoing" (Ibid). Whereas Rad
cliffe-Brown offered the plea that, due to the scarcity of
data, "a history of African institutions" could not be had
(Ibid), Godelier insists that only on the basis of "pre
liminary structural research" is true history of the genesis
of structures and functions of systems possible (1966/1972:
xxiii).
Braudel's observation on model-building exposes the
central weakness of the functionalist and structural-marxist
enterprises. He affirms that the entire value of the con
clusions "depends on the value of the initial observation
and the selection carried out in isolating essential ele
ments from the reality observed, and determining their re
lationships at the heart of that reality" (1958/1972:34).
As Godelier, by theoretical fiat, has already chosen his
structure and the hierarchy of the elements within it, re
course to history merely serves the a priori function of
3
confirmation.
The prerequisites of a truly historical anthropology
have been succintly formulated by Conrad Arensberg. He con
firms that "the anthropologist must not only identify the
social arrangement of human interaction and organization
as invented and patterned into culture that explains eco
nomic behaviors and motives, but he must also account for
its presence." These relations have to be accounted for
historically and geographically, functionally as well as
in terms of the values that sanction them as custom and
make for their transmission as cultural inheritance (1957:
101). Stressing the "temporal, processual view of social
arrangements" in anthropology (Ibid:l08), Arensberg insists
that "consciousness of emergence, and the combination of
temporal and formal observations which have yielded it out
of ethnographical data, is another of the empirical dis
coveries of anthropology which make it different from the
system-building disciplines of sociology and economics"
(Ibi~:llO). From the comparative perspective of anthropol
ogy, he argues that the record of human history is full of
examples of emergence, elaboration, and revolution (Ibid:
Ill).
That this advise has not been heeded is most glaringly
revealed in the dominance of synchronic studies in nec-func
tionalist and neo-evolutionist approaches in ecological an
thropology. The functionalist fallacy, ecological reduc-
4
tionism, energetics, local population as the unit of study,
and choice of time scale, are enumerated by Benjamin Orlove
(1980:244) as the major failures of these approaches.
By locating ecological factors within global patterns
of political economy over conjunctures and long durations,
and by demonstrating the changing significance of these
elements in conjunction with different social relationships,
historical anthropology can avoid the pitfalls of a narrow
ecological anthropology. I will illustrate this contention
by reference to two studies.
Morton Fried, analysing the entry of a society with
intensive exploitative demands into an "area in which the
population pursues less promising modes of production" (1952:
392), singles out land tenure, geography and ecology for
especial attention. He demonstrates his hypothesis by data
from the contact of expanding European culture with the
aboriginal population of the New World north of the Rio
Grande as well as the meeting of expanding Chinese civili
zation and the aboriginal culture in southwest China (Ibid:
293-412).
By conceptualizing agrarian society's organized flow,
Joan Vincent connects time and space through viewing society
"as 'men in action' and policy as control of movement."
This perspective directs attention "to who lives where, when,
and how and who goes where, when, and how as a preliminary
to the understanding of politics both as process and as
5
historical development" (1977:64). Depending on the nature
of the problem under investigation a "square yard of turf"
is arbitrarily chosen as the unit of analysis but it is
affirmed that the boundaries of the unit "whether political
or administrative, are the outcome of a process and so may
partially reflect the decisions and purposive actions of
individuals of the past" (Ibid:57). There seems to be an
in-built test of duration in this outlook. In order to
demonstrate that boundaries are outcomes of processes, the
historical anthropologist has no choice but to turn to the
multiform time of the historian. The past in the present
and the present in the past become the simultaneous focuses
of inquiry. Yet, the anthropologist, by grounding the
separate time units of the historian in the organized fields
of action of social actors, can grasp emergence and trans
formation, hence make a fuller analysis of reality as a
process that embodies contradictory structures.
Positing a nexus between movements of people and the
emergence of boundaries not only calls attention to politi
cal and economic forces that condition the fields of c~tivi
ties of the people concerned; characteristics of the space
over which movement takes place and the means of communica
tion that determine the pace of the movement become equally
significant. Furthermore, comparison of differences in means
of communication in adjacent areas with different socio
economic systems may allow for the comprehension of the
6
directionality of movement and thereby reveal the degree
of conjunction and/or disjunction of different fields of
activities and policies. It is in this sense that in the
remaining part of this chapter I will describe the histor
ical geography and ecology of the presen~ territory of
Afghanistan for the period 1747-1901.
By making use of a unit of long duration, 1747-1901,
I shall first delineate thos.e features of the spatial organ
ization and means of communication that remained stable.
Then, though a conjuncture of fifty years, 1850-1900, I
shall chart the changing structure of communication of the
neighboring areas. The use of these units of duration in
the subsequent chapters will help in elucidating the larger
pattern of interaction that resulted in the emergence of
contemporary Afghanistan.
Even a cursory examination of maps 1-4 brings the
significance of regions as distinct areas of concentration
of population and resources into sharp relief. By the
northeast-southwest course of the Hindu Kush range and by
the Kohi-Baba and Feroz-Koh peaks from Bamiyan westwards,
the country is both geologically and geographically divided
into a northern third and a southern two-thirds (Amin and
Schilz, 1976:23). Each area is in turn divided into dis
tinct geographical sub-areas. Johannes Hunlum (1959:l03ff),
as Map 1 shows, divided the country into ten zones. More
recently, Louis Dupree (1973:3-33), as indicated in Map 2,
7
has offered a classification of eleven geographic zones.
No matter \vhose nomer,clature is adopted, once Map 3, which
records the elevation of different parts of the country,
and Map 4, which lists the major areas under cultivation,
are considered in conjunction with Maps 1 and 2, the ques
ti.on of politics as control of movements of people becomes
intimately linked to the regional organization of space and
the means of communication that link the various regions
together.
Analysis of communication between regions, however,
can be meaningful only when characteristics of patterns
of settlement within and between regions have been des
cribed. As the issue of pattern of settlement revolves
around the concept of central place, it is essential that
the usage of this term be clarified at the outset. Areas
where relatively sizeable concentrations of population are
established and where agricultural activity is underwritten
by a relatively major irrigation network are defined as
central places. Peripheral places are defined as areas
within a region where relatively smaller concentrations
of population are supported by relatively minor irrigation
networks. Intermediate places lie between the other two.
The nexus between irrigation and nature of settlement will
be addressed at greater length in chapter two. Meanwhile,
an examination of Maps 4 and 5 will suffice to underline
the importance of the linkage.
8
The maps show an almost complete fit between the dis
tribution of the major rivers and the number of the major
areas of cUltivation. Furthermore, large zones of popula
tion concentration are located on or at fairly close dis
tance from junctions between major rivers and their tribu
taries. This observation allows us to offer a classifica
tion of major areas that is more in keeping with patterns
of historical interaction than those based on geographical
criteria alone. I shall distinguish six areas: (1)
Badakhshan, with the central focus of Faizabad; (2) a north
ern area with a number of intermediate centers; (3) a north
western area with the central place of Herat; (4) a south
western area with the central place of Kandahar; (5) an
eastern area with the central place of Kabul as well as a
number of intermediate centers; 6) and a central area with
a number of intermediate centers. The criteria of popula
tion size and extent of irrigation network merely serve to
indicate agricultural potential. The actual facts of popu
lation size, as the second part of this study will demon
strate, were an outcome of the operation of larger politi
cal forces. However, since over our long unit of duration
these places retained their importance to varying degrees,
I feel justified in referring to them as major regions. I
shall now turn to describe the salient features of one
such central place, Kandahar in the southwestern region.
A distinction between kariajat (suburbs), mahalajat
9
(quarters of the city) I and karezat (villages dependent on
underground irrigation channels), was the organizational
principle of the pattern of settlement throughout 1747-1901.
In 1880, the political officer of the British force that
had occupied the city applied the term kariajat to all
"villages within a radius of about 20 miles round the city
with a few isolated spots of cUltivation to the northwest"
(India Army, General Staff Branch, Gazetteer of Afghanistan,
hereafter GA, Kandahar 1914/1980:228). The shape of the
central place itself was described as that of "an irregular
oblong, the length being from north to south, and with a
circuit of 3 miles, 1006 yards. It is surrounded by a
ditch, 24 feet wide and 10 feet deep, and by a wall which
is 20~ feet thick at the bottom, 14~ feet thick at the top,
and 27 feet in the height" (Ibid:239). The whole area was
watered by three rivers and five canals were brought from
one of them into the Kandahar valley. In locations which
did not have access to the canals, irrigation was carried
out by the underground networks. Hereafter is a summary
of the available information on the three types of settle
ment based on reports of the British officers in charge
of revenue and administration in 1880 (Ibid:231-38:242-44).
Out of a total of 155 kariajat (suburbs) that are
listed, complete data on both acreage and number of dwelling
places is available only for 116. The average number of
houses was 60 -- range 0-350. The mean acreage was
10
1,289.112 acres -- range 11-6,068.
The distribution of settlements in the karezat (villages
dependent on underground irrigation channels) indicates a
different pattern. Out of a total of 103 villages, informa
tion is available on 93. The average number of dwelling
places was 8.45 -- range 0-67. The difference in the range
and average between kariajat and karezat can be interpreted
as tentative evidence for a positive correlation between the
density of population and the scale of irrigation networks
in this region.
Data on the demographic composition of the residents
of mahalajat (quarters of the city) disclose the lack of
participation of the inhabitants of the central place in
agricultural production and reveal the bonds that tied them
to the surrounding areas. As the inference is drawn from
the demographic information, the evidence has to be pre
sented. There were 4,320 houses in the 87 quarters of the
city. The average number of houses in a quarter was there
fore 49.65 -- range 7-140. Classification of the population
on the basis of age and sex reveals a significant fact: out
of a total population of 29,244 individuals, 35% \,:ere de
fined as children and 65% as adults, and of the latter
53.67% were female. Since the available evidence suggest
that women did not take direct part either in agricultural
production or exchange and that most of the 8.803 men en
gaged in craft production and activities in the spheres of
11
exchange and administration, the inference that most of
the occupants of the central place did not take part in
agricultural production can be considered justified. It
can therefore be assumed that the residents of the central
place of Kandahar depended for most of their food on the
surrounding areas.
That the surrounding areas did have grain surplus is
confirmed by reports of British officers for 1880. They
estimated that in addition to supporting the local popula
tion the area could feed a foreign army of 19,000 men and
4,000 horses yearly (GA,Kandahar:23l).
How was the surplus moved? As far as the movements
of goods between the surrounding areas and the central
place is concerned the availability of means of communica
tion as well as the organized nature of the carriers is
affirmed. British officers testified that "transport can
be obtained to the extent of 2,000 camels, 2,000 donkeys
and 2,000 bullocks, but owners will not take service with
troops and will only work as carriers independently" (Ibid:
228) •
If the area was capable of producing a surplus and
providing for its organized transportation for local pur
pcses, could the surplus be moved to other places? This
question brings us back to our original concern with commun
ication between regions, the nature of the means of communi
cation and the consequent implications for the pace of the
12
movement of goods and people. Before addressing these
issues, we must take account of the pattern of settlements
between regions and examine the degree to which relations
between the central place in Kandahar and its surroundings
was typical of other regions.
Since potential for settlement was related to avail
ability of water and land, the distribution of these factors
determined to a larger degree the location of settlements.
The cultivated area forming a mere 5% of the territory and
mountains occupying a full third of the country, the pattern
of settlement in general was necessarily dispersed. The
difference in the relative concentration of population in
and around central places and in glens of large mountain
chains was therefore striking. Yet, diversity in the na
ture of areas surrounding central places reflected itself
in the size and number of intermediate places within and
between regions. This in turn affected the relations of
a central place with its surrounding area and the orienta
tion of each locality to central place(s) within the same
region, within the same country, and in neighboring coun
tries.
Variation in the pattern of settlement between
Kandahar and Herat, Kandahar and Kabul, and Kabul and Nor
thern Afghanistan can serve as illustration.
A British military party that made the journey between
Herat and Kandahar in 1838 estimated the distance between
13
the two central places as 380.5 miles. The location which
marked the boundary of the two regions was 151.5 miles
distant from Kandahar and 229 miles from Herat. A total
of 35 stations existed between the two places. Average
distance between settlements in the Kandahar region was
12.625 miles and 10.409 miles in the Herat region. Ex
cluding the intense cultivation in the 37 miles adjacent to
Kandahar and in a place 94 miles from it, all stations were
settlements of small size. Their only importance lay in
the availability of water and forage. But at a distance
of 80 miles and 141 miles from Herat were two districts
with fairly dense population and significant amounts of
cultivation. The area in the immediate vicinity of Herat,
despite signs of former habitation, had been largely de
populated by the wars of the previous decade (Thornton, E.
A Gazetteer of the Countries Adjacent to India, 1844: 293-
309) .
Distance between Kandahar and Kabul was estimated at
317 miles. An average distance of 9.606 miles separated
the 33 places which were noted for any importance by the
party. Only 83 miles of the route were within the region
of Kandahar and, excepting the three miles in the proximity
of Kandahar, settlement was very dispersed. The picture
on the Kabul side of the route was, however, radically dif
ferent. Relative density of population was commented upon
and the extent of CUltivation for a number of places was
14
described in such words as: "the whole plain, as far as
the eye can reach, one large yield of wheat," "the whole
plain covered with green wheat and fine clumps of trees,"
"abundance of water .•. " (Ibid:312). The intensity of cul
tivation around Kabul itself was also noted.
The first 32 miles of the 357 miles journeyed from
Kabul to Balkh in northern Afghanistan coincided with the
route from Kabul to Kandahar. Then, a number of passes
ranging from 10,000 to 14,000 feet had to be crossed for
getting into central Afghanistan and again from the central
to the northern region. In central Afghanistan, only the
valley of Bamian, at a distance of 103 miles from Kabul and
162 miles from the first large settlement in the north,
was noted for availability of supplies (L/P&S/C7l Memoran
dum On Afghanistan, On the Road ••• ,1878:l-7). The inter
val between the passes and the locality of Haibak in the
northern region was, in 1886, described as "for the most
par.t uninhabited and devoid of supplies" (F.O.539/44 West
Ridgeway to the Earl of Iddesleigh, Inclosure 7, No.7.,
Dec.20,1886:14). The northern plain itself was watered
by four riveL3, three of them flowing in parallel direc
tion to each other, and a number of places had the agri
cultural potential for supporting large numbers of people.
The actual number of settlements at any time, however, was
not a function of the potential fertility of the soil but
a resultant of politcal factors.
15
Nonetheless, the fact that the pattern of settlement
described for the central place of Kandahar and its sur
rounding areas repeated itself in the eastern, northern
and western regions of the country and that actual surplus
of agricultural produce in the 1880s is also reported, is
significant. The situation in Badakhshan and the central
area was different.
The organization of space into a central place(s), its
surrounding areas and dispersed or concentrated settlements
within and between regions has, until this point, been
pursued in relative terms only. In order to render the
discussion more meaningful I shall present the actual fig
ures for 1880s. Except for the population of the central
places of Kabul and Kandahar, which were based on actual
censuses, all figures are essentially informed estimates.
The total population of the country during the l880s and
1890s was approximated at 5-6 million people (Great Britain,
India Office Records, Military Report on Afghanistan, 1906:
194-5). Of these approximately 20% were living in the cen
tral places. As Humlum's classification of the geographi
cal characteristics of the country helps in conveying a
picture of the nature of the terrain, his table is presented
next to that of the population distribution.
16
Table I: Regional Concentration of Population of Afghanistan, 1880s-1890s
Regions Area (km2) % Approximate Total Name and Population Population of
Eopul.ation of Central Place Surrounding Area
148,100 23.3 Kandahar
35,700 Southern 32,500
105,000 16.6 Kabul
Eastern 140,000
7.7 120,000 Faizabad
17,300 Badakshan 48,900 8-9,000
Northern 92,200 14.5 87,105 families & Balkh, Mazar, &
110,000 individuals Ackcha:15,OOO
Western and 76,900 12.1 500,000 Herat 300,000 NorthWestern 9,000
25.8 500,000 Bamian
Central 163,900 3-6,000
Total 635,000 100.0 5 to 6 million
Sources: Adapted from Humlum 1959; GA,12 volumes; Military Report on Afghanistan,1906.
f--' -.]
Table II: The Altitude Zones of the Natural Regions
Altitude Zones Lower than 300-600 600-1800 1800-3000 Higher than Total %
(km2) 300m m m m 3000 m
South Afghanistan 29,200 118,500 400 J.48,100 23.3
Afghanistan of the 800 11,700 3,200 15,700 2.5
Monsoon
East Afghanistan 11,500 61,000 1,600 74,100 11. 7
Nuristan 2,700 6,300 6,200 15,200 2.4
Badakhshan 1,600 12,100 13,700 10,400 37,800 6.0
Wakhan 1,900 9,200 11,100 1.7
North Afghanistan 5,600 26,700 44,800 15,100 92,200 14.5
Northwest Afghanistan 200 21,300 9,100 30,600 4.8
West Afghanistan 45,000 1,300 46,300 7.3
Central Afghanistan 26,400 98,000 39,500 163,900 25.8
Total 5,600 58,500 294,000 210,000 66,900 635,000 100.0
% 0.9 9.2 46.3 33.1 10.5 100.0
Source: Hum1um 1959:17. f---' 00
The distribution of population in the regions and
their central places in the l880s and l890s was not typical
of the long unit of duration 1747-1901. Movements of popu
lation in southern, central, and eastern regions followed
a very different trajectory than that in the regions of
Badakhshan, north and northwestern Afghanistan. While
conditions in the former regions remained relatively sta
ble, in the latter, the basic tendency was towards depopu
lation. A combination of political factors and epidemics
was the cause.
Fluctuations in the size of the central place of Herat
were by contemporary observers, attributed to political fac
tors. In 1809, the estimates of Herat's population ranged
from 45,000 to 100,000 people. Before the year long Persian
siege of 1838, it had probably reached 70,000 but after the
siege it was approximated at 6,000 to 7,000 people. In 1845,
it had gone up to 22,000 and had probably reached 45,000
by 1857. The Persian siege of that year and the wars of
the subsequent years brought a reduction to the low ebb of
9,000 in 1885 (GA,Herat:174).
At times also, the political agrandizement of the
powerholder of one region through military conquest led to
forceful movements of population from one region into
another. When the chief of Kunduz, the northeastern
Afghanistan, conquered Balkh and Badakshan in the l820s,
he marched off great numbers of inhabitants from both
19
places to the area around Kunduz (Burnes,A. Travels Into
Bokhara vol.II,1834/1973:346,351).
The impact of political factors was exacerbated by the
outbreak of epidemics as attested by the following remarks
of the compiler of the Gazetteer for northern Afghanistan:
"The population of the province is small in comparison with
the area. This is partly due to devastating wars, and to
the chaotic conditions of the country before it came under
Afghan rule, but in a great degree to famine and pestilence.
It may be stated here that what is called the 'Persian'
famine of 1872 was terribly severe in Herat and Afghan
Turkistan. It was followed by a dreadful outbreak of chol
era, and Maitland was assured that some districts were al
most entirely depopulated between 1871 and 1873" (1914/1979:
12) .
Thus, explanation of population fluctuations cannot
be isolated from the operation of larger political forces.
I shall resume the discussion of the implications of these
changes in the second part of this study where our unit of
duration will be conjunctural, but structural constraints
imposed by the means of communication on the movements of
people and goods inside Afghanistan remained constant
throughout the long duration and will have to be considered
here.
As indicated in our discussion of patterns of settle
ments, communication between regions took place over land.
20
The reason for this is rather simple. Most rivers in
Afghanistan rise in the central range of mountains and
flow northwards or southwards. There is therefore no water
way connecting the northern third with the southern two
thirds of the country. Furthermore, most of the rivers
lack the necessary depth for navigation and cannot be used
for the inter-regional transportation of either people or
goods, the only exception being the floating of wood on
some of the rivers.
Reasons for the absence of wheeled vehicles are, how
ever, not clear. Their non-existence from Morocco to
Afghanistan until the nineteenth century is demonstrated
by Richard Bulliet (The Camel and the Wheel 1975:8) who
persuasively argues that camels were the standard means of
transportation in the area. Until the beginning of the
twentieth century, I have not found any evidence for the
use of wheeled means of transportation in Afghanistan ex
cept in urban centers. The dominant position of the camel
did not mean that other animals were not used. Ponies,
mules, horses and donkeys were quite common as some of the
terrain was so rugged that even camels could not cross it.
In order to convey an impression of the degree to
which the speed of movement was conditioned by the means
of communication, I have summarized the available informa
tion in table three.
21
Table III: Communication Between Central Places in Afghanistan
Central Places and Route
Kabul-Balkh; through Bamian
Kabul-Bamian
Kabul-Mazar: through Ghorband
Kabul-Khanabad; through Khawak
Kabul-Faizbad; through Kkanabad-Khawak
Kabul-Kandahar; through Ghazni
Kabul-Kandahar; through Kilat-i-Ghilzai
Kabul-Herat; through Kandahar-Farah
Kabul-Herat; through Kandahar-Girishik
Kabul-Herat; through Kandahar-Sabzwar
Estimated Number of Distance (miles) marches by
mili tary PCl~ty
332.5 or 357
106
290-300
237
no information
318
308
718
687
697.5
28
26
29
29
66
62
62
Kandahar-Herat; through Girishik 369 33
Kandahar-Herat; through Farah 400 37
Herat-Kabul; through the 469.5 central region
Herat-Balkh; through Maimenah 430
Number of Number of Days for Days by Caravans Other Means
7
15
31-33
16-18
horse:8days courier:6days
horse: 18days
horse:10days
Time Closed to
Traffic
2 passes:2 months 1 pass :9 months
1 pass :2 months 1 pass :9 months
1 pass :8~months
1 pass :8 months 2 passes:no information
2-4 months
2-4 months
3-5 months
N N
The above data, having been gathered under relatively
stable political conditions, mostly by British officers,
reflect the technical rather than the social conditions
of movements of people and goods. But mobility, as we
shall witness in other chapters, was intimately connected
with the political conditions as well.
I have, until now, deliberately treated the present
territory of Afghanistan in isolation. It is time to place
our spatial unit wi thin the wider frameworks of time and
space. By locating the chosen unit within the larger flows,
this procedure allows for a better grasp of the histori
cally changing significance of geography and history. An
examination of changes in the internat~onal systems of com
munication in the area will serve as an illustration of my
contention. The old system of communication which was in
operation for centuries and, depending on areas, continued
to function until 1900, is presented in Table four.
23
Table IV: Inter-territorial Routes of Communication Before 1850
Estimated Number of Number of Number of Name of Places and Routes Distance marchGs by days by days by Other Features
(miles) military party caravans other means
Kabul-Deir Ismael Khan; through 217 39
horses & camels Ghazni ?
horses & camels Kabul-Quetta; through Ghazni 376 27 27
?
Quetta-Kelat 112.43 10 horses & mules 10
Kelat-kotree 182.16 14 horses & mules ?
Kotree-Sukhur 173 10 horses & camels
?
Quetta-Meshed 1,050 150
horses & camels Excessive heat
Kandahar-Dadur 225.5 35 May - August ? shortage of water
Dadur-Shukhur 173 11 horses & camels
?
Shukhur-Larkhana 49.6 5 horses & camels
?
Larkhana-Seh\o1an; Arul river 122.2 13 horses & camels
?
Sehwan-Karachi 16 horses & camels
?
N ,J::.
Table IV (continued)
Estimated Number of Number of Number of Name of Places and Routes Distance marches by days by days by Other Features
(miles) military party caravans other means
Kandahar-Sind; through 692.5 61 horses & camels
Balouchistan ?
Kandahar-Shikarpur; 369 32 horses & camels Bolan pass ?
Kandahar-Dera Ghazni Khan; 414 horses & camels Sukhee Sarwan pass ?
Herat-Sarakhs; through 469.5 Sang Kotal and Zulfikar
Herat-Meshed 320
Meshed-Bander Abbas 970 110 camels & donkeys ?
Meshed Teheran 560 35-40 camels & mules ?
Balkh-Kilif Ferry 55
Balkh-Khwajeh Saleh Ferry 68
Kashgar & Yarkand (China) 65 ponies ~ camels
I3okhara; through Badakhshan-Balkh ?
Faizabad-Peshawar; through Pamir 343 passes 20-25,000 feet
closed 3-9 months
Peshawar-Kabul; through 191 19
horses Oc camels Kabul-Jalalabad Jalalabad ? closed 3 months
N Ul
Name of Places and Routes
Kabul-Kohat
Kohat-Rawalpindi
Estimated Distance (miles)
234
106
Table IV (continued)
Number of marches by
military party
22
16
Number of days by
caravans
Number of days by
other means
horses & camels ?
horses & camels ?
Other Features
tv en
Unlike the system of communication within Afghanistan
outlined in Table three, the inter-territorial system de
lineated in Table four underwent radical shifts from 1840
onwards. Indeed, road-building was undertaken only about
1840 and the compiler of the Imperial Gazetteer of India
offered the following reason for the late start: "The
level plains of India, scoured by streams which, for eight
months or more in each year, are passable without difficulty
by the conveyances generally used in the country, offer
so small an obstacle to intercourse between different lo
calities that, up to the end of the eighteenth century,
there was no demand for prepared tracks even for military
purposes, transport being chiefly effected by pack animals
travelling along village pathways, while travellers could
ride or be conveyed in palanquins" (1907,vol.III:402).
Communication between India and its naighboring coun
tries, as the British army sent to conquer Afghanistan in
1838 found out, was not easy. En route from Sukkur in Sind
to Kandahar in Afghanistan, the army had to cross the Bolan
pass and in attempting to do so lost 38,000 camels in one
day (L/P&S/C71,1878:17). The expansion of the British do
main in India, as shown in Maps 6a and 6b, made the radical
alteration of the existing structure of communication an
economic and military necessity. Road-building was signifi
cant but the introduction of railways was the most momen
tous component of this restructuring.
27
The first comprehensive plan for building railways in
India was drawn up in 1853 but actual construction only
started in 1859. By 1905, the total mileage of the Indian
railway, as displayed in map 7, amounted to 28,054 miles
(Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol.III,1908:366).
While most of the important lines in the interior of
India were completed between 1860 and 1870, extension of
lines to territories adjacent to Afghanistan took place
between 1880 and 1905. The Afghan war of 1878-1880 pro
vided the first impetus. The marches from Sind to Quetta
had resulted in the "waste of treasure and life" and demon
strated the necessity of a railway. Not surprisingly, "all
the railways and the best of roads" in Baluchistan had
"their origin in strategic needs" (Ibid,vol.VI:3l2). That
the modern system of rail communication had not yet reached
the north-western frontier of India in 1879 is affirmed
by a report of a military officer. He stated that "all
travelling has to be performed on horses or camels, and
during the rainy season, owing to the alluvial character
of the soil which becomes after rain almost as slippery as
ice, travelling is excedingly difficult and laborious" (L/
P&S/18/A134,1879:l3).
In 1885, Russian advances in Central Asia and the
possibility of war between Great Britain and Russia looming
large on the horizon provided the second impetus. A
special defense committee in India called for the extension
28
of railway lines to points "which are open to attack or
where future offensive operations must be initiated" (LjP&Sj
Al17,1885:1). Baluchistan and the Peshawar district in the
North-West Frontier received especial attention under the
terms of the plan. The total length of the railway in
Baluchistan increased from 277 miles in 1891 to 399 miles
in 1901 and 481 miles in 1905. Sind and Baluchistan were
connected by the railway and, by 1892, one section of the
line had already reached the Afghan frontier at Chaman
(Imperial Gazetteer of India,vol.VI,1908:312-13). By 1885,
a railway linked the city of Peshawar with the main network
of the Indian railways and a metal road joined Peshawar to
the Punja~) (Imperial Gazetteer of India,1886,vol.XI:155).
The district possessed 157 miles of metal roads and 672
miles of unmetalled road in 1905 and the railway line had
;)een extended to the Afghan frontier (Imperial Gazetteer
of India,1908,vol.XX:120).
Strategic considerations, however, were not the only
reason for the alignment of the communication system. Even
in the North-Western Railway, encompassing both Baluchistan
and the Peshawar district, only 1,042 miles were built for
strategic considerations. The remaining 2,986 miles owed
their realization to economic causes. The nexus between
production, communication, and domination was cogently ar
ticulated by the compiler of the Imperial Gazetteer of
India. In his discussion of the beginnings of the railway
29
he wrote that "the Directors [of the East India Company]
begun to realize that, without the material appliances
which facilitate and cheapen the means of communication
and production, there could be DO rapid progress in the
country either normally or materially, or in the efficiency
of the administration" (1908,vol.III:365).
The completion of the railway network and the opening
in 1869 of the Suez Canal, which reduced the length of the
voyage from India to Europe from 100 to 25 days, did indeed
bring about a transformation in the system of agricultural
production in India, and directly linked it to the trends
in the cosmopolitan economy. The Indian wheat crop, with
its main center of production in the Punjab, was almost
all shipped to Europe, the main port of export being Karachi
in Sind. Karachi was also the railway port of the North
Western State Railway and was connected through the branches
of the line to places as far as Chaman on the border of
Afghanistan. In 1904 alone, this line carried 25,500,000
people and 6,500,000 tons of goods -- mainly wheat (Ibid:
262,285,398-99).
India was not, however, the only place where system
atic changes in communication and production were occurring.
During the course of the nineteenth century Russia, as
shown in Map 8, advanced to the borders of Afghanistan in
Central Asia. Between 1864 and 1885, the Russians methodi
cally pursued a policy of conquering, organizing and colo-
30
nizing the conquered territories. The expansion of modern
communication was one aspect of this undertaking and, by
1890, the Russian railway had reached at Sarakhs, the
northern boundary of Afghanistan (MSS Eur. D727 A).
In Iran, the old and new systems of communication co
existed (Issawi,C. ed. The Economic History of Iran 1800-
1914 1971:l96ff.). Only in Afghanistan did the old system
completely prevail and about 800 miles of Afghan space pre
vented a nexus between India and Europe by railway.
The intrusion of rail communication and the intro
duction of fundamental changes in the political economy of
some of the neighboring countries had considerable implica
tions for the articulation of relations between the various
regions of Afghanistan and the relations of these regions
with forces outside the country. In marked contrast to
the direct involvement of surrounding areas, the country
was only indirectly becoming involved in the world political
economy. In this regard, the case of Afghanistan provides,
in two essential respects, a contrast to the cases analyzed
by Fried. It thus gives us an opportunity to examine the
social relations of people whose system of production is
not transformed by conquest while that of neighboring areas
is undergoing such a transformation.
As production seems to be playing such a crucial role
in the structuring of social relationships, I will now turn
to examining it in chapter two.
31
CHAPTER TWO
Labor-Process and Technical Organization of
Production in Agriculture
In an article in 1938 that foreshadowed most of the
features of the type of analysis that has subsequently be
come associated with his name, Karl Wittfogel called atten
tion to the combination of land and water in setting the
agricultural process of production in motion. He asserted
that "differences in the type and productivity of the land,
the soil, determine to a large extent the settled social
stage of the resultant labor-process; they lead, however,
only to variations, not to a fundamentally divergent pattern
of the labor-process. This effect proceeds from the second
of the chief factors in the means of work -- from water"
(1938/1969:183). Wittfogel outlines the possible tendencies
in a table that is copied below.
32
TABLE: Impact of Irrigation on
Social Organization
Rain for Specific Rivers, Ground-Water,etc.
variations Agricultural Types Pre-of the Water- Time-
Sufficiency sent? The Task: Tendency to Situation liness
A
B
C
al Drainage, Patterns of a
+ ++ a+ Protection Water-Control 1 a2 --
b b- b --Rainfall
2 + + Insignificant agriculture. In case of
a + a-temporary nomadism 3 + transition b b+ Transition to to
B 1 a rainfall +- agriculture
plus cattle-raisinq.
- Supplementary Irrigation 1 a + a+ But enough Irrigation Agriculture
b for pasture b- Nomadism
Irrigation Irrigation 2 a - + a+ for the sake Agriculture
of Insurance
b b- Nomadism
- a - + Irrigation to Irrigation 3 a - But enough Make agriculture Agriculture for pasture possible
b b- Nomadism
-- Irrigation to Irrigation a
No Rain at a+ Make Agriculture
Agriculture possible - All
b b- Desert!
The sign + means: Sufficent or present in considerable quantity The sign ++ means: Presnet in excess The sign - means: Present only in slight, insufficent quantity The sign -- means: Not present at all
33
Although in his major work on the subject Wittfogel
differentiates between hydro-agriculture and hydraulic
types of societies as well as compact and loose varieties
of the latter (1957/1962:3,166), the posited nexus between
the factors of production and the labor-process has disappeared
from the analysis. As the subsequent debates in anthropology
and other disciplines regarding the vailidity of propositions
advanced by Wittfogel have been largely structured around
his thesis of "oriental despotism," the specificity or lack
of the labor-process in a system of agricultural production
based on irrigation has been neglected. An adequate evalu
ation of the larger hypothesis, however, is not possible
without a prior examination of the labor-process (es) in
such systems. Clarification of the notion requires turning
not to Wittfogel but Marx, under whose impact Wittfogel's
1938 article was written.
Marx wrote that "the determinate social form of the
worker's labour corresponds to the form which the conditions
of labour -- that is, in particular, the land, nature, since
this relationship embraces all others -- assume in respect
of the worker. But the former is in fact merely the objec
tive expression of the latter (Theories of Surplus-Value
part III,1861-63/1971:415). He later phrased this idea in
a more general proposition on the determination of "organi
zation of labour ... by means of production" (Selected Cor
respondence July 7,1866,to Engels).
34
Marx's contribution to the investigation of the labor
process should not be sought in the generality of its claim
alone. An even more important dimension is the forging of
a series of concepts that can be historically tested.
His juxtaposition of social wants and social time as
mediated by labor-time is unique. He argued that "if society
wants to satisfy some want and have an article produced for
this purpose, it must pay for it .•. society buys it with a
definite quantity of its disposable labor-time" (Capital
vol.III,1894/1977:l87). Through a series of determinate
definitions, he further clarified his notions of labor and
time distinguishing between general labor, labor-power, sim
ple average labor and complex labor.
General labor is viewed as an inherent attribute of
humanity; "it is an eternal nature -- imposed necessity,
without which there can be no material exchange between
man and Nature, and therefore no life" (Capital vol.I,1867/
1975:42-43). Labor-power is defined or capacity fcr la
bour is defined as "the aggregate of those mental and physi-
cal capabilities existing in a human being, which he exer
cises whenever he produces a use-value of any description"
(Ibid:167). But it is the concept of simple average labor
that allows for comparison across time and space. It is
defined as the expenditure "of the labour-power which, on
an average, apart from any special development, exists in
the organism of every ordinary individual" (Ibid:44). Marx
35
immediately added that IIsimple average labour, it is true
varies in character in different countries and at different
times, but in a particular form of society it is given ll
(Ibid). Complex labor -- involving skills is defined as
"simple labour raised to a higher power" (Contribution to
the Critique of Political Economy 1859/1970:31).
The concept of necessary labor allows for the establish
ment of a nexus between labor and time. Marx's use of this
concept is two-fold and has, therefore, given rise to con
fusion. On the one hand, it designates "the time necessary
under given social conditions for the production of any
commodity;" on the other hand, it also refers to the IItime
necessary for the production of the particular commodity
labour-power" (Capital vol.I:217). It is the former sense
of the usage that interests me here. Although Marx's unit
of analysis is a society, there is no logical reason for
confining the utility of the concept to that framework.
Juxtaposition of differing ratios of necessary and surplus
labour may in fact provide a better understanding of the
totality of social relations than an abstract notion of nec
essary labour that society as such has to perform. As far
as agricultural production is concerned, utilization of con
crete units, such as domestic organizations, villages, lo
calities, etc., by revealing the seasonal distribution of
the necessary labor brings the role of the natural factors
into sharp relief.
36
Analysis of necessary labor in concrete units permit
the determination of the impact of different factors of the
labor-process on the ratio of necessary and surplus labor
time for the units concerned. Marx listed three items as
elementary factors of labor. These are: "I, the personal
activity of man, i.e., work itself, 2, the subject of that
work, and 3, its instruments" (Capital vol.I:178). He
stressed the fact that soil, including water "exists inde
pendently of him, and is the universal subject of human
labour" (Ibid). An instrument of labor is defined as "a
thing, or complex of things, which the labourer interposes
between himself and the subject of his labour, and which
serves as the conductor of his activity" (Ibid:179). The
primary significance of instruments of labor is their effect
on the ratio of necessary and surplus labor and the conse
quent creation of additional disposable time. In Marx's
scheme, expansion of the productive capacity of society
is an inherent aspect of changes in instruments of labor.
The impact of two instruments of labor -- plough and hoe -
on systems of agricultural production and a series of con
comittant associations in social relations have recently
been argued in anthropology (Goody,J.1976:1-22).
In this chapter I shall attempt to describe the various
details of the system of production with reference to the
concept of necessary labor and time. In the second part, I
shall attempt to test some of ·the broader correlations be-
37
tween a system of production and aspects of social relations.
But I must begin the description of the labor-process by
focusing on the impact of natural factors on the duration
of time during which labor could be undertaken.
* * * *
Climatic variation in Afghanistan, in general, is a
function of altitude. On this basis the country can be
divided into five zones. Amin and Schilz (1976:53-54)
offer the following classification.
A. Desert Type: This zone is located mostly below
900 meters, covering the plains in the south, southwest,
west, north and east. It covers 1/5 of the total area
of the country.
B. Desert with vegetation, or Steppe: Situated on
the plains near the foothills, this zone include regions
of warm or hot and humid climate. In the eastern region,
it embaces the upper part of the valley of Nangarhar, the
valleys of Kunar, Alingar, Alishing, and areas around Khost
-- in each case up to 1,500 meters. In the southern and
western regions, the eastern part of Kandahar, the northern
part of Helmand, parts of Farah and Herat, with elevations
between 1,000 and 1,600 meters, fall within this zone. In
the northern region, it encompasses such areas as Balkh,
Khulm and Kunduz.
38
C. Sub-Humid climate, or Cool Steppe: Most of the
pasture lands and grasslands of the country are contained
in this zone. Its distribution in the eastern and southern
regions is scattered. But in the north it includes the
Taloqan valley, the eastern side of the Kunduz valley,
Baghlan and Doshi up to 1,000 meters, southern parts of
Balkh, and western parts of Maimana.
D. Humid climate: This zone coincides with the for
ested areas of the country. It comprises the forests of
eastern, central and northern Afghanistan as well as those
of Herat, Badghis, Jawzjan, Faryab, and Badakhshan.
E. Very Cold Humid climate: It covers all the areas
above 3,000 meters. Polar type vegetation can grow in the
lower parts of this zone but the upper part is too cold
for vegetation.
Furthermore, there seems to be an inverse relation
between temperature and altitude. The "average temperature
for the year decreases with altitude, with latitude being
an associated factor" (Ibid:49). The length of the growing
season, as the following table shows, follows the same pat
tern.
39
40
Table II: Altitude, Growing Season, and Average Temperature (Co)
For 28 Stations*
Last Last . Lati- Elevation Freezing F . Grow~ng Temp Region Station reez~ng S tude (meters) Day, Day, eason CO
Spring Fall (Days)
Eastern Gardez 33.5 2,350 11 Apr. 18 Oct. 189 9.3
Ghazni 33.5 2,183 6 Apr. 12 Oct. 188 9.5
Jabul Seraj 35.0 1,630 24 Feb. 6 Dec. 289 15.0
Jalalabad 34.5 580 22 Jan. 4 Dec. 315 21.5
Kabul 34.5 1,791 29 Apr. 26 Oct. 210 11. 7
Khost 33.3 1,146 13 Feb. 25 Nov. 284 17.0
Laghman 34.5 770 6 Feb. 9 Dec. 305 19.6
Logar 34.0 1,935 22 Apr. 10 Oct. 198 10.7
Moqur 33.0 2,000 10 Apr. 12 Oct. 193 11.2
S. Salang 35.2 3,172 17 Mar. 4 Oct. 137 2.5
Central Barnyan 35.0 2,550 11 Apr. 18 Oct. 189 6.8
Ghalmin 35.0 2,070 26 Apr. 23 Sept. 166 7.8
Lal 34.5 2,800 7 June 27 Aug. 80 3.3
Panjab 34.3 2,710 8 May 5 Sept. 119 6.8
Sharak 34.0 2,325 20 May 28 Aug. 99 4.6
Southern Bost 31.5 780 19 Feb. 14 Nov. 269 19.5
Kalat 32.0 1,565 28 Mar. 2 Nov. 218 14.6
Kandahar 31.5 1,010. 21 Feb. 20 Nov. 271 19.3
Western Farah 32.3 660 22 Feb. 20 Nov. 270 19.0
Herat 34.3 964 19 Mar. 3 Nov. 228 16.0
* Adapted from Amin and Schilz, 1976:49-50
41
Table II ( continued)
Last Last Growing Lati- Elevation Freezing Freezing Temp Region Station Season tude (meters) Day, Day, (Days)
CO Spring Fall
Northern Baghlan 36.0 510 12 Mar. 17 Nov. 236 14.7
Kunduz 36.6 433 13 Mar. 27 Nov. 258 16.5
N. Salang 35.2 3,366
Maimana 36.0 815 19 Mar. 11 Nov. 236 14.4
Mazar 36.6 378 7 Mar. 16 Nov. 253 16.9
Shebergan 36.6 360 9 Mar. 29 Nov. 264 16.4
Talooqan 36.6 804 27 Mar. 4 Nov. 224 14.7
Badakhshan Faizbad 37.0 1,200 24 Mar. 4 Nov. 224 13 .0
Examination of the table not only reveals a significant
range of variation in the season of growth -- 99 to 315
for the country as a whole; it also documents important dif-
ferences between as well as within regions. For those in-
dividuals and groups of population that led
life in the rural areas, the length of the season of growth
indicates the theoretical maximum necessary labor time that
could be directly spent on agriculture. But the data con-
tains even more significant information.
Differences in the beginning, end, and duration of the
season of growth within and between regions discloses the
fact that the peak periods of demand for agricultural labor
and availability of agricultural produce were distinctly
different. This possibility was ideally suitable to the
needs of those individuals and groups who, for various
reasons, had to undertake seasonal migrations. without
precise information on the nature and direction of move
ments of groups and individuals within a community it is,
therefore, not legitimate to infer the duration of the
necessary labor from the length of the growth season. How
ever, information on necessary labor time for the production
of various crops in a locality, in conjunction with data on
system(s) of communication to and from other places and the
labor requirements of other areas, can lead to the possi
ble discovery of the range of time during which movement
was an actual possibility. I shall return to the issue
of movement of people and its articulation with larger
political and economic relations in the subsequent chapters.
Knowledge of the growth season is mainly helpful in
indicating the potential readi~ess of one factor of pro
duction, soil, to be subjected to labor. Availability of
water is equally crucial and I will now turn to a discussion
of this factor. Systematic data on precipitation for the
period of our investigation is not available. The following
tables summarize the information for a more recent period.
42
Table IIIa: Precipitation Data*
Average Median % % Varia- Years Region Station Precip- Precip- r·1ax. Above Min. Below tion Ob-
itation itation Average Average Extent served
Eastern Gardez 316 314 564 +78 184 -42 130 10
Ghazni 296 278 555 +87 69 -77 164 15
Jabul Seraj 510 449 730 +43 125 -76 119 13
Jalalabad 172 147 390 +126 31 -82 208 15
Kabul 346 343 524 +51 176 -50 101 15
Khost 448 461 677 +51 185 -59 110 12
Lagham 275 277 526 +91 130 -53 144 9
Logar 227 213 392 +72 107 -53 125 7
Moqur 200 164 348 +74 129 -36 70 8
S. Salang 1096 1147 1741 +59 699 -35 94 12
Central Bamyan 182 100 503 +176 48 -74 250 5
Ghalmin 214 228 284 +32 133 -38 70 9
Lal 296 299 370 +23 137 -54 77 9
Panjab 334 261 502 +50 166 -51 101 9
Sharak 348 254 501 +44 71 -80 124 6
Southern Bost 90 97 158 +75 44 -51 126 14
Kalat 260 205 556 +113 104 -60 173 7
Kandahar 134 158 222 +65 57 -58 123 10
western Farah 84 88 202 +140 20 -77 217 14
Herat 207 214 401 +93 113 -46 139 16
Zaranj 30 34 55 +83 5 -84 167 5
*Adapted from Amin and Schilz, 1976:52
44
Table IlIa (continued)
Average Median 0_ % Varia- Years -0
Region Station Precip- Precip- Max. Above Min. Below tion Ob-itation itation Average Average Extent served
Northern Bagh1an 280 285 413 +47 117 -59 106 16
Kunduz 335 313 477 +42 204 -40 82 16
N. Salang 1060 1212 1349 +27 432 -60 87 14
Maimana 376 375 482 +29 214 -43 72 15
Mazar 183 193 289 +57 57 -69 126 15
Sheberghan 227 188 364 +60 110 -52 112 11
Talooqan 642 559 873 +36 430 -34 70 5
Badakhshan Faizabad 548 551 703 +28 289 -48 76 14
Table IIIb:
Seasonal Distribution of Precipitation and its Percentage in Comparison
to the Total Amount for the Year 1976-77*
Station SPRING
Amount (rom) %
Eastern Region
Ghazni 44.6 21.5
Jalalabad 59.7 32.5
SUMMER Amount
(nun) %
29.2 14.0
67.7 36.9
Kabul 55.3 36.6 0.0 0.0
Khost 108.0 27.4 220.2 56.0
S. Salang 183.9 28.5 0.0 0.0
Southern Region
Kandahar 15.8 7.2 38.3 17.4
western Region
Herat 97.2 38.8 0.0 0.0
Northern Region
Baghlan 149.6 48.6 0.0 0.0
Kunduz 84.2 31.6 0.0 0.0
FALL Amount
Jl)1IlI) %
17.7 8.5
0.3 0.16
14.5 9.6
0.5 0.13
94.8 14.7
WINTER Amount
(nun) %
115.9 55.9
55.7 30.4
81.3 53.8
64.8 16.5
367.3 56.9
1.6 0.73 164.3 74.7
41. 2 16.4 112.2 44.8
26.7 8.7 131.8 42.8
25.8 9.7 156.3 58.7
N. Salang 276.6 33.5 1.5 0.18 165.0 20.0 383.6 46.4
Maimana 176.4 54.8 0.0 0.0 46.5 14.4 99.0 30.7
Mazar 44.2 31.4 0.0 0.0 19.4 13.8 77 .2 54.8
SlEberghan 60.2 30.9 0.0 0.0 33.1 17.0 101.3 52.0
*Statistical Information of Afghanistan 1976-77, 1977:53-54
Total (rom)
207.4
183.4
151.1
393.5
646.0
220.0
250.6
308.1
266.3
826.7
321.9
140.8
194.6
Note: The duration of precipitation has been computed from the 10th day of the first month of each season. Spring begins on the 10 of Hamal (March 31) •
45
The timing, type, and variations in the extent of pre
cipitation calls for comment. The major period of precipi
tation falls between the months of November to May. The
melting of the winter and spring snows accounts for the ex
istence of late spring and summer water in the rivers. The
fluctuations in the amount of precipitation is fully docu
mented in the above tables. with a range of variation that
is between 70% to 250%, 18 stations out of a total of 29
have a rate of 100%. During a drought year, the gap be
comes even wider. The average yearly precipitation for the
whole country being 5415.7mm, the decline during the agri
cultural years of 1969-70 and 1970-71 -- during which the
country was struck by a severe drought -- was 37% and 42.8%
respectively (Statistical Information of Afghanistan 1976-
77:50). But even in ordinary years, the change in the
yearly total precipitation is significant; the totals for
the years 1973-4, 1974-5, 1975-6, and 1976-7 were suc
cessively 38l2.1mm, 4800.9mm, 5600.lmm, and 3831.2mm (Ibid).
While some of the variation might be due to the low number
of years recorded, two geographers have noted that "such
.variations are typical of semi-arid and desert climates"
(Amin and Schilz, 1976:51). Without giving the historical
basis for their judgement, they have also asserted that
the drought of 1970 and 1971 "may be repeated in 33 or 34
years" (Ibid). Irrigation under such conditions is, there
fore, a necessity. In terms of Wittfogel, scheme conditions
46
in Afghanistan fall into categories Band C, which imply
tendencies towards nomadism and irrigation agriculture.
Despite the general dominance of irrigation, the ex-
tent of climatic diversity in Afghanistan is such that rain-
fall agriculture is practised in most of the regions as
a supplementary activity. In some localities, it is even
the dominant form of agricultural production. Its contri-
bution to the total production of the country is, however,
relatively small as shown in table four.
Table IV: Irrigated and Rainfall Agricultural Production, 1977*
Total Agricultural Area Total Yield of Grains Region Irrigated Rainfall Irrigated Rainfall
(jeribs) * % (jeribs) % (sirs) * % (sirs) %
Eastern 2,239,970 62.28 1,356,460 37.72 92,557,200 94.85 5,028,600 5.15
Central 1,113,000 67.03 547,570 32.97 40,774,800 89.52 4,775,000 10.48
Southern 1,715,900 85.51 290,620 14.49 59,392,800 96.47 2,177,400 3.53
Western 2,502,540 37.42 3,329,490 62.58 66,042,900 72 .24 25,373,600 27.76
Northern 4,643,320 45.33 5,601,030 54.67 187,986,300 78.04 52,814,400 21.96
Badakhshan 308,800 33.05 600,800 66.05 258,700 45.07 304,100 54.03
Total for the 12,523,530 52.28 11, 429, 270 47.72 447,012,700 83.16 90,473,100 16.84 country
*Source: Statistical Information of Afghanistan, 1976-77:72,78-79. One jerib is a square unit of measurement, the length of one side of which is 44.183 meters; it is roughly equal to 0.5 acreas. One sir is roughly equal to 7 kgms or 16 lbs.
47
It can be easily seen that even though the area
covered by the two methods of production is roughly the
same, the difference in yields is great. However, the
total yield from the area under rainfall cUltivation in
the northern and western regions, in comparison to the
yield from the irrigated areas in other regions, is large
enough to make a significant difference in the overall food
supply in these regions in particular and in the country
as a whole. As far as can be determined, the significance
of rainfall in the agricultural production of the northern
and western regions is not recent. Ibn Hugal, the tenth
century Arab geographer, who had visited these regions and
noted the nature of the water supply for all the major
settlements of the period, wrote that the "best lands of
Khurasan [a region covering a large part of the present
Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Eastern Iran] are the irri
gated fields of Nishapur and the area under rainfall that
is located between Herat and Mervrud" (1966:186).
Irrigated agriculture, however, is not a unitary
category. Since differences in the source of irrigation
have definite implications for the amount of necessary
time that is devoted to irrigation in the course of the
labor-process, different types have to be clearly distin
guished and their labor requirements analysed. I shall
first present the necessary information regarding types
of irrigation in a more contemporary situation, and then
48
Region
Eastern
%
Central
%
Southern
%
\\1estern
o. '0
Northern
%
Table V: Water Distribution - A Rough Estimate of the Number of Mills, and the Number of Various
units of Irrigation and the Areas They Irrigate (Base Year 1967)*
Areas Under Different Types of Irrigation (jeribs) Number of Different Types of units of Irrigation and of Mills
Canal Spring Karez** Well Total Canals Springs Karez Wells Mills
1,665,610 234,250 311,550 28,560 2,239,970 3310 2210 3203 2167 7673
74.35 10.45 13.90 1.30
349,685 308,190 87,760 3,130 748.760 542 566 84 510 1917
46.70 41.16 11.72 0.42
1,345,770 108,120 257,350 4,660 1,715,900 705 1149 1650 460 1272
78.43 6.30 15.00 0.42
1,922,970 164,080 177,778 14,560 2,279,380 1731 869 632 3077 2695
84.36 7.21 7.79 0.64
4,516,980 103,330 4,050 8,960 4,633,320 1322 683 972 2227 4288
97.49 2.23 0.08 0.2
oJ::> I.D
Region
Badakhshan
%
'rota1s
%
Table V: (continued)
Areas Under Different Types of Irrigation (jeribs) Number of Different Types of Units of Irrigation and of Mills
Canal Spring Karez** Well Total Canals Springs Karez vlells Mills
289,160 19,190 0 450 308,800 212 82 0 54 730
93.64 6.21 0.15
10,090,170 937,160 837,160 60,320 11,926,130 7822 5559 6541 8495 18475
84.61 7.86 7.02 0.51
*Source: Statistical Information of Afghanistan, 1976-77:76-77.
**Karez is an underground channel.
U1 o
address the issue of the labor requirements. The latter
question will be discussed on the basis of sources from the
period of long duration that is my unit of analysis in this
chapter.
The crucial importance of rivers to the agriculture
of the country is underlined by the 84.61% of the irrigated
land that derives its water from canals. The northern and
central regions with 97.49% and 46.70% respectively form
the extreme opposites of the range. Yet, if canals provide
the major source of water in all regions, other sources are
also important determinants of patterns of settlement and
food resources. In the central region, the percentage of
area irrigated by springs is a close second, while in the
eastern, southern, and western regions, underground channels
are the second most important source of water. In
Badakhshan, water from springs supplements that from canals.
The following figures portray the extent of area
covered by vurious u,nit.s of irrigation. A canal in ·the
eastern region provides water to 503.25 jeribs of land, the
lowest porportion for the country. In the central region,
the average area is 645.175 jeribs, in the southern region
1908.89 jeribs, in the western region 1110.90 jeribs, in
the northern region 3416.77 jeribs, and in Badakhshan
1363.96 jeribs.
The northern area with 4.16 jeribs per karez has the
lowest proportion for that unit. The average in the eastern
51
region is 97.27 jeribs, in the central region 104.76 jeribs,
in the southern region 155.97 jeribs, and in the western
region 281.29 jeribs. Badakhshan has no underground chan
nels.
The southern region with 94.09 jeribs per spring has
the lowest ratio for that unit. The average in the eastern
region is 105.99 jeribs, in the central 544.50 jeribs, in
the western region 188.81 jeribs, in the northern region
151.28 jeribs, and in Badakhshan 234.02 jeribs.
\vith an average of 1.48 jeribs per well, the west has
the lowest ratio for that unit. The proportion in the
eastern region is 13.17 jeribs, in the central region 6.14
jeribs, in the southern region 10.13 jeribs, and in
Badakhshan 8.33 jeribs. The low ratio of wells to the
area under irrigation is a function of the fact that wells
are generally the source for drinking water.
with the exception of the western region where wind
power has been used to operate mills, water mills are the
dominant form in the country. Their number in a region is
a reflection of the velocity and length of the units of
irrigation.
But the regional averages, by hiding important intra
regional variation, might be misleading. The average area
per canal for instance in the western region is 1110.90
jeribs. The range of intra-regional variation per canal
is from the lowest figure of 347.73 jeribs in Ghur to the
52
the highest figure of 2646.52 jeribs in the valley of Herat.
In between, the ratio is 843.92 in Badghis, 1423.65 in
Farah and 1547.62 in Nimroz.
The significance of the ratio of a unit of irrigation
to the area it waters lies in the manner it affects the
proportion of necessary and surplus labor-time of social u
ni ts that are brought into interaction because of irrigation.
As elucidation of some of the critical features of the ar
gument requires historical depth, I have opted in this sec
tion for a longer time framework.
The fertility of the valley of Herat, in the western
region, has been a constant theme in the writings of local
and foreign observers alike. An English officer affirmed
in 1885 that "the whole of Herat Valley, from Obeh to
Kushan, or a distance of nearly 120 miles by a width of per
haps 14 miles, is cultivated like a garden. Everything
grows with the greatest luxuriance and in the greatest pro
fusion. Wheat and barley enough to feed man and horse
of a large army are always procurable, while fruits, such
as peaches, apricots, grapes of many varieties, plums of
many sorts, walnuts, and almonds are grown in plenty" (Col.
Stewart to Marquis of Salisbury, F.O. 539/44 Inc. in no. 27,
July3,1885:42).
A description of the valley by a fifteenth century
Herati geographer has a more direct focus on irrigation.
He wrote that "the dependencies and districts of Herat are
53
are Bulukat and Willayat. Those that are in the valley of
Herat and close to the city are called Bulukat. Between
Herat and Fusjanj, which is approximately fifteen farsangs
[unit of length approximately equal to 18,000 feet] in
length and five farsangs in width, the length of the valley
is from east to west. Bulukat are situated both on the
northern and southern side of the river, which is in the
middle of the valley. From both sides of it canals have
taken and villages and fields have been constructed on it.
Evey juybar (main canal) is called a Buluk" (Geographia-i
Hafiz Abru,1349/1970:15).
The magnitude of the labor required for maintaining
the irrigation system was noted by an English observer in
1885: "The irrigation-works are certainly one of the won
ders of this country. The valley here is a perfect net
work of canals and juis, as they are called, varying in
size from some 30 feet in breadth and 2 in depth to the
smallest cut of barely a foot in breadth. The annual labor
expended in the repair alone of the canals is very great;
but for all that, the people apparently prefer canals to
any system of well irrigation, which is here unknown" (Yate,
1888:17).
Thanks to the survival of the handbook that regulated
the labor-requirements of the valley, the issue can be
discussed in quantified terms. The work was written at the
end of the fifteenth ceritury or the beginning of the six-
54
teenth. It refers to all the previous regulations on
irrigation and it has been the basis of all subsequent re-
visions until the 1970s [Mayil Hirawi, Introduction Tariq
i-Qismat Ab-i-Qulb ("Method of Division of Water of Qulb")
1969: ]. I have summarized the relevant information into
the following tables.
Table VIa: Labor-Requirements of Irrigation in the
Bulukat of Herat
Name of Buluk
Anjil
Alinjan
Guzara
Khiaban
Sabqar
Adwan and Tizan
Turan and Tunian
Ghurwan and Pashtan
Kambraq
Totals
Number of main canals
2
5
3
1
3
1
1
1
2
18
Length of main canal (s.)
(zara=1.5ft)
38,000(7.19mi)
20,000(3.78mi) 19,000(3.6 mi) 11,OOO(2.08mi)
49,000(9.28mi) 17,000(3.22mi) 19,000(3.6 mi)
37,000(7.0 mi)
Number of Number of
Number men-days of men-days
per main
canals
351.5
244.0
248.5
208.0
116.0
114.5
20.0
35.0
151.0
settle- per secondary
ments
59
42
117
71
20
41
9
13
26
canal
505.5
269.0
441.0
409.0
164.75
206.0
24.0
32.0
296.0
210,000(39.77mi) 1488.5 398 2347.25
Average number of men
days per settlements
14.53
12.21
5.89
8.69
14.04
7.82
4.88
5.15
17.19
9.64
55
Name of Wilaya
Kardbar
Fushanj
Shafilan
Karoukh
Totals
Table VIb: Labor-Requirements of Irrigation in the
Wil1ayat of Herat
Number
Length of Number Number of
Number of main
men-days of men-days of main
cana1(s) per
sett1e-per
canals (zara=1.5ft)
main ments secondary canals canal
1 irregular 60 16 49.0
7 230 39 510.5
115 33 165.0
1 100 8 124.0
9 505 96 848.5
Source: Qasim Bin Yusuf Abu-Nasr Hirawi Tariq-i Qismat-iAb-i-Qulb: 16-83 for Bu1ukat; and 85-97 for Wi11ayat.
Average number of men-days per sett1e-ments
6.81
18.98
8.48
28.0
14.09
The figures of 3835.75 man-days of labor for the Bulukat
and 989.5 man-days for the Willayat represent the very mini-
mum amount of labor that had to be expended on the mainten-
ance of the canals. Since the task varied from year to
year, the handbook does not go into further details. How-
ever, the context makes it clear that, depending on the
duration of the repair of a main or secondary canal, the
settlements were to provide labor in the same ratio until
the completion of the tasks. Under the unlikely assumption
of one day for the completion of the task, a settlement, on
56
average, had to contribute the labor of 9.64 men in the
Bulukat and 14.09 men in theWillayat. On a more reason
able assumption of 10 days of cleaning and repairing canals,
the result would be an expenditure of 38357.5 man-days for
the Bulukat and 9895 man-days for the Willayat. The corre
sponding averages for the settlements would have been 96.4
and 140.9 man-days respectively. The calculation is en
tirely based on the work that has to be performed in the
beginning of the year. Any work that had to be performed
in the course of the agricultural year would then increase
the total amount of necessary labor.
The high demand for labor of irrigation agriculture
in the Herat valley comes to full light in the Spring.
with a growing season of 228 days the last freezing
day of Spring being March 19 -- this time of the year
is one of peak season of labor activity. Therefore,
the greater the time spent on the maintenance of canals,
the lesser the time available for activities such
as plowing that had to be performed at the same time. In
comparison with rainfall agriculture not only is the amount
of necessary labor in irrigation agriculture greater; the
time spent on irrigation may significantly reduce the social
time for the undertaking of activities which due to natural
conditions have to be performed in limited periods.
Production under conditions of irrigation seems to
impose specific patterns of intra- and inter-community
57
cooperation. In the valley of Herat for instance, the
tasks had to be distributed among the settlements along
every main canal. Subsequently, for every outlet along
the secondary canals, the tasks had to be distributed again.
In both areas, the specifics of labor allocation had to be
worked out by the merr,bers of the settlements concerned.
That the process may have generated a certain amount of ten
sion can be easily imagined. But if the tasks were to be
successfully performed and the working of the entire system
insured, cooperation at various levels of the community was
a must. The political implications will be taken up in the
second and third part of this study. As far as the techni
cal aspects of the maintenance of canals and the distribu
tion of water were concerned, the details were worked out
in such a manner that they were easily understood.
The cycle of fallowing and the velocity of water rela
tive to the location of land were the basic variables in
determining the number of laborers and allocating water"
The soil in the valley of Herat was cultivated either every
year, every other year, or every three years. Depending
on the ratio of the three types of land in a settlement,
the grouping of man-days would have fallen on the same or
different individuals in different years. As this informa
tion was most readily available at the level of the settle
ment, it was logical that an organization there would work
out the details.
58
Determination of speed of water involved a more com
plex series of operations. Lands were categorized as up
stream, midstream and downstream with respect to the sub
canal from which they were watered. The sub-canals diverted
water from a canal through the construction of a flat darn,
called nutra, which was to insure even distribution to all
the channels. The opening through which measurable amounts
of water were to pass was called a qulb and it was con
structed according to fixed specifications. This was clearly
distinguished from an irregular fissure which was called a
rakhna. The latter was usually not allowed on a properly
maintained canal or subjected to different requirements of
labor and material.
Evey qulb was divided into 18 units. Location of land
relative to the course of water directly affected the defini
tion of the area and the labor requirements of a piece of
land. While the unit of land that was worked by a man with
two oxen was the basic unit of measurement, its actual size
varied from plot to plot. The reason was simple: in a plot
of land located upstream the qulb was supposed to be 80
jeribsi midstream the unit was 50 jeribsi and downstream
it was a mere 30 jeribs. As the speed of water decreased
while spreading over the land, the ratios of water followed
a course opposite to the amount of land. Plots upstream
received 4 units of water, those midstream 6 units, and
those downstream 8 units. The ideal unit of cooperation
59
was visualized as a team of three share-croppers who cul
tivated an area of 160 jeribs watered from one qulb (Ibid:
12-15) .
This was the picture at the micro level. In order to
insure an even flow of water in the course of main and
secondary canals, the whole course of the canal was accur
ately measured. As it was known that the flow of water in
the month of Saratan (June 22-July 23) was uniform, the
amounts in other months were adjusted accordingly.
Water supply along the course of the river helped in
insuring access of the various settlements to water. As
the fifteenth century geographer Hafiz-i Abru noticed,
IIthis river has the characteristic that when its water is
dammed and diverted to a canal, only a short distance after
the place that has been rendered dry water is once again
found in plenty II (1349/1970:15). It seems that springs
were fairly evenly distributed along the course of the
river. Furthermore, excess water from the Willayat was
regularly diverted from those Willayat which were located
upstream to the Bulukat that were located downstream. The
water from Karoukh, for instance, was taken three times a
year -- 7 days out of every 21 days -- in fixed portions
to the Bulukat (Hirawi Tariq-i. Qismqt-i Ab-i Qulb: 96-97) .
Efficient working of the system required that a number
of individuals devote their full time to the mastery of the
rules and the supervision and routine maintenance of the
60
works. Every qulb was entrusted to a Sar-qulb (literally
head or cover) who was paid a fixed sum in money. Canals,
depending on their length, were supervised by one or several
Mir-Ab (head or master of water) who were paid a fixed
amount in kind by every cultivator (Ibid:20ff).
From the twelfth century on, literature describing the
devices that accurately marked the volume of water and the
passing of time is abundant (Khazni, Abu AI-Fatah, Mizan
Ul-Hikmat "Scales of Reason" 1346/1967:18-21). There is
no contemporary description of the system for the period
under study for the valley of Herat. But a detailed des
cription of the system in another locality in the western
region demonstrated that despite its complexity, the opera
tion of the system was fairly easy. Ward, an irrigation
officer attached to the Sistan Mission of 1903-1905, des
cribed the irrigation system of the lower Helmand river
in the Sanjarani tract of country in the following terms:
"The distribution of the water from the canal to the
branches is made very scientifically by weirs so that each
branch may take a discharge proportionate to the number of
Bazgar [cultivators] on the branch. The place where several
branches take off is called an aubakhsh or regulator. The
weirs are made by spreading tamarisk mats on the bed and
sides of the branch at its head; the tamarisk mats on the
sides are held up by stakes, while a piece of tamarisk cut
by the village carpenter to a rectangular shape serves as
61
a board to form the sill of the weir. If two or more
branches take out side by side one continuous piece of board
forms the sill of them all so that any tampering with the
head of one may be detected by an alteration on the heads
of the other branches.
"The sill is kept at the same level and the same
depth of water passes over the sill into all the branches.
The irrigating capacity of each branch is altered by al
tering the width of the sill ... The correct lengths of
the weirs are obtained tentatively; the Kadkhuda [village
headmen] accompanied by the village carpenter makes the
weir the length that he believes will be correct after
allowing for the number of Bazgar on each branch, the length
of the branch and the height of the land to be irrigated
with reference to the supply level in the canal. As a rough
rule, one to two nakhun (finger's breadths) are allowed for
each Bazgar. (It is said that the long branch of Chahar
Burjak canal for Deh Ghulam Haidar is allowed l~ times its
share as determined on the count of the cultivations to
compensate for the greater distance the water has to travel.)
"If there is any doubt, the water is made to flow in
the branches and the area of land watered by the different
branches in a day is compared to see if it is correct. If
not, the weirs requiring alteration are attended to. The
area is noted in Langar or the area that can be sown by
one plough in one day. So far as is possible all their
62
canals are so made that all the water-courses may run con
tinuously, and this is generally possible as the canals on
the river take out from branches of the river which them
selves come from above natural weirs so that by closing
the branch of the river by a dam at the place where the
canal leaves it a good supply is usually obtained. If the
river is abnormally low a weir or even a dam is built
across the river at the place where a branch feeding the
canal leaves it. (From July to September 1902 all the
water of the Helmand was turned down the Rudbar canal
leaving the river dry below the dam made at the head of the
canal. )
"If more land has for some reason been given out on
the canal than its volume can irrigate a rotational closure
of the branches is instituted, but this is very seldom
needed.
"The supply in the branches among the Bazgar is made
by rotational turns; each Bazgar usually gets the water for
two days and two nights. The supervision of the weirs of
the canal is entrusted to a petty official called the Kotwal
and he guards the weirs to see that they are not tampered
with." (GA,Farah 1914/1973:262-63).
A major difference between the system in Sistan and
the Herat valley and most of the rest of the country was
that the annual silt clearance was done after the harvesting
of the autumn crops. This was due both to the longer grow-
63
ing season and to the fact that the headwork of the canals
was secure. When the rise in the river was enough to damage
the headworks "the cultivators [had to] turn out and make
good the damage or they [would have not gotten] water to
finish their sowing or mature their Spring crops" (Ibid:264).
What impressed Ward most was the fact that the elabor
ate system was worked by formerly nomadic Baluchis who had
settled in that tract only about 100 years prior to his
visit (Ibid). It seems that mastery of the system had
posed no major obstacles.
The secure nature of the headworks in Sistan had a
direct effect on the amount of the labor required to main
tain it and poses the question of the ratio of necessary
and surplus labor for different social units of a community
in a new light. Being surrounded by a desert until the
fourteenth century Sistan had one of the most sophisticated
systems of irrigation in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Tarnerlane (1370-1405) having met strong opposition from
the inhabitants of the area, destroyed the irrigation net
work and moved most of the population to other parts of
his domains.
Fortunately, an anonymously written history of Sistan
of the eleventh century provides an account of the revenue
and expenditure of the local state. Out of a total annual
revenue of 3,597,000 dirhams only 139,000 dirhams -- a mere
3.8% -- was spent on the maintenance of the agricultural
64
system. The breakdown is revealing: 4,000 dirhams for re
pair of damages done by floods to the farmland; 25,000 for
the dams with more available if need arose; 30,000 to the
sand dammers; 50,000 for the protective earth embankments;
30,000 for the care of bridges, canals, streams, and the
boat routes along the course of the Helmand river (Tarikh
Sistan 1976:21-22).
Most of the revenue of the state was undoubtedly ex
tracted from the direct producers in the form of taxes.
However, the assumption of activities related to the main
tenance of the agricultural system could not fail to affect
the ratio of necessary and surplus time among the other
organizations in society. Removal of the labor requirements
dictated by the maintenance of the system by the settlements
would have considerable impact on the forms of cooperation
that this aspect of the system of production required. This
in turn may have influenced the patterns of solidarity of
the communities and thereby affected the political balance
of pmler between the state and the localities.
Analytically, the coordination of activities dealing
with maintenance of a system of irrigated agriculture has
to be distinguished from activities related to the creation
of such a system. I shall examine these issues in greater
depth later. Meanwhile, forms of irrigation other than
canals have to be explored.
As far as the construction and maintenance of under-
65
ground channels (karez or qanat, pl. Karezat or qanawat)
was concerned, the work had to be performed by specialists
and did not directly affect the ratio between necessary
and surplus labor of the direct producers. However, as the
specialists had to be paid in cash, in kind, or in a com-
bination of both, expenditure on construction required a
fairly large initial outlay and yearly expenses of mainten-
ance, by affecting the net amount of the produce that re-
mained at the disposal of the producers indirectly entered
into the balance of necessary and suplus labor time.
The actual cost of the construction was determined by
the distance of the underground water from the fields, the
nature of the obstacles in the terrain, the type of soil
through which the channe1(s) had to be constructed, and
the skill of the workers. While most of the work in
Afghanistan is still being performed by travelling specia1-
ists who belong to a number of known kinship groups, avai1-
able literature from as early as the twelfth century offers
detailed ana~ysis of types of underground water, methods
of discovering it, and detailed instructions on the con-
struction and maintenance of the channels (Al-Karaji, Abu
Bakr Muhammad Bin al-Hassan al-Hasab Istikhraj Ab-ha-i-
Pinhani "Extraction of the Hidden Waters" 1345/1966:15-127).
If a channel was properly constructed, maintenance
chiefly involved the cleaning of the accumulated mud.
According to Karaji, the basic criterion for the payment
66
of the cleaners was the hardness or softness of the soil of
the channel. They were to be paid for work on a unit of
length that was equivalent to 1.5 ft (Ibid:126). As Karaji
clearly recognized, what made investment in a karez a suc
cess or failure in the long run was whether the underground
source of water was continuously renewed from above the
ground or from other underground sources or whether it was
an isolated supply that would be exhausted after some time
(Ibid:15-l8).
The nature of the terrain at times significantly re
duced or eliminated the human labor input. As the channel
had outlets to the surface at fixed distances, in case of
blockage or water at any given point the whole channel
did not need to be cleaned.
Although canals were the dominant form of irrigation
in the country as a whole, the share of the underground
channels around central areas and in places where no other
sources of irrigation were available was significant. The
following table summarizes the role of the channels in
the irrigation of a number of districts and dependencies
of Herat in the fifteenth century.
67
Table VII: Forms of Irrigation Herat, the Western Region
Name of Buluk Location oe Wilayat with respect
to the river
Anjil North of the River
Alinjan North of the River
Guzara South of the River
Khaiban North of the River
Sabqar North of the River
Adawan & South of the River Tizan
Turan & Tunian
Ghurwan & Pashtan
Kambraq
Parwana & Haudshtag
Fushanj
Shafilan
Karoukh
North of the River
North of the River
South of the River
Source: Geographia-i-Hafiz Abru
Major form of
cultivation
The city;gardens
Gardens and fields
Fields
Fields; graveyards of the city
Many gardens;fields
Gardens; fields
More fields than gardens
More fields than gardens
More fields than gardens
Mostly fields;few gardens
/
Mostly gardens especially grapes
Mostly gardens; also wheat
89 villages in the register; used to be very fertile
Expression used in
describing the source of water
From the river
From the river
River and some Karezat
River and Karezat but more from river
From the river
River and Karezat
From the river
Many Karezat
River and Karezat
Mostly Karezat
From the river
River and Karezat
68
The author does not, unfortunately, provide any infor
mation on the length of the channels or the number of cul
tivators that made use of them. There is no systematic
data on the extent of the channels in other regions either.
But there is information on the number of channels and
families living in settlements dependent on them for the
area surrounding the central place of Kandahar in the
southern region.
In 1879-80, at the foot of the mountain close to the
central place of Kandahar, there were 62 karezat in one
cluster. There were 550 houses in this area. With a range
of 0-70 houses per karez, the mean size of houses dependent
on a karez was 8.3. As only in three cases the number of
house~ per unit of irrigation w~s greater than 20, it can
be assumed that the volume of water from an average karez,
which conditioned the size of the cultivable area, was not
very large. The issues of access to water, rights to land
adjacent to a karez and construction of new karezat, being
intimately connected with the social organization of pro
duction, will be addressed in the next chapter.
For the people whose irrigation water was derived from
springs, the ratio of necessary and surplus labor was direct
ly affected by the relative ease of access. Volume of water,
nature of terrain, relative size of population and land in
the settlements dependent on a spring, and the distance from
the source of water have all been significant variables in
69
determining the labor requirements of a system. I will
illustrate the degree of complexity of such systems through
a description of a unit in the valley of Logar in the
eastern region. The relevant information was collected
during fieldwork between 1973 and 1977.
The spring, in this case, was located in the middle
of solid rock in a mountain the peak of which was snow
clad most of the year. An indication of the velocity of
the water is provided by the fact that even in the last
settlements along its first 20 miles above the ground, it
can turn a mill around the clock. Close to the last above
ground settlement, an underground channel of approximately
20 miles takes the water to a settlement of approximately
2,000 houses. Settlements deriving their water from its
above ground course are dispersed and vary in size from
5 to 50 houses.
The spring itself does not bear any signs of past la
bor and requires no annual labor to keep it functioning.
Labor spent in bringing the water to the fields and annual
maintenance of the system has differed in the two sections
of the channel leading from the spring. Most of the above
ground course seems to have been shaped by the rapid flow
ing action from the mountain to the valley. The annual
labor spent on maintaining the system in its upper part
is fairly small and, without requiring the coordination
of all the settlements, is carried by residents of the
70
various settlements.
The single large settlement at the end of the second
portion of the channel is not located along the natural
course of the water and required the construction of an
underground channel to guarantee its access to water. As
the length of the channel is approximately 20 miles, the
labor spent on its construction must have been considerable.
Pre-Islamic and early Islamic pottery has been continuously
found during plowing and the system might be more than a
thousand years old. However, there is no information on
the way the underground channel was constructed. The rapid
velocity of water prevents the accumulation of unwanted
mud and thereby lowers the amount of labor related to main
tenance. But when something does go wrong with a part of
the channel, it requires immediate attention from special
ists.
The most significant form of annual labor expenditure
has not been related to the physical maintenance of the
system but with guaranteeing access to water. By ,custom,
the dispersed settlements along the above ground section
have the right to the water during the day and the large
settlement at the end of the underground channel during the
night. Since the course of the water has innumerable out
lets in the above ground section, anyone upstream can di
vert the water to his fields. The occurrence of the event
during periods of water shortage is frequent between the
71
the various settlements along the upper course itself and
almost universal in regard to the nightly use of water by
the residents of the large settlement. Therefore, a spe
cial mechanism for guaranteeing the delivery of the allo
cated water has been devised. It is called pay-aba (liter
ally feet for water) and involves the policing of the whole
upper portion of the channel by members of the large settle
ment during the night and by those located'upstream during
the day. During the period of my fieldwork, the number of
men on nightly assignment from the large village came
close to 200. They were recruited from families who were
supposed to have access to the water at that time.
Irrigation from wells, by contrast, was more of a
limited enterprise. The construction and maintenance of
wells was a job for professionals. The mechanical device
for lifting water to the surface known as the Persian
wheel requires animal-power -- horses or donkeys -- for
operation. The usual size of an area irrigated by such a
unit varied from 5 to 20 acres. This type of irrigation
has been commonly used in providing water to walled gardens
and vegetable fields. Since such operations have required
very regular schedules of watering, the investment in wells
has freed the labor of the producer from the uncertainties
of water-sharing arrangements. While the labor needed for
maintaining such facilities is small in comparison to that
required by other types of irrigation, the initial cost of
72
investment was quite large and could only be undertaken
by a minority of the population.
Regardless of the source of water, the needs of the
cultivators for water was not fixed. It varied with the
type of the soil, the cycle of fallowing, and the needs
of different plants. That all these factors were taken
well into account by the cultivators is revealed in a hand
book of agriculture written in 921 A.H. (1515 A.D.) by
Qasim Bin-Yusuf Abu-Nasr Hirawi. He compiled a handbook
on irrigation on the basis of detailed conversations with
the cultivators of Herat (Irshadual-Ziraat "Guide to Agri
culture" 1346 A.H./1967:45) and as such, his handbook re
flects the practices prevalent in the western region.
The author describes a number of methods for deter
mining the quality of the soil. One of these involved
taking some soil from a depth of two to three yards below
the surface of the ground, pounding it into powder, mixing
it with rain water, and waiting until the water was clear.
If the taste of water had not changed, the soil was of good
quality but if it had become salty the soil was saline.
A bad smell from the soil was interpreted as a sign of poor
quality (Ibid:54-55). The author offered an eleven-fold
classification of the types of soil and their associated
characteristics. I will quote a number of these for illu
stration.
"Z amin-i-Rigbum (Sandy earth) is of two types: in one
73
type there is more sand than earth and plowing it twice is
useful. When cultivated it grows well and since it retains
the moisture, it does not require much water. It matures
quickly but the product is poor. In the second type, there
is more earth than sand and plowing it three times is appro
priate. Whatever is sown grows well and the product is ex
cellent. It reaches maturity ten days before the [crop
grown on] Shakhriq (hardgrained sand). As it retains water,
it does not require much watering. The more it is ferti
lized the more the profit. In this type of soil all pro
ducts grow well.
"Shakhriq (hardgrained sand): plowing it four times
is best. When cultivated it grows well and the product is
reasonable. Large amounts of water and fertilizers are
profitable to it. Vines grow well in such soils.
"Siahriq (black sand): What is sown on it grows well
and does not require much water but the product is not
good. However, trees and vines grow well on such soils
and give good yields.
"Shakh (hard soil): plowing it four times is appropri
ate. All of what is sown on it does not grow. Since it
does not hold moisture it requires a lot of water and ferti
lizer but its product is excellent. Plowing and harrowing
it should be undertaken when the soil is moist. Grapes grow
well on such soils.
"Zard Khak (yellow earth): plowing it four times is
74
best but the soil lacks strength and what is cultivated
does not all grow. It requires little water and a lot of
fertilizer but the product is poor.
"Siah Khak (black earth): it is plowed four times and
as the soil is strong all that is sown grows very well. If
a lot of fertilizer is available it should be used and its
water requirements are moderate. The product is excellent
and most cultivators are of the opinion that everything
grows well on such soils and that such land is the best
of all and its utitlities are countless ... (Ibid:55-57).
It is obvious that regardless of the nature of the
system of irrigation, the ratio of necessary and surplus
labor of the producers had to reflect the nature of the
soil which was subjected to labor. The suitability of
the soil to crops in turn affected the seasonal intensity
of the labor of the producers. The issue is well illu
strated in Hirawi's discussion of the timing of agricultural
operations that the cultivation of different ~rops and
varieties of the same crop entailed. Out of hundreds
of items that Hirawi provides information on, I have cho
sen four commonly cultivated crops for illustration.
a. Vines. The timing of the various operations is
summarized in the following table.
75
Table VIII: Time-Table of Tasks for Vines and Trees
Period of the Year Tasks to be performed
Mid-Farvardin to ivlid-Ordibehesht (April 5 - May 5)
Mid-Ordibehesht to mid-Khordad (May 5 - June 7)
Mid-Khordad to mid-Tir (June 7 - July 7)
Mid-Tir to mid-Mordad (July 7 - August 6)
Mid-Mordad to mid-Sharivar (August 6 - september 6)
Mid-Sharivar to mid-Mehr (September 6 - October 7)
Mid-Mehr to mid-Aban (October 7 - November 6)
Mid-Aban to mid-Azar (November 6 - December 6)
Mid-Azar to mid-Dey (December 6 - January 6)
Vines have to be watered once and another time after budding; the soil around the vines has to be dug to help maintain moisture.
Pruning of the vines. Beginning of watering trees except fig trees.
The soil under the vines has to be dug again but not too deeply so as not to expose the roots to heat.
Pruning of vines. Pruning of excess of grapes from young vines. Trees are grafted in this month.
Branches of vines marked for planting are lubricated with a mixture of tar and oil.
Vines are fertilized and almonds and figs planted. Fruits to be kept for winter are collected. Land is tilled.
Vines should be planted in case of rain; this speeds up maturation to the extent of a full year.
In some places vines are planted. Other trees planted mature quickly. Trees cut for their wood.
Pruning of vines by some people but to prevent freezing it should not be done during first and last 3 hours of daylight. Cutting trees for wood. Planting of almond, peach and apricot trees. Pruning of trees other than vines on unwindy days.
76
Period of the year
Mid-Dey to mid-Bahman (January 6 - February 5)
Mid-Bahman to mid-Esfand (February 5 - March 5)
Mid-Esfand to mid-Farvardin (March 5 - April 5)
Table VIII (continued)
Tasks to be performed
Transplanting of two and three year old vines; one year vines not to be transplanted. Planting of flowers.
Frequent watering of vines and trees. Some grafting. Pruning of three year old vines.
Planting of olives, pruning of other trees, grafting of some trees; transplanting fig tress. Some pomegrantes.
Source: Hirawi Irshadu al-Ziraat: 76-78.
Hirawi provides detailed description of the schedule of tasks
that one year, two year, and three year old vines involved.
As there were more than eighty varieties of grapes in the
valley of Herat, the time they became ripe for picking
ranged from June till September (Ibid:105-ll6).
b. Barley. Hirawi provides a list of 14 types of bar-
ley, their dates of cultivation and the time of harvest.
Except for one variety, that matures towards mid-May, har-
vest time for most varieties was during the month of Jawza
(May 22 - June 22). Planting took place during the following
months: 1st of Sunbulah (August 23) for one variety; Mizan
or Hut (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22; Feb. 23 - March 20) for three
77
varieties; Hut (Feb. 23 - March 20) for four; and Dalwa
(Jan. 21 - Feb. 23) for five (Ibid:88-90). Harvest time
for the most commonly cUltivated variety during the l880s,
according to British observers, was about the 20th of June
(GA Herat:7) .
c. Wheat. Hirawi recorded 16 varieties of wheat cul
tivated in the valley of Herat and distinguished between
those suitable to irrigation and those suitable to rain
fall agriculture. Harvest time for all of them fell in
the month of Saratan (June 22 - July 22). Spring and Fall
were the two main seasons of cultivation. The planting
of the Spring crop took place between February and mid
March. The cultivation time of the ten Fall varieties
was during the month of Mizan (Sept. 22 - Oct. 22). Hirawi
recommended that seeds be changed every three years and
that utmost attention be paid to the proper timing of irri
gation (Irshad ul-Ziraat:79-80) .
d. Cotton. As Hirawi's description of the performance
of tasks and watering arrangements for this crop is very
succint, I will quote him in detail.
"Time of planting is the lOth of Saur (May 1st). Wa
tering the fields at the beginning of winter when they are
froz8n will kill any worms that may be there. The the fields
have to be plowed to loosen the roots of the weeds. Expo
sure of the clods to rain and snow makes the earth strong
and prevents the buds of cotton from falling in case they
78
do not receive sufficient water during the summer. The
fields should be harrowed in the winter and fertilizer
spread over them so that rain and snow mix with the earth.
In Hamal and Saur [March 21st to May 21st] the fields
should be plowed seven fold, the clods broken with a hatchet
and left for three days to warm up. Whenever each row has
the proper amount of soil and the crop is planted regularly,
the harvest is good. If the field is full of clods and
lacks sufficient soil, the crop will not grow properly. To
prevent the occurrence of worms, the seeds of cotton should
be mixed with the seeds of Hanzal [Cucumis melo] in a solu
tion of water and left for a day. After that, the fields
should be watered and on the second day 2 mans [24 Ibs] of
seeds per jerib [0.5 acres] be planted. On the third day,
it should be given one finger of water and left until the
crop sprouts. Then it should be weeded and when it becomes
like a twig and the stem which is green tends to red up
wards it should be watered in the manner of daghab. This
means that the water be four fingers away from the stem of
the cotton but moisture will reach the roots. If it is
watered fully it will not grow well. After that, it should
be irrigated four times in such a manner that in each week
ly round of irrigation the water should not fallon the
cotton buds, as it will obstruct their growing, but the wa
ter should be in motion. Weeding should be carried on as
the need arises. On a flat surface, water should be spread
79
from down upwards. Until all the sterns are of the same
height, the fields should be watered uniformly ... Then,
whenever the soil appears yellowish it should be watered ...
When the crop is in bloom, it should be irrigated weekly
and when the buds have become firm it should be irrigated
every three days. For cotton to be soft and plentiful
there is need for a lot of water •.. Its maturation is from
the 15th of Asad until the 15th of Mizan [August 7 - October
8]" (Ibid:15l-52).
Throughout his discussion of agricultural tasks,
Hirawi takes the existence of the plow as the basic instru
ment of production for granted. Indeed, throughout
Afghanistan, during our unit of long duration, the basic
units of measurements were defined in terms of the area
of land that a cultivator using a team of oxen could plow.
While oxen were preferred for plowing, there is at least
one reported instance where, in the absence of oxen, horses
camels and donkeys were yoked together to a plow in the
northern region (Yate,C.E. Northern Afghanistan 1888:132).
Comparison of the growing seasons of the four crops
reveals the periods of planting and harvesting as the peak
periods of labor activity. By contrast, the rest of the
growth season seems to have been a period of uniform labor
expenditure. Whereas most of the tasks related to the
raising of these crops would have been the same if watering
arrangements were not taken into account, the water require-
80
ments of each crop involve crucial differences in the
amount of necessary labor as well as socially necessary
arrangements to render the water available. Focus on labor
time l therefore, can meaningfully reveal the specificities
of a system of production based on irrigation agriculture.
But the unit of analysis has to be shifted from so
ciety considered abstractly to more concrete social entities.
Juxtaposition of any social entity's labor profile with in
formation on labor demands generated by the totality of the
production system -- irrigation, soil, crops, length of
growing season -- will allow for concrete examination of
the ways in which the technical requirements of production
have been mediated through the existing social relations.
Recognition of the differences in the combination of these
factors will allow us to understand the significance of
regions as preliminary units of analysis as well as en
abling us to place the regions in the larger social flows
which are characteristic of society defined as people in
motion. It is time to move from the determinate technical
requirements of the labor-process to a consideration of
the social organization of the labor-process.
81
CHAPTER THREE
Social Organization of Production
In his attempt to elaborate an economic theory of the
feudal system, witold Kula asserts that "the task of every
economic theory of a system consists in formulating the
laws governing the volume of the economic surplus and its
utilization ••. , and that these problems have to be ex
plained in the short-term and in the long-term" (1962/1967:
16-17). Kula does not define the concept of economic sur
plus himself but refers the interested reader to the work
of Paul Baran who differentiates between actual and poten
tial economic surplus. Actual economic surplus is defined
as the "difference between society's actual current output
and its actual current consumption" (1957/1968:22). Poten
tial economic surplus is defined as the difference between
the "output that could be produced in a given natural and
technological environment with the help of the employable
productive resources, and what might be regarded as essen
tial consumption" (Ibid:23). Baran offers four criteria
for estimating the extent of potential economic surplus
that drastic reorganization of production might bring about.
These are: 1- society's excess consumption -- predominantly
associated with the upper income groups; 2- output lost to
society through the existence of unproductive workers; 3-
output lost because of irrational organization of produc-
82
tive apparatus; and 4- output lost due to the existence of
unemployment.
Baran recognizes the fact that rationality, produc
tivity, and wastefulness in the utilization of resources
are determined by the structures of social orders and that
they display different features in different social orders.
His inquiry, however, being conducted in terms of "compara
tive statics" requires that "paths of transition from one
economic situation to another" be ignored and situations
considered as ex post (Ibid:22). Furthermore, as the pri
mary focus of his analysis is on monopoly capital, little
effort is spent on testing the concept historically.
In anthropology, however, the debate has revolved
around the utility of the concept of surplus in the under
standing of the evolution of stratification. In 1957,
Harry Pearson sharply challenged a then widely held assum
tion that the existence of surplus is a necessary precon
dition for the emergence and development of stratification
and forms of complex social organization. He asserted
that "the surplus theorem is useful only where the condi
tions of a specific surplus are institutionally defined"
(1957:321). Furthermore, he argued that postulation of
surplus as either a cause of change or as a necessary but
insufficient condition of change was logically inadmissable.
The reason for this stand was Pearson's belief that it was
impossible to determine the subsistence needs of a society
83
and that "man, living in society, does not produce unless
he names it such, and then its effect is given by the man
ner in which it is institutionalized" (Ibid:326).
One response to Pearson's argument came from Marvin
Harris who held that Pearson's claim that "there are al
ways and everywhere potential surpluses available" (Pearson,
1957:339) amounted to elevating the power of choice "to
astonishing levels" (1959:188). Harris proposed that if
subsistence level was defined as "the amount of energy
necessary to do nothing except what is biophysically neces
sary to satisfy the metabolic requirements of the popula
tion concerned" (Ibid:189) , it could be measured. He af
firmed that equating surplus with excess has resulted in
a failure to "make explicit the need which was satisfied
and ••. to define the time period during which the state
of satisfaction persisted" (Ibid:191).
In his review of the Pearson-Harris controversy,
George Dalton ignored Harris' suggestion and chose to em
phasize the popular usage of the word as excess -- "an
amount over and above what is really useful or necessary"
(1960:485). He asserted that, as an analytical device
the concept is used as "a deus ex machina which allegedly
explains complex social structure or some unobserved socio
economic development" (Ibid:485). In a subsequent publi
cation, Dalton claims that "exploitation and surplus are
prejudicial words used by some social scientists (perhaps
84
unintentionally) to condemn only those systems of exploita
tion they dislike and disapprove of" (1974:559). Positive
ly, he called for definition and illustration of surplus
in concrete situations as well as specification of returns
from non-producers to producers (Ibid:556).
Although Dalton's views have been severely criticized
(Newcomer,1977iDerman and Levine,1977:115-25), the confu
sion surrounding the concepts of surplus and exploitation
has not been cleared up. Participants in the debate have
expressed their approval or disapproval of Marx' stand on
the issues but they have largely ignored the writings of
the Classical Political Economists. As the contribution
of Marx to the subject is primarily a gloss on the works
of those economists, in order to assess the concept of
surplus, we have to take account of the broader context of
inquiry.
Dalton needs to be reminded that the distinction be
tween productive and unproductive labor was made by the
advocates of capitalism and not its critics. Adam Smith
was categorical in his pronouncement that lithe labor of
some of the most respectable orders in the society is,
like that of menial servants, unproductive of any value .•. "
(1954:295). His illustrations ranged from sovereigns to
opera dancers. Following Smith's lead, John Stuart Mill
defined productive labor as "only those kinds of exertion
which produce utilities embodied in material objects"
85
(1864:76). However, he considered the labor of the offi
cers of government "indispensable to the prosperity of
industry" and therefore indirectly productive. He also
offered an unambiguous criterion for distinguishing types
of labor by defining unproductive labor as "labor which
does not terminate in the creation of material wealth;
which, however largely or successfully practiced, does not
render the community, ana the world at large, richer in
material products, but poorer in all that is consumed by
the laborers while so employed" (Ibid:77).
Classical Political Economists clearly took the pri
macy of production for granted while defining their cate
gories, but they never lost sight of the impact of con
sumption on production. David Ricardo expressed the issue
very succintly: "when the annual production of a country
more than replaces its annual consumption, it is said to
increase its capital; when its annual consumption is not
at least replaced by its annual production, it is said
to diminish its capital. Capital may therefore be in
creased by an increased production, or by a diminished un
productive consumption" (1821:162-63).
Smith and Ricardo had no qualms in their beliefs that
their categories were applicable to all times and places.
This assertion was, however, questioned by Rev. Richard
Jones, successor to Malthus at the chair of Political
Economy at King's College of London, who declared that
86
"the mixt of causes which concur in producing the various
phenomena with which the subject is conversant, can only
be separated, examined, and thoroughly understood by re
peated observation of events as they occur, or have occurred,
in the history of nations" (1831:xix).
Out of a projected four volume work on rents, wages,
profits, and the revenue derived by the state from each,
Jones only finished his volume on rent. He distinguished
between peasant's and farmer's rents. He used the term
peasant "to indicate an occupier of the ground who depends
on his own labor for its cultivation" (1831:11). The pay
ment made by the peasant to the landlord for access to the
soil was called peasant rent. The distinguishing feature
of farmer's rent, to Jones, was the mediation of a capi
talist between the laborer and the landlord. The farmer
takes "charge of cultivation" of the land "by the labor of
others" and pays a sum to the landlord for using the land
(Ibid:12). Jones believed that "the circumstances which
determine the amount of peasa.nt rents are much less com-
plex than those which determine the amount of farmer's
rents" (Ibid:13). The reason for the difference was the
interrelationship of rents with other aspects of produc
tion in the complex economy of England at the time of his
writing.
Jones called attention to the investigation of cir
cumstances which affect the peasants' "power of production,
87
or their share of produce" and "the circumstances which
distinguish one set of peasant tenantry from another" (Ibid:
156). An important variable to him was the "mode in which
their rent is paid, whether in labor, produce, or money"
(Ibid). He illustrated the different types of peasants'
and farmers' rents through historical and contemporary
examples.
He argued that "rent has usually originated in the
appropriation of the soil, at a time when the bulk of the
people must cUltivate it on such terms as they can obtain,
or starve" (Ibid:ll). But the necessity was not an out
come of any property of the soil "and would not be removed
were the soil all equalized" (Ibid). However, he argued,
peasant rents prevented "the full development of the pro
ductive powers of the earth" (Ibid:157). An important con
sequence of this stunted development was the small number
of non-agricultural classes. "For it is obvious, that the
relative numbers of those persons who can be maintained
without agricultural labor, must be measured wholly by the
productive powers of the cultivators" (Ibid:159-60). Jones
argued that with an expanding system of production the in
terests of landlords, tenants, and community would be in
general compatible. But he recognized the fact that the
landlord could extract more out of the peasant "by en
croaching on the tenant's share of the produce, while the
produce itself remains unaltered" (Ibid:162).
88
In his introductory lecture on political economy,
Jones went beyond descriptions and offered a conceptual
frame of analysis. The concept was that of the "economic
structure of nations," which he defined as "those relations
between the different classes which once established in the
first instance by the institution of property in the soil,
and by the distribution of its surplus produce, afterwards
modified and changed (to a greater or less extent) by the
introduction of capitalists, as agents in producing and
exchanging wealth, and in feeding and employing the la
boring population" (1833:22).
He claimed that the key to the past of different peo
ples could be provided by the knowledge of their economic
structure, for this structure alone displays "their eco
nomical anatomy" (Ibid). He declared that "we must learn
the circumstances vlhich divide them into classes, and the
value and influence of each, as component parts of a state
or agents in producing its wealth" (Ibid).
After quoting in full the above passage, Karl Marx
asserted that "the main point .•. in Jones' work is that
the whole economic structure of society revolves around
the form of labor, in other words, the form in which the
worker appropriates his means of subsistence, or that part
of his product upon which he lives" (Theories of Surplus
Value, Part 111:414). Subsequently, he restated the point
in more general form by claiming that "the specific econom-
89
form, in which unpaid surplus-labor is pumped out of direct
producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled,
as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn,
reacts upon it as a determining element" (Capital,III:791).
He then proceeded to illustrate his assertion through a
discussion of labor-rent, rent in kind, and money-rent.
As labor-rent was considered the simplest form, its trans
formation to rent in kind and money-rent was related by
Marx to the development of more complex forms of social
organization. He claimed that rent in kind was bound to
an "indespensable combination of agriculture and domestic
industry, through its almost complete self-sufficiency
whereby the peasant family supports itself through its
independence from the market and the movement of produc
tion and history of that section of society lying outside
of its sphere, in short owing to the character of the na
tural economy in general, this form is quite adapted to
furnishing the basis for stationary social conditions as
we see, e.g., in Asia" (Ibid:796).
For Marx 1 rent in kind was a representation of sur
plus-labor but he discussed two forms of its extraction
involving very different consequences for the total econo
mies of the societies concerned. In the first form, the
rent does not "fully exhaust the entire surplus-labor of
the rural family" and thereby provides the possibility of
greater differentiation "in the economic position of the
90
of the individual direct producers" (Ibid:795-96). In the
second form, the extraction of rent "may assume dimensionns
which seriously imperil reproduction of the conditions of
labor, the means of production themselves, rendering the
expansion of production more or less impossible and reducing
the direct producers to the physical minimum of means of
subsistence" (Ibid:796).
By focusing on the nexuses between forms of labor and
property, and conditions of production and extraction,
Jones and Marx placed the notion of surplus in the context
of total production of the social relation of societies
over time. In order to define economic structures in terms
of class relations, it is essential that inquiries on the
extraction of surplus take account of the distribution of
political forces between classes; for it is in this politi
cal relation rather than some abstract and arbitrary de
finition of excess that one can seriously attempt to chart
the contours of the relations between producers and non
producers.
The appeal of the holistic framework of analysis es
tablished by Jones and Marx should not obscure the basic
conceptual difficutlties of their inquiry. Since they
take, as the basic condition of all societies, the exist
ence of unequal access to basic resources that is asso
ciated in anthropology only with stratified societies
(Fried,1967:186), their notions are of little direct use
91
in understanding the emergence of stratification and the
role that the existence of a surplus may have played in
that process. But even in situations where class relations
have been fully established, Jones's emphasis on "property
in the soil" as the determining feature of class relations
may distort the role of other factors, such as the rela
tions between landowners and government, merchants and
markets, and the maintenance and reproduction of these re
lations. Furthermore, emphasis on the "economic structure
of nations," which is presumably identified with the terri
torial states, seriously underestimates the significance
of regional differences in the class relations within such
states.
Marx's equation of form of labor with the economic struc
ture of society reduces the totality of a system to one of
its constituent elements and is, therefore, _methodologically
unwarranted. Since society is conceived abstractly, delin
eation of concrete units of analysis is eschewed. This
neglect contributes in turn to the unstated assumption
where forms of domination are assumed as stable and their
complexity reduced to the form in which unpaid surplus la
bor is pumped out of the direct producers. Furthermore,
the posting of a self-sufficient peasant family under con
ditions of natural economy forming the basis of stationary
formations, ignores the many-fold relations between pea
sants and markets and disregards the diverse characteris-
92
tics of domestic organizations and their impact on the or
ganization of labor in agrarian structures.
Marx's three-fold classification of rents -- taken
over from Jones -- and his belief that circulation of land
as a commodity was a practical development of capitalism
(Capital,III:811) reveals a Eurocentric view of the world.
Reasons for this attitude are related to his methodologi
cal commitment to the study of capitalism in its "pure
form" and the prevailing ignorance regarding conditions of
production in non-European societies. Jones, who closely
followed the available literature, claimed that outside
Europe the form of tenancy known as "metayage" was only
found in Afghanistan. He wrote that "in Afghanistan, a
race of tenants is found called Buzgurs, who seem to dif
fer in no respect from the metayers of Western Europe.
This is a singular instance in Asia, where this tenancy,
although sometimes partially engrafted on Ryot rents, is
perhaps in no other spot to be found coexisting in its pure
form" (1831: 100) •
That Jones had heard of Afghanistan was due to a re
markably detailed study of the country by Mountstuart
Elphinstone who visited the winter capital of the Afghan
Empire in Peshawar as the first envoy of the East India
Company. His book, first published in 1815 then revised
in 1839, is an indispensable source of information for
conditions in eighteenth and early nineteenth century
Afghanistan. By checking and supplementing his information
93
from other sources, I hope to draw a coherent picture of
the social organization of production for my unit of long
duration 1747-1901.
In order to relate my theoretical synopsis to the
ethnographic material available for Afghanistan, I shall
first discuss the main forms of organization of labor and
property and then illustrate the relation between classes
of direct producers and non-producers through concrete
cases of extraction of surplus. As I will discuss, later
in the course of this study, taxation by the state and
the role of the state in the reproduction of different
classes, I have confined the ~nalysis in this chapter to
the organization of production.
The direct producers in Afghanistan were not a homo
geneou:,'i group; they were differentiated into classes.
Elphinstone succintly affirmed that "there are five classes
of cultivators in Afghanistan: 1st, Proprietors, who cul
tivate their own land; 2nd, Tenants, who hire it for a
rent in money, or for a fixed proportion of the produce;
3rd, Buzgurs, who are the same as the Metayers in France;
4th, Hired laborers; and 5th, Villains who cultivate their
lord's land without wages" (1839:389).
What were the conditions of property that confronted
these classes of direct producers and to what extent was
the "peasant family" the basic social unit of production?
Before attempting to analyze the social organization of
94
labor, it is essential to perceive clearly the diversity
of types of property which, for the period, are private,
corporate, and state property.
contrary to Marx's belief that circulation of land as
a commodity was a product of capitalism, land indeed was
a commodity in most areas of Afghanistan for t~e period
1747-1901. In fact, the existence of land as a commodity
long pre-dated this period.
By reproducing deeds of sale and purchase of land,
Aziz-ul-Din Wakili Fufalzai, an Afghan historian who has
compiled an impressive collection of documents from the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, has provided
the evidence that land was a commodity (1337 A.H./1958
A.D.:280-83). However, the most comprehensive evidence
on this point comes from the records of courts of sharia
(Islamic Law) in the valley of Kunar, Eastern Afghanistan.
The valley, which today forms one of the twenty-six pro
vinces of the country, was in the l880s and 1890s an ad
ministrative district of the province of Kabul. It was
divided into twelve sub-districts and, although an economi
cally marginal area compared to other parts of the country,
it had a fairly dense pattern of settlement. The northern
part of the valley was until 1896 inhabited by non-Muslim
people who were forcefully converted to Islam in that year.
The eastern boundary of the valley marked the limit of
the sphere of competence of the Afghan state and the be-
95
ginning of a series of local states. In 1893, the area
was formally recognized as the line of demarcation of
spheres of influence of the Afghan and the British Indian
governments.
Although court records cover a wide range of subjects,
in this section I shall basically make use of cases in
volving land transactions and inheritance. The data I
shall refer to is derived from three volumes covering the
period 1303-1307 A.H. (1885-1890 A.D.).
The standard formula of sale leaves no ambiguity re
garding the private nature of land ownership. To take an
example:
"Deed of sale in the name of the seller Hamid resi
dent of Badyali and in the name of the buyer Shuja resi
dent of Islampur.
"Mention of boundaries: One piece of land located
in the place of Badyali, specifically in the field known
as Natdasar, connected to the east to the channel of run
ning water; to the west to the land of Mir Waez son of
Muhammad Qayum son of Muhammad Hanif; to the north to the
land of Saman son of Abdullah Khan son of Hawas Khan; and
to the south to the land of Hamid son of Mir Muhammad Khan
son of Muhammad Fidar of the group of Sarwal resident of
the Badyali village of Ghlam Khail.
"On the sixth of Muharam al-Haram (Sept. 3 , 1880, [a
man] of sound reason and in possession of all his faculties,
96
stating his name and descent as Hamid son of Mir Muhammad
Khan son of Muhammad Didar, acknowledged and attested in
the correct shara'i manner that: 'I have sold, in a binding
manner and without corrupting conditions, my right and pro
perty, namely the said piece of land, which is free from
claims from anyone, with all its rights and accessories,
for a "price of 96 rupees, half of which is 48 rupees, to
Shuja son of Istalish son of Suliman resident of Islampur.'
The buyer accepted the binding agreement on behalf of him
self and the two parties attested to having received what
was due to each in the agreement. The said seller and
buyer absolved each other from any subsequent dispute and
both accepted the mutual acquittal.·
"All this took place in the presence of the following
witnesses: ..• Fee for writing 288 dinars [600 dinars = 1
rupee]. Only."
More than one set of standard phrases expressed the
total transfer of rights that an act of sale conveyed.
Some of the qudat (judges) wrote the formula in a more
abbreviated form, but the private nature of ownership
and the binding character of the sale were always clearly
stated. Significantly, a deed of sale from 1168 A.H. (1754
A.D.) reproduced by Fufalzai uses the same formula for a
transaction that took place in the court of the capital
city of Kabul. Although existing information needs to be
supplemented by data from other areas of the country for
97
the unit of long duration, it can be reasonably asserted
that land was a commodity in circulation during 1747-1901.
In Karl Wittfogel's view, however, alienation alone
is not the defining feature of private property. "Only
when the proprietor" he states, "has the right both to hold
his land indefinately and to alienate it to persons outside
his social group do we encounter what, in conformance with
established usage, can be called full private landownership"
(1957/1976:275). To him, private property stands in sharp
contrast to the semi-complex pattern of property, the char
acteristic marks of which were strong development of ac
tive property in "industry and commerce but not in agricul
ture" (Ibid:231). He argues that the semi-complex pattern
has been prominent in India and the Near East for most of
their history, and in China for part of its history (Ibid:
260). Did the ownership of land in Afghanistan, during the
period under discussion, amount to private property in the
sense defined by Wittfogel? As already mentioned, the
formula for the sale of land is quite explicit on both the
complete rights of the owner over the land and the total
transfer of these rights, as a result of the binding char
acter of the sale, to the buyer. But we do not need to
get entangled in the complexity of legal terms; data from
the court records from the the valley of Kunar allow us to
answer the question empirically:
Out of a total of 272 cases of property transactions,
98
236 cases involved agricultural land. Analysis of these
cases reveals that alienation and acquisition of land was
not limited to any legally or socially defined group. While
160 cases of transactions between people residing in the
same named locality, 70 were between people residing in dif
ferent localities at the time of the sale. People residing
in different sub-provinces or provinces transacted business
in 6 cases. Neither religion nor gender barred people from
the acquisition or disposal of land. 17 Hindus bought land
from Muslims and 3 from other Hindus while 5 Hindus sold
land to Muslims. As for women, 16 sold land but only 6
bought. All the named groups both sold and bought land
from each other. Pashtuns, who formed the majority of the
population, bought land from other Pashtuns in 52 cases
and from non-Pashtuns in 30 cases. In 29 cases, Pashtuns
sold land to non-Pashtuns.
Islamic law does give the persons whose land is ad
jacent to a piece of property to be sold the first option
on that property, and this right may be construed as a
limitation to private property. However, as the law re
quires that neighbors match the price offered by any other
prospective buyer, the seller is insured to get the highest
price for his commodity. Furthermore, as the ability to
buy land is a function of access to money, in practice
neighbors are not always in a position to benefit from
their precedence. In the case of the Kunar valley, out of
99
236 transactions on land only 37 feature a neighbor pur
chasing the land. Since in 101 of these cases the land
sold was in more than one parcel, the number of neighbors
in a position to exercise their rights was rather small.
Clearly Islamic law vested an owner of private pro
perty with wide powers over its use and disposal during
his or her lifetime. An owner could also, by turning his
private property into an endowment (waqf) change it into
corporate property and thereby affect its utilization long
after he was dead.
Upon the owner's death and in order of precedence,
the property is to be used for the following purposes: to
cover the funerals' expenses; pay the debts; pay legacies
up to one-third of the remaining estate; and divide the
other two-thirds among the inheritors (Baillie,1832:1).
In principal, legal heirs include both ascendants
and descendants of the ego. In cases where no individuals
in those categories are to be found, collateral kindred
are considered eligible. Some heirs receive fixed shares
of the inheritance and are to be distinguished from other
heirs who have claims only on what remains of the property
after the fixed shares have been allotted. Twelve classes
of persons -- four male and eight female -- form the group
of inheritors but all of them do not succeed simultaneously.
The exclusion of would-be inheritors is based on two gen
eral principles. First, a person related to the deceased
100
through another, except for stepbrothers and stepsisters
in the case of a mother, has no right to the patrimony
during the life of that other. Second, the nearer relative
to the deceased excludes the more remote (Ibid:58-59ff.).
The demographic composition and the sex ratios of the
family of the deceased by marriage and/or birth has a criti
cal impact on the number of those who are eligible for in
heritance as well as the amount of the inheritance. The
existence of a son or a father, for instance, absolutely
excludes the full sisters. A wife receives a fourth and
a husband one-half of the property in cases where there
are no children; the existence of any child reduces their
shares to an eighth and a fourth respectively. During
their lifetimes, however, through testament or declaration
of sale, spouses can transfer property to each other. The
sum of money undertaken by a husband to be paid to his wife,
mahr, is considered a debt and is to be paid before the
property is divided.
A statistical analysis of 499 cases of inheritance
from the valley of Kunar reveals that the children of the
deceased were their main inheritors. Out of 462 cases
where marriage could be ascertained, only 32 were without
children. The average number of children among the married
families were 3 and the average number of inheritors, based
on all cases, was 4 persons. The number of inheritors
being 2136 persons and that of the children 1392 persons,
101
the latter formed 65.16% if the total inheritors. As Is
lamic law favors the children by excluding most classes of
inheritors when the deceased has children and allotting
them the largest shares from among those -- e.g. husband,
wife, father -- who are not excluded by their presence,
the children's actual share of the inheritance was even
larger than the above percentage would indicate.
What are the possible implications of the operation
of Islamic law of inheritance for the social organization
of production? In order to answer this question we have
to take account of the prevailing pattern of stratifica
tion.
Unequal access to strategic resources in the valley of Kunar
can be readily seen from the following table. The data is
based on the cases of inheritance. A monetary value was
placed on every item of the inheritance in every case and
since the relative meaning of the figure can be readily
grasped in terms of an abstract unit of measurement, I
have presented the data in terms of their monetary equiva
lence.
102
Table I. Stratification in the Valley of Kunar
Amount in Rupees
0-49 50-99
100-199 200-299 300-399 400-499 500-599 600-699 700-799 800-899
Number of
Cases
44 64
133 94 39 33 l7 12
6 11
Amount of Rupees
900-999 1000-1499 1500-1999 2000-2499 2500-2999 3000-4000
Total Number of cases = 499
4600 6000 6400
12500
Number of
Cases
10 17
9 2 o 4 1 1 1 1
The value of all the goods left by the 499 deceased
amounted to 209,780.5 rupees. Although the mean amount
of inheritance was 420 rupees, 78% of the cases fell below
this average.
The monetary value, however, only portrays the rela-
tive access of different families to the strategic resources in
the valley. To relate these figures to the organization
of production, we have to translate them into their equiva-
lence in land -- the single most important item in the in-
heritance cases.
The most widely used unit for the measurement of land
was the weight of seed necessary for its cultivation.
Since factors related to fertility and location affected
the price of land, this measure does not easily lead to
inferences on acreage. From instances where information
103
on acreage, amount of seed, fertility and location sin-
gle or double crop, irrigated or rainfall, etc. and
prices could all be checked against each other, I have ex
tracted the following information. The price of one jerib
(roughly = 0.5 acre) of inferior land in the valley of
Kunar was 40-50 rupees, that of average land 70-90 rupees,
and that of good land 150-250 rupees. In terms of quality
these would roughly correspond to rainfall, single crop,
and double crop land, and the respective amount of seed
used on each type was about 9, 13, and 18 kgs. per jerib.
Thus, the sum of 209,780.5 rupees, which is the total
value of the goods left by the 499 deceased, would amount
to 2622 jeribs of average land, and 420 rupees, which was
the average size of inheritance, would amount to 5.25
jeribs of average land. The assets of 78% of the families
in our sample being below this figure, only about 20% of
the population in the valley of Kunar had access to 5.25
or more jeribs of average land. Division of such a pro
perty among three sons would have left each with 1.75
jeribs of average land. Division of the same property be
tween a son and two daughters according to Islamic law,
where a son's share is twice that of his sister, would
have left the boy with 2.625 and each of the girls with
1.31 jeribs of average land. As the number of the child
ren per family varied from 0-11, the degree of fragmenta
tion of property was directly related to the demographic
104
compostion of the family.
The yield of a jerib of irrigated land for cereals in
the valley of Kunar was 282 kgs. in 1977 (Statistical In
fo.crnation 1977:78-81). Assumption of nineteenth century
amounts of seeds would imply a ratio 21 to one and 16 to
one between amounts harvested and sown for average land
and good land respectively. Information on yields of
corn from property of exiles managed by state-appointed
agents gives a 9 to one ratio for good land. If the pro
portional difference between average and good land was
the same in the nineteenth century, the yield on average
land would have been 12 fold. Depending on the ratio of
the amount of seeds sown to that harvested, the harvest
of a family owning 5.25 jeribs of average land relying
exclusively on family labor would have been 600-800 kgs.
of cereals. Of this amount, 68 kgs. would have to be set
aside for the seed of the coming year leaving the family
with 532-732 kgs. One rupee in 1889, on the average,
bought 20 kgs. of corn or rice and 13 kgs. of wheat. The
monetary value of the harvest of the family would have,
therefore, been 26.6-36.6 rupees for corn and 41-56 rupees
for wheat. As such, depending on the type of crop, 9 to
15 years of the value of the crop would have been required
to pay the initial price of the land.
But before thinking of marketing its produce, the fam
ily had to meet its own needs. As already mentioned, the
105
average family was composed of two adults and three
children. The standard food rations of the "native" sol
diers in the British army was 170 kgs. of grain a year
(Gazetteer, Kandahar:231); the same ration was given to
agricultural laborers by landowners in Afghanistan until
the 1950s. Positing the above figure as the consumption
requirement of an adult and half of that amount as that
of a child would mean that the average family in our sam
ple required 595 kgs. of cereals for its food for one
year. However, since the amount of property owned by 78%
of our sample was below the average of 5.25 jeribs, the
majority of those who owned private property would have
been unable to meet their own consumption needs. And,
as we shall see in greater detail later, the payment of
taxes to the states, which ranged from 1/10 to 1/3 of the
produce at various times, would have even further reduced
the number of people who could provide for their own con
sumption needs.
The ratio of adults to children in each family also
had a direct bearing on the size of its consumption needs.
I have summarized the relevant information on the families
in the valley of Kunar at the time of the death of one of
the parents in table II. In the records, age groups are
distinguished from each other only by being "minor" or
"of age" and I have had to follow that usage.
Minors accounted only for 17.8% of the children in the
106
Table II. Size and Composition of Landowning Families in the Valley
of Kunar
Number of children 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 per family
Number of families 62 105 94 69 50 26 5 5 0 1 1
Total number of 62 210 282 276 250 216 35 40 0 10 11 children
Total number of 34 99 136 156 121 76 16 20 0 3 6 girls
Total number of 28 111 146 120 129 140 19 20 0 7 5 boys
Total number of 13 32 59 42 53 30 4 15 0 0 0 minors
Total number of
49 178 223 234 197 those
186 31 25 0 10 11
"of age"
Source: Diwan-e-Qaza-Kunar ("Court Records of Kunar") 1303-1307/1885-1980
f-' 0 ~
sample. Since the average consumption of an adult was
twice that of a child, the higher ratio of adults in the
sample implies that a family's average consumption needs
might have been even greater than our earlier estimation
allowed for. It is therefore highly probable that most
landowners who cultivated their own land not only were
not in a position to market any of their produce but
would have to undertake other activities to meet their
own consumption needs.
How could a family increase its assets? In order
to answer this question, I shall analytically distinguish
the family estate -- the plot of land which it owned and
cultivated through the employment of its own labor -- from
the family income. l Since land was a highly valued com-
modity, a family could not increase the size of its es-
tate in accordance with the changing ratio of its adults
and children without resorting to other activities that
would increase its sources of income and its purchasing
power. Labor not needed on the family estate could be
employed outside to enhance the position of the family
economy.
Yet there already was a strong cultural stress that
women not engage in work outside the domestic context and,
although no family can be viewed as a complete producing
lPor elaboration of this distinction see Cohen, M. 1976:58ff.
108
unit without taking account of the work performed by wo
men inside the house and in rearing children, women as a
group did not directly participate in agricultural pro
duction. Moreover, and contrary to Marx's assertion re
garding the unity of agriculture and manufacture as a
universal feature of peasant family, there was no domes
tic manufacture of significance in the Kunar valley. This
fact is clearly revealed in a document of the court in
1889. The government wanted to purchase headwear, foot
wear, and other types of garments from the local producers
for the soldiers stationed in the valley. Government a
gents and local headmen gave written testimony that none
of these items was being produced for commercial use in
the valley. Although women did produce some kinds of
scarves, their number did not exceed one or two hundred
a year. Significantly, they stated that whenever clothing
items were needed in the valley they were brought from
the large market towns of Peshawar and Jalalabad. Thus,
any surplus labor that could be utilized outside the fam
ily estate was essentially male labor.
But females at the age of puberty or older were a
valuable economic asset to their families. Women of that
category were highly sought after in marriage and in most
situations, a form of payment to the family of the girl
took place. Although Islamic law is clear on the point
that the payment of mahr -- the sum of money in return
109
for which a woman accepts to marry a man -- is to be paid
to the woman herself, the practice is more complex. The
mahr is normally divided into two named parts: an amount
which is paid before the consumation of marriage and an
amount which is considered a debt of the husband to the
wife. While the marriage contract may specify a date by
which the second portion is to be paid to the wife, it is
usually left outstanding. In case of divorse, the husband
has to pay first this amount, and in case of the husband's
death, it is considered a debt and has to be paid in full
before the division of the estate among the inheritors.
Analysis of 1095 cases of marriage, with complete
information on mahr, from the valley of Kunar illustrates
a number of linkages between marriage and access to re
sources. The total amount pledged in mahr was 164,948
rupees, and 61.8% of it had in fact been paid by the
time of the marriage. In a large number of cases, the
sum paid was the full amount of mahr and although in most
cases there is no information as to whom the payment had
been made, in a number of cases it is clearly stated
that the payment was made to the family of the bride.
Evidence from fieldwork carried during the 1970s leads
me to the conclusion that, in most cases, sums paid, or
their equivalent in goods, actually passed to the control
of the bride's family and not to the brides. The sums
left in suspended payment may be interpreted as a form of
110
concern for the future welfare of the bride by her family.
The amounts paid in mahr, however, were not uniform
and, as table III shows, bear a highly stratified charac-
ter.
Table III: Marriage, Mahr, and
Stratification
Amount pledged Number of cases Amount pledged Number of cases
0-49 245 700-799 5
50-99 223 800-899 2
100-199 373 900-999 2
200-299 128 1000-1499 15
300-399 43 1500-1999 5
400-499 27 3000 1
500-599 22 5000 1
600-699 2 6000 1
The average amount of mahr pledged was 150.6 rupees
which was the equivalent of 1.6 joerib of average land.
The sum of 102,039 rupees transferred to the brides and/
or their families would have bought 1275.5 jerib of aver
age land. Through the transfer of a daughter(s) in mar-
riage, a family could reduce its number of consumers and,
by investing in land the money received in mahr, adjust
the size of the estate to the number of the available
male producers.
But this option was only open to families where
III
spouses had been married for at least fifteen years and
where the number of daughters exceeded the number of sons.
Indeed, the family was responsible for the marriage ex
penses of the sons and, in families where the number of
boys and girls was even, the sums of money realized for
the girls' mahr might just balance the expenses entailed
by the marriage of the son(s). Families with only male
children, or with more male than female children, and be
longing to the 78% of the sample owning less than the
average 5.2 jerib of average land, could have been easily
forced to sell part or all of the family estate to pay
for the marriage of their sons. The status of the family
would have thereby changed from owner-cultivator to that
of share-cropper or agricultural laborer. Whereas delayed
marriage and/or search for other resources might have
postponed the prospects for families with a high ratio of
adults to minors, death of the father in a family where
all the children were either girls or minors could have
only hastened the process of alienation of the family
estate. There are a number of cases in the records of
the valley of Kunar where the qadi (judge), who in such
cases had to appoint a guardian for the minors, author
ized the sale of their land to pay for their living ex
penses. At the time of puberty, those children would
have only had their labor power to rely on.
Even when children were not minors, the death of the
112
father could cause the break-up of the family estate and
economy by putting in motion the process of the division
of the family estate. Although there is no legal compul
sion to divide the estate, the majority of the inheritors
did opt for division. Since 93.2% of the inheritance
cases feature the deceased as a male, the resulting de
gree of property fragmentation can be readily seen. In
an average family of three children, owning less than 5.2
jerib of average land, each of the inheritors would have
found himself/herself with a fragment of the land.
Although the daughters' share in the inheritance
might be interpreted as delayed dowry, especially in cases
where they were sole inheritors, in general this was not
the case. The decades of 1880s and 1890s, as we shall see
later, were a period of strong centralization of power by
the central government and the rights of women to inheri
tance was backed by the state. During most of the years
of our period of long duration, according to the norms
of local customs, the women were denied their share of
the inheritance. Elphinstone, without the least hesita
tion, categorically stated that "the Afghans purchase
their wives" (Vol.l:236). Thus, despite the predominance
of plow agriculture and the clear prescription of Islamic
law, whenever that law was not sanctioned by the power of
the state, the form of the transfer of goods entailed by
marriage was closer to bride-price than dowry. This in-
113
114
terpretation is reinforced by the fact that even in cases
where large sums of money were pledged in mahr -- a char-
acteristic of the large landowning families of the valley
of Kunar -- the sums paid at the time of the marriage con-
stituted the bulk of the pledge.
I have argued that expenses of consumption, lack of
necessary adult manpower to cultivate the estate, and ex-
penses in the marriages of sons were contributing factors
towards the alienation of land among those who owned it
as private property. Indebtedness and payment of taxes
to the state were also contributory causes. That the im-
pact of these factors was not limited to small landowners
is revealed in the stratified character of the sales and
purchases as displayed in table IV.
Table IV: Sale and Purchase of Land in the Valley of Kunar
Amount in Number of Amount in Number of rupees cases rupees cases
4-49 35 500-599 5 "..
50-99 65 600-699 5
100-199 49 700-799 1
200-299 40 800-899 1
300-399 20 900-999 0
400-499 12 1000-1290 3
How did the buyers gain access to the money that they
invested in land? We have already seen that the mahr of
daughters could have enabled some families to buy land.
Families with excess adult male labor but owning their own
land could have increased their assets by renting out land
or hiring out their labor-power. In addition, Elphinstone
identified factors which operated through our unit of long
duration. He affirmed that "purchasers are found among
those who have been enriched by the King's service, by
war, and by successful agriculture or commerce" (Vol.I:
390). It was the ope\ation of these factors that criti
cally linked the process of reproduction of systems of
stratification at the local levels with the conjunctures
of larger forces. The political implications of this
articulation will be discussed in part two of this study.
Meanwhile, I shall examine the implications of the scale
of transactions compiled in table IV.
The total value of the transactions in land in the
valley of Kunar amounted to 45,223 rupees which were the
equivalent of 565 jeribs of average land. The labor of
an adult male was considered sufficient for the cultiva
tion of 7-10 jeribs of average land. If the families
that bought land fell within 78% who owned less than 5.2
jeribs of average land, they could easily cultivate the
newly acquired land by their own labor. However, if the
size of land owned by them prior to purchase was already
absorbing all their energies, they would have had to look
for outside labor. Those who invested in land but were
115
not using their own labor-power for its cultivation would
have had to seek arrangements whereby the land could be
cultivated by the labor of others. It can, therefore,
be seen that even in the case of owner-cultivator the fam-
ily of the direct producer may not be the sole unit of
production and, depending on the exigencies of its demo-
graphic composition and the amount of land at its disposal,
it would be in need of extra land and/or labor. As a group,
owner-cultivators could not exist in isolation and had to
interact with other forms of social arrangements under
which property and labor relations were organized.
All private property was not of small size. The deed
of sale reproduced by Fofalzai for the year 1168 A.H./1754
A.D. referred to easlier, was for 110 jeribs of land in
the vicinity of the city of Kabul. Since the total price
was 5019 rupees, the price of a j"erib, on the average,
1 should have been around 45 rupees. However, the price of
land around the city of Kabul was not stable; the same
property sold for 6,000 rupees in 1183 A.H./1769 A.D.
(Fofalzai, 1967 vol.II:605). But the landed property of
the new owner, Abdullah Khan Fofalzai, was not limited
to the land that he had purchased in that year. Fofalzai,
lOne rupee exchanged for two shillings and four pence in the first decade of the nineteenth century (Elphinstone, vol.I:391). If the same rate of exchange prevailed during the second half of the nineteenth century, the value of the 110 jeribs would have been around 585 British pounds.
116
a seventh generation lineal descendant of Abdullah Khan,
has assembled a number of unique documents which, in con
junction with data from other works by Afghan and other
historians, enable us to examine the extent of the estates
of large landowners in the second half of the nineteenth
century, as well as the subsequent trajectory of this
class in the nineteenth century.
By 1773, the estate of Abdullah Khan Fofalzai had
reached 190 kulba (plows) (Ibid,vol.I:159-61i181). Since
the type of kulba owned by or granted to an official to
the state was calculated as 63.75 acres (0.5 acres roughly
= 1 jerib) (CA, Kandahar:230), the total extent of his land
would have been 7012.5 acres. The geographical distribu
tion of the estate was even more remarkable: of the 110
kulbas of land, only 35 were concentrated around the city
of Kabul or localities close to it (Fofalzai,1958:357).
The rest of the estate was located in various places in
Kandahar, Jalalabad, Kashmir and other regions of India
which, at the time, were tributaries of the Afghan state
(Ibid,l967,vol.II:605-12) .
Details provided by Fofalzai on the other leading
families of the period (1967 1 vol.II:596-726) clearly in
dicate that the case of Abdullah Khan Fofalzai was more
of a typical rather than an exceptional example of the
class of large landowners. The means which enabled this
groups of landowners to acquire their landed estates, the
117
political relations which charted their course of conduct,
and the extent to which the same families were able to
maintain and reproduce their economic and political sta
tus will be addressed in the context of a conjectural anal
ysis of the relevant time periods in the second half of
this study. Here it is sufficient to point out that
throughout the period of our unit of long duration, pri
vate property in the form of small owner-cul"tivated plots
coexisted with medium range as well as very large estates
of land. The holdings of these large proprietors, due
to a variety of political and economic factors, were geo
graphically dispersed.
Purchase of land was not the sole means for acquiring
it as private property. Grants from the state and claim
ing" of waste land -- called mawat (literally dead) in
Islamic law -- by bringing it under irrigation were other
legal avenues of acquiring land. The harim (sphere of
proprietary rights) which fell within the area of an irri
gation facility depended, according to Islamic law, on
the purpose for which the facility was built. The harim
of a well for watering animals was defined by a radius of
40 zara (60 feet) around the well, that of a well used
for irrigation by a radius of 60 zara (90 feet). In both
cases, if the length of the rope used for drawing water
was longer than the specified radius, the harim was to
be defined by the legnth of the rope. The harim of a
118
of a spring specifically built for bringing mawat land
under irrigation was defined by a radius of 500 zara (750
feet) (Karaji,1967:44). As for the harim of a karez
(underground channel), the determining of its radius var
ied a~cording to concrete circumstances, mainly the quali
ty of the soil through which the channel was constructed
and the relative location to mawat land of already exist
ing karezat (Ibid:46-52).
In places where agriculture was an established prac
tice, the main issue was the availability and location
of such land. An application granted by the king in 1187
A.H./1773 A.D. was for only two jeribs but the land was
located in a fully inhabited neighborhood in the city of
Kabul (Fofalzai, 1967:675). A request granted in 1172 A.H./
1758 A.D., however, was for the repair of an abandoned
underground channel in the region of Kandahar. The area
of land is not specified but it is stated that the chan-
nel would be built by "the man and money" of the appli
cantsj that it should be cultivated every yearj and that
it would be subjected to taxation after one year of exemp
tion (Ibid:640-41). The interest of the state in enhanc
ing its revenue through additional taxation explains its
positive attitude towards such undertakings.
Examination of the maintaining of such units through
time throws light on the social organization of societies
practicing irrigation agriculture. The terms of the grant
119
clearly indicate that the reclaimed land was to be the
private property of the investor. As such, it could be
sold in parts or in whole or passed on in inheritance.
The inheritors could reduce or augment their inherited
parts by selling or buying; they could also transact
business within the network of inheritors or with people
outside this network. Whether the process would be the
result of inheritance or sale alone and/or both factors
combined, in time the system would be characterized by a
group of shareholders in an irrigation system, whose
shares may be evenly or unevenly distributed but whose
cooperation in maintaining the system would be essential.
A larger system of irrigation would be more complex in
the necessary scale of cooperation as well as in the num
ber of shareholders but the necessity of cooperation in
maintaining the system would remain. Depending on the
degree to which people outside the kinship and marriage
networks of the original owner(s) may have gained access
to the water and land in the area: the group of property
owners might be characterized by some analysts as an open
or closed corporate community.
However, recourse to such imagery misses the defining
criterion of corporations, possession of joint property
by a juristical person (Von Savigny, F.e., 1884:181).
Radcliffe-Brown, who popularized the notion of corporation
in anthropology, considered the establishment of "joint
120
rights" as its hallmark (1935/1952:44). But he was mis
reading the legal meaning of the notion in Roman law.
"The essential quality of all Corporation," wrote Von
Savigny, the nineteenth century German authority on Roman
law, "consists in this, that the Subject of the Right does
not exist in the individual Member thereof (not even in
all Members taken collectively), but in the ideal Whole:
a particular, but specially important, result thereof is,
that by the change of an individual Member, indeed even
of all the Members, the Essence and Unity of a Corporaton
is not affected" (1884:181). In order to avoid any con
fusion, Von Savigny contrasted the concept of corporation
to that of joint ownership. He stated that "the Immov
able Estate of a Corporation may be used either for the
purposes of the Corporation, by Farming it out or by dir
ect Administration; or for the purposes of the individual
Members; and lastly, a sort of mixed enjoyment of the
Estate might also happen •.• From all these cases, however,
we must carefully distinguish those in which the Right
appertains to particular individuals or to certain classes
amongst the Members of the Corporation: for then there is
simply Joint Ownership, and no longer the Ownership of
the Corporation" (Ibid:214). Furthermore, he was quite
explicit that the association of a number of people or
the will of a founder were not the acts that constituted
a corporation. "For this purpose the sanction of the
121
Sovereign Power of the State is necessary, which may be
conferred not only expressly but also tacitly, by a con
scious toleration or by an actual recognition" (Ibid:204).
It was on the basis of these criteria that classes and
tribes, which were all important political entities, were
not recognized as juristical persons in Rome (Ibid:177).
The reason for my preference for Von Savigny's suc
cint legal definition of corporation over Radcliffe-Brown's
commonsensical usage is not an outcome of theoretical pur
ism. During the period of our unit of long duration there
was a form of property in Afghanistan that corresponds
closely to the strict legal definition of corporation.
Our discussion should help us in avoiding confusion be
tween the two forms of property.
Emergence of property in the form of waqf (pl.awqaf,
endowed) could be the result of an initiative on the part
of the state, of owner(s) of private property, or of the
combined action of the two. The singularity ofwaqf, in
theory, lay in its corporate character: the sanctioning
of the state was obtained through the official witnessing
of the deed of endowment in a court of Islamic law and
once the property was definitely committed it was consid
ered mahbus (detained; lit. imprisonned) and could not be
alienated. Furthermore, through provisions dealing with
the selection of trustees and beneficiaries under differ
ent circumstances, the survival of the status of property
122
as wafq was made independent of the survival of the origi
nal membership of beneficiaries.
The purpose for which a waqf was set up, the terms
of its endowment, and the fluctuations of relations of
domination had a strong impact on the continuation of any
waqf over time. As the identity of the initiators played
a significant role in this regard, I will differentiate
between those awqaf where the descendants of the endower
were to be given priority and those where the beneficiar
ies were to be other people. I will illustrate the dif
ference by refering to concrete cases.
C.D.Chekovich, a Soviet scholar, has published two
volumes of waqfnama (deeds of endowment) where the initia
tive for conversion was taken by individuals. The volume,
published in 1965, is a reproduction of one main waqfnama
from the fourteenth century setting up a waqf in a district
of Bokhara, Central Asia, and supplemented by other deeds,
the latest of which is from the nineteenth century. The
second volume (1974) is essentially the record of the
transformation of part of the properties of one man,
Khodja Ahrar, into awqaf in various regions of Central
Asia and Afghanistan between 1470 and 1490 A.D. These
waqfnama are supplemented by a series of earlier deeds
of purchase and by other documents showing the relation
ship of the awqaf to political authorities.
Even though the first waqfnama encompassed a very
123
large area of land, "so large that it can not be counted"
is the expression used in the document (1965:39), there
was no comparison between it and the waqfnama appearing
in the second volume. Chekhovich describes Khodja Ahrar
as "the largest landowner in Central Asia at the time.
He possessed thousands of hectares of the best irrigated
land in the regions of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara,
Kashkadria, and in other regions of Central Asia as well
as in Afghanistan. Immovables in his possession, accord
ing to the documents under discussion, included 64 vil
lages, 30 out-of-town orchards, 11 town estates, scores
of commercial establishments and artisan workshops ... "
(1974:630). Khodja Ahrar's estates in Afghanistan were
located in and around the city of Kabul and although
Centra: Asia and Afghanistan were not under one system
of political authority, the courts in both areas adhered
to the same school of Islamic law.
The terms of the waqfnama bear strong testimony to
the power of the ini,tiator in defining the structural
conditions under which the awqaf were to function. These
powers can be best grasped through an analysis of simi
larities and differences in the two main waqfnama re
corded by Chekhovich.
That the property converted to waqf was to be taken
completely out of circulation is either clearly stated
or strongly implied in all waqfnama. In the waqfnama
124
of 1326 A.D. for instance, after enumerating all the pro
perties to be changed intowaqf, it is stated that "what
has been mentioned in this waqfnama, its status as waqf
is detained in this deed. May God bless it. Therefore,
it should not be sold, given as a gift, inherited, become
the property of another person, or wasted for any reason
whatsoever" (1965:87).
The powers of the endower during his lifetime are
unambiguously defined in all deeds. In the waqfnama of
1489 for instance, it is declared that "he made it a
condition that he, himself, be the trustee of this waqf
and control its properties and products in any manner
that he deems fit. Should he desire it, he can replace
some of the properties of the waqf, delete a condition
or add one. But these powers regarding replacement, addi
tion and deletion are limited to the person of the en
dower only. His descendants and others are without such
guardianship" (1974:173).
Conditions of selection of trustees, designation of
beneficiaries and disposal of the products of the awqaf,
are different in the two wa"qfnama.
In the waqfnama of 1326, the endower made it a con
dition that only those of his descendants living in the
Fatehabad district of Bokhara should have priority in
being appointed trustees of thewaqf. Among them, the
"high born" were to be given preference over the "low
125
born". Even the style of life of the trustees was
strictly defined. The endower declared that he had nei
ther worn expensive clothes, nor bought a slave for his
own service; should any of the future trustees deviate
from this style of life, he was to be removed from the of
fice (1965:98-99). In case of extinction of his own line
of descent, through males and females, he stipulated that
the line of one of his paternal uncles be given preference
over that of other kin (Ibid:100-10l).
Khodja Ahrar, by contrast, opted for a more diverse
series of options. In the ~eed. of 1489, he designated
one son as the trustee of the waqf covered by the deed,
and in the deed of 1490, he named the above son and a sec
ond son as trustees, each to be in charge of half of the
produce and fruits of that waqf. In the deed of 1546,
no individual is specifically named but it is stated that
after the death of the endower his descendants should suc
ceed him "generation after generation and century after
century. Males are to be given preference over females.
If they are equal in learning, judgement, and capacity,
he who is closer to the endower in kinship is to be pre
ferred, and among those of the same degree of kinship
the oldest is to become the trustee" (1974:338). In the
event of extinction of his line, Khodja Ahrar imposed
different conditions for the different endowments. Awqaf
in Central Asia were to become part of the waqf around
126
the tomb of his grandfather, but the waqf in Kabul was
to be used for the support of the school that was set up
there (Ibid:339).
Properties attached to a waqf were ostensibly be
stowed on a building -- e.g., a school, a mosque, a tomb,
etc. After the payment of taxes to the state, in case
the waqf had not been exempted from this obligation, the
income from the properties had to be first used for the
maintenance and repair of those premises. The number of
religious scholars, students, and other personnel of a
waqf were enumerated in the waqfnama, and the percentage
of the income of the properties to be devoted for their
upkeep specified. But it is in the rules regulating the
disposal of the remaining income of a waqf that the goals
of the endower are best revealed.
In the deed of 1326, the conditions make it clear
that the endower aimed at serving members of Sufi orders,
orphans, poor and needy members of his community, through
the waqf. The produce of the waqf was to be converted
into cooked food and served to the members of those groups
on the premises of the waqf. The spirit of the endowment
is best caught on the delineation of circumstances where
his own descendants and those of a named uncle were to
receive help from theW'aqf. He stated that whoever from
these individuals "whether male or female, living in
Fatehabad, follows the persuation of the sound people
127
[implying membership in the Sufi order to which he be
longed], does not have any wordly possession, is poor,
does not have any means of work, and does not derive any
thing from agriculture, co~~erce, or other goods and pos
sessions, should be given cooked food [lit. bread and
soup]" (1965:95). If any of his direct descendants or
kin were to cultivate the lands of the waqf as sharecrop
pers, they were to be given the same share of the pro
duce as any other sharecropper (Ibid:96).
Details of the waqfnama make it clear that the en
dower had not converted all of his property into waqf
(Ibid:45,5I,67,etc.), and that as such his inheritors
were presumably provided for. But Khodja Ahrar imposed very
different conditions for the disposed of the awqaf that he set
up. In one waqfnama, he stipulated that after the cost of the
upkeep of the waqfwas met the remaining produce "in ac
cordance to the principles of inheritance were to be
divided among the inheritors" (Ibid:173). In another
deed, he specified that the excess income of the endow
ment should be used for augmenting the property of the
waqf (Ibid:29l). As far as the treatment of his descen
dants was concerned, he made it obligatory that in case
they were in need, .the trustee of the waqf should help
them in amounts that he deemed necessary. Furthermore,
should any of his descendants not own a house, he was to
be provided with accomodations in the houses that were
128
part of the waqf (Ibid:340). Khodja Ahrar's endowments
benefited a large number of religious scholars, their stu
dents and attendants; but it is clear that insuring the
future well-being of his own descendants was his dominant
goal.
Thus, Islamic law, by providing the owners of pri
vate property with such a wide range of latitude in the
determination of terms ofoawqaf, allowed these individuals
to wield considerable influence on their properties long
after their own death. The degree to which these provi
sions were in fact carried out depended on the relative
stability and fluctuation of relations of domination. As
far as the estates of Khodja Ahrar are concerned, a docu
ment recorded by Chekhovish makes it clear that by 1543
parts of theawqaf had been seized from his descendants.
The decree issued in that year by a ruler of Central Asia
restored all the properties and, in addition, exempted
those awaqf from taxation by the state (1974:311-313).
A degree issued much later (1825) by a ruler of Bokhara,
warning one of his nobles that an attendant of the said
noble should cease interfering with the awqaf of Khodja
Ahrar, indicates that until then the endowments were still
existed.
Continuity over time was even more pronounced in the
case of some of theawqaf that carne into existence through
actions of the state and were augmented by the offerings
129
of individuals. The waqf formed around the alleged tomb
of Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, the fourth caliph of Islam, in the
vicinity of the city of Balkh in the northern region of
Afghanistan can serve as an example. A collection of ori
ginal documents, compiled by Hafiz Nur Muhammad, an Afghan
court official, and published in 1949, unravel the story
of the waqf from 1480 to 1889. As Robert McChesney has
offered an exhaustive historical analysis of these docu
ments in relationship to the institution of waqf in his
Ph.D. dissertation (Princeton, 1973), I shall confine
my remarks to some of the salient features of this insti
tution.
As the main beneficiaries of the awqaf founded by
the state were the members of the religious establishment,
the motivation for the endowments has to be analyzed in
the context of the relation between rulers and Muslim
scholars and mystics. The ideological and political exi
gencies of any period were therefore of particular impor
tance in founding, extending, or curtailing the size of
the properties attached to a particualr waqf. At the
time of the founding of the waqf in Balkh, Islamic his
tory was marked by "the emergence and rapidly growing in
fluence of highly organized Sufi order" (McChesney,1973~
110). By granting the administration of the waqf to mem
bers of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, the ruler was, on the
one hand expressing his open support for their doctrine
and, on the other, by giving them a stake in the economy,
130
linking their interests to the stability of the state (Ib
id: 117) .
Since the original waqfnama has not been published,
the conditions under which the trustees were to be ap
pointed can not be ascertained. The historical evidence
presented by McChesney gives me the impression that un
til the mid - seventeenth century the ruler retained the
right of appointing the trustee. But from 1668 to 1901,
the trusteeship was retained within one family (Ibid:361-
364). The family's claim that the office was bestowed on
them by the ruler who founded the waq£ in 1480, although
historically ambiguous, has been widely accepted.
The ruler who set up the waqf bestowed large amounts
of property on the shrine; its mainstay being an irriga
tion canal with its attached lands. The canal was speci
fically restored in order to reclaim the land bestowed
upon the shrine (Hafiz Nur Muhammad, 1949:65). No addi
tion to the endowment took place in the sixteenth cen
tury, but in the seventeenth century the size of the land
ed properties of the shrine was considerably augmented
and, with some fluctuations, remained considerable until
1889. The new endowments came from rulers and officials
of the state(s) that succeeded one another in the area.
But unlike the initial endowment, the single major sub
sequent bestowal of lands on the' waqf by a ruler was made
from lands specially bought for the purpose (Ibid:66-67).
131
McChesney's description of the area of the waqf provides
us with an idea of its landed holdings. He writes that
"the maximum extent of the waqf properties ... was twenty
two miles from east to west and seven or eight miles from
north to south. Seen as a rectangle, the area would have
been approximately 154 square miles or 98,560 acres in
the middle of the seventeenth century" (1973:281). The
size of the cultivated land, being a function of the irri
gation network, was, of course, smaller than the size of
the area would indicate. In 1889, the landholding of the
waqf was reduced to only 2, 000 acres (Ibid).. Yet, com
pared to the size of land controlled by other awqa·f or
even by most private landowners, the property of the waqf
of Balkh was amongst the largest in the country.
Throughout our unit of long duration, the state was
one of the large landowners of the country; land owned by
the state was known as khalisa (lit. unmixed or pure) .
Our examination of the waqf in Balkh has already shown
that the state could acquire land both by purchase and
by reclaiming waste land and bringing it under irrigation.
It could also obtain land by seizing it in wartime or con
fiscating it from rebels and actual or alleged enemies of
the state. Areas depopulated by epidemics, large scale
emigrations, and/or wars, and the properties of those who
had died without leaving any heirs, could also revert to
the state.
132
The area of the land owned by the state was subject
to constant fluctuations, and was reduced whenever the
state granted parts of it, in possession or private pro
perty, to officials, local power-holders, members of the
religious establishment, groups of immigrants, or in be
stowal on awqaf. The state could also lose property in
war or due to the secession of provinces and regions.
Available evidence, unfortunately, does not permit
a concrete determination of the relative distribution of
the size of different forms of property over time and
space. The issue has to be settled by future research.
Close reading of the evidence at hand lead to the impres
sion that, during our time-unit of long duration, private
property might have been the dominant form of property
~elatio.~s. But regardless of the dominant form of pro
perty relations, it is obvious that if the large property
owners, whether individuals,awqaf, or the state, were
to make productive use of their land, they had to till it
by hiring other people's labor. It is to a consideration
of the relationship between forms of labor and property
that I must turn now.
The simplest instance of such relations was the case
of the owner-cultivator in which the head of the domes
tic unit combined the function of owner of the family
estate with that of manager of the family economy. In
the valley of Kunar, as already shown, the size of the
133
estate controlled by 78% of such families was below 5.2
jeribs of average land. As an adult male was considered
capable of cultivating from 7 to 10 jeribs of such land,
most of the owner-cultivators had an excess amount of la
bor-power at their disposal. The point of reference for
the size of the estate being the death of the male head
of the family, the resultant division of the estate a
mong inheritors would have further reduced the size of
the holdings. Payment of taxes, meeting of consumption
needs and/or marriage expenses might further reduce the
size of the estate(s) of such families or force them to
part completely with it and be only left in pos.session
of their labor-power. The same end-result could also be
an outcome of the division of a small or medium estate
among a number of inheritors in the course of several
generations. In short, at any given time, owner-culti
vators with surplus labor-power, as well as producers
possessing only their labor-power, would have been looking
for land to rent or to work on.
Those in control of property, whether large, medium,
or small, who avoided direct labor or whose own labor
power was not sufficient for meeting the labor demands
of their estates, would have, on the other hand, been in
need of people with the required labor-power who would
cultivate their lands. Hence, the necessary interaction
between the two groups. The form of the relationshop and
134
the resultant share of the parties in the total produce
varied according to where was the locus of managerial de
cision-making regarding the use of labor-power as well as
the number of intermediaries between owners of the proper
ty and direct producers.
Elphinstone's observation on the existence of five
classes of cultivators was quoted in this chapter. These
were: owner-cultivators, tenants, buzgurs, hired laborers,
and villians (1839,vol.I:389). The case of "villenage"
was an outcome of special political circumstances in an
area that lies outside the present boundaries of Afghani
stan and will be analysed in the context of the discussion
of "tribes" in the second part of this study. The cate
gory of buzgur, which according to Ephinstone were the
same as metayers in France (Ibid), calls for clarification.
Richard Jones who claimed, on the basis of Elphin
stone's description, that their existence in Asia was
limited to Afghanistan (1831:100), provided a very suc
cinct definition of this class of cultivators. He wrote
that "the Metayer is a peasant tenant extracting his own
wages and subsistence from the soil. He pays a produce
rent to the owner of the land, from which he obtains his
food. The landlord, besides supplying him with the land
on which he lives, supplies him also with the stock by
which his labor is assisted. The payment to the landlord
may be considered, therefore, to consist of two distinct
135
portions: one constitutes the profit of his stock, the
other his rent. The stock advanced is ordinarily small.
It consists of seed; of some rude implements; of the ma
terials of others which the peasant manufactures; and of
such materials for his other purposes as the land itself
affords; building timber, stone, &c. and occasionally of
some draft animals" (Ibid:73).
The classes of cultivators described by Elphinstone
may, in practice, have existed either in pure or mixed
forms. The difference would have been a function of the
degree to which other members of a family of an individual
cultivator, who fell under a certain category, belonged
themselves to that category, as well as the degree to
which that individual participated in the family econolny.
Analysis of the owner-cultivator class made it clear that
one of the main reasons for the mixed character of classes
of cultivators resulted from the employment of surplus
labor-power at the disposal of a family manager bent on
the enhancement of the family economy. The economic uti
lization of this surplus family labor may not have always
been in a productive activity but may have involved inter
action with non-productive sectors of society. A hypo
thetical example will help in illustrating the mixture of
these forms.
A family, consisting of a husband, wife, a daughter,
three sons of working age, and owning twojeribs of aver-
136
age land and a pair of bullocks -- not an uncommon situ
ation in the valley of Kunar in the 1880s -- would have
been a family of owner-cultivators in possession of sur
plus labor-power. One of the sons could be hired out to
a family of owner-cultivators where one adult male culti
vator owned more land than he could attend to by himself.
The second son could volunteer for the army -- a large
establishment throughout our unit of long duration -- or
become the follower of one of the numerous religious dig
nitaries in the region, living off charity while hoping
to become a preacher in a mosque in time. The remaining
son could acquire six jeribs of land as a buzgur from
a family composed of women and/or minor children, the
state, a waqf, a medium or large landowner. Last but not
least, the father could rent six jeribs of land from one
of the above categories of landowners or sub-rent from
someone who had rented larger plots of land. Furthermore,
if the fru~ily was located in an area close to British
India, the two sons could move there as seasonal laborers
during the winter and work in agriculture or construction.
The mixed forms in which the surplus labor of the family
was used can also serve to illustrate the utility of the
analystical distinction regarding the loci of management.
The employer of the agricultural laborer would have made
the decisions regarding the way the latter's labor-power
was to be used. By contrast, regarding the family estate
137
and rented land, the father would have made the necessary
decision; but he would have had to closely coordinate with
his buzgur son the timing of the use of the pair of bul
locks. The latter would have probably had no voice on
the choice of crops and the system of rotation of the land
on which he worked as a buzgur, but would have been rela
tively free in the determination of his daily schedule and,
depending on the pressure of work, might have been either
able to help his father or be in need of his father's help.
As long as the sons left the father in control of
their earnings, the family economy would continue and the
family could meet its consumption needs, provide for the
marriage of the sons, and hope to increase the size of
the family estate. Disruption of the family economy, pre
cipitated by the father's death and the subsequent inabil
ity of the brothers to cooperate, or by the refusal of
one or several sons to turn over their earnings to the
father, would have brought a shift in the positions of
the sons.
I have chosen this example, a situation that I have
frequently witnessed during my fieldwork, to show the
possible pitfalls of analysis based on ideal types and
false abstractions regarding the economic autonomy of
the peasant family and its alleged isolation from the
wider social relations of society. This emphasis should
not, however, obscure the fact that large numbers of
138
cases throughout our unit of long duration did concretely
embody the class categories distinguished by Elphinstone.
Their existence as tenants, bUzgurs, and agricultural la
borers is best documented in their dealings with large
property owners, an issue to which I will now turn.
It should be pointed at the outset that the large
size and/or geographically dispersed character of the
holdings necessitated that relations between owners and
cultivators of the soil be mediated by other people. In
terposed between the two classes were a group of overseers
(nazir) appointed by the landlords, and a group of renters
(ijaradar) who rented the land from its owners for a fixed
sum of produce and/or money for a fixed period of time.
In anyone locality, depending on circumstances, one or
several classes of cultivators enjoying different degrees
of autonomy of direct producers in the use of their labor
power, could be employed in the course of the production
process by the landlords' overseers or the renters. Large
property, as shown earlier, was divided into private pro
perty, waqf, and state property but, as far as the organ
izational features of the labor process was concerned,
all three forms displayed similar features. A number of
concrete examples will clarify these points.
In the valley of Kunar, the state, in addition to
khalisa lands, also controlled lands, water-mills and
other property confiscated from fugitives. The court re-
139
cords enable us to examine the types of arrangements a
dopted for the exploitation of these properties. The un
dertaking encompassed renting out of property as well as
hiring tillers.
Rents were concluded for a period of one year; the
payment had to be made in cash and/or kind; the number
of renters was one person or more. In March of 1886, for
instance, two individuals undertook to make a payment of
4928 kgs. of grains -- wheat, corn and barley -- for the
rent of two confiscated water-mills in the locality of
Kunar-i-Khas. At the same time, one of these individuals
also rented some khalisa lands for a sum of 8 rupees in
cash and 1936 kgs. of produce wheat, corn, rice. Both
contracts were for a duration of one year. Since one of
the renters was a village headman, it seems unlikely that
he would have had the time, even if he had the inclination,
to farm the lands himself. The land must have been cul
tivated by another person. Its size being rather small,
only one person was needed and the tilling might have been
undertaken by a family member, an agricultural laborer
hired out for the purpose, a buzgur, or sub-leased to a
tenant. For the operation of the water-mills, the renters
could rely on hired laborers, sub-lease to millers, or
enter into a partnership with the millers. In all these
cases, the renters would have had enough time to super
vise the direct producers.
140
The state hired buzgurs in four districts of the
valley of Kunar, and the financial officer of the govern
ment appointed a numbei of oversees for their supervision.
A single agent supervised work at two of the districts
but different individuals were responsible for the spring
and autumn crops. The other two districts were simultan
eously administered by two overseers. Two of these were
headmen from the valley of Kunar but the other two were
clerks who came from outside the valley. The overseers
received the needed seed from the financial officer of
the government and distributed it to the buzgurs. The
types and quantities of seed given to the buzgurs reveal
that they were assigned different amounts of land and
while some had to CUltivate only one crop others had to
attend to two or more. The overseers would have had to
check routinely on the work of the buzgurs and, at the
time of the harvest, would have to pay close attention
to its gathering, weighing, and dividing among the direct
producers and the state. The recording of these opera
tions in the courts gave the arrangements the character
of legal contracts and provided for easy auditing and
reference.
There were 34 buzgurs who worked the land in the four
districts: as double crops were cultivated in two of the
districts, 24 buzgurs worked around the year. The terms
of contract of the remaining 10 were for nine months.
141
On November 17, 1886, buzgurs of the districts of
Pashad and Kutki were given 83.6 kgs. of cotton seeds, 154
kgs. of local rice, 380.6 kgs. of thick rice, and 1331 kgs.
of corn for the spring cultivation of 1887. Out of the
1948.6 kgs. of seeds, 893 kgs. were used for the cultiva
tion of the confiscated lands and the remaining 1055 kgs.
for the cultivation of khalisa·. The seeds used for the
fall crop of the same year had consisted of 28 kgs. of
lentils, 39.6 kgs. of barley, and 1562 kgs. of wheat. In
some years, the overseers were given seeds for some crops
and cash for the procurement of the seed of other crops.
In March 1887, for instance, the overseers were given 96.8
kgs. of wheat, 193.6 kgs. of barley, and 30 rupees in
cash for other seeds by the financial officer of the go
vernment for cultivation of the land in the two districts.
In terms of my earlier estimates of the ratio of seed to
land, these figures seem to indicate that the area in
question must have not exceeded 150 jeribs.
The arrangements in Kunar did not involve the inter
position of a large number of intermediaries between the
state as landlord and the tiller of the soil. In this
regard, the situation in the Garmsel district, southern
Afghanistan, was more complex. A British official who
visited the area in 1903 wrote that "all the land in the
Garmsel tract of the Helmand Valley belongs to the State.
Each canal taking off from the Helmand [river] is under
142
the control of a Hakim who appoints an official called
the Mirabi as his deputy. Under him again is a Kotwal.
Each main canal is divided into a number of subsidary ca
nals, each under a Kadkhuda. He, in consultation with
the Khan or headman, appoints a number of Kashtigars (sort
of zamindars) who control an allotted portion of the sub
sidiary canal. The Kashtgirs do not actually till the
land but hand it to Bazgars, to cUltivate. The Kashtgirs
supply ~hem with seed, plough and implements and pay them
an annual sum of 20 krans [10 rupees] termed Kafshi, for
which consideration they must clean and repair the canals"
(GA, Farah: 86) .
The distinction between kashtgirs and buzgurs was
not confined to the Garmsil district or to the nineteenth
century. Henry Rawlinson, who served as the political
officer in Kandahar during the Anglo-Afghan war of 1839-
42, differentiated between the two classes in his detailed
survey of the agrarian and political situation of the
southern region from 1747 until his own time. He wrote
that during the reign of Ahmadshah, 1747-1772, "the inde
pendent and lucrative occupations of cUltivating the
lands -- that is of providing the seeds, procuring the im
plements of husbandry, keeping up the necessary cattle,
and realising the produce -- revolved" around different
people from those who undertook the "actual manual labor
of tilling the ground, tending the plough, etc." (GA,
143
Kandahar:5l6). Rawlinson's description leaves little
doubt that the system was prevalent on the lands owned by
the state as well as on the large estates owned by pri
vate individuals.
Elphinstone's remarks on another category of land
lords in the area of Kandahar may provide us with a clue
to the identity of the kashtgirs. In a revealing compari
son, he stated that there were landlords in Kandahar who
"have their lands cUltivated by Buzgurs, by hired laborers,
or by slaves. They act themselves as superintendants,
often putting their hand to any work where they are wanted,
like middling farmers in England" (1839/1972,vol.II:109).
The managerial expertise and the financial ability of
these landlords best fitted them to act as kashtgirs for
the state and large landlords, thereby increasing the
size of their own landholdings. It has to be noted that
the process of division of property set in motion by the
death of a large landlord, when not counteracted by fur
ther acquisition of land by his inheritors, could in the
course of several generations reduce the heirs to the sta
tus of middling farmers. The degree to which this pro
cess of social reproduction was linked to the mode of
domination as well as the degree of prevalence of slavery
will be explored subsequently.
All large landlords, however, did not have to rent
their lands; they could enter into partnership with other
144
landowners and set up a bureaucratic apparatus of manage-
mente A document reproduced by Fofalzai (1967,vol.II:665-
66) provides an instance of a very interesting sort of
partnership between a large landowner and three owner-
cultivators.
The document in question is a deed of sale from 1857,
in the village of Kalakan, north of the capital city of
Kabul. A large landowner sold, for a sum of 300 rupees,
two shares out of five in a property using 888 kgs. of
seed, to three individuals. But the transaction did not
involve any transfer of cash. The buyers, in return for
the land that they were to receive, committed themselves
to build a wall around the remaining lands of the owner,
to plant these lands with vines, and to carryall the
operations of irrigation and CUltivation for a period of
five years, at the end of which they would turn over the
vineyard to the owner. This form of cooperation was fully
sanctioned by Islamic law and was commonly reverted to in
connection with manufacturing enterprises (Halil Inalick,
1969: 101) •
In the region of Sistan, western Afghanistan, large
landowners delegated the supervision of direct producers
to a number of intermediaries. Supervision of irrigation*l
and cultivation was considered part of the same process.
*lThe system of irrigation in the Sistan was described earlier in chapter II.
145
A number of districts in the Sistan were directly owned
by members of one family who all carried the title of
sardar. An English official described the following a
gents as consituting "the establishment usually employed
by each of the Sardars. The Niab, who makes the arrange
ments for cultivation as well as for canal and band [dam]
repairs. He is allowed two ploughs of cultivation .•. of
which he pays no share of the produce to the Sardar. The
Mirab is his subordinate and he takes from him half the
grain he receives from the cultivators of the plough.
Each Sardar has his own Niab.
"The Nazir, who keeps the account of the grain re
ceived from the cultivators and submits to the Sardar.
He takes over the grain at the division of the produce .
.•. The Mirza writes up the revenue received from each
plough and at the time of dividing out the produce attends
on the the spot. The Mashrif guards the crops in the in
terest of the Sardar from the time that they ripen until
the produce is made over to the Nazir.
"The Mirab works under the Niab for canal and band
repairs. The grain which he obtains from the plough is
divided equally between him and the Niab. (On these ca
nals the water baliff is usually called Mirab, seldom
Pakr. )
"The Kot';",al also works under the Niab and guards the
distribution of water into the branches from the canal.
146
"Qail gardan. This is the man who does the labor of
measuring out the grain. "(GA,Farah:261-262).
The lands of each of the sardars was distributed
through the niab to the direct cultivators, who also de
termined the quantity of the seed that each buzgur re
ceived. The number of buzgurs on each of the branches of
a canal was described on by the sardar and in general
there were from 8 to 12 buzgurs on each branch. That the
buzgurs had to coordinate their work as a group is stated
clearly by the English official. He wrote that lIeach
Bazgar's cultivation is called a Kulba, and each plough's
cultivation is called a juftgao or tak; usually four
Bazgars unite to work the plough, but in some years the
syndicate consists only of two or three menll (Ibid:262).
Most of the forms of employment of labor actually
adopted by the state and by private landowners were also,
theoretically, open to the trustees of awqaf. Unfortun
ately, I have found no concrete description of such re
lations. Some information, however, allows me to ascer
tain the main tendencies; the main sources are those pro
visions recorded in waqfnamas and dealing with labor re
lations. In the two main waqfnamas presented by Chekhovich
and described earlier, the maximum period that any part
of the land could be rented out to the same individual was
two years in one case and three years in the other (1965:
107;1974:340). One of the endowers expressly forbids the
147
trustees of the waqf to rent any part of the land to the
governors of the city, the nobles or officials of the
court or their servants and children (Ibid,1965:105-06).
These provisions reveal that renting out land was a wide
ly utilized vehicle for making profitable use of the
awqaf properties. That nobles and other men in power en
gaged in renting land indicates that they must have in
turn been sub-leasing these lands to direct producers or
cUltivating them through appointed agents. Furthermore,
as slaves formed part of theawqaf (Ibid,1965:108;1974:
172), they could be put to direct work on the awqaf pro
perties or entrusted with the supervision of the direct
producers who may have been hired as agricultural laborers
or buzgurs by the trustees of theawqaf. Indeed, one of
the waqfnamas expressly specifies that the slaves be used
for direct production, service, and supervision (1965:108).
As far as the waqf of the shrine of Balkh is con
cerned, the only available information is that, upon its
foundation in 1480, a bureacratic staff of about 120 in
dividuals, who were officially referred to as "the reli
able stewards" were 3ent there by the ruler to see to the
day-to-day management of the properties of the waqf
(McChesney,1973:123). With the acquisition of trustee
ship as a hereditary office by one family, this staff
probably became increasingly subordinated to that family.
That the trustees paid careful attention to the upkeep of
148
of the waqf properties is revealed by the fact that they
managed to keep the main properties of the shrine "in
seemingly excellent condition" during the political tur
moil of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Ibid:252).
The task of managing awqaf properties that were in
itiated by the state was, at times, made easier as the
state granted the trustees rights to the labor of members
of neighboring communities. The yearly labor required
for the cleaning of the irrigation network on a canal, in
the central place of Kandahar, which watered land that
had been turned into waqf by the state, had to be per
formed by the inhabitants of four specified districts lo
cated in the vicinity of the canal. The amount of labor
necessary to cultivate the lands of this waqf was conse
quently considerably reduced. This "privilege" was con
firmed in a series of edicts by Afghan rulers of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Fofalzai 1967:63,69).
Although the trusteeship of this waqf was to be confirmed
by every new ruler and upon the death of every trustee,
it in fact remained within one family during the eigh
teenth and nineteenth centuries. From a document recorded
by Fofalzai, it appears that the sons of at least one
trustee took an active part in supervising the work of
the hired laborers and protecting the crops from the herds
of large owners (Ibid:53).
In short, during our unit of long duration, the same
149
set of options regarding the employment of laborers for
cultivating the land was available to all large landowners
in Afghanistan and, depending on concrete circumstances,
one form was preferred over another or several forms were
combined.
How was the product distributed among the landlords
the intermediate groups and the actual tillers of the
soil? Since the mode of distribution was conditioned by
the type of relationship between owners and producers,
each type has to be taken into account separately.
The case of renters and agricultural laborers is
analytically the simplest. In one case, the share of the
landlord and, in the other, that of the laborer, are fixed
prior to the actual yield of the land. The renter had to
pay a fixed amount of produce and/or money to the land
lord for the duration of the contract. This payment, un
less provisions for the impact of natural conditions were
made part of the agreement, had to take in the specified
amount regardless of the yield of the land. The amount
of rent was fixed in accordance with concrete circum
stances of time and space and could vary from 1/10 to 2/3
of the average produce (Elphinstone, l839,vol.I:390).
The common terms of lease were one to two years, the
longest contract being for five years (Ibid).
The wages of a laborer were fixed at the time that
he was hired and were not affected by the size of harvest
150
produced by him. The usual contract of agricultural la
borers was for nine months (Ibid:391). At the time of
Elphinstone's writing, the wages per nine months of an
agricultural laborer varied from 91 kgs. of grain and 1
rupee to 363 kgs. of grain and 2 rupees. But laborers
were also provided with food and clothes (Ibid). By com
parison, the monthly pay of a laborer in the towns was
about 17 rupees per month (Ibid). No figures on the
wages of agricultural workers are available for the sub
sequent period but the monthly pay of manual workers in
the government workshops in Kabul was 8 rupees and that
of skilled workers 20-30 rupees per month in the l890s
(Kakar,1979:239).
Determination of the renumeration of buzgurs poses
a different set of problems. Since buzgurs received a
fixed portion of the harvest, their actual share of the
produce along with that of their landlords varied with
the productivity of the soil. According to folk theory,
productivity of the land was a function of five elements:
land, water, labor, seeds, and draft animals; the provi
sion of the 5 elements by those entering into agreement
for the cultivation of a piece of land should be reflected
in their respective share of the produce. But in prac
tice, the distribution of the harvest was a function of
the interposition of intermediate agents as well as the
economic and political position of the landlord and his
151
152
ability to dictate terms to the tillers.
In table V. , I have swnmarized the relevant inforrna-
tion on agricultural productivity in 28 provinces of the
country for the year 1977.
Table v. Agricultural Productivity
Region Province AVerage Yie1d/Jerib of Irrigated Land
Eastern Ghazni 318 kgs./jerib Kabul 333 Kapisa 311 Kunar 296 Laghman 407 Logar 296 Ningarhar 370 Paktia 333 Parwan 370 Wardak 296
Central Bamyan 311 Urizgan 318
Southern Helrnand 327 Kandahar 333 Zabu1 281
Western Badghis 305 Fa:!:"ah 274 Ghurat 311 Herat 355 Nimruz 281
Northern Baghlan 333 Balkh 355 Faryab 318 Jauzian 355 Kunduz 370 Samangan 333 Takhar 333
Badakhshan Badakhshan 281
Source: Statistical Information of Afghanistan (1976-1977) :78-81.
Although the figures are in terms of average and
therefore hide the variation within each of the provinces,
the differences within and between regions can be readily
discerned. No similar figures exist for all the regions
of the country during our unit of long duration; and for
districts for which figures are available the use of in
comparable land units makes the task of comparison diffi
cult. The following information may still provide some
general idea of the situation.
The ratio of yield to seed quoted for the western
region in the 1890s varied from 7 to 16 times in normal
years (GA,Farah:48,163), but in bad years it fell as low
as 3.23 times the amount of seeds sown (Ibid:163). The
ratio of return in 1737 for the central place of Kandahar,
on the other hand, was 25 fold (GA, Kandahar: 509) . As
this ratio was the result of actual experiments, British
officials used it as the basis for their calculation for
yields of the southern, western, and northern regions.
The harvest of a kulba (plough) of land was at that time
around 19300 kgs. (Ibid) but as the number of jeribs in
a kulba varied, the determination of the yield per jerib
is not possible.
The valley of Logar in the eastern region is one of
the few districts for which the yield is actually given
in jeribs. In the1880s, the yield of a jerib of land
of first quality in that valley was estimated as 896 kgs.
153
of grains (GA,Kabul:348), probably among the highest in
the country. By contrast, for the same decade, the yield
of a kulba of land in Badakhshan was estimated at 1480 kgs.
(GA,Badakhshan:31). Unfortunately, there is no indication
as to how many jeribs were in a kulba at that time but
since it is assumed that the land was worked by one cul
tivator it must have been between 7 to 10 jeribs.
The fixed share of direct producers varied from 1/10
to 1/3 of the harvest in different parts of the country
(Kakar,1979:188). However, as the area of land cultivated
by each tiller is not given, it is difficult to arrive
at a comparison of the actual amount of produce that the
direct producers could dispose of in different parts of
the country. That the size of the area tilled by a cul
tivator did make a crucial difference in his share is
clear from an instance where unusually complete informa
tion on the shares of the various parties to the harvest
is provided. The example is from the district of Garmsil,
in the southern region, where, as noted earlier, the
whole area was owned by the state.
"When the harvest is reaped," wrote an English offi
cer, "the Government tahsildar takes one seventh of the
gross result. He takes 70 mans [413 kgs.] termed the
haftad. The following men get their perquisites as de
tailed:
154
"Mirabi (canal overseer) gets 15 mans [1 man = 5.89 kgs]
Blacksmith 12
Carpenter 7
Hajam (barber) 5
Kotwal 2
"while the man who supplies the oxen for ploughing and
grinding gets 2 mans per diem.
"The (net) amount of the grain which now remains is
divided, between the Bazgar who gets 1/6, and the Kashtgir
who gets 5/6.
liThe distribution of the harvest would work out as
follows if we take for an example a Kashtgiri producing
2,000 mans [11793 kgs.]
Government share
Mirabi's
Blacksmith's
Carpenter's
Hajam's
Kotwal's
Oxen owner's
(assuming that they plough 4 and thresh 4 days)
Balance left = 2,000 - 412 = Bazgar's share
Kashtgir's share
Mans
355
15
12
7
5
2
2
16
Total 412 [kgs.2429]
1,588 [kgs.9363.9]
265 [kgs.1562.6]
1,323 [kgs.7801.3]
155
"Thus the Kashtgir in this case receives about 66, the
Bazgar about 13, and the State about 18, per cent of the
harvest" (GA,Farah:86-87).
The situation in the district of Garmsil was rather
special. While its soil was considered "extremely fertile
and its command of water unlimited" (Ibid:85), it had only
a settled population of 5440 families and a nomadic popu
lation of 11,000 families (Ibid:86). The tillers were,
therefore, in a position to cultivate the maximum extent
of land they wp.r~ ~~pable of attending to. However, the
circumstances in the valley of Kunar, as shown earlier,
were rather different. A family of owner-cultivators own
ing 5.25 jeribs of average land could only produce a har
vest of 600-800 kgs. of grains. This contrasts sharply
with buzgur's income of 1562.6 kgs. in the Garmsil al
though that represented only 13% of the harvest.
Such an outcome can only be surprising to analysts
like Pearson who divorce the institutional definition
of the surplus from its embeddedness in the reproduction
of the technical and social process of labor.
But property relations as Richard Jones argued are
political relations and not mere technical arrangements.
The significance of this observation is clearly borne by
the respective shares of the buzgur and the kashtgir in
the produce in the district of Garmsil. The kashtgir,
whose claim to the produce was derived from his relation-
156
to the state, and whose actual participation in the labor
process was minimal, ended up with 66% of the harvest.
He was clearly in possession of more grains than he and
his family could directly consume. The kashtgirs were not
alone in this position. Depending on the concrete circum
stances of production, other groups, e.g. large landowners
and sometimes even samller ones, were in possession of a
surplus. How did they dispose of this surplus? The fol
lowing chapter is an attempt at answering this question.
157
Chapter Four
Circulation, Transportation, and Markets
In discussing costs of circulation under conditions
of capitalist production, Marx asserted that "the circula
tion i.e. the actual locomotion of commodities in space,
resolves itself into the transport of commodities. The
transport industry forms on the one hand an independent
branch of production and thus a separate sphere of invest
ment of productive capital. On the other hand its distin
guishing feature is that it appears as a continuation of
a process of production within the process of ciruclation
and for the process or circulation" (Capital,II,1885/1967:
152). Being mostly concerned with a synchronic descrip
tion of capitalist production in "pure form", except for
a passing remark on the importance of transportation in
the land of the Incas (Ibid:149) , Marx did not investi
gate the relationship between this "continuation of pro
cess of production"in other forms of society. The ques
tion, however, is of critical importance in understanding
the structure of production in pre-capitalist social form
ations. In this chapter I have, therefore, undertaken to
investigate the articulation of the technical organization
of circulation with the social and political conditions
in the context of which the production and movement of
goods took place.
158
To elucidate the impact of the technical organiza
tion of circulation on the spatial organization of pro
duction we refer to the work of Johann Heinrich von Thunen.
Thunen's analysis of the formation of the price of grain
can serve as an illustration of his method which takes
account of distances and systems of production independent
ly from other relevant variables. He assumed that in an
"Isolated State" a central place lying in the center of
a fertile plain is the only market for grain and that
"there is no navigable river or canal in the entire State,
so that all grain has to be taken to the Town by horse and
wagon" (1826/1966:l2). He then proceeded to show that as
the distance from the Town increased, the amount of fod
der needed for feeding the horses on their way to and
from the market also increased (Ibid:16-l7). The cost of
freight, therefore, directly entered into the cost of the
grain in the Town. Assuming that the plain possessed un
iform geographical features, Thunen postulated that "the
Town's needs can only be met if it pays a price which at
least 'compensates, for his outlay in producing the grain
and bringing it to market, the most distant produc:er
whose grain is still required" (Ibid:144).
Thunen argued that the grain price was not arbitrary
but that "continual fluctuations in demand lead to con
tinual fluctuations in the grain price" (Ibid:145). Since
Thunen's aim was the prescription of the most suitable
159
pattern of crops for an Austrian estate, he gradually in
troduced different elements of the reality into his model
to assess their impact in relationship with other condi
tions of production and circulation (Ibid:171-74). That
he was predominantly concerned with Austrian conditions
is reflected in the fact that he thought that in the real
world lIthere is no large town that does not lie on a navi
gable river or canal ll (Ibid:171).
It is not these particular modificiations that inter
est me but the impact of distance on the relations between
people in concrete historical circumstances anq, in this
connection, Von Thunen's formulation of the relationship
between price of commodities in central places and their
peripheires over time will be of main concern to me. In
chapter One, I showed that throughout our unit of long
duration the means of communication within the territory
of Afghanistan remained the same while, from 1850's on,
the conditions in the neighboring territories changed. In
this chapter, I shall attempt to provide an analysis of
the concrete patterns of circulation within the regions,
among regions, and with territories lying outside the bor
ders of Afghanistan.
Although I find a regional unit of analysis a useful
intermediary between the local and large foci of analysis,
I consider it necessary to place the regional unit within
a larger framework of historically relevant set(s) of
160
flows. This departure from the regional approach is dic
tated by a number of considerations. Part of the problem
stems from the very way in which a region is defined.
According to Carol Smith, a region can be "defined formal
ly or functionally, the former placing emphasis on the
homogeneity of some elements within a territory, the lat
ter placing emphasis on systems of functional relation
ships within an integrated system" (1976,vol.I:6). The
highlighting of the importance of some elements or func
tional relationships is useful, as a preliminary step, in
placing the region within a larger set of relationships.
Misplaced emphasis when the regional orientation is the
only unit of analysis may, however, lead to the obscuring
or neglecting of significant relationships. As in many
a theoretical model, the stringent conditions of the cen
tral-place theory are "rarely met in the real world"
(Smith,C.1974:169). The point, however, is that later
practitioners of Thunen's approach, with a few exceptions,
have neglected to introduce elements of the real world
into the model in order to better account for these con
ditions. At ti~es, they have even turned Thunen's pro
cedure on its head. smith makes the pertinent observa
tion that "anthropologists, particularly archeologists,
who have attempted to predict or explain settlement dis
tribution without data on market functions ... are going
far beyond the limits of the theory" (Ibid:171).
161
For a theory that claims to explain the systematic
features of markets and exchange relationships, a major
shortcoming of the approach has been its failure to ad
dress the impact of these political conditions affecting
the movement of people and goods. That these conditions
have been historically important in the determination of
pattern of movements and price of goods is reflected in
the special category that Fredrick Lane has proposed to
take account of them. He states that "for individual
enterprises engaged in international trade protection
hardly ever appears as a free good. Costs of protecttion
are vital factors in production since their variations
frequently determine profits (1942/1966:385). By examin
ing a number of examples from European history (Ibid:373-
428). Lane attempts to demonstrate the significance of
costs of protection on the organization and development
of enterprises and states. Lane also considers protec
tion from the perspective of organizations that specialize
in suppling it; I shall address this aspect of his hypoth
esis later and confine myself here to an examination of
costs of protection in the determination of the direction
and price of commodities in inter-territorial trade. Be
fore engaging on this task, however, I must provide a
description of the regions of the country, the types of
circulation of commodities, and the social organization
of the process of circulation.
162
In chapter one and two, I argued that the dependence
of the population on irrigation accounted for the differ
ent types of settlements. Zones of intensive concentra
tions of population were located on or near main rivers
while more dispersed settlements were located on relative
ly minor irrigation networks. The resultant distribution
of the population within each and all regions was, there
fore, rather uneven. As our focus of analysis in this
chapter is on the phenomena of circulation, a correct
grasp of the placement of people and resources as well
as the location of areas void of habitation 22comes neces
sary. In order to convey the picture adequately, I have
decided to quote brief descriptions of the major regions
of the country as viewed by late nineteenth century ob
servers. Indeed, the structure of communication during
my fieldwork (1973-77) had changed radically from what it
had been during the period of this study, and reliance
on contemporary reports is quite essential for the illu
stration of my subsequent argument.
Major C.J. East, Quarter-Master-General's Department,
provided in 1878 a remarkably succinct view of the eastern
region of the country. He stated that "the valley of
Kunar, near the city has an elevation of from 6,000 to
7,000 feet above the sea: its length to the plain of
Peshawar is nearly 200 miles, which plain has an altitude
of little more than 1,000 feet above sea level. In the
163
neighbourhood of Kabul, this elevated valley is very fer
tile; and to the south of the city is a rich district ex
tending to Ghuznee, including the valley of Logar, whilst
to the north are the very productive regions of the Koh
Daman and the valleys of Ghurband, Punjsheer, [and Nijrow].
South-east of Kabul is the hilly district of Lughman, of
no great fertility, whilst further east again extends the
sultry but rich plain of Jelalabad.
"The small range of Khyber may be said to separate
the plain of Peshawar from the valley of Kabul river; its
highest peak is 3,500 feet above the plain. It is pierced
through at two places, on the south by the valley of the
Khyber, and further north by the Kabul river.
"The Safed Koh or Speen Ghur [white mountain] range
commences west of Peshawar, and runs in a westerly direc
tion to within thirty miles of Kabul. It throws out two
large spurs to the north, one the Khyber, above noticed,
and the other the Kurkutcha. Its general aspect is one
of greatest sterility, but it encloses numerous well-wa
tered and fertile valleys.
"The Solimani mountains have a general direction
parallel to the Indus; their southern limits may be taken
at the Bolan Pass [in Baluchistan], whilst on the north
they extend to near Bunoo. The highest point of this
range, that of Tukht-i-Suliman, is 11,000 feet above sea
level.
164
165
"Along the northern base of Safed Koh lies the well
cultivated district of Nungerhar. To the south of these
mountains is the very extensive and fertile valley of
Koorum; to the south of which again is the Khost valley.
"To the west of Solimani range, extends a large ele-
vated plateau but poorly inhabited, affording no produce,
and but indifferent grazing grounds; it is traversed by
a few tracks only.
"The district of Ghuznee is separated from those of •• ' A.
Kabul and Logur, by a highland stretching east and west,
and having an elevation between 8,000 and 9,000 feet a-
bove the sea. To the south of the highland, are the
valleys of the Arghandab and the Tarnak [rivers], stretch-
ing as far down as Kandahar; both are extremely produc-
tive of grain, especially wheat. The plain of Kandahar,
where watered, is fertile, and has an elevation above the
sea of about 3,500 feet" (L/P&S/18/C71:2-4).
Another British officer provided an even fuller des-
cription of the physical features of this south-western
region. According to him, the region "is divided into
two clearly marked parts by the Kadanai river which rises
in the Toba highland and joins the Dori; the combined ri-
ver again runs into the Arghandab southwest of Kandahar,
and finally joins the Helmand at Kala Bist. North of this
dividing line the country is hilly, and consists of a nurn-
ber of valleys running southwest and watered by the fol-
lowing rivers (from east to west): the Arghastan, Lora,
Khushk, Tarnak, Arghandab, Kuskh-i-Nakhud, and the main
stream of the Helmand. These streams all flow into the
Kadanai-Dori-Arghandab joint stream running from east to
west, and the valleys all fall from northeast to south
west. The dividing ranges, rising in some cases up to
9,000 feet, gradually sink down to the plain along the
north bank of the Kadanai-Dori-Arghandab stream, which
falls from about 4,000 feet at Gatai, near which the
Chaman-Kandahar road crosses the Kadanai, to about 2,500
at Kala Bist. The northern part of the province is the
cultivated and inhabitant portion.
"The half of the province south of Kadanai-Dori
Arghandab stream consists of the Registan or sandy desert
extending from the Helmand to the Khwaja Amran and Sarlat
ranges of Pishin, with the exception of the small
Shorawak district watered by the Pishin Lora where it
leaves the hills. Nearly the whole of this tract is un
inhabited except by nomad tribes of sheperds and consists
of sand hills rising from 200 to 500 feet in height. The
sand ridges run parallel to one another in broken billows,
with. an apparent general direction of north-northwest to
south-southeast. The northeast or lee side of the sand
hills slopes at a natural angle of 45° towards the crest,
which is often sharp. Along the borders it is not entire
ly desert, but carries some vegetation, and after rain
166
grown some grass. This half-desert or Nim Chol, as it is
called, affords pasturage to numerous flocks of sheep and
herds of camels and is said to extend for 5 to 10 miles
inwards" (GA, Kandahar: 4) .
The country between the Helmand river in the south
western region and Kashrud river in the northwestern re
gion is described by Major East as little cultivated and
containing extensive tracts of desert (L/P&S/18/C71:4).
Part of this area was more fully described in the Gazet
teer. After stating that Girshik on the river Helmand
was 2,881 feet above the sea level and Farah on the
Farahrud river 2,400, the officer wrote that "from the
line Girishik-Farah the country has a slight general fall
towards the hamuns or lakes of Sistan, which forms a de
pression at a minimum altitude of 1,100 feet and receives
the whole water from the [area]. The rivers running into
this depression are the Helmand, Khash, Khuspas, Farah
and Harut Ruds. Between these rivers lie dasht or gravel
ly, flat plateaux, as a rule waterless, except in depres
sions or beds of old streams and uninhabited; the largest
of these plateaux lies between the Helmand and Khash, and
in its southern part in a northeast to southwest direc
tion and 80 to 90 miles in width" (GA,Farah:3).
This north-western region was geographically defined
by the compiler of the Gazetteer as "that part of Afghani
stan drained by the Murghab, the Hari Rud, the Adraskand,
167
and the affluents of the Farah Rud, above where it enters
the plains.
"It is bounded on the north by the chol, on the east
by the mountains of the Hazara country, on the west by
the Khorasan deserts. It is thus, to a certain extent,
physically cut off on all sides but one, the south, by
natural obstacles from the surrounding countries and pro
vinces. On the southern side it is open, and the great
roads from Kandahar and Sistan lead to it through the
broad space between the Taimani hills and the Persian
desert.
"The most populous, fertile and flourishing part of
the province is that comprised in the districts of Herat,
Ghorian, Obeh, and Karokh. North of this fertile tract
is the Band-i-Baba or Siah Bubak, known to Europeans as
the Paropamisus. This mountain range is really a prolong
ation of the middle branch of the Koh-i-Baba. North of
Herat, and to the eastward of that place, the hills are
of some height, the peaks rising four or five thousand
feet above the valley. North of the Band-i-Baba is the
district of Badghis, for the most part an expanse of open
rolling downs of light clay soil, covered with rich grass
during the earlier half of the year, but arid and parched
during the latter half. This district becomes more and
more hilly as one travels east, until it may be character
ized as almost mountainous. The only perennial river in
168
the whole of Badghis, not counting the Hari Rud on its
western border or the Murghab on its eastern, is the
Kushk; so that from July to December the country away
from these streams is almost destitude of running water.
Two important features of this part of Afghanistan are
the Murghab and Hari Rud. The former is, generally speak
ing, deep and unfordable and, when in flood, is an impas
sable obstacle. The latter, on the contrary, is general
ly shallow and fordable, except of course in flood season,
when it becomes a rapid river about 200 yards wide. The
flood season is from the middle of March to the end of
July. East of the Herat valley and Badghis is a wild
mountainous country ..• This is a region of barren rugged
hills rising in places to 10,000 and even 12,000 feet.
The main axis of the mountain system comprised in this
area is the Koh-i-Baba, which is in itself a continuation
of the Hindu Kush. The Band-i-Baba, just before entering
the Herat province, breaks up into three main ranges: the
northern one is the Band-i-Turkistan, the central is gen
erally spoken of as the Band-i-Baba, and the southern one
is called the Band-i-Baian or Safed Koh ...
"South of the Herat valley is the open country of
the Sabzawar district, drained by the Adraskand, which
lower down becomes known as the Harut Rud. One prominent
feature in the southern part of the [area] is the Do
Shakh range, which runs obliquely from the Hari Rud near
169
Zindajan to the Persian frontier" (GA,Herat:3-4).
The following is the description provided for the
northern and Central regions: "Geographically and natur
ally Turkistan embraces all the country draining to the
Oxus from the south, exclusive of the drainage of the
Kunduz and of Badakshan generally ...
"[Turkistan] consists of two distinct regions, viz.,
the hill country lying westward of the Koh-i-Chungur, and
the great plain stretching along the foot of the hills to
the Oxus.
"The principal features of the hill country are the
lofty Koh-i-Chungur; the great plateau extending between
this range and the Band-i-Amir river; the long straight
range at the foot of the plateau which dominates the
Hazhda-Nahr, and which is generally known as the Shadian
Koh; and in the west the great barrier of the Band-i
Turkistan, with its long spurs and glens stretching down
to the plains.
"The above mentioned plateau extends north from the
Koh-i-Baba for 140 miles in the direction of the Oxus,
and its breadth is about 80 miles. It terminates in a
range (the Shadian Koh) whose peaks rise to 8,000 feet,
and which falls, almost perpendicularly, to the plain of
Turkistan, the elevation of the latter being little over
1,000 feet. The general elevation of the plateau is from
7,000 to 10,000 feet, and its surface is diversified by
170
by hills, valleys, etc., but on the whole it may be char
acterized as undulating. Its appearance, as overlooked
from a height, is barren: nevertheless there is good graz
ing, and thanks to a large snow and rainfall, corn is
grown in some parts where valleys exist, and also on the
plateau itself. The valleys are for the most part re-
markably deep gashes rather than ordinary hollows or
depressions. There are three such valleys in the south
east portion of the plateau, Bamian, Saighan and Kamard;
the former belongs to the Kabul province. They all run
from west to east, and their considerable streams unite
to form the Surkhab or Kunduz river. All the valleys,
particularly Kamard, are full of beautiful orchards while
the hills and plateaus are grassy in spring and early
summer.
"Descending north from the Kara. Kotal the drainage
of the Tashkurghan stream is entered. It runs northwards
through an extraordinary long succession of defiles,
walled by cliffs which rival those of Kamard. In a few
places the defile opens out to a certain extent and there
are villages with dense masses of walled orchards filling
the gorge from side to side. At a distance of about 70
miles from the Kara Kotal plateau, the defiles open into
the charming valley of Aibak (Samangan), beyond which is
the small plain of Ghaznigak. The exit from the latter
is by another defile, which terminates in a tremendous
171
172
gorge, immediately at the mouth of which is the town of
Tushkurghan. The western half of the great plateau drains
to the Band-i-Amir stream. This river, whose source is
in the curious lakes of Band-i-Amir (also called Band-i-...
Babar), is bounded in the upper part of its course by
enormous cliffs, while the river itself is so deep and
swift as to be generally quite unfordable. East of the
defiles of Band-i-Amir is the valley of Dara-i-Suf, less
deep than those hitherto mentioned and in some respects
more fertile.
"Dara-i-Suf drains to the Band-i-Amir through the
defiles of Kishindi. Not far below the junction of the
streams the valley of the river opens out, while the
stream becomes comparatively sluggish.
"Now having sketched the general features of the
great plateau, it will be desirable to turn back to the
Koh-i-Baba.
"From a point about south of Yak Walang (in the Kabul
province) this hitherto well-defined range breaks up into
three. The southernmost is called the Band-i-Baian and
continues along the south side of the Hari-Rud valley to
the intermediate neighborhood of Herat, where it is called
the Safed Koh. The centre branch (This, the Band-i-Baba,
is the main range and continues westward, though pierced
by the Hari Rud, to the Caspian.) runs along the north
side of the Hari Rud, parallel to the first and is the
watershed between the Hari Rud and the Murghab. It is
known by various names. The third or northern branch
strikes northwest, enclosing the basin of the Upper
Murghab, and dividing it from that of the Band-i-Arnir.
Branching right and left, it forms a mass of mountains
which are the natural boundary of this part of Turkistan.
The western half has no one name, parts of it are known
as the Band-i-Alakah, Band-i-Badak, etc., and on the nor
thern branch, nearly south of Sar-i-Pul, are two very
fine peaks called Khwaja Saf and Khwaja Kalsaf. Their
height is probably about 15,000 feet, while the general
altitude of the mountains is from 10,000 to 12,000 feet.
Numerous spurs run down northwards from the crest line,
enclosing among them a very large number of beautiful
glens. These spurs "soon sink into grassy down-like
ridges and undulations, the glens becoming fertile and
well populated valleys. This hill tract forms the dis
tricts of Sangcharak, Sar-i-Pul, and Maimana. The former
is shut off from the plain country of Turkistan by a
ridge which is a continuation of that forming the face of
the great plateau, and is called the Elburz. Thus will
be seen that more than half the area of Turkistan is
mountainous or hilly, though anything but barren or un
fertile. Indeed, much of this region is really charming.
Briefly its character changes from east to west. First,
there is the great plateau. Then the comparatively low
173
hills and undulations of Sangcharak, backed by mountains
to the south. Next, the higher and bolder, but grassy and
downlike hills of Sar-i-Pul. Lastly, Maimana, with its
glens rapidly sinking into low downs. We now come to the
plain country of Turkistan, which is the most important
part of the province.
"There is a well-marked, and even for the most part
an abrupt, transition from the hill country to the plain.
The breadth of the latter is somewhat variable, owing to
the curves of the Oxus and its northward trend, but the
average is between 40 and 50 miles. All along the river
is a narrow arable strip. In 1886 it was by no means all
cultivated though it was so in ancient times. South of
this strip is a band of sandy desert. Its breadth varies
from 10 to 20 miles -- 15 is fair average -- though "as
many roads cross it diagonally, it may seem more to the
ordinary traveller. Also, in several places this desert
comes right up to the hills, dividing the cultivated and
populated plain into distinct portions. Thus, there is
the barren tract east of Tashkurghan: again there is a
division between the latter place and Mazar-i-Sharif and
between Shibirghan and the valley of the Maimana or
Andkhui river is a wide piece of sandy desert, rather
difficult to cross. West of the Maimana stream begins
the great chol or Turkoman desert, which now belongs to
Russia.
174
"Four streams, descending from the hills, water the
fertile portions of the plain. These are the stream of
Tashkurghan, the Band-i-Arnir, the river of Sar-i-Pul, and
the Ab-i-Maimana. None of these rivers reach the Oxus.
At most times of the year their waters are entirely used
up for irrigation, and even during the spring floods the
surplus is checked, and eventually absorbed, by the sandy
undulations of the desert" (GA,Mazar-i-Sharif:4-6).
Turning to the northeast of Afghanistan, the compiler
of the Gazetteer writes: "the country is for the most
part a waste of sterile, rocky, snow-capped mountains, di
vided in the east by the shallow, flat, alluvial depres
sions known as Pamirs. The main feature in this moun
tainous land is the mighty Oxus with its numerous afflu
ents. Rising high up in the Pamirs and draining one of
the largest and loftiest snowfields in the world, this
river is remarkable for the force with which it has cut
its way through the deepest gorges, and for the vast mas
ses of alluvial soil which it has carried to the plains
of Central Asia. The mountain ranges for the most part
vary from 10,000 to 20,000 feet and their general direc
tion is from east to west, though there is one great spur
which, springing from the Tiraj Mir (25,426 feet) in the
Hindu Kush, runs north, forcing the Oxus to makes its
great northward bend, while at the same time it forms the
natural eastern boundary of Badakhshan proper. Another
175
point to be noticed in this region is that all the drain
age of Wakhan, Shighan, Roshan, and the Pamirs collects
in the Oxus just below Kala Wamar, while that of Badakhshan
proper is carried to the Oxus by the Kokcha. Finally, we
have that stupendous mountain range, known to us as the
Hindu Kush, which with the Himalayas, is the backbone of
Asia.
"with the regard to the country north of the Hindu
Kuch, ... , although the Hindu Kush is a single range, dis
tinctly limited on its northern side by the Andarab valley
and the deeply sunk course of the Surkhab stream, hills
actually extend for a considerable distance northward, in
fact to within a few marches of the Oxus. These spurs,
which are rather vaguely represented on some maps as run
ning out from the Nuristan section of the Hindu Kush and
from the hills immediately north of the Khawak pass, are
at Khost, Anjuman, Farkhar, Warsuj, etc.
"The ranges, or spurs, lose their mountainous char
acter much sooner than was represented on the old maps.
Before reaching the Faizbad-Khanabad road they have be
come grassy downs, high in some places, but in no case
mountains. The only mountain thereabouts is the isolated
mass of the Koh-i-Ambar. The most westerly of the high
spurs is that which separates Khost from Nahrin. West
of Nahrin the hills dividing it from Ghori are much lo
wer and more broken, while Ghori itself and Baghlan are
176
open plains.
"It must be explained, however, that immediately
north of Andarab, and the Surkhab river, the mountains
are as high, rugged and inaccessible as any commonly met
with in Afghanistan. But they diminish in height and
rockiness very rapidly, and north of Ghori and Nahrin,
though some high hills continue, they appear to be rather
the scarps of plateaux than distinct ranges, while the
lower hills are of soft soil, bare, smooth, and grassy in
spring.
"To the west of Ghori is the lofty Koh-i-Chungur,
rising from 5,000 to 6,000 feet above the Ghori plain,
while other high and steep hills continue along the left
bank of the Surkhab to within a short distance of Kunduz.
All these hills are the eastern scarp of the great plateau
stretching north from the Band-i-Baba to the Turkistan
plain.
"Now, havl!:g described the country between the Hindu
Kush and the Faizabad-Khanabad road, it will be desirable
to say something relative to the country lying between
the latter road and the Oxus. The main thing to remember
is that all the hills crossed by, or near, the road are
of a down-like character. The only exception, as before
mentioned, is the Koh-i-Arnbar, immediately to the north
east of Khanabad.
"East of the Koh-i-Arnbar the downs extend to the Oxus,
177
but west of it is the large open tract of Hazrat Imam. A
considerable portion of this is chol and waterless -
though well grassed in spring. But Hazart Imar.l itself
is in the midst of a highly productive plain, and sur
rounded by villages whose fertile fields are watered by
canals from the Oxus. Along the whole south of the Hazrat
Imam plain are the swamps and fens of the Bangi and Kunduz
rivers. For another point to be remembered is that the
tributaries of the Oxus and the Oxus itself, as soon as
they get out of the hills, run through great reed beds and
marsches abounding in game, from tiger to snipe, but ex
ceedingly unhealthy.
"East of Khanabad is the fertile plain of Taloqan
probably the healthiest and best part of the low country
of Khataghan, while to the west are the Kunduz fens.
Having cleared the fens, one enters on open desert, with
high hills (scarp of the great plateau) on the left. The
Tashkurghan road crosses a spur of these by the Arganak
Kotal, and at 28 miles from the Kunduz river reaches
Kairabad. This place is the first of the Tashkurghan
villages, and is the only spot on this road where water
is certainly procurable. This fact is mentioned as partly
showing how Khanabad is cut off from Tashkurghan and the
plain of Afghan Turkistan. The only important geographi
cal feature of this western portion which now remains to
be mentioned is the Kunduz river, called also the Surkhab
178
and Ak Sarai.
"This river is formed near Doab-i-Mekhzarin by the
junction of the Bamian, Saighan, and Kahrnard streams.
At first it runs northeast through the Goab district in
Afghan Turkistan, and then it runs north to Kunduz and
so on to the Oxus, receiving the drainage of all the dis
tricts lying west of the Khawak pass" (GA,Badakhshan:3-4).
From these descriptions, it can be seen that the
geographical and ecological features of the country did
not facilitate communication within any of the regions,
among regions, or with territories lying outside the
boundaries of the state. The difficulties of communica
tion, however, should not be equated with absence on in
teraction. Movements of people and commodities inside
as well as outside the country were a reality throughout
our period of long duration. At this point, I shall ex
amine how constraints imposed by the prevailing mode of
transportation, that is the reliance on pack-animals, con
ditioned the circulation of the various commodities,
thereby affecting the overall organization of production.
Agricultural production being the mainstay of the economy,
I shall first discuss the circulation of agricultural
commodities.
In order to assess the impact of transportation on
the circulation of agricultural commodities, the following
variables need to be examined: timing of movement; carry-
179
ing capacity and relative speed of different animals; and
ratio between cost of transport and price of commodities
at the points of production.
Circulation of agricultural produce can only start
after the harvest has been gathered, which is in turn
inexorably bound to the rhythm of natural phenomena. Dur
ing our period of long duration, circulation was also de
pendent on the accessibility of routes linking regions;
as noted earlier, these routes were closed to traffic
from two to nine months a year due to adverse weather con
ditions. Therefore, differences in the timing of harvests
-- determined by the length of the growing season and the
types of crops -- and variations in weather from year to
year accounted for crucial differences in the span of
time during which goods could be moved from one location
to another.
The distance separating centers of production and
consumption was also a decisive factor enhancing the im
portance of speed, carrying capacity and number of trans
port animals available. A review of the writings of Euro
pean travellers (Forester,G.1798jBurnes,A.1834jVigne,G.T.
1840jMasson,C.1842jBellew,H.W.1862;Duke,J.,1883jMartin,F.
1907) reveals that the distance travelled per day varied
from 8 to 25 miles.
Frank Martin, who from 1895 to 1903 was the super
intendent of government workshops in Kabul, stated that
180
it took pack-animals a week "to travel a hundred miles"
(1907:242). This estimate was based on the assumption
that the animals were fully loaded and that the caravan
was on the move every day -- assumptions which are con-
venient at this phase of the analysis but that will have
to be modified subsequently.
As both volume and weight of goods were to be taken
account of in the way a pack-animal was loaded, the actual
weight differed from case to case. Regulations issued
by the Afghan government defining the duties of trade a-
gents set out the following two sets of weights as stan-
dards for the mentioned pack-animals (Nizamnama-i-Wakil-
ul-Tijarat,1306/l927:5-6) :
Camel
Pony or Mule
Donkey
Usual Loads (cloth,sugar, etc.) in pounds
717
391
196
Heavy goods of Small Volume,
in pounds
587
326
163
An official British report from Persia estimated
the ordinary load of a camel at 400 Ibs,reaching 480 lbs
under favorable conditions, 200-250 lbs was considered
fair for a pony or a mule, and a donkey-load was reckoned
at about 130 Ibs (Law,E.F.,1889:10i quoted in Issawi,C.
1971:195) .
A letter from an English factory in Persia in the
181
seventeenth century recommending that goods sent to Persia
be packed in bales of 130 lbs considered two such bales
(260 lbs) constituting a donkey-load, three (390 lbs) a
mule-load, and four (520 lbs) a camel-load (Barker to
Roe, April 1618; quoted in Steensgaard,N.,1973:32).
Steensgaard qualifies this estimate by noting that "the
size of a camel-load varied with the terrain and the size
of the animal" and considers 200 kgs (441 lbs) to have
been the norm for a load of Persian silk (1973:31).
Alexander Burnes reported that a two-humped or Bac
tarian camel "will carry 640 lbs. English, which surpasses
by 150 lbs. the burdens of those of India and Cabool"
(vol. II: 427) .
Assuming the official Afghan estimate of 587 lbs as
the norm for a camel-load of grains and Martin's estimate
of one week per hundred miles as the speed of movement,
I shall have recourse to a hypothetical example .to illu
strate what these numbers suggest.
In the l880s, the produce of the Hazhdad-Nahr dis
trict in the northern region was estimated, by an Indian
employee of the British government, at 1,068,981,800 lbs
of grain (GA,Mazar-i-Sharif:264). Although the figure
seems improbably large, British officers who visited the
district during the same period claimed that the area
could easily support a population of half a million -
seven times its existing number of population (Ibid:250).
182
If we assume that half of the estimated amount was avail
able for sale and that there was demand for it in the city
of Herat, which is located 270 miles away from the center
of the district, it would have required 910,546 camels
close to four weeks to transport the grains from Hazhda
Nahr to Herat. The total number of camels in all of the
northern region was, at that time, estimated at only ten
thousands (Ibid:14). Had all these camels been hired for
the transport of the grain and were travelling at the
maximum speed of 25 miles a day, back and forth between
the two centers, it would have required them almost seven
years and a half to transport the available amount of
grains! Clearly, as far as circulation of grains was con
cerned, the dominant mode of transportation worked against
the development of a fully integrated system of agricul
tural production.
Unfortunately, there is no systematic data on the
regional distribution of transport animals over time. The
only available figures are the approximations offered by
British officers reporting on various provinces of the
country. As already mentioned, the number of camels
in the northern region was estimated at ten thousands.
For Badakhshan, the compiler of the gazetteer wrote that
"considerable attention is paid to breeding horses and
ponies ... Mules and donkeys are also fairly numerous"
(GA,Badakhshan:lO). No numerical estimate for the whole
183
region was given but the number of pack-animals passing
yearly through the main toll station was stated as 6000
ponies and 800 camels (Ibid:67). Again, no general esti
mates for the eastern and central regions are available.
However, 1894, British officials undertook a census of
animals belonging to the nomads who were the main carriers
between Afghanistan and India. According to this estima
tion, the nomads possessed 32,959 camels, 1140 horses and
1241 donkeys (GA, Kabul:426ff.). There are no figures
for the southern region as such but the estimates for the
district of Kandahar were 2,000 camels 2,000 donkeys and
200 bullocks (GA,Kandahar:228). The estimates for the
western region were 50,000 camels and "a large number"
of donkeys and horses (GA,Herat:6). The overall number
of camels, therefore, may have been at the lowest be
tween 100,000 and 200,000 in the l880s and l890s, but
guessing the number of other animals is not possible.
Terrain, distance, quantity of goods to be carried,
and availability of animals were conditioning factors
in the choice of pack-animals to be used. In the 1830s,
part of the trade route between Bokhara and China passed
through Badakhshan and was not negotiable by camels. In
stead, ponies had to be relied on. Only after the goods
had reached the town of Khulm in the northern region were
they transferred to camels (Burnes,A.,vol.II:438). Dif
ficulties of communication in some areas of Badakhshan,
184
Bajour, Panjkora, and Kashmir, were such that goods could
only be carried by men (Lt. Irwin,1809/1839:1014).
When a route was equally negotiable by various types
of pack-animals, preference for a certain animal was de
termined by the distance between centers of production
and consumption as well as the economic position of the
people who had to undertake the transport of goods. Lt.
Irwin who, as a member of the Elphinstone's mission, vis
ited the Afghan court in Peshawar, paid special attention
in his memoir on "Climate, soil, produce, and husbandry
of Afghanistan" to the conditions of transport in various
areas of the empire. He proposed to "distinguish carri
age as it may be, 1st, that of armies; 2nd, that of cara
vans or of persons making distant journeys; 3rd, that of
farmers on their own farms, or for the supply of provi
sions to towns, or the distribution of town manufactures
in the neighbourhood, or the interchange of commodities,
within small or moderate distances" (Ibid:10I2). It is
his last two categories that are, here, of interest to
me.
He affirmed that for long journeys the camel was
the most economical and that, in caravans, camels outnum
bered all other animals. But, besides noting the situa
tions where the terrain did not permit their employment,
he pointed out that trade between various regions depended
on the availability of an animal or animals in that region.
185
Thus, the exchange between the northern region and the
central place of Kabul was carried from the Kabul side by
camels but from the northern side mainly by horses. Be
bveen Kabul and Peshawar, all kinds of animals were made
use of: camels, mules, and donkeys seem to have carried
an equal quantity of goods in the trade between these two
central areas. As far as his third category was con
cerned, Irwin acknowledged that greatest variety prevailed
yet that it was not camels but bullocks, donkeys, mules
and asses that carried the burdens on the farms and be
tween farms and market places (Ibid:1013ff.).
The main tendency, however, was that of harnessing
the energies of every available animal for the task of
transport. Writing of the nomads, who accounted for most
of the long-distance circulation, Martin observerd that
in their caravans even the sheep carried "small packs too"
(1907:242). The inclination for making economic use of
the available animals was a function of the high cost of
transport in comparison to the price of goods in the cen
ters of production. Although there are no available data
for systematic comparison and periodization, information
from different junctures indicates that cost of transpor
tation constituted a significant difference in the price
of commodities at centers of production and at those of
consumption.
As cost of transport was similar throughout the area
186
where pack-animals represented the main means of trans
portation, I have not confined myself to examples from
Afghanistan. The first illustration concerns a Dutch pur
chase of wheat in Jahrum, between Lar and Shiraz, in 1636.
They bought "about 17,108 man-i-Tabriz [107,040 Ibs] of
wheat, the purchase price of which was 10,264 mahmudi. The
transport costs to Gomroon [Bunder Abbas], scarcely more
than 20-25 marching days, were 50 mahmudi per man-i-Tabriz,
in all 8,554 mahmudi, i.e. nearly as much as the purchase
price of the wheat" (Steensgaard,1973:40).
In the next two examples, the cost of transportation
and its increase over a relatively short period are illu
strated. Both examples are from 1841 and concern long
distance trade. In that year, the rate for hire of a ca
mel between the central places of Kandahar and Shikarpur,
a distance of 369 miles, carrying from 494 to 576 Ibs was
20 rupees (Postan,1841:16). The cost of transporting
1070 Ibs of iron from Bajour to Kunar and then to Kabul,
about 200 miles, had changed from 25 rupees in the 1830s
to 35 rupees in 1841 (Drurnmond,1841:84).
An example from 1863, directly illustrates the rela
tive difference between price of goods at their point of
production and cost of transport to a center of consump
tion. In that year, Arminius Vambery, an Hungarian lin
guist who travelled in the guise of a Muslim throughout
central Asia and Afghanistan, recorded that an Indian
187
had "purchased some loads of aniseed in Maymene for thir-
ty tenghe [15 rupees]. The carriage to Herat cost him
twenty tenghes [10 rupees] per load" (1865:303-04). The
distance between Maimana in the northern region and Herat
in the western region is about 240 miles.
Finally, Martin offered a general estimate for the
l890s. He stated that the cost of carriage over hundred
miles worked "out at about eighteen shillings [approxi-
mately 27 rupees] a hundred-weight for that distance"
(1907:242). His immediate comment was "and this in a
country where all things are cheap" (Ibid).
To convey the degree to which the cost of transport
formed an obstacle to long-distance trade in grains as
well as other commodities, I shall turn again to my ear-
lier hypothetical example and calculate the cost of trans-
port of the grain from the district of Hazhda-Nahr to the
city of Herat. According to Martin's figures, the cost
of transport of 267,245 tons of grain over the distance
of 400 miles would have amounted t0Jt19,24l,672 -- or 29
times the Afghan state's yearly revenue which was then
estimated ati670,000 (GA,1908:40).
Thus, the technical organization of circulation
severely hampered the transport of bulk goods, such as
grain or wood, and stood as an obstacle to the develop-
ment of a coordinated "home market" that would have co-
incided with the boundaries of the state. Yet, absence
188
of a "home market" did not translate into absence 0:: cir
culation. It is time to take account of the actual dir
ection of movements of goods. I shall differentiate be
tween regional patterns of movement and inter-regional
and long-distance patterns.
How did those in possession of agricultural produce
dispose of it? As far as the sale of grain is concerned,
especially wheat which formed the main item of the popu
lation's diet, four categories of buyers can be identi
fied: 1-, individuals and families within the locality
where the grain was produced, who for a variety of rea
sons -- absence of males engaged in outside employment,
uneven ratio of consumers to producers and/or to the
amount of land owned, women with minor children, etc.
had to buy part or all of their supply of grain; 2-, peo
ple in neighbouring localities whose grain production was
insufficient, either as a result of weather conditions
or because they cultivated commercial crops instead of
wheat; 3-, inhabitants of central places who did not en
gage in agricultural production; 4-, caravaneers and
others engaged in long-distance trade and travel.
The first category has already been illustrated in
reference to the organization of production in the Kunar
valley, but fluctuations in the demands of members of
other categories through time have to be addressed more
fully.
189
Any decrease in the amount of precipitation, by de
termining the amount of water available for irrigation,
strongly affected the production of crops in a locality.
Yet, localities in relatively close proximity were af
fected differently by the fluctuation in weather condi
tions due to significant variations in altitude as well
as differences in location with respect to rivers and
main canals and, depending on the year, the same locality
might import or export grain.
Weather conditions were not the only variable affect
ing the amount of produce. Visits by swarms of locusts
also had to be reckoned with. Such visits were not re
gular but when they did occur the damage was substantial.
During the years 1880-1886, locusts appeared regularly
in the locality of Haibak, in the northern region, and
"consequently but little wheat was grown in those years"
(GA,Mazar-i-Sharif:237). As a result of the shortage,
localities which had a surplus of grain in normal years
had to acquire their food from the market, as was the
case in the sub-district of Pir Nakchir where "in 1886
no supplies were procurable, and the people obtained their
flour from the Tashkurghan Bazar [name of the market town
in the Haibak district]" (Ibid:565).
On the other hand, exchange between localities in
relatively close proximity was not infrequent. Produc
tion of grain in the valley of Sighan in the central re-
190
gion was roughly 2/5ths "wheat, 2/5ths rice, and 1/5ths
barley", and the people of the valley exchanged "most of
their rice for wheat and barley from [the valleys of]
Qalishan and Dara Yusuf" (Ibid:480). People of the lat
ter valleys exported wheat to localities in the central
and northern region and, in years of drought, even to the
eastern region (Ibid:191).
There were also localities where ecological condi
tions did not allow for self-sufficiency in grain but
where other types of productive activities made the con
gregation of a large population possible. In such cases,
grain had to be regularly imported from other areas. The
three districts of Khawaja Salar, Shor Tapa, and Kerkin
on the Afghan bank of the river Oxus, in the northern re
gion, where sericulture and sheep-raising were very pro
fitably undertaken, represented such a situation. Each
of the districts was approximately 70-90 miles away from
three main centers of wheat production and, despite the
cost entailed, Khawaja Salar got its flour and/or wheat
from Akcha, Shor Tapa from Mazar, and Kerkin from Tashkur
ghan (Ibid:444,447 ,449).
Whereas people in the Oxus districts were attempting
to acquire self-sufficiency in grain and not succeeding,
there were other areas where grain could be easily pro
duced but where people specialized in commercial crops
191
for which there was a strong demand. Sugarcane and cot
ton from the valley of Jalalabad in the eastern region,
tobacco from Kandahar in the western region (Dr. Griffith,
1841:984-85), and fruits from various regions of the coun
try fall within this category. When market conditions
were favorable, quite a few commercial crops were grown
in ecologically suitable environments.
In the 1840's, for instance, the following crops
were grown in the valley of Logar in the eastern region:
bean, field barley, buckwheat, clover, cabbage, blue drum
head, cauliflower, large coriander, cumin, cucumber, egg
plant, flax, linseed, fennel, garlic, gram, large millet,
lettuce, lucerne, leeks, maize, madder, two varieties of
water melons, two varieties of pumpkins, three varieties
of mustard, white and blue onion, poppy, radish, rice,
spot-herbs, tares, broad leaf and narrow leaf tobacco,
turnip, vines, and wheat (GA,Kabul:348ff).
The commercial crops in the valley of Logar were
primarily produced for the central place of Kabul which
lay approximately 30-60 miles from the valley. The. de
mand in Kabul was strong enough to sustain the production
throughout our unit of long duration. As no data on the
amount of acreage devoted to the various crops over time
is available, a fuller picture of patterns of interaction
cannot be drawn.
Comparative data from other regions of the country
192
indicate, however, that ecological conditions alone did
not determine the choice of crops but that demand from
central places was an important factor. The situation
in the valley of Arghastan, in the southern region, in
the 1870s is a casein point. In the words of a con
temporary observer, "the principal crops are wheat, bar
ley, and Indian corn. Cotton is also grown but nowhere
in large quantities. Lucerne, carrots, etc., are only
grown in small quantities for the use of the cultivators.
The price obtainable for these latter articles at Kandahar
in ordinary times is not sufficiently high to repay the
cost of carriage thither" (GA,Kandahar:54). Nothing in
this observation would have surprised Thunen who, as al
ready reported, had postulated that the cost of grain
in the Town must reflect the conditions of production
and transportation faced by the most distant producer
whose grain was needed by the Town.
As the focus of this study is the process of circula
tion over time, ideally it would have been desirable to
compare fluctuations in the demand of the central places
for agricultural produce during the whole length of the
unit of long duration, as well as information on the popu
lation of central places, shifts in their range of in
come, and area covered by productive zones which supplied
central places during regular and extraordinary times.
Such data are unfortunately not available at present and
193
I have had to rely on more fragmentary information.
In a conjectural unit of time, extraordinary year(s)
can be distinguished from regular years by the occurance
of marked shifts in natural conditions affecting the us
ual sphere of supply of a central place and/or the sudden
influx into a region of a large number of people and ani
mals who have to be provided with food for subsistence.
Changes in price of needed articles and in distance of
centers of production from which the articles had to be
brought in can serve as an indication of the extent to
which advantage was taken of economic opportunities when
available. But if this exercise is to be of any use in
revealing long-term tendencies, it has to be combined
with the determination of the sphere of production of
central regions during regular years, the ratio of re
gular to extraordinary years in any conjunctural unit,
and secular trends in prices over the period of long dur
ation. Within the limits of the information at my dis
posal, I shall attempt to draw the relevant conclusions
from an analysis of the data on wheat, the staple item
of diet in the country.
As the location of a central place from its center
of supply differed from case to case, different distances
had to be travelled in order to realize the same amount
of grain. The amount of surplus produce procurable from
the nine buluks of the district of Herat alone -- an area
194
of 120 miles by about 14 miles that could be readily
purchased in the central place of Herat in 1885 was esti-
mated by a British officer at 6,763,416 Ibs. [3067.83 me
tric tons] of wheat, 3,645,000 Ibs. [1653.34 metric tons]
of husk rice, and 6,763,416 Ibs. [3067.83 metric tons] of
chaff for horse feed (Stewart,C.E.:42). In 1904, the fo1-
lowing estimates of the gross and surplus produce of the
district were given by another British officer (GA, Herat:
158) :
Name of crop Gross Product Surplus Product metric tons metric tons
Wheat 22766.16 4553.23
Barley 15301. 85 3060.37
Rice 7464.32 1492.86
Dhal 7464.32 1492.86
Total 52996.65 10599.32
The surplus was calculated at 1/5th of the gross produce.
In 1910 Russian estimates, confirmed by British observers,
put the surplus wheat of the district at 11,495 metric
tons (Ibid).
There had been no change in the technical organiza-
tion of production in the district in the meantime but,
after a series of wars from the l830s to the 1880s, a
stable political situation had emerged and the population
195
of both the central place and the district had begun to
increase again. As such, the figures on the district's
gross and surplus produce should in no way be interpre
ted as the limits of the district's carrying capacity in
a static sense, rather they should be seen in dynamic
interrelation with other factors.
The district of Herat was not the only source the
city of Herat could rely on for its supply of grain.
Supplies could also be procured from the districts of
Karokh, Zindajan, Ghorian, Obeh, Gu1ran, Sabzwar, and
Farah, lying respectively at a distance of 27,27 1/4,
41.5, 60, 68.5, 74, and 162 mile~ from the central place
of Herat (Ibid:each entry). Furthermore, there were
other districts located farther off. Depending on the
needs of the central place and the conditions of harvest
in the district of Herat, supplies from a number or all
of these districts could be called upon. The degree to
which supplies from these and more outlying districts
were drawn on a regular basis could be related to the
viability of the economy of the central place and the
ability of its inhabitants to underwrite the cost of
production and transportation incurred by the producers
on the outlying district(s) whose grain was needed by
the central place. Strong fluctuations in prices over
any conjectural unit and import of grains from other re
gions on an irregular basis can be related to disruptions
196
of the grain supply from regular centers of regional pro
duction. Historical evidence for the region of Herat
bears out the correctness of these propositions.
At the end of the reign of Husain Baiqara -- 1470-
1506 --, when Herat had served as the capital of the
Timurid state for nearly a hundred years, a contemporary
historian claimed that the gardens, palaces, mansions,
and field of the city were connected to one another over
a distance of 60 miles, from the village of Kosoya to
that of Obeh (Khondmir,vol.IV:650). Conversion of agri
cultural fields in the vicinity of a central place during
its periods of prosperity can be documented for other ci
ties in Afghanistan, Therefore, the above information
on the extent of gardens and residential area is probably
correct, and it can be legitimately inferred that the
grain of the central place of Herat must have come from
its more outlying centers of supply.
While at the beginning of the sixteenth ceritury
Herat's reliance on its outlying districts was a sign of
the affluence of its residents, in 1838, the length of
the distance from which supplies had to be procured was
an indication of the total disrupture of the agricultural
production around the central place. From 23rd of Novem
ber 1837 until 9th of September 1838 the city was under
seige by a Persian army and no agricultural production
had taken place during that year. In May of 1838, the
197
authorities in Herat were requesting from the Persian
monarch 1866-2239 metric tons of grain as a condition for
peace (Kaye,J.W.,vol.I,1857:263). As the negotiations
broke down and the Persian army evenutally withdrew be
cause of British pressure, the residents of Herat were
forced to buy their grain. Major James Abbot, who was
travelling from Herat to Khiva at the time, reported the
movement of a large number of caravans from places as far
as Merv, over 400 miles distant from Herat, "laden with
wheat and barley" destined for the city and its surround
ing districts (1856,vol.I:16,28,49). Abbot, unfortunate
ly, does not provide any data on the price of grain be
fore and after the siege but, as he paid fourteen shill
ings per camel for carrying his goods from Bokhara to
Khiva (Ibid:38-39), a distance of 360 miles, the price
paid for the grain in Herat must have been very high.
Even under relatively stable political conditions,
the price of grain fluctuated. The following table, based
on reports of British news-writers in Herat and repro
duced by Hasan Kakar in an appendix (1979:237-41), show
the various shifts in the price of wheat over a short
conjectural period. In order to render the data compar
able to information from other regions, I have converted
the local units of weight and currency to pounds and
Kabuli rupees.
198
Date
Number of pounds per rupee
Table I. Wheat Prices in the Central Place of
Feb. 1882
24.5
July Dec.l3 1882 1886
28 28
Herat
Dec.29 1887
21.21
March 8 1888
30.8
June 6 1889
33.2
Feb.19 1893
42
May 11 1893
14 1bs.of bread
Until May 1893, grain had been very scarce in Herat and
the government had had to offer wheat for sale in the mar-
keto "After that date bread could not be found cheaper
in the bazars ll (Ibid:295). On March 10, 1893, grain had
disappeared from the markets of the city of Kandahar. By
March 17, scarcity had reached such a point in the sur-
rounding villages that IImost people subsisted on green
fodder" but, by March 31, grain had become abundant (Ibid).
Kakar does not give any information as to where the needed
grain carne from. As wheat was harvested in June in
Kandahar and July in Herat, the supply could not have
corne from areas that were close by. A remark by a British
officer who was, in May of1893, in the valley of Farah, 162
miles from Herat and 245 miles from Kandahar, may provide
the clue. He noted that during 1893, IIconsidered to be
a famine year, IIwheat was at 30 lbs. a rupee while in or-
dinary years 82 lbs.sold for a rupee (GA, Farah:74). Dur-
199
ing ordinary years, neither Herat nor Kandahar would have
been in need of grain from Farah but, in a situation of
scarcity, one or both could have turned to the resources
of the valley. Sudden demand for the produce of the val
ley would have resulted in the steep rise of the price.
Thus, centers of production having an unmarketable sur
plus or being part of the sphere of one central place
would only in extraordinary years become objects of com
petition from several centers of consumption. The situ
ation in 1857 in Kandahar can serve as an illustration.
From February 1857 until the gathering of the grain
harvest in June, Kandahar suffered from a severe famine.
During this period, grain was imported from the districts
of Ghazni -- 87 miles from Kabul and 231 miles from
Kandahar and normally a center of supply for Kabul -- and
Sabzwar -- 80 miles from Herat 2.nd 300 miles from Kandahar
(Bellew,H.W.,1862:228). The price of 4 Ibs. of wheat
flour reached one Indian rupee or two shillings and that
of barley 8 Ibs. per two shillings (Ibid:229). Dr. Bellew,
who was a member of a mission to Afghanistan that had to
stay in Kandahar for twelve months because of the Indian
mutiny, observed that "at such prices, the poor could
get no flour at all, and for several months subsisted on
clover and lucerne, wild herbs and mulberry-leaves, which
they as often ate uncooked as cooked" (Ibid:230). It can
therefore be inferred that the quantity of grain that was
200
201
imported could not have been very large. By June 9th,
the price had dropped to 24 Ibs, per rupee and it was
still going dmm (Ibid:257).
Strong fluctuation in the price of grain could also
result from an increased demand for food and supplies
generated by the sudden arrival of a large number of peo-
ple. Such was the situation when the British army ar-
rived in Kandahar on the 25th of April 1839. On the 8th
of May, a pound of flour sold for one rupee in the city
of Kandahar (Havelock,H.,vol.II,1840:21). The scarcity of
grain was so acute that the British army imported "a
large supply of grain" from Mooltan (Ibid:34) -- a dis-
tance of over 400 miles. By the 28th of June, in the
district of Kelat, 87 miles from Kandahar and one of its
supply centers, the price of wheat had fallen to 20-24
Ibs. per rupee (Ibid:49). Tendencies in a conjunctural
unit can be gathered from the data on the price of wheat
or wheat-flour in the following table:
Table II. Price of Wheat in the Central Place of Kandahar
Date Number of pounds Date Number of pounds per·rupee per rupee
Dec.23,1881 17 Sept.23,1892 13
February 1882 17 Feb.17,1893 (flour) 11 (flour) 13 June 3,1893 17
Aug.28,1882 28 Oct.14,1893 17 January 1884 27
Dec.26,1893 17 May 6,1886 12 Feb.9,1894 26 Oct.4,1886 17
Jan.4,1895 30 Sept.14,198'J 28
March 22,1895 30
Comparison of the data in tables I and II reveals
that notwithstanding yearly fluctuations, patterns of the
price of wheat in the two central places displayed dif
ferent tendencies. Data from the central place of Kabul
for the S2.me conjunctural period reinforces the interpre
tation that in each region the price of grain followed a
different trajectory. The information in table III, as
in tables I and II, is derived from data culled from re
ports of British news-writers quoted in Kakar (1979:237-
41) •
Table III. Price of Wheat-Flour in the Central Place of Kabul
Date Number of pounds per rupee
July 17, 1880 114
Dec. 14, 1880 73
July 20, 1885 12
Nov. la, 1891 15
June 7, 1893 13
Oct. 11, 1893 20
Nov. 5, 1898 111
Jan. 31, 1900 147
The difference in patterns of price reflects in part
the difference in the distance between each central place
and its centers of supply and the fertility of these
centers; but the patterns also reflect differences in the
demographic histories of regions in general and central
202
places in particular as well as vicissitudes of commerce
and politics in central places. I have already summarized
the available data on demographic changes in the regions,
and commercial and political changes in the importance of
the various regions will be taken up later. The variation
in the distance between a central place and its centers
of supply, however, has to be discussed here.
The distances of some of the districts listed as
areas exporting grain to the central place of Kandahar
were as follows: Dahla, 14 miles; Dehrawat, 60-70 miles;
Tirin, 80 miles; (all north of the city), Kushk-i-Nakhud,
40-50 miles; Maiwand, 38 miles, both west of the city
(GA, Kandahar:120,135,302,319,479). However, the dis
tricts of Nish and Zamindawar, which were considered the
chief sources of supply of grain to the central place c£
Kandahar, were respectively 50-60 miles north and 75-140
miles -- being very extensive and divided into four sub
districts -- south of the central place (Ibid:365j GA,
Farah:296ff). Kabul, as can be gathered from the des
cription at the beginning of this chapter, was located
in the midst of a fairly fertile valley. Its main cen
ters of grain supply, however, were the districts of
Ghazni, 86 miles west, and Logar and Gardez, 30-60 miles
south (GA,Kabul:118,122ff,348ff).
The length of the distance between a central place
and its center of supply, as I earlier argued, was pre-
203
dominantly an outcome of the availability of irrigation
networks. But the need of central places for fruits and
vegetables was also a factor in the reliance of central
places on more distant centers of production for their
grain. Vegetables and fruits were cash crops which had
a ready market in the central places; the fruits found
an outlet in exports to other regions and countries as
well. The political and economic importance of a central
place was therefore reflected in an increase in the area
of the land in the vicinity of the central place that was
converted from grain to fruits and vegetables.
Throughout our unit of long duration, fruits figured
prominently in the exports of Kabul and Kandahar. Elphin
stone observed that "there are many orchards and gardens
round Kandahar" (Vol.II:133), and of Mazar it was observed
that the town, like other towns in the northern region,
was "more of a dense mass of inhabited orchards and gar
dens than a regular town" (GA, Mazar-i-Sharif:413).
Variations in the price of grain in the northern re
gion seems to have been in marked contrast to that of
other regions of the country. Some time in the 1880s
probably 1885-86 a British officer visiting the region
stated that a rupee could buy 1480 lbs. or more of grain
(Ibid:115). For May 23, 1895, Kakar, without giving the
name of the locality, quotes a price of 1083 lbs. of
wheat per rupee but, for November 8, 1883 he qU0tes a
204
price of 29 lbs of wheat per rupee (1979:237-41). With
out having the name of the specific locality, the dis
crepancy is too great to be credible. All British offi
cials commented on the cheapness of provisions in the
northern region. After the famine of 1885 in Kabul, great
quantities of grain were said to have been sent there
from Khanabad -- 380-390 miles from Kabul through the
mountainous central region (GA,Badakhshan:99). This may
indicate that the price was indeed so low that even after
bearing the high cost of transportation, grain could still
be sold at a price affordable by the people of Kabul.
Cheapness of grain in the last two decades of the
nineteenth century was probably an outcome of the de-popu
lation of the northern region after the wars and famines
of the previous fifty years. Information from the six
teenth to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, while
lacking in quantifiable data, does not give the impres
sion that the situation of the 1880s and 1890s was at all
typical of the earlier period (McChesney,R.,1973:107ff.).
But whether there was a unified regional tendency in the
movement of prices even in the period of prosperity of
the region remains to be investigated. Information on
the pattern of flow of grain from the 1880s and 1890s in
dicates at least three SUb-regions that may each have had
its own distinctive price history for grain. These sub
regions seem to have been formed around the districts of
205
Maimana and Shibarghan in the west, those of Akcha,
Andkovy, Mazar, and Tashkurghan, relying on the fertile
locality of Hazhda Nahr [18 canals] in the center, and
Khanabad, Imam Sahib, and Taluqan in the east (Ibid; and
GA,Mazar-i-Sharif). Since communication between sub-re
gions was to some extent impeded by the waterless tracts
separating them from each other, it is likely that, in
ordinary years, centers of production in one sUb-region
did not supply other regions with grain.
As far as pattern of movement of grain in Badakhshan
and the central region are concerned, the available in
formation does not allow the drawing of any firm conclu
sions. The same difficulty faces us in assessing the
character of the secular trends for the country or any
of its regions to any degree of certainty. The dominant
obstacle in the way of generalizations here is posed by
the yearly fluctuation of prices over any conjectural
unit. Martin, for instance, asserted that the price of
bread had risen four-fold in the eighteen years between
1885 and 1903 (1907:238). Examination of the data in
table III, however, reveals that while prices between 1886
and 1893 are indeed very high in comparison to 1880, the
price of wheat in 1900 was cheaper than that of 1880. In
the first decade of the nineteenth century, when Elphin
stone collected his information, a rupee bought 60 lbs of
wheat flour in the central place of Kabul and "in the
206
country perhaps half as much again" (vol.I:391). Prices
in the valley of Logar, a regular center of supply of
Kabul, during the first invasion of the country by the
British army, 1839-42, had risen to 40-48 lbs per rupee
and the same price had again prevailed during the civil
war of 1867-68 (GA,Kabul,348ff) • Charles Masson, who be-
tween 1832 and 1838 lived openly as a European in Kabul,
stated that "while the quality of provisions brought into
the Kabal markets is excellent, prices are liable to much
fluctuation, especially in the various kinds of grain;
and the reason is, obviously, that the country at large
scarcely yields a sufficient quantity for the supply of
its inhabitants, and wheat becomes an article of import.
It follows hence, that not only are prices subject to
variation from extraordinary accidents, as partial or
general failure of the crops, the ravages of locusts, &c.,
but that they are affected by the ordinary and constantly
occuring changes of the season. Winter in Kabal is al
ways distinguished by high prices, and the advance immed
iately follows the stoppage of its communication by snow.
In the famines which, from time to time, have afflicted
Kabal, the misery has naturally been most intense within
the city during the winter; •.. The last serious famine
occured in the reign of Shah Mahmud [1809-1818]; and since
that time so great an evil has been happily averted, not
withstanding occasional years of scarcity have, in the or-
207
der of things, presented themselves" (vol. II, 1842/1974:
270) .
Political and ecological conditions were not alone
in affecting the fluctuations in the price of grain in a
region. Inter-regional and long distance trade have to
be taken account of as well, for the volume and direction
of trade had a direct bearing on the marketability of
agricultural surplus in areas of production as well as
on the demand for food in central places.
Whereas I have argued that the prevailing mode of
transportation formed an obstacle in the development of
long-distance trade in grain, it did not hinder long-dis
tance trade in more expensive commodities. The cost of
carraige and the slow tempo of movement imposed by the
pace of camels and other animals forced the travellers
to interact with the people of regions through which
they travelled. Expensive articles forming the cargo of
caravans, travellers prefered to acquire their food sup
ply from villages on or near the roads instead of carrying
it over long distances, which would have meant reducing
the volume of their precious merchandise. Consquently,
when the flow of traffic was regular, villages along the
route could count on the disposal of a portion or all of
their surplus without having to take the goods to a cen
tral place. Furthermore, since central places were the
nodal points where those engaged in long-distance trade
208
exchanged their wares, bought local products, rested from
their journeys, and gathered information on conditions of
trade, these centers usually had a floating sector of pop
ulation. The actual numbers of this sector followed the
ebbs and flows of the trade but when their numbers were
regularly large, they undoubtedly exerted a strong impact
on the demand of a central place for gain and, thereby,
on the nexus between centers of production and central
place(s). I shall illustrate this assertion with some
empirical examples.
In 1884, Ashkinak, about 200 miles from Kandahar on
the Kandahar-Herat road, was a ruined fort where about
one hundred families lived. Yet, there was "considerable
cultivation, mostly wheat, [t]here and along the entire
road" (GA,Farah:23). The inhabitants disposed of their
surplus production by selling it to caravans (Ibid). All
accounts of Europeans who travelled with caravans before
and during our period of long duration confirmed this
practice. Indeed, when a caravan passes uninhabited ter
ritory, the traveller explicitly noted the fact that pro
visions had to be carried with them (Honingberger,M.,1834:
176) .
Closure of the port of Hormuz, on the Persian gulf,
as a result of the conflict between Portuguese and Per
sian states from 1613 onwards and the consequent reorien
tation of trade through Kandahar, provides a dramatic ex-
209
ample of the impact that infusion of large-scale long-dis
tance trade could have on a region. Richard Steel and
John Crowther, who passed through Kandahar on their way
from India to Persia, stated that, whereas before 1613
scarcely 3000 camels took this route, the number of camels
passing through after that year was between 12,000 and
14,000 (1965:269). They bought provisions from Afghans
along the route and, among changes in the city of Kandahar,
they observed that "by reason of frequent passage of Cara
vans it is much enlarged lately, that the Suburbs are
bigger then the Citie. For within this two yeare, that
the way of Ormus is stopped up by the wars betwixt the
Persians and PortugaIs, all Caravans which passe betwixt
India and Persia, must of necessitie goe by this place.
And here they doe hire Camels to go into India, and at
their returne for Persia. They cannot returne also with
out the Governours leave, which causeth them to stay a
moneth, and when least, sixteene or twentie days ... Pro
visions of victuals is there in great abundance for man
and beast, yet deare by so great concourse II (Ibid:272).
But all those travellers who stayed in central places
were not forced to do so. George Forester, who, in 1783
and 1784, travelled from Kashmir and Peshawar to Herat,
-- all within the domain of the Afghan state at the time
--, wrote of Peshawar that "from its well chosen position,
which unites by a commercial chain, Persia and Afghanistan
210
with India, Peshawar has become an important mart, and
the residence of wealthy merchants; especially of the
shaul dealers, many of whom disliking the dangerous and
tedious route of Kashmire, are here enabled to make their
purchases at a moderate advance on the first cost" (1798:
vol.II:SO).
An idea of the time this floating population actually
spent at various central places may be gathered from the
travel accounts of Burnes and Gerard in 1833. They
started from Peshawar with a caravan on March 15. After
reaching Kabul on May 1, they arrived at Balkh, in the
northern region, on June 10. Altogether they spent 61
days at three central places: Peshawar, 34 days; Kabul,
17; and Khulm in the northern region, 10 days (1833:1).
Trade, however, was in no way a constant element
throughout our period of long duration. But before as
sessing its fluctuation, I must take account of the role
played by central places as market places and of the
structural relations of marketing.
Organizationally, the northern and southern part of
the country displayed different features. The difference
was not in the presence or absence of exchange relation
ships but in the structuring of circulation. While all
markets in the north were periodic, those in central
places in the south were permanent.
Faizabad, the central place in the region of
211
Badakhshan, had had two market-places -- one of 200 shops
and another of 85 shops -- which met twice a week (GA,
Badakhshan:66). In Badakhshan and the eastern part of
the northern region, which during the 1880s and 1890s
formed one administrative unit, the number of shops in
the following market-places is reported to be: Chahyab,
200; Rustak, 145; Talooqan, 250 (Ibid:52,245,277). Mar
kets days, in each case, were confined to two a week. Ex
cept for Talooqan, the days of the week for each market
are not given. There is also mention of bi-weekly markets
for almost every district but without any details on the
existence of a market-place or the coordination of schedul
ing with other localities (Ibid:89,99,127,etc.)
Information from the central and western parts of
the northern region, although still fragmentary, allows
for a fuller grasp of the situation. Colonel Maitland
who, as a member of the boundary commission, travelled
throughout most of the region in 1885-86, wrote in 1889
that the people of the region "have a regular market
place, with booths, in the center of each country district,
and here weekly or bi-weekly fairs are held, which are
largely resorted to for amusement, as well as business"
(GA,Mazar-i-Sharif:588). Nowhere did the number exceed
two days a week. The market-place of Tashkurghan, which
contained 450 to 500 shops, and was described as "the
largest and most flourishing in Afghan Turkistan" and "the
212
emporium of the central Asian trade" (Ibid:567), was held
on Sundays and Wednesdays. At a distance of 160 miles
from Tashkurghan, the market-place of the town of Andkhui
comprised 83 shops (Ibid:65) and the market-days were
Sunday and Thursday (Yate,C.E.,1888:235). The distance
between the two centers was too great to allow for quick
flow of information on a regular basis and the fact that
Sundays were common market-days was probably a reflection
of the articulation of each center with its own sub-mar
kets. That a regular relationship between a marketing
center and its sub-districts did in fact exist is demon
strated by the case of Maimana -- 130 miles from Tash
kurghan and about 30 miles from Andkui.
In 1886, Maimana's market-place contained 235 shops
and the town derived "much of its importance as being
the place of exchange for goods brought from Herat, Kanda
har, and Mashad on one side, from Kabul and Ba1kh on the
other, and from Bokhara and Andkui on the third" (GA,
Mazar-i-Sharif:398). But Maimana also played an impor
tant role with its own sub-districts. Although market
days for Maimana and its sub-districts are not specified,
it is known that they were not held on the same days. Of
the sub-district of A1mar, a British officer wrote that
"in the center of the plain is a row of mud huts, con
taining about 100 shops, which are occupied only on the
weekly ba~ar day by traders from Maimana, who sell cloth,
213
cottons, tea, sugar, etc., and buy the produce of the
country" (Ibid:385). Weekly markets were held in at least
two other sub-districts of Maimana (Ibid:389) and if the
traders, as it was the case in Almar, actually came from
Maimana, it would seem to indicate that the periodic char
acter of the markets allowed the traders to extend their
services to a group of population much larger than that
of the town in which they resided.
On the other hand, periodicity of markets could also
serve the interests of the peddler, part-time trader, or
producer. The town of Akcha, 90 miles from Maimana wester
ly and 90 miles from Tashkurghan easterly, had 100 to 120
shops in its market-place. But on its bi-weekly market
days "242 shops and stalls" were open (Ibid:47). As there
is no information on the days during which bi-weekly mar
kets in towns such as Shiberghan, Mazar, Haibak, -- re
spectively 20, 58, and 127 miles from Akcha -- met, it
cannot be concluded as to whether those who set up the
stalls came from these places or whether they belonged to
the categories I have mentioned. My impression from vis
its to the area in the 1970s is that the people setting
up stalls were local peddlers and producers.
That the scheduling of market-days was not random
but involved coordination among a network of traders is
affirmed by the case of four settlements on the river
Oxus. In the sub-district of Karkin, part of Khwaja
214
Salar district and 74 miles from Mazar-i-Sharif, markets
were held weekly; they were bi-weekly in the sub-district
of Dali and weekly in the Kham-i-Ab. "In Bosaga, just
across the Bokharan boundary, there [was] a fourth
bazar, said to be half-owned by the people of the Khwaja
Salar district. Fair days there once a week" (Ibid:444).
Although market-days are not mentioned, the example of
Maimana makes it highly likely that the merchants moved
from market-place to market-place.
The information at my disposal does not permit me to
draw any conclusions on the hierarchy of markets during
the regular periods of the year in the northern part of
the country. It seems likely, however, that periodicity
of the markets reflected the coordination of exchange
relationships between a market-place and its centers of
production rather than with other markets. But during
some months of the year, there seems to have been a distinc-
tive hierarchy. These revolved around a fair in Mazar-i-
Sharif and another in Hazrat-i-Iman.
Trade in the bi-weekly market-place of Mazar was
described as "chiefly local" during the regular months.
But from the 21st of March, which marked the beginning
of the Afghan year, and for two months, a fair called
Mela-i-Gul-Surkh ["fair of the red tulip", so called be-
cause of the profusion of that flower around the alleged
tomb of Caliph Ali in Mazar] was held there. The fair
2 1 -_:J
was attended by "buyers and sellers from the north of the
oxus, as well as from the whole of Afghan Turkistan, Kabul,
Herat, and" the central region (Ibid:251). In Hazart-i
Iman, which derives its name from a shrine of great re
pute there and is located just a few miles from the river
Oxus, the fair was held at the same time as that in Mazar.
However, buyers and sellers there must have corne from the
eastern part of the northern region, Badakshan, and lo
calities north of the Oxus (GA,Badakhshan:80).
Whether market-days in towns and their surrounding
districts followed different schedules or whether centers,
like Balkh, ruined during the l880s but the dominant cen
ter of the northern region from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth centuries, had markets that were open through
out the week are questions that will have to await fur
ther.research. That throughout our unit of long duration,
permanent market-places were a continuous feature of the
central places of Kabul, Kandahar and Herat, is attested
by all travellers and historians of the period.
The center of each city was marked by a bazar con
sisting of covered arcades (which, at the time of con
struction were planned to be of equal length and dimen
sion but subsequently, because of additions or destruc
tions, may have assumed irregular shape) as well as a num
ber of market-places that were constructed in open air
(GA,Herat:161; Kandahar:239;Masson,C.,vol.II,1842/1974:
216
276-68 for Kabul}. The great bazar in Kabul was destroyed
by the British army during its plunder of the city before
withdra"Ting from the country in 1842 (Kaye,J. ,1858:368-69),
yet the description by Masson of the activities of the
outdoors markets in the 1830s is closely echoed by Duke
for the 1880s (1883;192-98). Although all three central
places were in a weaker economic position at the end of
our period of long duration than at its beginning, a des
cription of the situation in Kandahar in the l880s, the
only center aoout which statistical material of this nature
exists, will serve to underline the contrast in scale be
tween the periodic markets of the north and the permanent
ones of the south.
At that time, there were about 1,600 shops in the
city and the number of shnps or families engaged in the
trades were as follows: armourers, 12; ata [flour], drug,
etc. sellers, 113; bakers, 30; barbers, 14; blacksmiths,
39~ .•. (GA,Kandahar:245~-461. It can be easily seen that
while most traders catered to th.e needs of residents of
the central place itself, the activities of a number of
them could have not been carried on without the patronage
of the inhaoitants of centers of agricultural production.
That people not living in the central place visited it re
gularly on business is demonstrated by the existence of
a market-center in the open air outside the city walls,
called "the gang, where a large cattle, sheep, and grain
217
market .IwasJ held daily, and brisk business IwasJ carried
on" (Ibid: 2 451. Those who sold their goods in the' gang
could easily buy the items needed by themselves and/or
their co-villagers from the markets of the central place.
At this juncture, it should be noted that the cost
of transport affected producers who brought their own pro
duce to the markets of the central place quite differently
from the professional carriers or long-distance traders
who owned their own pack-animals. The investment o£ dir
ect producers and landowners in animals was a necessity
for performing the work on the land, and the cost of their
maintenance was part of the expenses of a farm. When they
were harnessed to th.e task of carrying the agricultural
produce to the town, as far as the producer was concerned
it could be viewed in the same light as work on the farm.
It is only when the distance to the central place reached
such. an extent that the producer had to go to extra ex
penses for his own upkeep and th.at of the animals, and
the time spent travelling prevented him from fulfilling
other tasks on the farm, that his expenses came to resem
ble those of the professional carrier.
If inco~e of £amilies in other parts of the country
resembled that of the average family in the Kunar valley,
buying an animal was quite a significant investment. By
comparison to the average size of inheritance of 420 ru-'
pees - including land and chattels - at the time of death
218
of the property-owner, the price in the l880s of animals
in the valley of Herat were as follows: camel, 200 rupees;
oxen, 150 rupees; cow, 100 rupees; donkey, 40 rupees. The
compiler of the Gazetteer also noted that bullocks were
"largely used for transport purposes" (GA,Herat:6). As
bullocks were the major animals used for plowing, it can
be inferred that producers and landlords, at least in lo
calities close to the central place, took part in trans
porting their produce to the markets. Yet, as a group
of people specialized in carrying agricultural products
from centers of production to the central place markets,
producers and landlords did not necessarily engage in that
task,
Masson, in his description of the cattle, grain,
fruits, wood, and ch.arcoal markets of Kabul, stated that
"as in other places, all traffic is transacted through the
medium cif the broker, or dalal" (l842,vol.II:269). He
also affirmed that "besides the shopkeepers, or fixed trades
men, a vast number of itinerant traders parade the bazars"
(Ibid). While his claim that all transactions were en
acted through brokers might be an exageration, brokers
and peddlers certainly played a very important role in the
exchange between a central place and its centers of pro
duction, and the two functions were often carried by the
same person. Brokers visited the centers of production
regularly after each. harvest; since they were fully aware
219
of both the demand of the central place for agricultural
produce and the conditions of production in a large area
of the country, they played an important role in the de
termination of the price of agricultural produce. Fur~
thermore, as the data from the court archives of Kunar and
fieldwork in the 1970.s lead .me to believe, these brokers
often acted as creditors to rural producers and landlords,
a position which enahled th.em to acquire agricultural pro
duce below the price prevailing in a locality, I will re
turn to this group in connection with the financial struc
ture of the state.
Besides the brokers and peddlers from ce~tral places,
the villagers had a regular exchange relationship with
the long-distance traders who regularly passed through
their areas. G.T, Vigne, who travelled with. the yearly
caravan of the Lohani clan, a group of Afghan long-dis
tance traders who every year covered the road from Multan
in India to Bokahran and Russian fairs, and back again,
observed that, upon reaching the plain of Katawaz in the
vicinity of the town o£ Ghazni in the eastern region, on
June 19, 1836, "the caravan .might be seen dividing, each
party making for a separate village or fort, with the in
tention of remaining there a £ew days, weeks, or even
months, according to the time required for the sale of
their .merchandis·e to the wild inhabitants of the numerous
forts on the plain, and the still wilder Hazarah tribes,
220
who descend from the snowy range of the Narawah mountains,
for the purpose of traffic" Cl840!ll3). As these visits
were regular and social relations were cultivated over
the years, there was little need for the inhabitants of
these areas to make a journey to Kabul which was at a dis
tance of about one hundred ~iles. Prevalence of exchange
relations, however, did not imply that the medium of ex
change be the same in all transactions. As consideration
of this issue has become an oDject of controversy, it is
necessary to take account of the theoretical terms before
proceeding ,,,ith the empirical description,
Karl Polanyi, who called attention to the different
uses of money, offered a classification of money as equiva
lence, means of payment, standard or measure of value,
store of wealth, and means of exchange, He argued that
"a comparative study of early money institutions must
start fram the fact, wh.ile ~odern money is ,. all-purpose'
money, i.e., the medium of exchange is also employed for
the other money uses, primitive and early moneys tend to
be 'limited purpose' moneys, i.e., different objects are
employed in different money uses" (1977:120; also 1968~
17S-203t.
Polanyi's proposal, altho~gh considered novel at the
time, was not new. Karl Marx had stated that "if we con
sider ~oney, its existence implies a definite state in
the exchange of commodities. The particular functions of
221
money which it performs, either as ~ere equivalence of
commodities, or as means of circulation, or means of pay
ment, as hoard or as universal money, points, according
to the extent and relative preponderance of one function
or the other, to very di£fe.rent stages in the process of
social production {~apital,vol.I:170,emphasis in the ori
ginal}.
Although Marx does not mention money as a measure of value
in the above quotation, earlier in the same volume CIbid~
84-142), he had devoted an entire section to the discus
sion of the trajectory through which money embodied dif
ferent relations, from measure of value to universal money.
The process of trans£ormation through which Marx traces
the development of universal money from barter is too ela
borate to be summarized here. For the present purpose,
it is sufficient to note that he connected the process
to the degree to which communities possessing different
means of production are trans£ormed into one society
through reqular exchanqe (Ibid:351-52).
In my discussion in this and other chapters, I have
regularly expressed th.e costs of services or prices of
commodities in terms of money and this may give the im
pression that, throughout the period of long duration,
money functioned as ·universal money in all the regions of
the country. In £act, the structural meaning of money
was more complex. While the notion of money as the under-
222
lying measure of value, means of payment, and. general equiv
alence of commodities was common, the actual means of pay
ment mayor may not have been in monetary currency. When
payments were not in monetary terms, a series of equiva
lences oetween different commodities was worked out. The
existence of such equivalences at times misled some vis
itors into concluding that a certain group did not have
money. Alexander Burnes, who passed through the central
region in 1832, asserted that "these people have no money,
and are almost ignorant 'of its' value. ~-re got everything
from them by barter ••• A traveller among them can only
purchase the necesaries of life by giving a few yards of
coarse cloth, a little tobacco, pepper, or sugar, which
are here appreciated far aoove their value" <.1834/1973,
vol.I :177-78). In view of the fact that, in the same
period, taxes from the region were computed in monetary
terms (Masson, C. ,1842/1974, vol, II: 373) , it is hard to
accept Burnets assertion. Yet, as another example makes
clear, acceptance of money as means of payment did not
imply the acceptance of other equivalances of money for
cormnodities, Shah Shuja, who ruled over Afghanistan from
180.3 ..... 1809 and again 1839 ..... 42, relates a revealing incident
in his autobiography.
In the course of one of his failed attempts at
gaining the throne o.etween 180Q and 180.3, Sh.uj a was forced
to travel in same of the remote valleys of the eastern
223
and southern regions. Of the Kakr clan, who inhabited the
southern region, he wrote "the simplicity of the Kakar
people showed itself to such an extent: when we needed
barley and fodder for the horses and grain for the attend
ants and ourselves on a daily basis, they gave 3 sers
[approximately 49 lbs.] for one rupee. But at the time,
no silver currency was left with us and when for a con
tainer of flour weighing 3 Indian sers (approximately 61
lbs.) \ve offered them a pearl valued at 100 rupees, from
ignorance and simplicity, they would not accept it and
c1enanded rupees" (1825/1954: 7) .
Preference for goods or money may have been related
to the frequency and regularity of regional and long-dis
tance trade that passed through a locality.
As far as long-distance business transactions were
concerned, large amounts of money that would have been
needed were not actually carried around. Instead, mer
chants and travellers had recourse to the well-developed
system of bills of exchange throughout India, Central Asia,
and Russian dominions in Asia. All European travellers
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made use of it,
hut Burne's experience in 1832 may be taken as typical.
He wrote that "I had a letter of credit in my possession
for the sum of five thousand rupees, payable from the pub
lic treasuries of Lodiana or Delhi; and the Cabool mer
chants did not hestitate to accept it. They expressed
224
their readiness either to discharge it on the spot with
gold, or give bills on Russia at St. MaCaire (Nijnei
Novogorodl, Astracan, or Bokhara, which I had no reason
to question: I took orders on the latter city lI834/1974,
vo 1. I ~ I 7 0) •
This banking network was intimately linked with ethnic
and political relationships in the area and as the activi
ties of this group and that of long-distance trade in gen
eral were strongly affected by the prevalent relations of
domination in the country I shall examine this issue in
connection with the financial structure of the state in the
following part of this study.
225
ASHRAF GHANI
VOLUME II
COLUMBI..~ UNIVERSI T'l'
1982
PART II
CHAPTER FIVE
Social Relations -- An Historical Overview
Pierre Bourdieu argues that lIit is in the degree
of objectification of the accu'f.1.ulated social capital
that one find the basis of all the pertinent differ
ences between on the one hand social universes in which
relations of domination are made, unmade, and remade in
and by the interactions between persons, and on the other
hand, social formations in which, mediated by objective,
institutionalized mechanisms ••. relations of domination
have the opaci ty and permanence of things and escape the
grasp of individual consciousness and power" (1972/1977:
184). In his view, exercise of power in situations where
a social machine for its perpetuation has not developed
constitutes "the elementary form of domination ll (Ibid:
190). He maintains that lithe reason for the pre-capital
ist economy's great need for symbolic violence is that
the only way in which relations of domination can be set
up, maintained, or restored, is through strategies which,
being expressly oriented towards the establishment of re
lations of personal dependence, must be disguised and
transfigured lest they destroy themselves by revealing
their true nature .•. violence is here both more present
and more hidden" (Ibid:191).
The nexus posited by Bourdieu between the development
226
of institutions, as objectified social capital, and the
process of social reproduction of relations of domination
requires close scrutiny and I shall return to it later.
Bourdieu's conceptualization of reproduction in pre-capi
talist societies is, however, questionable. While at
first his observations are directed towards explaining
the differences in modes of domination between societies
which "have no 'self-regulating market' (in Karl Polanyi's
sense), no educational system, no juridical apparatus,
and no State" and those where domination is "entailed in
possession of the means (economic or cultural capital) of
appropriating the mechanisms of the field of cultural
production" (Ibid:183-84), in the course of the essay the
emphasis subtly shifts to contrasting modes of domination
in pre-capitalist and capitalist societies. Bourdieu's
abrupt transition from societies characterized by the ab
sence of institutionalized means of domination to pre
capitalist societies as such is rather surprising for an
anthropologist. After all, the analysis of differences
in ways strategic resources have been appropriated in
such societies has constituted a main concern of the field
of political anthropology (Fried,1967).
To illustrate ethnographically his theoretical obser
vations, Bourdieumainly refers to "ancient Kabylia." But,
as this "society" is abstracted out of historical time
and space, there is no way of knowing whether he implies
227
that the end result of strategies is a simple reproduction
of the relation of domination or whether the system as
such is in flux. The former assumption would squarely
place him with the structural-functionalists who, in the
words of Meyer Fortes, declare that "tension is implicit
in the equilibirium" (1940:271). The latter assumption
would align him with Edmund Leach whose path-breaking an
alysis of political systems of Highland Burma is the point
of departure for anthropological analysis attempting at
integrating history as a result of contradictory social
relations.
Writing of of the Kachin Hills Area, for which his
torical records go as far back as the beginning of the
nineteenth century, Leach states that "these show clearly
that during the last 130 years the political organization
of the area has been very unstable. Small autonomous po
litical units have often tended to aggregate into larger
systems; large-scale feudal hierarchies have fragmented
into smaller units. There have been violent and very
rapid shifts in the overall distribution of political
power. It is therefore methodologically unsound to
treat the different varieties of political system which
we now find in the area as independent types; they should
clearly be thought of as part of a larger total system in
flux" (1954/1964:6). He insists that the process of emer
gence and breakdown of larger units be viewed not as part
/,28
of the process of structural continuity but of structural
change, which he defines as "shifts in the focus of poli
tical power within a given system" (Ibid:9).
Responding from an evolutionary perspective to Leach's
analysis of the interrelationship of different structual
forms in a total system in flux, Fried postulates a dif
ferent trajectory for the evolution of complex society.
Starting from the assumption that stratified society must
be one "of the least stable models of organization" (1967:
225), he argues that it had either to dissolve into forms
of organization lacking differential access to strategic
resources or evolve more powerful institutions of politi
cal control (Ibid:224-26). Thus, the stage is set for
the rise of the state, defined as "a collection of special
ized institutions and agencies, some formal and others in
~orrnal, that maintains an order of stratification" (Ibid:
235) .
Fried contends that the structure of the state is
essentially cellular, "that is, made up of a variety of
different kinds of components, with these components being
joined in'co subsystems that articulate wi th the whole, with
the larger structure of the government, only at higher le
vels" (Ibid:237). Examples of such subsystems include
family and kin groups, communities and regions, offices
and bureaus, clubs and gangs, and even layers and levels
of the administrative apparatus itself. It is in the ar-
229
ticulation of these subsystems, with each other and with
the institutions of the state, I will argue, that atten
tion to strategies of individuals and groups will reveal
unsuspected nexuses in the mechanisms of reproduction of
a mode of domination. Fried, however, stresses another
aspect of the interelationsip. He maintains that in the
communication among these "sometimes disparate entities
there is always an understood priority of arrangement of
orders and coercive inducements to decisions, the level
of highest ultimate priority is equivalent to an internal
concept of sovereignty ••• There is also an external as
pect of sovereignty as discrete political units recognize
or dispute each other's autonomy" (Ibid:237).
Fried's emphasis on the importance of coercion in
defining the sphere of power of a pol tical entity is an
indispensable criterion, but the notions of sovereignty
and discrete political units draw attention to the degree
of stability of these relations as well as the issue of
interpretation of ideological expressions. That political
relations in a large number of pre-capitalist systems have
been in the past characterized by flux is revealed in
Reinhard Bendix's comparative survey of kingship and
aristocracy in which he affirms that "the countries ruled
by kings may have been slow to change socially and econom
ically, but politically they were scenes of turmoil and
bloodshed" (1978:218). He also raises the question of
230
the difference between formal expressions of sovereignty
and its actual content: "Vassals of the king could use
their status and resources to develop their own power,
sometime "to such an extent that kings and aristocrats
became bitter enemies despite all outward signs of majesty
and obedience" (Ibid:226). Clearly, we are in need of
criteria for determining the degree of autonomy and de
pendence of individuals and groups within a state.
Stanley Tambiah's analysis of the Buddhist policy
in ancient India warns against the misreading of ideologi
cal expressions of hierarchy, and attempts to explain the
survival of a highly complex pattern of stratification
over a wide area in the absence of a centralized state.
Refuting the notion that the Buddhist state under emperor
Ashoka was bureacratized centralized monarchy, he affirms
that it was "a kind of galaxy-type structure with lesser
political replicas revolving around the central entity
and in perpetual motion of fission or incorporation. In
deed .•• a king as a wheel-rolling world ruler by defini
tion required lesser kings under him who in turn encom
passed still lesser rulers" (1976:70). As far as the
consequent fragmentation of the large empire is concerned,
he claims that the contours of the caste-based social or
der had no compulsive need for an expression in kingship
and that the existing cultural and linguistic diversity
allowed it to resist political unification. "In the In-
23l
dian context the social order was prior to its political
expression ... fragmenting did not damage the economic
prosperity of the time, for the new commercial segments
functioned and flourished despite the political decline
of the empire" (Ibid:71-72). This observation is methodo
logically very helpful and the presence or absence of cul
tural mechanisms that define a social order transcending
the boundaries of a state or states has to be investiga
ted from a comparative perspective.
Although at first Tambiah's orientation might seem
to contradict Fried's stipulation on the necessity of
coercion for the reproduction of stratification, atten
tion to the unit(s) of analysis, in my opinion, makes the
two approaches complementary. Whereas the use or threat
of use of force may place a preponderant role in the re
production of the mode of domination in each of the con
stituent political units of a larger social order, cul
tural mechanisms may play a dominant role in the inter
connections within the larger system. Furthermore, Fried's
distinction between "pristine" and "secondary" states is
relevant here. Pristine states are defined as those that
"emerged from stratified societies and experienced the
slow, autochthonous growth of the specialized formal in
struments of social control out of their own needs for
these institutions" (1967:231). But states which form
under the pressure of a pristine state "do not repeat the
232
steps which the original state experiences. These are
secondary states" (Ibid:240). Although departing frcm
Fried's original categorical use in the context of this
work, I shall use the term secondary state analytically
whenever a new state emerges in the context of an already
existing social and political order. The essential theo
retical point to be remembered is Fried's insistence that
"secondary states emerge through processes quite different
from those that give rise to the pristine states" (Ibid:
242). I will argue that it is at such junctures that
Bourdien's conceptualization of institutions as objecti
fied cultural capital can be most judiciously applied.
Once in existence, not only can these institutions be put
to use by different masters but, despite the flux of the
larger system, they might significantly condition the
reproduction, restructuring or de structuring of modes
of domination at the level of subsystems.
As the trajectories of fragmentation and centraliza
tion differ significantly in pre-capitalist formations,
focus on the articulation of different institutions both
in pre-capitalist and capitalist societies over relevant
periods of long duration may allow a better grasp of re
production as an historical process. This procedure,
however, requires that reductionist tendencies be resisted.
"For there is," warns Braudel, "no single conjuncture: we
must visualize a series of overlapping histories, develop-
233
ing simultaneously. It would be too simple, too perfect,
if this complex truth could be reduced to the rhythms of
one dominant pattern ... It is impossible to define even
the economic conjuncture as a single movement once and
for all, complete with laws and consequences" (1966/1973,
vol.II:892). Tensions and contradictions in the articula
tion of relations of production and domination in histor
ically specific circumstances will provide the locus of
analysis.
As far as the economic structure of society over any
unit of time is concerned, Marx's definition provides a
useful departure. Society is viewed as equivalent to
the "social process of production in general. The latter
is as much a production process of material conditions of
human life as a process taking place under specific his
torical and economic relations, producing and reproducing
these production relations themselves, and thereby also
the bearers of this process, their material conditions of
existence and their mutual relations, i.e., their particu
lar socio-economic form. For the aggregate of these re
lations, in which the agents of this production stand with
respect to Nature and to one another, and in which they
produce, is precisely society, considered from the stand
point of its economic structure" (Capital,III:818).
This posited link between the economic structure of
society and its political structure is, however, problema-
234
tic. Marx claimed that "the specific economic form, in
which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of the direct
producers, determines the relationship of rulers and
ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and,
in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon
this, however, is founded the entire formation of the eco
nomic community which grows up out of the production rela
tions themselves, thereby simultaneously its political
form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners
of the conditions of production to the "direct producers
a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite
stage in the development of the methods of labour and
thereby its social productivity -- which reveals the in
nermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social
structure, and with it the political form of the relation
of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding
form of the state" (Ibid:79l). Significantly, he immedi
ately added a caveat which almost amounts to the negation
of the grand pronouncement: "This does not prevent the
same economic basis the same from the standpoint of
its main conditions due to innumerable different
empirical circumstances, natural environment, racial rela
tions, external historical influences, etc., from showing
infinite variations and gradations in appearance, which
can be ascertained only by analysis of the empirically
given circumstances" (Ibid:792).
235
Marx seemed to assume an organic unity between the
boundaries of the economy, as defined by the organization
of the labor process, and the state. Application of his
definition of economic structure of society to concrete
circumstances, however, reveals there is no empirical or
theoretical justification for the validity of his assump
tion. Furthermore, the character of property relations
and the uses to which the extracted resources are put can
not be reduced to the organization of labor. Abundant
historical examples demonstrate the compatability of the
same forms of labor with very different total systems of
domination.
Marx's implicit identification of the state with the
class of property owners and his view of wider social re
lations as mere appearances are equally problematic.
Since these remarks are contained in the discussion of
pre-capitalist rent, they were presumably intended to shed
light on the structure of production and domination in
these societies. Marx seemed, however, to assert by theo
retical fiat what he was in need of demonstrating analyti
cally and empirically.
Analysis of the complexity of social relations in
concrete societies in time and place requires that atten
tion be paid to the articulation of the control both of
the means of production, domination -- administration and
persuasion (Max Weber) -- and the means of destruction
236
(Goody,J.,1971:39-57). Attention to the unity and multi-
plicity of loci of control and patterns of extraction as
well as patterns of redistribution in determinable con-
junctural units of time will allow for a more dynamic
understanding of the production and reproduction of these
relations. A concrete examination of these issues will
be permitted by investigating how political bodies in a
system finance their activities and control their re-
sources.
Max Weber defined financing as the "provision of cor-
porate activity with economically scarce means" and as-
serted that "the most direct connection between the eco-
nomic system and primarily non-economic organizations lies
in the way in which they secure the means of their corpor-
ate activities as such; that is, the activity of the ad-
ministrative staff itself and that which is directed by
it" (1956/1978:194). The advantage of this broader forrnu-
lation is that it leaves the actual character of the po-
litical bodies in question to be determined by empirical
analysis. The state is undoubtedly the most widely known
of such bodies but it is, by no means, the only one. His-
torically, there has been wide variation in the degree to
which a state has been able to carry out its financial
activities autonomously or has had to depend on other
organizations for the realization of its resources. Sim-
ilarly, the degree to which all subjects of the state
have been submitted to equal treatment, as far as realiza
tion of resources was concerned, varied from period to
period.
Unitl, now, I have deliberately kept to a minimum
the discussion of categories through which the people of
Afghanistan identified themselves. It is time to take
account of these relations and examine the degree to which
they corresponded with regional boundaries, the most pre
valent unit of reproduction of the economic structure dur
ing our period of long duration. In the remaining part
of this chapter, I shall discuss patterns of socio-politi
cal relations prior to the rise of the Afghan state in
1747. In the next chapter, I shall then discuss the pro
cess of emergence and reproduction of that state through
time and the role of Islam as ideology and law in the pro
cess of de structuring and restructuring of relations of
domination.
* * * *
From the beginning of the sixteenth century upto the
eighteenth century, the present territory of Afghanistan
was part of the Uzbeck, Safavid, and Mughal empires, as
shown in maps 8, 9, and 10. All these empires had been
formed in the first quarter of the sixteenth century and
demarcation of their spheres of influence was the out-
238
come of direct military confrontation among them. In the
sixteenth century, shifts in the balance of forces re
flected itself in the frequency with which various regions
changed hands. During the seventeenth century, however,
the boundaries remained relatively stable: Badakhshan and
the northern region formed part of the Uzbeck empire, the
western and southern regions part of the Safavid empire,
and the eastern region part of the Mughal empire. Various
localities in the central region fell within the zones of
one or other of the three empires or remained relatively
autonomous. The degree of exercise of power by an empire
within a region was not uniform and, as we shall see later
differed considerably in central and peripheral locations.
The complexity of the process of consolidation of a
secondary state is best revealed through the example of
the western region, centered on the city of Herat. Hav
ing served as the capital of the Timurid empire for a
century, Herat had all the institutions of a stratified
society when Muhammad Khan, the Uzbeck ruler, defeated
the last Timurid rulers of the city in 1606. Upon the
departure of the Timurid princes, in the words of a con
temporary historian, the "saaat [those whose claim of
descent from the Prophet of Islam is accepted by the
community], quzat [judges], akaber [great man], and
ayan [notables]" of Herat gathered for deliberation and
decided to pledge obedience to Muhammad Khan (Khawandmir,
239
vol.IV:376). As a result of negotiations between repre
sentatives of this group and the Khan, it was agreed that
a payment of 100,000 tanga be made by "the common people"
to the Khan. "The great people" were to pay 20,000 tanga
to the Khan and 15,000 to Maulana Abdur Rahim, the reli
gious dignitary attached to the service of the Khan, pre
viously a student in Herat, who had arranged the negotia
tions. The city was then taken over by Maulana Abdur
Rahim and other Uzbeck officials and, within a week, the
agreed sums were realized from its inhabitants. During
the Friday prayer, the khutba, the public acknowledgement
which legitimated the authority of the new ruler, was
read in the name of the Uzbeck Khan (Ibid:378-79).
Herat remained under Uzbeck rule until 1510 when
Muhammad Khan was killed in a battle against the Safavid
Shah. The ashraf and ayan (nobles and notables) of Herat
then received the representative of the Shah who was
bearer of an edict especially issued in their name (Ibid:
514). The amount of tribute imposed on the people of
Herat by the Shah was not specified in the edict but when
the Safavid ruler entered the city a thousand men were
needed to carry the gifts presented to him by the newly
appointed governor of the city (Ibid:518). There is lit
tle doubt that the governor had realized most of these
"gifts" from its citizenry.
Safavid conquest did not confine itself to this well-
240
established form of extraction. Having declared the
Shi'a form of Islam as the official religion of the state,
Safavid rulers put intense symbolic pressure, backed by
the actual use of forces, to convert to Shi'ism a popula
tion that hitherto had adhered to the Sunni faith. The
people of Herat were given a demonstration of the reli
gious commitment of their new rulers upon the arrival of
the Shah's representative to the city. At a gathering
of both the "select and common" people in the major mosque
of the city was read to the population the edict issued
by the Shah, by an eminent religious scholar. Yet, des
pite urgings by Safavid soldiers present in the mosque,
he refused to engage in the ritual cursing of the first
three caliphs of Islam and of a wife of the Prophet as
was sanctioned by the Shi'a establishment. In order to
impress the gathering, the Shah's representative immed
iately killed with his own hands the dignitary there in
the mosque. Thereafter, the ritual was followed (Ibid:
515-516) .
Prior to the emergence of the Safavid empire in 1503,
Shi'ism had relied on persuasion rather than force for
gaining adherents. Although the shi'a doctrine had been
shaped by its ulema, the main avenue for seizure of po
litical power by the Safavid family had been a Sufi order.
The role of Sufi orders in the reproduction and spread
of the Islamic social order has been one of the most ne-
241
glected topics in the social history and anthropology of
the Islamic world. Since these activities occur before
and during our period of long duration, it is necessary
to analyze briefly the organizational patterns of one
such order which emerged in Mughal India and has continued
to play an important role in the history of Afghanistan
uptil this day.
The activities of Sufi orders have been eminently
connected with the mobility of their members, bypassing
the boundaries of anyone state or region. Movements of
people have played an extremely important part in the so
cial and economic orientations of the formative period
of the Islamic world, i.e. between 700 and 1100. Andrew
Watson, who has analyzed the "Arab agricultural revolu
tion and its diffusion" during that period, affirms that
all classes of people travelled a great deal -- lithe
rich and poor, the scholar and the illiterate, the holy
and the not so holy. Poverty was no obstacle: one could
move by foot, begging along the way; relatives could be
imposed upon endlessly; patrons were readily found for
scholars or holy men, or those who posed as such; a place
to bunk, and perhaps to eat, was available outside the
main mosque in most cities. Lured on in search of money,
adventure or truth, Muslims from every region left home
and roamed to and fro over the continents II (1974:21).
That the social order had managed to reproduce itself suc-
242
cessfully after the fall of the Abbasid state which had
played a crucial role in shaping it (Shaban,M.A.,1970:138-
69), is indicated by a revealing comment of Marshal
Hodgson. He states that: "in 1500, Islamdom was expanding
over the hemisphere as a relatively integral cultural and
political order. Despite considerable diversity of langu
age, custom, artisitic tradition, and even religious prac
tice, the unit of Dar aI-Islam was a more significant fact
politically than the existence of any of the states with
in it, which were of a local and in many cases a transi
ent character" (1974,vol.III:4). That, despite the fra
gile character of the states, the Islamic social order was
being successfully reproduced reflects the strength of
its institutions. Sufi orders were one of these institu
tions.
Not only did Sufi orders transcend the bounds of the
locally based political and economic social relations,
they also gathered in their ranks members from different
strata of society. This can best be illustrated from
reference to the re-organization of an order by Shaykh
Ahmad Sirhandi (1564-1624), honored by his followers with
the title Mujadid-i Alf-i-Thani (the Renovator of the
Second Millenium). Since studies of the development of
his intellectual views as well as the reception of these
views by his contemporaries and subsequent generations
are readily available (Friedmann,Y.,197IiRar~an,F.,1968),
243
I have confined myself to a description of the organiza
tional features of the movement.
A biographical account of Sirhandi, his children and
twenty of his chief disciplines, written by a follower
shortly after the death of the Shaykh (Hazart Al-Quds, re
printed in 1971) as well as a volume of Sirhandi's cor
respondence which was compiled in his lifetime (Maktubat,
reprinted in 1968), contain valuable information on the
structural aspects of the Naqshbandi Sufi order.
The data indicates that mobility in search of learn
ing the Sufi vision from the right master as well as the
goal of spreading that vision formed an integral part of
the life of the Sufi disciples. Coming from areas as
far apart as Central Asia and Bengal, most of them had
travelled through a considerable part of India before
being assigned as representatives of the order either to
their place of origin or to other localities. But even
with the attainment of the vision their wandering did not
cease and some continued to Arabia and other localities
in the Middle East. Both rich and poor were found in the
ranks. Some were men who had taken a vow of poverty and
earned their living from such pursuits as copying books,
others were landlords, connected to the court or possess
ing considerable wealth from previous careers.
The master determined the state of knowledge at
which a disciple was j udqed competent of initiating others
244
into the calling. Consequently, the length of time spent
by the disciple with the master varied considerably from
case to case. A closer reading of the biographies, how
ever, suggests that factors other than the spirituality
of the disciple may have been instrumental in the deci
sion. Whereas some spent as many as seven or eight years
before they were given permission to leave, an Afghan
devotee was allowed to depart after only a week. At the
time, a rival religious movement had mobilized a number of
Afghan clans in armed uprisings against the Mughal empire
and Sirhandi might have wanted to spread his ideas and
influence among the Afghans.
The ijazat (permission) granted to a khalifa (lit.
follower) could also be restricted in character. Thus,
an Afghan landlord who, upon seeking Sirhandi, had been
immediately initiated, was first allowed to lead ten fol
lowers, then seventy; only at the end of his third visit
was the limitation on the number of his followers re
moved (Hazart al-Quds:358). Upon his appointment to a
locality, the khalifa received a specially written docu
ment delineating the territory in which he could exercise
specified spiritual functions. The extent of the area in
question varied from small districts on the one hand to
such large cities as Lahore on the other. Bonds between
the shaikh and his khulafa were maintained through regu
lar correspondence and visits. In addition, the khulafa
245
sent their students to the shaikh for further instruction.
Before joining the Naqshbandi order, which was to be
come the main instrument for the propagation of his ideas,
Sirhandi had been granted an ijaza by his father to ini
tiate the devout into the Qadirya and Chishtia order (Ib
id:28-33). In 1598, feeling the need for further illumin
ation, he decided to take a trip to Arabia but, in Delhi,
he met a leading shaikh of the Nazshbandi order who ini
tiated him into that order and persuaded him to change
his travel plans. The shaikh, according to the standard
biography, was so impressed with the rapidity with which
Sirhandi passed through the stages of illumination that,
after a while, he turned over the leadership of the order
to him. Having become the undisputed master of the
Naqshbandi order, Sirhandi bestowed ijazat mainly for
this order. Yet, in at least one case, he granted one
of his khulafa the right to initiate followers into all
three orders (Ibid:320).
Regardless of the historical truth of the actual de
tails through which the leadership of the order was passed
to Sirhandi, the fact remains that, historically, the pas
sing of leadership to a person outside the genealogy of
the founder -- the more usual way of institutionalization
-- has allowed for the smooth transition of Sufi orders per-
mitting them to nect the challenge of novel historical cir
cumstances. In the case of Sirhandi, there can be little
246
doubt that his ability to dispense ijazat in three or-
ders simultaneously allowed him to reach a larger number
of people than would otherwise have been the case. More
over, the extent of his influence was not confined to
Sufi orders. Having accomplished the standard education
of a scholar of religion in Islamic law and sciences (Ib
id:32), Sirhandi taught these subjects to students who
joined the ranks of ulama, from among whom judges of the
Islamic courts were appointed. While these scholars did
not necessarily join Sufi orders, their ties to their mas
ter remained strong. Sirhandi was acutely aware of the
importance of this group as he remarked that lion the day
of judgement, we will be asked about shari'a and not
tasawuf" that is about law and not mysticism. Students,
carriers of shari'a and vehicles of salvation of the pop
ulation, are to be preferred over Sufis who had freed them
selves from the world (Maktubat:185-86).
It is therefore necessary to avoid positing an a
priori opposition between ulama and Sufi orders and, in
stead, analyzing the concrete historical process of in
teraction between the two groups when, indeed, there were
two groups rather than one. During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, ulama experienced considerable
geographical mobility and the extent of their social ties
with scholars in other regions, especially when reinforced
through nexuses of Sufi orders, had considerable implica-
247
tions for structural continuity or change in the repro
duction of the Islamic social order.
The political role played by the orders, however, de
pended on the character of the state or states with which
the orders had to deal. At issue, to put it simply, was
the extent to which a state allowed orders to function as
a parallel structure of power dictating its own policies
or maintaining the total control of its own machinery.
The relative balance of power between the two systems can
be best seen in the financial sphere. A weak state usual
ly exempted the properties of Sufi orders and ulama, whe
ther held as awqaf or private property, from taxation and,
in order to placate them, it even granted them new large
endowments. A strong state, or one that felt threatened
by the order and/or ulama, attempted to impose taxation
and confiscate properties, resorting at time even to their
physical elimination. But since orders and a number of
ulama were supported by direct contributions from their
followers, wealthy individuals and even members of the
court, the success of such state pOlicies was uncertain.
Furthermore, an active policy of recruitment carried out
by an order among soldiers of a state could effectively
hamper its coercive power. Fear of the growing popular
ity of an order within the army or among rebellious so
cial groups might clearly prompt preemptive moves against
it.
248
Thus, two of Sirhandi's most prominent khulafa, be
lieved to pose a serious threat to the state because of
their popularity with Afghan and Uzbeck soldiers, were
put under strict surveillance. One of them was finally ex
iled (Hazrat al Quds:305,385). It may have been because of
their activities that Sirhandi was first imprisoned for
one year and then placed in military detention. The
Mughal emperor Jahangir (1605-1627) noted in his auto
biography for the year 1619: "At this time it was reported
to me that a Shayyad [a loud talker, a cheat] of the name
of Shaikh Ahmad had spread the net of hypocrisy and deceit
in Sirhind, and caught in it many of the apparent wor
shippers without spirituality, and had sent into every
city and country one of his disciples, whom he called his
deputy (khalifa), and whom he considered more skilled than
others in the adorning of shops (of deceit) and selling
of religious knowledge, and in deceiving men. He had
also written a number of idle tales to his disciples and
his believers, and had made them into a book which he
called Maktubat (letters). In that alabum (Jung) of ab
surdities many unprofitable things had been written that
drag (people) into infidelity and irrpiety. Amongst these
he had written in a letter as follows: 'In the course of
my travels I had come to the dwelling of the Two Lights
(the Sun and Moon), and saw a very lofty and very splen
did building. From there I passed to the abode of Dis-
249
crimination (Faruq), and from there I passed to the abode
of Truth (Siddiq), and to each I wrote a suitable explan
ation (or perhaps, of each I wrote a suitable description).
From there I reached the abode of Love, and I beheld a
brilliant dwelling. It had divers colours and lights and
reflected glories. That is to say (God forgive us! -- an
exclamation of Jahagir's), I passed from the abode of the
Vicegerents (khulafa) and attained to the highest rank."
There were other presumptuous expressions which it would
be too long to write, and would be contrary to good man
ners. I accordingly gave an order that they should bring
him to the Court that is based on justice. According to
order he came to pay his respects. To all that I asked
him he could give no reasonable answer, and appeared to
me to be extremely proud and self-satisfied, with all
his ignorance. I considered the best thing for him would
be that he should remain some time in the prison of cor
rection until the heat of his temperament and confusion
of his brain were somewhat quenched, and the excitement
of the people should also subside. He was accordingly
handed over to AnIra'I Singh-dalan to be imprisoned in
Gwalior fort" (Tuzuk-i-JahangIrI Or Memoirs of Jahangir,
vol.II, trans. by A. Rogers,2nd ed.1968:91-93).
Thus, within twenty years from his initiation into
the Naqshbandi order, Sirhandi had managed to become a
power in the realm. In his case, the strength of the
250
state and the religious diversity of the population in
India allowed for the effective checking of the threat
he was posing to the state.
The Safaviyya order in Iran faced a different set of
political circumstances and was consequently able to be
come an empire. Although there is no satisfactory account
of the history of the order between the death of its foun
der in 1334 and the founding of the Safavid empire by his
fifth lineal descendant, Shah Isma'il I, in 1501, descrip
tions of some of the order's activities (Parizi,B.,1978:
9-17;Savory,R.,1980:1-27) clearly indicate that, struc
turally, it shared the pattern of organization of other
Sufi orders. From its base in the city of Ardabil in
northern Iran, it rapidly extended its network through
its khulafa in eastern Anatolia and Syria. At first, it
attracted large endowments from local states. Soon, its
growing powers brought it into direct conflict with these
polities and both the father and grandfather of Shah
Isama'il (1501-1524) lost their lives on the battlefields.
Because military functions of the Turkic followers
of the order from the highlands between Anatolia and
Iran were crucial in the seizure of power, historians,
such as Savory, have concentrated almost exclusively on
the relationship between the order and these clans.
Marshal Hodgson, however, calls attention to the fact that
although the majority of the population between the Nile
251
and the Oxus seem, by 1500, to follow the Sunni interpre
tation of Islam, Shia orders had steadily gained adherents
in the urban centers of what today constitutes Iran and
Iraq. He argues that "Isma'il had then two sorts of Shi'i
support: the Shi'ism of the tribes, not only Sufi in feel
ing but often deviating widely from the norms of the
Shar'i ulamai and the Shi'ism of the great city families,
no doubt also of a Sufi cast, but relatively bourgeois and
Shari'ah minded in many cases, though still willing to
look to a new social order within these limits" (1961,vol.
111:30). When the head of the order, upon becoming ruler
of the state, declared Shi'ism the religion of the state,
this combination made the conversion an enduring success.
Although the Safavid Shahs continued to claim legit
imacy in their capacity of "Murshid-i-Kamil" (perfect
guide), the structural pose of the order after the es
tablishment of the empire is not clear. Savory argues
that Shi'i ulama gradually managed to consolidate their
authority at the expense of the order (1980: ). Al
though the hostile attitude of some of the leading ulama
against the order is well documented, the fact remains
that, even at the end of the Safavid period, it was offi
cially stated that "Khalifas are also appointed through
out the God-protected kingdom for the maintenance of law
ful practices and for the prohibition of unlawful (munkar)
ones" (Tadhkirat AI-Maluk,1943:55). Clearly, there is
252
need for further investigation of transformations in the
structure and changes, if any, in the social membership
of the order after the formation of the Safavid empire.
In Hodgson's view, the consolidation of the Shi'i
state that emerged from the activities of the Safaviyya order
radically changed the character of interrelationships
within the Islamic world. He claims that the newly em
bittered quarrel between Shi'is and Sunis and the rise of
regional empires, forging their own separate worlds, had,
by 1550, dealt a major blow to the "cosmopolitan compre
hensiveness of Islam" (1974,vol.III:4). Whereas the
Sunni-Shi'i division provided the ideological justifica
tion for some of the most intense military conflicts be
tween the Iranian empire on the one hand, and the Ottoman
and Uzbeck empires on the other, the fact that equally
intense conflicts had characterized the relationship be
tween the Uzbeck empire and the small Timurid states in
Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran, and the Mughal empire
in India, where all rulers adhered to the Sunni interpre
tation of Islam, raises the question as to whether these
conflicts were not the products of the process of struc
tural transformation of smaller states within larger
territorial units. Although available evidence is not
definitive, it seems to me that Hodgson greatly exager
ates the degree to which flows of information, goods, and
people between different parts of the Islamic world were
253
hindered by the advent of a Shi'i state in Iran.
As far as the rise of territorial states within the
Islamic world is concerned, Hodgson -- as the subtitle
of his study "Gunpowder Empires" suggests -- puts causal
emphasis on the emergence of artillery. He asserts that
"the command of siege and field artillery quickly came
to be of fateful significance politically throughout the
Dar aI-Islam ... The relative expensiveness of the ar
tillery and the relative untenability of stone for
tresses gave an increased advantage over local military
garrisons to a well-organized central power which could
afford artillery -- not always a decisive advantage, to
be sure. Perhaps at aleast as important was that gunpow
der weapons seemed to imply, evidently from the start,
a continuous development of new techniques ... Such ad
vantages for rulers with resources brought with them ex
tensive possibilities for general political change" (Ibid:
18) •
Although there are new elements in Hodgson's formu
lation, the argument itself is not novel. W. Barthold
(n.d.1930?:142-43) had already argued the case for Iran
and Irfan Habib (1963:317) had shown that, as far as
Mughal India was concerned, it was not the artillery but
the cavalry that formed the most important branch of the
army. This seems to have been true for most of the
Safavid era in Iran (Lambton,A.,1953:106-107) as well as
254
for the Uzbeck empire. Indeed, once the difficulties
of moving and feeding large bodies of troops over vast
distances, in the absences of modern means of communica
tion, is taken into account, the superiority accorded
by these states to the cavalry -- armed with guns -
becomes self-evident. Sieges of walled urban centers
lasting close to a year were common in this period and
Hodgson's emphasis on the untenability of fortresses a
gainst the artillery is not convincing. The rapidly
changing technology of the means of destruction is impor
tant but instead of merely relating it to cost it could
be more profitably related to availability and the degree
of political influence exerted by states controlling the
production of superior armaments over consumer states.
In short, mere acts of conquest, facilitated by
sophisticated means of destruction, should be analytically
distinguished from the institutionalization of power. We
should be able to differentiate between ideological claims
of absolutism and the degree to which centralization of
power is an actual reality. The link posited by Hodgson
between the cost of the means of destruction, the finan
cial base of a state, and the degree of centralization of
power allows for empirical testing of the issue. The
question is not that of the realization of resources from
direct producers but whether the central government exer
cises effective power in the recruitment, financial main-
255
tenance, and control of the armed forces alone or whether
it shares these functions with other political bodies. In
Mughal India, where the cash nexus was probably more high
ly developed than in Iran and the Uzbeck empire, the rele
vant information is available in monetary figures and al
lows for succint presentation.
Different systems of revenue prevailed in Mughal In
dia, extracting in the name of the empire one third to
three quar.ters of the actual produce from direct producers.
The right of collection of land revenue and other taxes
was, over large portions of the empire, assigned by the
emperor to some of this subjects. The areas whose re
venues were thus assigned were known as jagirs (less often,
tuyuls); and the assignees were termed jagirdars (Habib,
I.,1965:58-59). The jagirdars were officials of the state
and their jagirs were normally assigned to them in lieu
of salary. The payment made to these officials was deter
mined by a dual system of ranking. The zat (body,person,
self) rank determined the personal pay and the sawar
(horse) the size of the cavalry contingent that the
mansabdar (holder of rank) was supposed to maintain for
the emperor's service. The basic objective of the system
being that of settling precedence and gradation of pay,
ranks might not, in fact, imply the command of any body
of troops (Irvine,W.,1903:4). As far as recruitment was
concerned, it is essential to realize that "few soldiers
256
were entertained directly by the emperor himself; and
for the most part the men entered first the service of
some chief or leader" (Ibid:3). The system of patronage
tied all ranks to their immediate superiors rather than
to the whole army (Ibid:58).
While the income of officials carne mainly from their
jagir, the emperor drew his cash income mainly out of the
revenue of the Khalisa (Habib,1965:61). Compared to the
total revenue of the empire, the income derived from
khalisa varied from about 5 to 25 percent (Ibid). Irfan
Habib has tabulated, for the year 1647, the salary bill of
chief officials, compared in percentage to the empire's
revenue, and amounts supposedly devoted to the upkeep
of cav81ry (Ibid:62-64). Instead of reproducing his fig-
ure in darns, which was a lower unit of accounting, I have
converted them to rupees, the more common silver currency
which was the equivalent of 40 darns.
Table I
257
Rank Total Salary Bill for both zat and sawar
ranks (million of rupees)
Percentage of Estimated Revenue
Income (Jama) of the Empire
4 princes of imperial family family with ranks above 7,000 zat
21 mansabdar of 5,000 to 7,000 zat
43 mansabdar of 3,000 to 4,000 zat
151 mansabdar of 1,000 to 2,500 zat
226 mansabdar of 500 to 900 zat
Total:
445 mansabdar of 500 and above
18.1
35.44
27.0
36.35
18.38
135.27
8.2
16.1
12.3
16.5
8.1
61.5
258
Out of a total of 8,000 mansabdar, 7,555 were hold-
ing ranks below 500 zat -- the lowest rank being command
over ten or twenty men -- and they probably accounted for
barely 25%, or at most 30% of the total revenue of the
Empire (Ibid:63). As for the 445 top mansabdar, they
must have "held over half of the Empire in jagir" (Ibid);
table II indicates the extent they were supposed to spend
from their income on the upkeep of their cavalry.
Table II
Total Pay Against % of Pay Against % of Salary Zat Ranks Total Sawar Ranks Total
Class of mansabdar Bill (million Salary (million Salary (million of rupees) Bill of rupees) Bill
of rupees)
Princes of above 7,000 zat 18.1 3.1 17.1 15.0 82.9
Mansabdar of 5,000 to 7,000 zat 35.44 5.74 16.2 29.7 83.8
Mansabdar of 3,000 to 5,000 zat 27.0 6.67 24.7 20.34 75.3
Mansabdar of 1,000 to 2,500 zat 36.35 9.97 27.4 26.38 72.6
Mansabdar of 500 to 900 zat 18.38 5.24 28.5 13.14 71.5
For the same year 1647, the total revenue of the em-
pire was estimated at 220 million rupees, and the direct
income of the emperor from khalisa was started as 30 mil-
lion rupees, or 13.6% of the total (Lahouri,M.A.,1868,
vol.II:7l0-l3). At the time, the empire was divided in
22 suba (provinces) but there were significant differences
in the revenue of each province. The revenue from suba
in the present territory of Afghanistan which, except
for the western region of Herat, were, in that year, all
subordinate to the Mughal state, were as follows:
Badkashan, 1 million; Balkh, 2 million; Kandahar, 1.5
million; and Kabul, 4 million rupees. These sub a were
among the lowest eight in yielding revenue. By contrast,
figures for suba with the highest yield were as follows:
Shahjahanabad, 25 million; Akbarabad, 22.5 million;
Lahore, 22.5 million; Ajrnir, 15 million (Ibid). The sal
ary of the subadar (governor) of Kabul, who was, at the
time, one of the highest ranking officials, amounted to
3 million rupees (Ibid:75).
Royal princes and high-ranking officials were as
signed to duties in the provinces and were in a position
to make use of their salaries, as well as the larger re
sources of the territory under their command, to support
their own armies. These were indeed private armies and
were used as such, as indicated by the fact that succes
sion to the imperial throne was, in almost evey instance,
decided on the field of battle. Princes and officials
derived from their jagir a revenue fairly equal to the
emperor's income from khalisa, which served for maintain
ing military forces owing direct allegiance to his own
259
person. Emperors could, and indeed did, frequently ro
tate, dismiss, imprison, or even eliminate princes and
officials from their posts. Yet, the reproduction of the
system revolved around the maintenance of close personal
relations between an emperor and some five hundred top
officials. The personal qualities of each emperor had
strong implications for the whole system and the elaborate
exchange of gifts between an emperor and his officials,
as well as the frequent use of violence against individ
ual officials, were also aspects of the same process for
maintaining the state.
The officials' financial ability and political re
sponsibility for retaining a large military force did
not, however, mean that, in practice, such a force was
actually kept. A dramatic illustration of the gap be
tween theory and reality is provided by an incident dur
ing the reign of Jahangir (1605-1627). In February 1626,
Mahabat Khan, one of the highest officials of the realm,
became aware of an imperial plan against him and was a
fraid for his life. He made use of his personal force of
four to five thousand horsemen to take the emperor hos
tagE and carried him off to Kabul (Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri,
Persian ed.:4l2ff.). Theoretically, the emperor's army
should have numbered hundreds of thousands (Irvine,W.,
1903:61). Yet, by May of the same year, the heir appar
ent had managed to gather only a mere thousand horsemen,
260
five hundred of whom dispersed after their leader died
(Ibid:421) .
Even when a large army could be assembled, the state
was dependent for its supplies on the cooperation of one
specific group, the banjaras. An observation of Jahangir,
when preparing to fight the Shah of Iran after the latter's
annexation of Kandahar in 1622, forcefully undelines this
dependence. He stated that "as there was little cultiva
tion between Multan and Qandahar, the despatch of a large
army without provisions was not to be thought of. It was
therefore decided to encourage the grain-sellers, who in
the language of India are called banjara, and, providing
them with money, to take them along with the victorious
army, so that there might be no difficulty about supplies.
The Banjaras are a tribe [in Persian taifa, social group,
guild, people, band, etc. A.G.]. Some of them have 1,000
bullocks, and some more or less. They take grain from
different districts (bulukat) into the towns and sell it.
They go along with the armies, and with such an army there
would be 100,000 bullocks or more" (Rogers,A.,Tuzuk-i
Jahangiri,vol.II,1968:223-34) .
Banjaras seem to have had close relations with vil
lage merchants and money-lenders and might themselves
even have performed these functions for the direct pro
ducers. Direct producers were compelled to maintain a
relation with the market in order to raise cash since it
261
was expected that state taxes would be mainly paid in
cash. A highly developed monetary system existed and
Irfan Habib has shown that "the cash nexus was firmly
established in almost evey part of the empire. Its pre
valence meant simply that the peasant was normally com
pelled to sell a very large -- in not a few cases, the
larger portion of his produce in order to meet the re-
venue demand" (1963:239). The cash nexus did not, how
ever, necessarily imply that the producers relationship
to the market was unmediated. Habib has argued that "it
is possible that a very large number of peasants were
not able to reach the open market at all, being compelled
to sellon contracted terms, to their creditors. Whether
the creditors were merchants or the village money-lenders,
the result was always to depress the prices received by
the peasants" (Ibid:78). Since the ratio of urban popu
lation to the total population was probably very high (Ib
id:76), it is s~fe to assume that banjaras must have had
a rather extensive network of social relations in every
region of the country to be able to deliver the needed
grain to urban centers and armies.
Functions performed by banjaras during periods of
conflict imply that their leaders who, according to a
European traveller, put as much pomp as princes
(Travernier,J.B,,1676/l905,vol.I:3l), must also have main
tained close relations with the jagirdars who commanded
262
the troops. But the character of the relationship, if
any, between banjaras, rural money-lenders and merchants,
troop commanders and their agents is not clear. Although
"jagirs were divorsed, as far as possible, from any rights
to the land, and were essentially assignments of revenue,
assessed and expressed in cash" (Habib,1963:318-19),
jagirdars had to send their own agents to collect the
revenue on their behalf (Ibid:283). In order to prevent
jagirdars from developing a territorial base of power,
emperors, as part of an elaborate bureacratic series of
checks, changed their jagir frequently (Ibid:269). Habib
asserts that the local element, except for officials
in charge of local records and revenue collection, was
"almost entirely excluded from the assignees' administra
tion" (Ibid:287). Nonetheless, since his conclusion is
based on an order of Jahangir prohibiting the agents of
khalisa and jagirdars from "forming family-ties with the
local gentry" (Ibid:287); the degree to which practice
corresponded to the wishes of the authorities remains
open to question.
The existence of a financial machinery for linking
villages with the institutions of the larger society was
observed by Jean Baptiste Tavernier. He stated that "in
the Indies, the village must be very small where there
does not reside a banker, whom they call cheraff [from
the Arabic sarraf]; whose business it is to remit money
263
and Bills of Exchange" (1676/l905,vol.I:2l). Unfortunate
ly, there is little information on the social relations
between these bankers in rural areas and those in urban
centers who played a crucial role in the long-distance
trade. On the other hand, it is known that sarrafs "en
joyed no caste-monopoly over money-lending which was car
ried on by various classes of persons in different forms.
Merchants advanced loans to cultivators and artisans to
be repaid in the form of produce or manufactured material.
Village headmen, as well as the administration, gave
taqavi (modern 'taccavi') loans to peasants to enable them
to engage in cultivation. Usurious money-lending appears
to have been carried on in the countryside by grain-mer
chants in the Punjab and sanyasis or mendicants in Bengal.
Finally, there were the professional money-lenders, known
as mahajans and sahukars, who must have commanded consid
erable resources of money" (Habib,1960:l8-l9). Given
the existence of such well-organized groups with ready
access to cash, it seems hard to conceive that jagirdars,
who were always in need of cash and often in places dis
tant from their jagir, would have dispensed with the ser
vices of these groups. Whether such a connection did in
fact exist remains to be investigated.
Individual officials and the imperial administration
clearly made use of sarrafs for transferring large amounts
of money from one part of the state to another (Ibid:lO-
264
11). The degree of political dependence of the state
on these financial networks, and the shift of support,
at the beginning of the eigtheenth century by the "great
firms" from the central government to regional powers
are, however, subjects on which there is no scholarly
consensus (e.g., Leonard,K.,1979:151-167;Richards,J.F.,
1981:285-313).
Peasants met with increasing oppression from the
state (Habib,1963:319ff.) and, with the passage of time,
this oppression became so severe that the choice left to
them was that of starvation, slavery, or armed resistance
(Ibid:329). Peasants were not the only elements, with-
in the differentiated structure of the rural community,
whose interests were pitted against the central govern
ment and the jagirdars. Intermediate, if not mediating
between producers and the state, was the class of
zamindars (landowners). The word has many connotations
but Habib contends that the system of zamindari may in
essence be described as "a right superior to that of the
peasants, and originating, in the main, in the existing
imperial power. It implied a claim to a share in the pro
duce of the soil which was completely distinct from, al
though it might be laid side by side with, the land
revenue demand" (1965:68). As the right was "fully
salable with almost no restraints" (Ibid:70), it contri
buted to the movement of new individuals and groups into
265
the villages. The point of conflict between zamindars
and the state revolved around their respective shares of
the produce (Habib,1963:334). What made zamindars a force
to be reckoned with was that, as a class, "command over
armed retainers was usually a necessary complement of
their right, and they were frequently leaders of caste
groups" (Ibid:334). Increasing demands of the state for
revenue drove producers and zamindars into a series of
alliances, usually expressed through new religious sects,
giving rise to armed revolts in different parts of the
country and ultimately bringing about the collapse of the
empire (Ibid:330-35l).
Attempts at building centralized structures in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and tendencies towards
the breakdown of these structures towards the end of the
seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries also
characterized the history of both the Safavid and Uzbeck
empires. The two empires differed in their organization
and in the strategies adopted for restructuring relations
among the main political bodies. I shall briefly consid
er these developments; focus on the empire's financial
basis will allow for analytical isolation of the main ac
tors.
The Safavid empire, like the Mughal empire, distin
guished between the general revenue of the empire that was
administered by the divan (central department) and revenue
266
directly under the control of the ruler and administered
by the khasa (private department). The only relatively
reliable figures on the amount of these revenues comes
from a manual of administration that reflects the situa
tion at the beginning of the eighteenth century. v.
Minorsky, who prepared the text of the manual, Tadkhirat
AI-Maluk, for publication, attempted to make sense of the
figures in his extensive commentary. Therefore, instead
of computing the figures from the original Persian text,
I have made use of his calculations (Minorsky,1943:110-
86) .
The total revenue of the empire was calculated in
monetary terms at 785,623.88 tomans, 608,652.34 of which
from the divan and 176,971.24 tomans (22.5% of the 'total)
from the khasa (Ibid:174). For the same period, the
total expenditure of the empire was stated at 625,274.56
tomans, of which 507,400.63 were listed under the divan
and 117,873.93 (18.85% of the total) under the khasa
(Ibid:183) .
The main items of expenditure are summarized in
Table III. Total sums listed by the author of the manual
for each division and additions of the items as enumer
ated in sub-heaf .1gS do not usually concur. Minorsky
is of the opinion that "the author's totals must be more
reliable than the totals calculated on the basis of the
scribe's copy" (Ibid:183). Therefore, he states both the
indicated and calculated sums.
267
Table III. Expenditure of the Safavid State
A. Yearly Salaries in tomans
(a) Civil Staff
1. Some Princesses 2. Arnirs and Governors 3. Farashes (carpet and tent spreaders) 4. Yasavulan-i-Suhbat (aides de camp) 5. Doctors 6. Workmen 7. Yassvuls (aides of lower rank than 4)
(S) Military Staff 8. Artillery men 9. Qurchis (praetorians)
10. Ghu1ams (slaves) 11. Tufanchis, etc. (equipped with hand guns) 12. Ghazis (original Sufi corps)
(y) Others
As calculated
As indicated
2191.63 396792.00
4956.5 4721. 742 4998.13 6542.1 1587.17
1942.50 25572.67 18261.52 21960.33
2124.87
7892.17
503,320.917
491,896.570
B. Tahvil, sums credited to various officials for producing or acquiring certain commodities.
As calculated
As indicated
C. Various Categories of Grants
Total
As calculated
As indicated
As indicated
Sum of A,B,C, on basis of indicated figures
Sum of A,B,C, on basis of calculated figures
36,483.9800
40,391. 4569
67,235.1100
93,032.0500
625,273.60
625,320.0769
607,040.007
268
These figures do not refer to the whole area under the
jurisdiction of the empire, as was the case with figures
for the Mughal empire, and reference to territorial divi
sions reveals a complex set of political and administra
tive arrangements between the central and provincial
governments. Although seventeen territorial divisions are
mentioned in the text, figures on income and expenditure
encompass only thirteen divisions. The four territories
excluded from the statistics -- Arabistan, Luristan,
Georgia, and Kurdistan -- were areas that "belonged to
ancient families or hereditary rulers and, in spite of
their incorporation in the Safavid state, enjoyed inde
pendence. Their revenue was not included in the budget,
and apart from military assistance, they owed their
suzerain nothing but tribute disguised as gifts" (Ibid:
112). The remaining provinces were divided into two cate
gories: mamalik or "state" provinces, administered by
governors with wide powers over the disposal of revenue,
and khasa or "crown" provinces where governors were dir
ectly accountable to the Shah's private department. The
distinction originated during the reign of Shah Abbas I
(1588-1629) and, as it was an outcome of strong internal
tensions and external conflicts during the earlier period,
especially from 1524-1588 (Savory,1980:40ff.), and had
strong implications for the subsequent history of the
empire, it needs to be briefly considered.
269
The Turkish clans, whose victories on the battlefield
brought about the transformation of the Safavid house from
leaders of a Sufi order into Shahs of Iran, were known as
qizilbash, after their distinctive red headgear signify
ing their loyalty to the order. Prior to the reign of
Shah Abbas I, "the government of the provinces was alloted
to the qizilbash chiefs in the form of assignments known
as Tiyul. The governor of the province was allowed to
consume the greater part of the revenue of the province
on the condition that he maintained, and mustered when
required to do so by the shah, a stated number of troops"
(Ibid:79). There is no statistical analysis of the length
of tenure of these governors or the frequency with which
they were succeeded by their own descendants. At least
in one case, the governorship of Shiraz remained within
the same family during the first half of the sixteenth
century (Savory,1964:115).
The shahs seem to have had a direct presence in the
provinces through provincial wazirs (comptrollers) and
sadrs (heads of religious establishment) whom they ap
pointed directly and transferred freely from one province
to another (Ibid:119,123). Labels of office should not
be interpreted as corresponding to clear functional di
visions; the shah could, and did, invest administrative
and religious officials, most of whom were non-Turkish
and Persian-speaking, with the insignia of military of-
270
fice, and some of them even discharged actual military
duties (Ibid:115,126;Khwandmir,vol.IV;491,507,527,534, and
603-85 for examples). By manipulating personal rivalries
among these dignitaries as well as among leading qizilbash
amirs belonging to different clans, the shah could exert
direct influence on the conduct of affairs of the state.
Nonetheless, governors seem to have been able to put an
end violently to the ambitions of religious and admin
istrative functionaries who posed a threat to the consoli
dation of their power (Savory,1964:126 for one prominent
example; and 1980:33ff. for others). Despite the ideology
of absolutism and religious sanctity surrounding the shahs,
relations between shahs and amirs were full of violent
episodes during which some amirs reduced shahs to mere
figureheads (Ibid). The fact that governors "were able
to SUb-assign the area under them" (Lambton,A.,1953:107)
must have considerably enhanced their ability to build
and maintain their own network of support.
The continuing control of governors and amirs over
a major portion of the empire's economic resources through
out the Safavid era is borne out by the data in Table III.
The sum of 396,792 tomans alloted to them constituted
63.46% of the total expenditure of the empire. That num
ber of men belonging to this class, as in the case of the
Mughal empire, was actually very small is reported by the
court historian who stated that the figure was 114 amirs
271
in 1576 and 92 in 1629 (Eskandar Monshi, tr.by Savory,
1978,vol.I:222;vol.II:1309) .
The social composition of this class and their con
trol over the means of destruction had, however, greatly
changed as a result of policies pursued by Abbas I (1588-
1629). In order to counterbalance the power of the
qizilbash arnirs, Shah Abbas attempted to create a military
force that owed loyalty only to him. Thus there carne into
being the ghulam (so-called slave) regiments. "He en
rolled in the armed forces large numbers of Georgian,
Circassian, and other golarns, ... Several thousand men
were drafted into regiments of musketeers from the
Cagatay tribe, and from various Arab and Persian tribes
in Khorasan, Azerbaidjan, and Tabarestan. Into the re
giments of musketeers, too, were drafted all the riff
raff from every province -- sturdy, serviceable men who
were unemployed and preyed on the lower classes of soci
ety ... All these men were placed on the golam muster
rolls" (Monshi/Savory,1978,vol.I:527).
As the military vehicle of Abbas's policies, the
ghulam regiments and other forces were used to achieve
the forceful relocation of groups of people according
to John Perry's calculation, some fourteen instances in
volving at least 100,000 families (1975:202f.). Shah
Tahrnasp (1524-1576) had already had some 30,000 Caucasians
forcefully brought over to the territory of the Safavid
272
empire after their military defeat in 1554. Among the
populations affected by Shah Abbas's schemes were the
qizilbash clans. Roger Savory affirms that Abbas "em
barked on a systematic policy of transferring groups of
qizilbash belonging to one tribe, to an ulka, or tribal
district, held in fief [sic.; Persian original tiyul] by
another tribe ... in some cases, he would deliberately
place an officer in charge of a tribe who was not himself
member of the tribe; in other cases, he would allege that
the tribe did not possess an officer capable of leading
it, and would appoint a ghulam to act as chief of the
tribe" (1980:81).
Although the creation of the new military force im
plied a reduction in the number of qizilbash fighters
and the restructuring of relations between the clans and
the state, it did not mean the end of these clans as a
military force. The ghulam forces, once formed, numbered
20,000 horsemen and 12,000 infantry; at the same time,
the qizilbash force still numbered 30,000 horsemen, though
it had been reduced by half since the beginning of Abbas's
reign (Bayani,K.,1974:70).
To maintain the loyalty of the new force, the ruler
provided its payroll from the financial resources direct
ly at this disposal. Hence the need to expand these re
sources and the conversion of semi-autonomous provinces
into khasa (Savory,1980:80) whereby agents, directly ap-
273
pointed by the crown, administered the territories and
were moved from one post to another at will. The effect
of these policies on relations between the state and
qizilbash clans is reflected in the changes in the social
composition of the amirs.
In 1576, there were 114 amirs in the Safavid state;
72 were quoted in name by the court historian, out of
which 59 were of lITurkish origin". The majority, if not
all, of the amirs were affiliated to a clan (Minor sky ,
1943:15). In 1629, the year of shah Abbas's death, out
of 93 amirs 21 were recruited from among ghulams (Monshi,
1978,vol.II:1309-l7). An impressive reflection of the
power of ghulam amirs that year is provided by the fact
that they supplied eight out of the fourteen governors
of large provinces (Bayani,K.,1974:91).
There is no satisfactory analysis of the social
relations between the two categories of amirs during the
subsequent history of the Safavid empire. Khanbaba
Bayani claims that, at the end of shah Safi's reign (1629-
1642), only three large provinces out of fifteen were
governed by ghulams but that, out of 37 governors ap
pointed by shah Abbas II (1642-1666), 23 were ghulams
and 2 more might have been (Ibid). Savory, who does not
provide any statistical information, claims that, at times
of peace, the general tendency was to appoint ghulams to
administer provinces while during periods of danger
274
qizilbash governors were preferred (1980: ).
Regardless of their composition at any particular
time, the amirs, as a class, continued to exert a large
degree of power throughout the Safavid empire. A strong
shah could check their power by playing on their faction
alism but the amirs seem to have played an important role
in the running of affairs of the empire. Data in Table
III has already shown that, financially, the amirs re
mained in a strong position until the end of the Safavid
period.
The fact that the Saravid forces did not constitute
a regular standing army may have been an important factor
in the ability of the shahs to check the development of
social ties between amirs and soldiers. Bayani quotes
the official history of the reign of shah Abbas II to the
effect that, except for the royal guard who were always
in attendance, soldiers were stationed on their tiyuls
throughout the realm. Even the infantry, who were e
quipped with hand-guns, only gathered at times of war
(Ibid:92-93). During periods of intense and lasting
military conflict, such as the reign of Abbas I, men who
drew salaries must have spent considerable ·U.me in actual
combat. But a treaty of peace with the Otto~an empire
in 1639 stopped the armed conflict between the two rival
powers for 74 years (Ibid:77). During that period, the
gap between the number of men on the payroll and the ac-
275
tual force was considerable. Thus, in a review held in
1660, Abbas II "discovered that the same arms, horses, and
men passed before him 10-12 times" (Minorsky,1943:35).
Lack of trained men was not the only problem. Bayani
marshals considerable evidence to show that, after the
reign of Abbas I, procurement of equipment for the army
was almost completely neglected (1974:78ff.). In his
capital city of Isfahan, Abbas I had made use of his com
mercial contacts with Europe to initiate a policy of
building factories for the manufacture of arms and cannons
(Ibid:7l) but little attention was subsequently paid to
maintain these factories (Ibid:82). Indeed, from the fig
ures in table III, it can be seen that sums paid to car
pet and tent spreaders were 2.5 times as much as those
paid to the artillery men. It was, therefore, not very
surprising that a force of Ghilzai Afghans who, in 1709,
had gained independence from Safavid rule in Kandahar,
conquered ln 1722, after a siege of six months, the cap
ital city of Isfahan and put an end to the dynasty.
Unlike the Mughal and Safavid empires which relied
on administrative means to contain regional forces, the
Uzbeck empire came to terms with these powers through a
very different institutional mechanism. ROlJert McChesney
argues that, theoretically, the organizational principles
of the Uzbeck states were two: first, that only an agnatic
descendant of the Mongol conqueror Chhingiz Khan (ca.1155-
276
1227) was eligible to rule; second, that the right to
govern resided not in an individual but in the entire
Chingizid ruling lineage -- "among those individuals who
had reached the 'age of discretion'" (1973:ix). The ter-
ritory ruled by a member of the lineage was called an
1 appanage. Within each appanage, its ruler called
sultan -- was "the first authority, possessing complete
control over the finances and foreign policies of his
territory" (Ibid:xvii). To underline the importance of
appanages, the office of Khan, the nominal ruler of the
empire, was invested in the senior member of the lineage
whose actual authority in the empire was moral rather
than real (Ibid:xiv-xv). The institutional mechanism
through which territorial distributions were made, new
Khans chosen and decisions of the empire taken was an
assembly -- called a qurultay -- of the members of the
ruling lineage (Ibid:xvi).
Leaders of the clans, providing the military back-
bone of the empire but not being part of the Chingizid
g~ilealogy, were another group of power-holders, Their
title was that of amir, and each sultan assigned his
amirs territories for their support, called iqta (pl.
lThe use of this term has been based on the analysis by the Russian historians of the organizational parallels between the political systems of Kiev, in the 11th and 12th, and Muscovy in the 13th and 14th centuries (McChesney,1973:xvi) .
277
iqtaat). Although amirs exercised within their respec
tive iqta powers similar to that of a ruler, they could
be either dismissed or transferred by their sultan (Ibid:
xvii) .
In practice, tensions within the empire, as well as
in the larger system of interrelations with which the
Uzbeck empire was locked in conflict, made the successful
realization of the Uzbeck political norms dependent on the
coordinated effort of members of the ruling lineage for
acquisition of new territory. When efforts at expansion
were blocked by other powers, the result usually was in
tra-appanage warfare.
From the formation of the empire in Dasht-i-Qipchaq
to the conquest of Herat and subsequent routing by the
Safavid forces in 1510, there had been considerable fluc
tuations in the degree of cooperation and conflict among
members of the lineage (Dickson,M.,1960:208-216). But
in 1512, the Uzbecks decisively defeated a joint Mughal
Safavid force that had aimed at dislodging them complete
ly from Central Asia and, by 1526, they had conquered
Balkh, which, with brief exceptions, remained under their
control until 1711. Badakhshan, on the other hand, was
only conquered during the seventeenth century.
The ruling group was not homogeneous. Once the dis
tribution of appanages had taken place, the significant
geneaological link was no longer to Chingiz Khan or even
278
the founder of the state but to the closest ancestor who
had first consolidated his authority in the appanage.
Thus, in the two assemblies held in 1512/1513, the four
main appanages of Samarqand, Tashkrand, Bukhara, and
Miyankal-Soghd later augmented by Balkh -- were dis
tributed to four named lineages (McChesney,R.,1973:27).
Each appanage was, in turn, divided among the members
of the named lineage and the amirs (Ibid:32). There is
no information, however, on whether any descendant of
the founder of the dynasty was excluded from a share dur
ing the distribution.
The history of the Uzbeck empire after 1540 is, to
a large degree, the chronicle of struggle among these
four named groups for the dominance of the whole empire.
The background for this internecine warfare was, once a
gain, provided by the checking of Uzbeck expansion by the
Safavid empire. For seventeen years, inter-appanage wars
were so intense that the four units became virtually
separate states (McChesney,R.:42).
This period was followed by an attempt at completely
reshaping the structure of uzbeck polity. Abd Allah Khan,
who first emerged into prominence with his conquest of
Bukhara in 1557, forged an alliance with the amirs and
proceeded to destroy the power of members of other named
lineages as well as his own (Ibid:43-44). Abd Allah Khan's
internal victories were followed by his conquest of Herat
279
and other Safavid centers in 1588/89. That his appointee
as governor of Herat was a scholar from a "noble family
of Samarkand" , who had first been appointed by him as
sadr (chief religious dignitary) then raised to the rank
of arnir (Monshi,vol.II:56l-562), shows the degree of de
parture from Uzbeck constitutional theory. With the
death of Abd Allah Khan in 1589 and the subsequent assas
sination of his son and successor shortly after (Ibid:728-
729), the old political theory was reaffirmed by a new
ruling lineage.
In pursuit of their policies of centralization of
power, Abd Allah Khan and his son had systematically e
liminated other members of the ruling lineage who could
have served as rallying points of opposition. They had
been so successful in this endeavor that, after the
assassination of Abd Allah's son the only member of the
lineage who was alive was an opium addict -- considered
too insignificant to pose a threat (Ibid:738). Elected
Khan by a number of amirs, he was, after a brief per-
iod, deposed by the forces of a new named lineage whose
head was the son of Abd Allah's sister. Thus, power was
transferred to another line of the Chingizid lineage.
During the first assembly of the new ruling lineage,
held in 1599, in Samarkand, the decentralized principles
of government were reaffirmed and appanages distributed
(McChesney,1973:53-56). The period of expansion of the
280
new state was only from 1599 to 1603, in the course of
which it defeated a Safavid force and annexed the central
area of Balkh and the northern region of present day
Afghanistan. Once the period of expansion carne to an
end, a series of internal tensions emerged.
From 1610 onwards, the two appanages of Balkh and
Bukhara, assigned to two brothers of the ruling lineage,
emerged as the dual centers of the empire and, despite
frequent attempts at consolidation, remained autonomous
until the end of the dynasty in 1711 (Ibid:53-70). The
most significant event of the period was, however, the
increasingly important political role of the amirs.
McChesney divides the history of relations between
sultans and amirs into two distinct periods. He argues
that, from 1599 to 1641, iqtaat "were neither immutable
nor heritary" (Ibid:65) and transfer of amirs from one
iqta to another was quite common (Ibid:67). But from
1641 to 1711, the identification of amirs with their
iqta became more firmly established and ultimately led to
the emergence of a number of independent principalities
in the eighteenth century.
This process of restructuring was facilitated by two
sets of factors. First, even in the earlier period, amirs
had retained fiscal authority from the sultans, except
for passing a portion of the spoils of war. They had re
lied on the same administrative mechanisms for the extrac-
281
tion of resources from direct producers as those prevail
ing in an appanage (Ibid:79). Second, a process of seden
tarization of the clans seems to have been occuring in
the second half of the seventeenth century (Ibid:84f.).
Also, since the beginning of the century, the amirs had
been conducting their own raiding expeditions against non
Uzbeck elements (Ibid:65) and were consequently in command
of their own forces; they could easily redirect their for
ces against other Uzbeck groups. Indeed, the second half
of the seventeenth century witnessed considerable inter
iqta warfare (Ibid:83). When the last Chingizid khan,
whose policies had alienated the amirs, was assassinated
in 1711, a number of new principalities came into being.
In Bukhara, one clan had gained dominance and was able to
seize power, but in the northern region of present day
Afghanistan, separate states were formed in Qunduz, Balkh,
Andkhuy, Maymanah, and Khulm (Ibid:102). The story of the
incorporation of these statelets within the Afghan state
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries will be
one of the themes addressed in the next chapter.
Our review of the Mughal, Safavid, and Uzbeck em
pires reveals that, depite differences in size and com
plexity of administrative and financial institutions,
structural tensions in the relations between centripetal
and centrifugal forces remained unresolved in all three
empires, and periods of centralization were followed by
282
periods of reassertion of regional powers.
The ability of regional powers to reassert themselves,
I will argue, was closely related to the fact that politi
cal conquest of territories had not been followed by the
incorporation of these areas within an economic system
that corresponded to the political boundaries of the state.
As none of these empires had an integrated domestic mar
ket and methods of production were similar in all the cen
tral areas of the whole region, distinctive regional eco
nomies persisted throughout the duration of these empires.
The very ease with which various regions were transferred
from the sphere of influence of one empire to another, as
illustrated by the example of Herat, was a reflection of
the economic autonomy of these regions. These regionally
enduring economic units were, in turn, the foundations
upon which the very wide political and financial powers
of the provincial authorities were built. While rulers,
through frequent transfer of individual officials, could
and did exert influence in the provinces, they were not
in a position to reduce these officials into mere func
tionaries. Thus, fluctuation between exchange of gifts
as formalized expressions of dependence and frequent re
sort to actual violence was a mechanism of underwriting
that dependence.
The absence of integrated domestic markets did not
imply the absence of economic interrelations among re-
283
gions, regardless of state boundaries. Indeed, long-dis
tance trade played an important role in the history of
the area.
The extent and direction of flow of commodities, at
the time of formation of centralization and de structuring
of these empires, was closely linked to the emrging cos
mopolitical economy of Europe. This nexus was not only
important in the relationship of each of the empires with
Europe, but also in the economic articulation of relations
among these empires. The European connection, however,
seems to have manifested itself in very different forms
at different periods.
What has to be clearly grasped is the fact that,
despite the discovery of the sea route to India by the
Portuguese, its disruptive impact on the intercontinental
trade was not felt until after "the elapse of an entire
century. After a set-back at the beginning of the 16th
century the trade routes through the Middle East regained
their former importance, and at the end of the 16th cen
tury the transcontinental caravan trade reached dimen
sions which must presumably be regarded as its histori
cal culmination" (Steensgaard,1973:9).
The nature of co~~odities moved in the course of
long-distance trade and the costs of protection incurred
along the land and sea routes between India and Europe
were both factors in the competition between caravans and
284
carracks. Commodities in demand were luxury and not bulk
goods. As such, the overall quantity transferred was
rather small by comparison to heavy articles. Niels
Steensgaard, using Lane's concepts, has carefully compared
the available evidence on costs of transportation and pro-
tection between the routes Isfahan-Gombroon-Surat and
Isfahan-Kandahar-Lahore. His conclusion is that, for
goods in demand in the 16th century Europe, the cost of
transport by caravan was cheaper than that by ship (Ibid:
40). However, the cost of protection along the land
route was both higher and unpredictable, a factor that
made sharp fluctuation in the market unavoidable (Ibid:
40,58,67). He argues that the secret of the survival of
the caravans lied in the high protection costs imposed
by the Portugese on the sea route (Ibid:lOl).
The amount of goods conveyed along the two routes
is estimated by Steensgaard in the following table (Ibid:
168) .
Table IV. Estimate of European Consumption of Asian Goods around 1600
Pepper Cloves Indigo Drugs Mace Nutmeg Textiles Raw Silk
the Cape route
1-2,000,000 lb.
350,000 -. 650,000 lb.
?
°
the caravan route
3-4,000,000 lb.
700,000 -1,000,000 lb.
? 500,000 lb.
in all
5,000,000 lb.
1,350,000 lb •
? 500,000 lb.
285
Assuming that most spices and about half the silk
came from India and adopting Steensgaard's estimate of
440 lbs. per camel load, it appears that 9,000 to 12,000
camels must have been needed to carry the above amounts.
Steensgaard does not discuss the time spent on each route
but Tavernier, who between 1636 and 1662 made six jour
neys in Asia and knew both routes well, provided the rele
vant data. The Isfahan-Kandahar-Labore journey took 106
days (1676/l905,vol.I:72) while sailing between Surat
and Hormus could take from fourteen to thirty five days.
But the sailing was seasonal and could only be done from
November to March from Surat and From November to Febru
ary from Hormus (Ibid:2). With technical improvements
in sailing and changing political circumstances in Eur
ope, reducing the cost of protection at sea, the ships
were clearly destined to gain a decisive edge over the
caravans.
The Portuguese monopoly at sea was broken with the
advent of new European companies at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Unlike the Portuguese who were
after tribute, these companies operated as capitalist
enterprises. They undertook to internalize costs of pro
tection thus putting the caravans, which had no control
over their own costs of protection, on the defensive. By
1625, the sea route had triumphed -- a victory vividly
marked by the spectacle of Levantine towns which now im-
286
ported their needed Indian spices from Europe (Ibid:171-
173) .
The long-distance trade was not confined to goods
bound for Europe. There was an extensive trade among
Asian states, Babur, the founder of the Mughal empire
who conquered Kabul in 1504, provided a vivid description
of the inland commerce of the area in his memoires. He
stated that "just as Arabs call every place outside Arab
(Arabia), Ajam, so Hindustanis call every place outside
Hindustan, Khurasan. There are two trade-marts on the
land-route between Hindustan and Khurasan; one is Kabul,
the other Qandahar. To Kabul caravans came from Kashgar,
Farghana, Turkistan, Samarkand, Bukhara, Balkh, Hisar
and Badakhshan. To Qandahar they come from Khurasan.
Kabul is an excellent trading-center; if merchants went
to Khita [China] or to Rum [ottoman Empire], they might
make no higher profit. Down to Kabul every year come 7,8
or 10,000 horses and up to it, from Hindustan, come every
year caravans of 10, 15, or 20,000 heads-of-houses, bring
ing slaves (barda), white cloth, sugar-candy, refined and
common sugar, and aromatic roots. Many a trader is not
content with a profit of 30 to 40 on 10 [300% to 400%].
In Kabul can be had the products of Khurasan, Rum, Iraq,
and Chin(China); while it is Hindustan's own market
(Beveridge,tr., 1969:202)
Kabul had retained its position as an inland trading
287
center towards the second half of the seventeenth century
as indicated by Tavernier. He described the place as a
"large city, very well fortified; and is the place where
those Usbek corne every year to sell their horses. They
reckon, that there are bought and sold, every year, above
sixty thousands. They bring also out of Persia, great
numbers of sheep, and other cattle; it being the general
concourse of Persians, Tartarians, and Indians" (1676/
1905,vol.I:73) .
Animals were not the only items of trade. Tavernier
claimed that out of 22,000 bales (2,200,000 lbs.) of silk
exported every year from Bengal, the "Hollanders usually
carry away six or seven-thousand bales, and would carry
more, did not the merchants of Tartary and the Moghul's
empire oppose them; for they buy up as much as the Hollan
ders; the rest the natives keep to make their stuffs"
(Ibid,vol.II:299-300). Tavernier, unfortunately, does
not provide any information on the relative share of Mid
dle Eastern and Central Asian merchants on the one hand,
and European merchants on the other, in their demand for
the numerous Indian commodities.
By 1676, the time of Tavernier's writing, the impact
of the emergence of the Indian port of Surat as the main
outlet of export was already being felt in the manufac
turing centers of the north. He stated that "vast quan
tities of linen Calicuts" made in Multan and Lahore, had
288
to be carried to Agra and from Agra to Surat. "But in
regard carriage is so dear, very few merchants traffic
either to Multan or at Lahore; and many of the workmen
have also deserted those places, so that the King's re
venues are very much diminished in those provinces" (Ibid,
vol.I:72) .
Holden Furber demonstrates that the European trading
companies were the beneficiaries of this shift of trade
routes: "for the European East India companies, the Per
sian Gulf was a profitable trading area in the seventeenth
century primarily because of the demand for Persian silk
and the marketability of East India goods in Persia" (1976:
9). Until the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
function played by the Europeans as importers and trans
porters of Asian goods was still more important than
their role as promoters of their own manufactures. Sim
ilarily, they were still vulnerable to political events
in the area and the overthrow of the Safavid dynasty in
1722 profoundly upset their Indian trade (Ibid:143).
Tavernier's remark on the emergence of the sea route
and its impact on the revenues of the state has important
implications for the changing relations between central
and provincial authorities and needs to be explored fur
ther. Babur (1504-1530), who stated the revenues of
Kabul at 320,000 rupees, claimed that the bulk of it came
from transit duties (1969:221,250). Jahangir (1605-1627),
289
at the beginning of his reign, affirmed that transit du
ties were "in fact the chief revenue" of the provinces
of Kabul and Kandahar (Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri,tr.by Beveridge,
1968,vol.I;47). Jahangir claimed that he had forbidden
the imposition of all tolls and other burdens which "the
jagirdars of every province and district had imposed for
their own profit" (Ibid:7); but the testimony of contem
porary English travellers reveals that the measure was
ineffective (Steel and Crowther,1616/1965,vol.IV:266-277).
with the re-emergence of regional units costs of protec
tion imposed on caravans, most probably, must have signi
ficantly increased (Habib,I.,1963:68).
The available information on the finances of the
three empires is not detailed enough to allow a breakdown
of the respective shares of taxes on land and trade in
the total income of ~he empires across time. Without im
plying any causal connection; it is intriguing to notice
that the reigns of the most outstanding Uzbeck, Mughal,
and Safavid rulers -- Abd Allah Khan (1557-1598); Akbar
(1556-1605); Shah Abbas I (1588-1629) -- corresponded
with the period of flourishing intercontinental trade and
that all three took vigorous measures for the promotion
of trade, illustrated by the building of caravan sarais
and ensuring the security of the roads.
Indeed, in both the Mughal and Safavid empires, it
became established practice that the officer in whose
290
jurisdiction a robbery or theft of merchants or residents
took place, had to recover it or pay compensation to the
victims out of his own funds (Habib,I.,1963:68; Monshi,
1978,vol.I:527). This required the greater involvement
of officials with populations located along the trade
routes. My analysis, in the next chapter, of the social
structure of the Afghan clans within the context of the
larger political and economic forces will serve as an
illustration of the intricacies of this interrelationship.
291
CHAPTER SIX
The Afghan State: Formation and Reproduction
In an essay following the publication of his clas
sic analysis of the inner Asian frontiers of China (1940),
Owen Lattimore examined, from a comparative perspective,
the question of the interrelationship between agricultur
al and steppe societies. "In India," he argued, "the
picture is not so stylized as it is in China. In North
west India, which is not bordered by a steppe plateau
but encircled by mountains, the irrigated and unirrigated
lands are not set off from each other in large blocks
but interpenetrate each other in a rather complicated way.
Moreover the adjacent pastoral economy, as in Afghanistan,
is more often a semipastoral economy, associated with
fixed villages and village institutions, than true no
madism of the open steppe. In Iran and Iraq the contrast
between the steppe and the sown land is more stylized,
as in China; but the irrigated agiculture is partly of
an oasis type and partly strung out along rivers that
have steppe or desert on both sides and consequently lacks
the scale and mass that are so impressive in China. In
Turkey the agriculture is more massive, but there is more
of the semipastoral economy that is linked with villages,
and less open steppe nomadism" (1947/1962:148).
Unlike those approaches which interpret nomad-seden-
292
tary relations as containing "modes of production," inher
ent opposition, or symbiosis, Lattimore's emphasis on the
engulfing ecological and political processes alows us to
investigate the historically changing patterns of inter
relationships. To elucidate the structures of regions
and frontiers of states, he advocates that the respective
geographical range of unification by military action, cen
tralization under uniform civil administration, and eco
nomic integration be analytically distinguished and con
cretely investigated. He argues that, prior to the
"Great Navigations that opened up the oceans at the end
of the fifteenth century," the following generalization
was applicable to the old world as a whole:
"a) The radius of military action was greater than
that of civil administration. An inner radius reached
over territories that could, after conquest, be added to
the state, and an outer radius reached into territories
that could be invaded, with profit in plunder or tribute,
or for the purpose of breaking up barbarian concentra
tions dangerous to the state, but that could not be
permanently annexed.
lib) Civil administration tended to be stronger re
gionally than nationally. The solidity of the state was
closely associated with the fact that similar administra
tions duplicated each other in region after region .•.
"c) Economic integration had the shortest range. It
293
was a function of the ability to transport bulk goods
(especially food) at a profit. For many centuries, and
not only in China, this meant that where transportation
by water was available within an empire, linking several
regions to each other, the empire that could be built was
larger and more stable than where transportation depended
in the main on carts, pack animals, or human porters"
(1956/1962:480-81) .
My analysis in the preceding pages of the economic
and political articulation of regional and central struc
tures serves as a confirmation of Lattimore's generaliza
tion. It should be noted, however, that he carefully
limits the applicability of his observations to the sit
uation prevailing prior to the emergence of the cosmopoli
cal economy of Europe in the sixteenth century. During
the following four centuries, there was hardly any part of
the world that was spared the destructive and possibly,
transformative impact of that expanding system. At the
time of the foundation of the Afghan state, 1747, the ma
jor impact of the cosmopolitica1 economy on the area man
ifested itself through the shift of trade routes from
land to sea. Understanding the genesis of the Afghan
state, therefore, requires grasping the complex interplay
of forces between changing state structures and the no
madic and sedentary populations in the area.
The categories of clan and lineage will be frequently
294
used in the next pages; since their usage in the anthro
pological literature is not uniform, I follow the standard
social anthropological distinction. This is exemplified
by Morton Fried who singles out demonstrated descent as
a characteristic feature of lineages and stipulated des
cent as that of clans. In the case of lineage "the gen
ealogical basis of all relationships within the group is
explicit, i.e., connecting links between tertiary or more
distant kin can be identified," but in the case of a clan
"the genealogical basis for relationships is implicit,
i.e., connecting links between tertiary or more distant
kin are often unknown and cannot be identified, but are
assumed to have existed. Even in cases where the con
necting links are known and can be given, their presence
as links is sociologically unimportant, relationship be
ing a categorical and not a geneaological function" (1957:
23). Fried notes that "both kinds of groups can exist
at the same time in the same society. However, there are
societies in which one or the other predominates or is
the sole kind of organization at the appropriate social
level. This is said to be related to the divergent func
tions of stipulated and demonstrated descent. The former
accords with easier access to corporate holdings of the
group; the latter tends to be associated with increasing
use of the principle of economic scarcity and the narrow
ing of rights of access to basic resources" (1968:371).
295
Following Paul Kirchoff's lead in his analysis of the
"conical clan" (1935/1968:371-81), Fried links the emer
gence of corporate unilineal descent groups to the de
velopment of social stratification. His notion of cor
poration, which he defines as "continuity of possession
to an estate which consists of things, persons, or both"
(1957:23), is narrower than the usage of jurists such as
Saviqny who stressed sanction by the state as well as con
tinuity as the essential elements of corporation (1884:
177-201) .
Since Fried is concerned with the evolution of stra
tification and "pristine" states, his discardi~g of the
criterion of sanction is understandable. In the context
of secondary states where the formation and reproduction
of clans and lineages is intimately linked to the mili
tary, political, and economic politices pursued by the
state, analysis of conditions which affect the corpor
ate continuity of lineages and clans cannot be avoided.
Indeed, Fried persuasively argues that the political and
economic actions of states on populations living in their
periphery can lead to the formation, or even con~c:ous
creation, of secondary tribes (1975:101-102). Once these
tribes are in existence, the development of lineages, re
alignments among clans, and the degree of corporate con
tinuity in their social organization, can be drastically
affected by their interaction with states.
296
The record of relations between Afghan clans and the
states ruling the area between the sixteenth and eigh
teenth centuries offers many empirical examples for the
theoretical postulates. It is time to take brief account
of some instances. Limitation of space has forced me to
confine my remarks to the Pashtun clans.
The ethnogenesis of Pashtun clans, as is the case for
most other clans in the area, is obscure. Professor
Georg Morgenstierne, who was an authority on the linguis
tic history of the area, believed that the Pashtu langu
age was derived from Saka, a language spoken by a central
Asian people who conquered the present territory of
Afghanistan in the second millenium B.C. He pointed to
wards the Sulaiman range, in the eastern region, as the
place where the hammering out of common identity by the
Pashtuns took place (1975:4). Pashtun folklore, on the
other hand, claims a Jewish origin and the mountains of
Ghur, in the central region, as their original location.
There is no historical evidence to support this assertion
and, as argued by Sir Olaf Caroe, its advocacy might be
related very strongly to the desire for a monotheistic
pedigree (1958:10). The first historical references to
Pashtuns occur in the tenth century, as documented by
the researches of Ghulam Muhammad Ghubar, an Afghan his
torian. At the time they seem to have been inhabiting
the Sulaiman mountains and their emigration from these
297
mountains began in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
(1968 :308-10) .
It is not the divergence of these views but their
convergence on two elements that I wish to emphasize. In
all views, origin of the Pashtuns is postulated at a time
when states already existed in the area. Furthermore,
the posited place of origin is always in a peripheral
area, movements to and from which are related to acts of
states.
Prior to the sixteenth century, a main avenue of
contact of Pashtuns with various states had been their
recruitment in the armies of rulers bent on conquering
India. The gradual rise of some men to positions of in
fluence in the state culminated in the establishment of
a Pashtun dynasty that ruled northern India from 1451 to
1526.· Bybverthrowing this dynasty, Babur, a Mughal
prince who has been ousted from central Asia by the Uz
becks, founded the Mughal empire. But before the con
solidation of the Mughal empire under Akbar (1556-1605),
there was an interlude between 1540 and 1555 during which
another Afghan dynasty, again rising through the army,
ruled India. Until the reign of Shah Jehan (1627-1658),
Pashtuns were prominently represented in the ranks of
Mughal nobles; their influence seems, however, to have
steadily declined from then onwards (Rahim,196l:284).
The character of relations maintained by these nobles
298
with their clans of origin is not clear but their impact
on the structure of clans in the present territory of
Afghanistan was probably minimal.
The same cannot be said of the impact on Pashtun
clans of the three empires -- Safavid, Mughal, and Uzbeck
-- that were formed during the sixteenth century. Since
reliable ma.terial from this time orL\lards has become avail-
able, it is possible to analyze the processes of inter
action between these empires and the Pashtun clans. I
shall pay particular attention to changes in the internal
structure of clans and lineages that resulted from these
interactions.
Before proceeding any further, it is essential to
describe the terms through which the Pashtun themselves
refer to their social organization. Of the four terms,
kahul, zay, khel, and qaum, which can be translated re
spectively as household, lineage, clan, and tribe, only
the term for household is unambiguous. Zay and khel are
suffixes to proper names but can mean either lineage or
clan. Qaum is a more abstract term and its reference to
lineage, clan, or group of clans, is situational, and
an inquiry may elicit anyone of them. The reason for
this seeming confusion between lineage and clan is, I
think, fairly simple. As Pashtuns theoretically accord
the same importance to stipulated and demonstrated des
cent, they have no cause to stress differences which
299
they have glossed so carefully through the manipulation of
genealogy. Furthermore, despite the situational meaning
of the terms, Pashtuns do have in fact a way of separating
lineages from clans. An individual has to know the names
of his seven ascending ancestors and there is a specific
term designating each one of the seven descending gener
ations. That each of these lines is not formally con
verted into a named lineage is a reflection of the fact
that the process of naming, as mentioned earlier in the
case of the Uzbeck ruling lineage, may be strongly linked
to control over strategic resources.
This practice is not limited to the Pashtuns. Abd
Allah Hammoudi, who offers a cogent critique of Ernest
Gellner's application of "segmentary theory" to Morocco,
affirms that "tradiation demands for certain groups of
Ait-Atta that, to establish 'good birth' seven ancestors
must be mentioned. Others are less demanding •.• this
criterion immediately excludes from the race for prestige
and power all imigrants and strangers" (1980:286). He
calls attention to the analysis of conditions that deter
mine the choice of those ancestors who identify social
segments as well as discerning the reasons why common re
ference for a group is not always a person's name (Ibid:
282,299). Hammoudi's emphasis on the details of history
is based on his argument that Gellner "attempts a histor
ical reconstruction by brushing aside all history" (Ibid:
300
301
298) and his insistence that "a careful appreciation of
history can avoid overly systematic interpretations which
force reality" (Ibid:300).
Hammoudi neglects, however, to draw another important
conclusion regarding segmentary theory, namely the un-
founded character of the assertion that structural equiva-
lence exists between segments in stratified societies. Indeed,
Maurice Freedman demonstrated in the context of south-
eastern China that "if one sub-lineage was richer than
other sub-lineages, the degree of segmentation within was
likely to be greater ... In such a system segments could
not always stand balanced against other segments of like
order within a more comprehensive segment H (1958/1970:49).
The difference between Freedman's analysis of segmenta-
tion and that presented for example, by Paul Bohannan
can be best gathered from the following diagrams.
Paul Bohannan's Diagram
~1
"The lineage whose apical ancestor is some three to six generations removed from living elders and who are associated with the smallest discrete territory (tar) I call the minimal segment ... it can vary in population from 200 people to well over a thousand. . . . The territory of a minimal segment adjoins the territory of its sibling minimal segment. Thus, the lineage comprising two minimal segments also has a discrete territory, and is in turn a segment of a more inclusive lineage, and of its more inclusive territory. In Fig. 1, the whole system can be seen: the father or founder of segment a was a brother of the founder of segment b. Each is a-minimal segment today, and each has its own territory. The two segments taken together are all descended from 1, and are known by his name -- the children of 1. In the same way, the territory of lineage 1, made up as it is of the combined minimal territories a and b, combines with the territory of lineage 2, made up of the "combined minimal territories of c and d,-to form territory A, occupied by lineage segment A, all descended from a single ancestor "A." This process is extended indefinitely right up to the apex of the genealogy, back in time to the founder who begot the entire people, and outwards in space to the edges of Tivland. The entire 800,000 Tiv form a single "lineage" (nongo) and a single land called Tar Tiv. The geographical position of territories follOWS the genealogical division into lineages" (Bohannan,1954:3).
A
A
Maurice Freedman's Diagram (1958/1970:49)
__________________________________ ~B
A2 Bl
Bla
The organizational principles of structures portrayed
in the two diagrams are quite different. One of these
principles for societies like Tiv is that of complementary
opposition between segments. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, wri-
ting about the Nuer, described the idea through the fol-
302
lowing diagram.
Evans-Pritchard's Diagram
A x B Y
Xl Yl
Zl X2 ---------- Y2
Z2
"When Zl fights Z2 no other section is involved. When Zl fights Yl, Zl and Z2 unite as Y2. When Yl fights Xl, Yl and Y2 units, and so do Xl and X2. When Xl fights A, Xl, X2, Yl, and Y2 all unite as B. When A raids the Dinka A and B may unite" (1940/1977:143-44).
Marshall Sahlins, who saw segmentary lineage organi-
zation as a means for the predatory expansion of one
tribe "moving against other tribes, in a tribal inter-
cultural environment" (1961/1967:91, emphasis in the
original), argued that opposition created the structure.
"Tiv-Nuer lineages do not corne into existence except
through the massing effect, in opposition to equivalent
groups. They are not permanent, absolute social entities,
but relative ones" (Ibid:105).
As claims regarding the segmentation of Tiv and Nuer
peoples were made on the basis of informants' ideal model
of social organization and without detailed analysis of
historical information, the degree to which they repre-
303
sent a given reality remains in doubt.
In south-eastern China, clans were not functioning
in a "tribal intercultural environment" but in the con
text of a relatively centralized state. Segments were
not structurally equivalent, as Freedman demonstrated,
and Sahlins' claims of complementary opposition and struc
tural relativity leading to automatic collective action
(Ibid:103) cannot even be formally made.
My reasons for considering segmentation theory are
related to the fact that Pashtun clans have described
their own social organization in such terms. Moreover,
during my fieldwork between 1973 and 1977, informants
repeatedly asserted that in making alliances Pashtun
clans adhered to a segmentary model. Yet, ample histori
cal examples show that the model has, in fact, been fre
quently disregarded and even that levels of segmentation
have been the outcome of state policy.
The contact of state(s) with clans did not need to
be continuous for the impact on clan organization to be
significant. Before his conquest of India in 1526, Babur
who, from 1507 onwards, ruled in the eastern region and
parts of the southern region of present day Afghanistan,
led frequent expeditions against Pashtun clans in these
regions and in the area that forms today the north-western
frontier province of Pakistan. Most of these expeditions
were in search of loot and did not aim at subjugating
304
people to administrative or economic integration. Pashtun
clans seem to have recovered from the successive blows
though, in most instances, the number of casualties suf
fered by clans -- which Babur records as number of skulls
used to erect pillars to victory -- were relatively large
(Beveridge,trans.1969:232-33,234,etc.). These losses
must have affected the structure of clans as well as the
relative position of various segments to each other.
There is, however, no information from the time of Babur
apart from an account of an encounter between the army of
the Persian ruler Nadir Shah Afshar (1736-1747) and a
Pashtun clan. Since its impact on the internal organiza
tion of that clan have been recorded, I will discuss this
encounter.
In 1879, when the British officer who gathered the
information visited the Shorawak district, the Barechi
clan was divided into four named sections: Mandozai (1500
fighting men; 5 sub-sections); Zakozai (1500 fighting men;
4 sub-sections); Badalzai (400 fighting men; 3 sub-sec
tions); and Shirani (300 fighting men; 3 sUb-sections).
It can be readily seen that even in sections with the
same number of fighting men, the number of segments was
not equivalent. Moreover, all sections did not claim the
same origin. Three claimed descent from Barech but the
fourth "section" [was] a fragment of another tribe, but
now completely assimilated to the other sections" (GAt
305
Kandahar: 89) . In 1883, the khan (chief) of all four sec
tions was the leading man of the Mandozai section which,
in the light of the strength of that section, is not sur
prising. This had not always been so and can be traced
back to encounter between the Barechis and the army of
Nadir.
In 1737, when Nadir, after defeating the Ghilzai
Pashtuns who had conquered Iran in 1722 marched on their
seat of government in Kandahar, the Barechis opposed him.
"To punish them, Nadir Shah despatched his General, Kamran,
with a large force. The bulk of the Barechis retreated
at once to the mountains, but the Badalzai .•. remained in
their homes ..• They were surrounded and surprised by
Kamran, ... and the greater portion of the people put to
the sword. Only a few hundred escaped to join the other
sections. The ruins round Badalzai [village] still tes
tify to the extent of the catastrophe. Up to this time
the Badalzais were not only the eldest, but the strongest
section of the Barechisi and their village the largest in
Shorawak. Since then they are the weakest, excepting the
semi-alien Shiranis, and the village, though large, is
not a third of the size of the Mandozai" (Ibid:45l-52).
A contemporary account of the event estimated the number
of the inhabitants of Shorawak who were killed in the bat
tle at six hundred (Mirza Mehdi,n.d.:174).
Despite the change in balance within the Barechi
306
clan, its association with the territory of Shorawak was
not altered. This was not always the case and migration
of clans often occurred as a result of confrontation with
state power.
Some time between 1698 and 1709, the Safavid gover
nor of Kandahar forced the Abdali clans out of their lands
in the vicinity of the city (Tarikh-i-Sulatni,1880:69).
The clans first moved to the districts of Shorawak and
Farah, northwest of Kandahar. In 1709, Safavid rule in
Kandahar was overthrown by the Ghilzai clans. The Abdalis
were then persuaded by the Safavid governor to join
Safavid troops sent against the Ghilzais. The failure of
the expedition made the Abadlis aware of the weakness of
the Safavid empire; they in turn conquered Herat in 1717,
proclaiming it an independent state, and maintained their
control until they were defeated by Nadir Shah Afshar in
1732. Some 60,000 families of the Abdali clans were then
forcefully made to move to the province of Persian
Khorasan (Koudusi,1960:548, reproducing Nadir's original
edict). A good number of Abdali men were, however, re
cruited into Nadir's army and in return for their loyal
services, when Nadir vanquished the Ghilzai in 1738, he
qranted them the lands of the Hotak Ghilzai clan in the
district of Kandahar. The ruling house of the Hotak clan
was banished to the province of Mazendaran and the clans-
307
men to the province of Persian Khorasan (MirzaMehdi,n.d.:181).
Relocation of population was not confined to Pashtun
clans. After conquering Herat in 1738, Nadir forcefully
moved some of its Persian-speaking population as well as
the Jamshedi clan to his capital city of Mashad and other
districts (Ibid:55). In their place, he installed "sixty
thousand families" from his own clan of Afshar (Koudusi,
1960:111). Nadir Shah seems to have undertaken forced
migration on a massive scale, as illustrated by map 11.
John Perry, who drew the map, argued that Nadir's prin
ciple aims were the recruitment of manpower for his army,
the fragmentation of recalcitrant clans, and increasing
the available manpower for production in the region of
Khorasan where his capital city of Mashad was located
(1975:208-209).
If Nadir was able both to force populations out and
to decide the place of their relocation, other rulers were
not always as successful in determining the destination
of expulsions. The example of the Yusufzai clans is a
case in point.
In his narrative of events for the year 1586, Abul
Fazl Allami, an outstanding scholar of the reign of Akbar
(1556-1605), provided some valuable insights into the pat
tern of movement of the Yusufzai clans. According to his
account, the Yusufzais used to live in Kandahar and
Karabagh. In the fifteenth century, they were forced to
move to Kabul where, shortly after, they were attacked by
308
Mirza Ulugh Begh (d.1501), the ruler of Kabul. Their re
maining members moved again to the district of Lagr~an in
the eastern region, and from there to Hashtneghar in the
vicinity of Peshawar, then again to neighbouring Swat and
Bajaur. "It is now close to one hundred years that they
have spent their time in Swat and Bajaur in robbery and
rebellion," wrote Abul Fazl who estimated their numbers
at 30,000 in Bajaur and 40,000 in Swat (Akbarnarneh,vol.III:
475,481-482) .
Prior to the conquest of these territories by the
Yusufzais, the area was ruled by a group of people who
claimed descent from a daughter of Alexander the Great and
gave their ruler the title of Sultan (Ibid:475). Babur's
account of his conquest of Bajaur in 1519 -- during which
3,000 male inhabitants were executed confirms the ear-
lier existence of Sultans of Bajaur and Swat. He also
mentions that when Yusufzais took over Swat, which up till
then was considered a dependency of Kabul, they stopped
paying revenue to the ruler of Kabul (Beveridge trans.,
1969:370-375;207-221) .
The process through which the Yusufzais gained con
trol over Swat and Bajaur is not clear; events in 1593
may provide a hint. In that year, under strong pressure
from Mughal armies, some Yusufzais were forced out of
Swat and Bajaur. They, in turn, pushed on to a new dis
trict which, according to Abul Fazl, was inhabited by
309
kafirs (non-Muslims, lit. infidels) and managed to consoli
date their hold there (Akbarnameh,vol.III:625).
Expansion into the land of so-called kafirs was not
an isolated phenomenon. An account of a series of wars
between Muslims and kafirs in the valley of Laghman, in
eastern Afghanistan, originally written in 1582, documents
the establishment of Muslim settlements in the area and
the forceful conversion of kafir people to Islam (Sifat
Nama-i Darvis Muhammad Khan-Gazi,Persian text,Rome ed.,
1965:1-75). Since the sixteenth century and until 1896 when
the area of Nuristan, as shown on map 12, was conquered
by th8 Afghan state and its inhabitants converted to Islam,
there seems to have been continuous expansion of Pashtun
clans and other Muslim groups into kafir territories, con
version of kafirs to Islam, and probable incorporation
within the clan structures. As illustrated by the inci
dent of 1593, the impetus for such movements may have
come from the policies of pacification and incorporation
pursued by the surrounding states.
In his perceptive remark on the encapsulated charac
ter of nomadism in Afghanistan, Lattimore noted that
large concentrations of settled population and areas of
habitation of nomadic and semi-nomadic groups interpene
trated each other in a complex fashion. The spatial lo
cation of irrigation agriculture and pastures was such
that the seasonal movements of nomadic populations between
310
their summer and winter pastures inevitably brought them
in close proximity to the areas where they were vulner
able to attacks from state armies. Babur gives frequent
examples of his forays against Pashtun clans. The scale
of losses suffered by nomadic clans can be gathered from
the results of a raid carried out against the Ghilzai
clans in 1507. Counting the spoils, Babur stated his
own share, which was a fifth of what was taken, "came out
at 16,000, that is to say, this 16,000 was the fifth of
80.000 sheep; no question, however, that with those lost
and those not asked for, a lakh (100,000) of sheep had
been taken" (Beveridge trans.,1969:325). Such plundering
expeditions seem to have forced most nomadic clans to
agree quickly to paying some kind of tribute (Ibid:413).
From the records of the revenue of the state provided by
Abul Fazl for the central places of Kabul and Kandahar
and their dependent districts, it seems certain that, by
the reign of Akbar, most nomadic clans in these areas
were paying taxes in kind and/or money (Ain-i-Akbari,
Gladwin trans.,vol.II,1800:304-307).
Similarly, the large-scale raidings undertaken by
the Uzbeck state may have been a strong factor in forcing
Pashtun clans into seeking protection from the Mughal and
Safavid states. Furthermore, the extensive economic in
terconnections between nomads and the inhabitants of "cen
tral places" gave some nomadic clans a common interest
311
in those policies of the state that aimed at the esta
blishment of order and security for long-distance trade.
Most central places had a special marketplace where
animals were sold and, as data for subsequent periods in
dicates, nomads must have been the major patrons of such
markets. Nomadic women, who combined herding and domes
tic manufacture, must have sought there an outlet for
their products -- mainly carpets and rugs. The extensive
development of manufacture of luxury carpets in urban
workshops in Persia and India in the sixteenth centuries
would not have been possible without the supply of wool
by nomads.
The main economic functions performed by nomads, how
ever were those of breeders of transport animals and
carriers in long-distance trade. Data from the end of
the eighteenth century clearly indicates that, although
merchants kept their own camels and organized their own
caravans, nomadic clans played the main role in long-dis
tance trade by hiring out their camels to other trading
clans as well as engaging in direct trade (Elphinstone,
1832,vol.I:378-382). This picture, as I will show later,
is confirmed for the nineteenth century as well. Indeed,
the Lohani clan, from the time of Babur on (Beveridge
trans.1969:235), is continuously mentioned as a major
trading group between Afghanistan, India and central Asia.
Passing in slow stages through the districts lying be-
312
tween the major central places, these trading clans ful
filled the functions of a regular seasonal market for the
settled population (e.g., Vigne,1840:113).
Relations between the trading nomadic clans and the
groups through whose territory they passed were not always
peaceful, even though at times they belonged to the same
ethno-linguistic group and maintained regular contact.
Indeed, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
some of the most intense fighting took place between the
Lohanis and another Pashtun clan, the Wazirs, through
whose area the Lohanis had to pass on their way to and
from India. The reason for the conflict was the Lohani's
refusal to pay the Wazirs for cost of protection (Ibid:
78). As they did pay the powerful Sulimankhel clan for
passing through the plain of Katawaz (Ibid:lll) and every
other regional power from India to the borders of Russia
(Ibid:78-79) , the Lohanis must have considered the Wazirs
not too serious a threat at the beginning. But to effect
their passage through the Wazir mountains, they were "com
pelled to move in large bodies of from 5,000 to 10,000
and regular marches and encampments [were] observed, under
an elected Khan or leader, exactly like an army moving
in an enemy's country" (GA,Kabul:426).
Excessive demands for costly protection on the part
of empires and other powers were met with the same re
sistance. Around the beginning of the eighteenth century,
313
the Nawab of Dera Ismail Khan -- now part of the north
west frontier province of Pakistan -- engaged the Lohanis
in battle but lost 400 men and some pieces of canon a
gainst 250 men for the Lohanis. He was forced to retreat
and, as a result, duties paid by the Lohanis "were re
duced from nine to six annas a maund for their cloth goods,
from eight to six rupees for every sale camel, and from
five to three for every sale horse; and the impost levied
at Derabund was reduced from one thousand four hundred,
to one thousand one hundred, rupees a-year" (Vigne,1840:
56-57). Thus, control over means of violence was always
an important variable in the relations between states and
nomadic clans as well as between these clans and their
more sedentary kinsmen.
As for sedentary clans, their relations with states
were also conditioned by their location, that is whether
they inhabited an econologically central or marginal zone,
and how distant they were from the main arteries of long
distance trade. Clans whose lands were within the vicin
ity of a central area or within zones on which a central
area depended for its supply of food, were bound to ex
perience strong pressure from wielders of political power
-- whether provincial governors of a larger state or re
gionally autonomous rulers -- for payment of tribute.
Thus, when Babur took over Kabul in 1507, in order to
provide for his central Asian followers, he imposed a
314
grain levy of 30,000 ass-loads on the people of Kabul,
Ghazni and "their dependencies ... the impost was exces
sive, and under it the country suffered very grievously"
(Beveridge,trans.,1969:228). As these were areas where
production for the market was regularly undertaken and
circulation of land as commodity widely practiced, the
economic and political fluctuations of the state must
have been closely felt by clans settled there.
The policies of states towards areas with an inter
mediate scale of production were dictated by the charac
ter of the state, the degree of ease with which military
operations could be conducted, and the location of these
areas in relation to major routes of communication link
ing the central area of various regions. For a regional
state, such as that of Babur in Ka~Hl, it was profitable
to keep its forces continually busy and find new append
ages for the displaced central Asian aristocrats, a state
with a huge territory under its control, such as the
Mughal state under Akbar, found it easier to come to
terms with the local population. Imperial policy towards
security of travel and communication within the state, as
well as with areas within other states, took a very dif
ferent form from that of regionally confined power-hold
ers. Raiding traders and imposing a special tribute on
them were normal practices with Babur (Beveridge trans.,
1969:235,331,etc.). By contrast, Akbar and his succes-
315
sors spent enormous efforts to provide traders and other
travellers with security of travel. In the context of
these efforts, a most important aspect of the relations
between the Mughal state and Pashtun clans was worked out.
From the sixteenth century up to the end of the nine
teenth century, our sources indicated that various Pash
tun clans -- though not always the same in the same places
-- were located on the main routes between India and Iran
and central Asia. More specifically, the number of moun
tain passages through which an army or a caravan could
move to and from India were limited to the passes on which
Pashtun clans lived. Although most of these areas were
in ecologically marginal zones, successive states had to
adopt coercive policies towards the clans inhabiting them
and cultivate among them a relation of dependence, in or
der that routes remain open to travellers.
Contol of the Khyber pass, one of the easiest pas
sageways between Afghanistan and India, has had, since
the time of Akbar, a high priority on the part of all
states ruling the area. Before the construction of a
paved road in the twentieth century, the length of the
pass was estimated at 28 miles. Its description in 1878
closely echoes earlier accounts. Major C.J. East wrote
that lithe road is chiefly the bed of a torrent, subject
at certain seasons to be suddenly flooded; at first it
is flat, covered with loose stones and gravel, and en-
316
closed between perpendicular hills; in the middle portion
it is narrow, winding and steep, being in parts much cut
by protruding pieces of rock, &c.; lastly it consists of
a made road down the side of a steep hill ... With the
exception of the valley of Lalabeg, which is six miles
long, the remainder of the pass, or 22 miles, is commanded
by common musket shot, the hills on either side varying
from 200 yards to 50 feet in distance apart" (L/P&S/18/
C71:10). Clearly, closing the pass to traffic was an
easy venture.
Abul Fazl, while mentioning the fact that Akbar ex
tended the route (Akbarnarneh,vol.III:487), recorded a
number of instances in which it was closed by Pashtun
clans -- to whom he referred by the more common name
of Afghans (Ibid:473,5l2,702). Elsewhere, too, Pashtun
clans interfered with the flow of traffic. Abul Fazl
stated that "from Kabul to the river Indus, various
groups of Afghans live and every now and then because of
ignorance and self-interest, they harm the travellers and
oppress the hapless" (Ibid:5l9). To control the activi
ties of Pashtun clans, Akbar ordered the construction of
eleven forts along the road from Kabul to Attock on the
Indus. This was done within a short time and the forts
were manned by soldiers (Ibid). Mughal armies were also
sent on several plundering expeditions against the clans
of the Khyber until those clans, in sign of submission,
317
gave hostages to the state and accepted collective respon
sibility for the safety of the Khyber (Ibid:513,521,531).
Similarly, Abul Fazl related the campaigns of Mughal armies
against the Yusufzai clans in Swat and Bajaur, as well as
the execution of a number of them and the sale of others
as slaves in Iran and central Asia, to the interference of
these clans with the safety of travel (Ibid:486,708).
With the decline of the Mughal state at the beginning
of the eighteenth century, Pashtun clans on the Khyber
regained their power and managed to impose fees for going
through the pass on subjects of all states, including the
British government of India.
There seems to be a fairly close relation between
proximity of location to Padshah-i-Lara (king's road) and
the rise of aristocratic lineages among clans. Indeed,
the rise of such lineages among the Khattak, Mohmand,
eastern and western Ghilzais, and the Abdali clans can
be linked to the policies of the Mughal and Safavid
states.
In 1586 and 1589, a Khattak by the name of Akory and
an Abdali by the name of Sado were appointed, respective
ly by Akbar and Shah Abbas I, to watch the safety of the
highroads between Attock and Peshawar and between Kanda
har and Herat (Caroe,1958:212,223). No reliable account
of Sado's appointment can be found and Caroe, who gives
1589 as the date of his appointment by Shah Abbas I, does
318
not indicate the source of his assertion. As for Akory,
Afzal Khan, chief of the Khattaks at the beginning of the
eighteenth century and sixth patrilineal descendant of
Akrory, provides the following account of his selection.
"It is said [of Akory] that he was both very coura
geous in the use of his sword and extremely generous"
(Tarikh ~urassa, 1974:265). Brought to the notice of
Akbar by some of his officials, that monarch "offered him
a mansab [rank] but malik [title used by headmen; original
meaning in Arabic is ruler] Akory was a wise man and re
fused the mansab. He brought to the attention of the
king that if he, alone, received a mansab, the rest of
his clan would become jealous and the service of the king
would not be fulfilled" (Ibid). Instead, he asked that
the whole clan be made responsible for the safekeeping
of the highway and share in the tolls collected from
travellers. The king accepted this arrangement and Akory
was able to secure the services of the Khattak clan for
the king (Ibid). The distribution of shares between
Akory and the rest of his clansmen is not known but, in
addition to his income from tolls, he was given a jagir
by Akbar along the bank of the Kabul river until its
confluence with the Indus (Ibid; Caroe,1958:2l2).
Beyond his concern for the safety of the road,
Akbar's intention in grating privileges to Akory was to
build a local basis to counterbalance general Pashtun re-
319
sistance to the consolidation of Mughal rule in the area.
His policy was eminently successful; until the reign of
Aurangzeb (1658-1707), the Khattak clan always sided with
the Mughal state against other Pashtun clans (Afzal Khan,
1974:253,268-74).
It is only with Akory's son that the title of khan
was first mentioned in Afzal Khan's narrative of the
Khattak clan. Major R. Leech, who spent from 1839 to
1842 as political agent in various parts of the southern
region of Afghanistan, states that the title of sultan -
an official rank in the Safavid state -- was first men
tioned in reference to Sado's grandson in a manuscript
account of the Abdalis prior to their emergence as the
founders of the Afghan state in 1747 (1845c:458). A
Ghilzai contemporary to the Abdali sultan, who bore the
same title and belonged to the Tokhi clan, was also men
tioned in the manuscript (Ibid). Indeed, of all amirs
alive in 1629, two Pashtun notables are listed as "(72)
Sir Khan Afghan, governor of Pusang (Fusanj), a depend
ency of Kandahar [and] (73) Maqdud Sultan Afghan, sub
ordinate to the governor of Kandahar" (Eskandar Monshi,
1978:1315). Maqdud Sultan cannot be easily related to
a clan, yet he might be the same man as the one referred
to in Pashtun as Sultan Malakhy Ghilzai. Leech reported
seeing an edict of a Mughal ruler, dated 1022 A.H. (1613),
which he incorrectly identified as Aurangzeb, appointing
320
Malakhy Sultan "to the charge of the highroad from Kalat
to Karatoo, (the former in the Tarnak valley, and the lat
ter in the Arghandab,) to protect it from Hazarah robbers.
[Jahangir] no doubt found Malakhe the most powerful of
the Khilzye chiefs at enmity with Hazarasi as patronizing
an officer of his own creation at court, he no doubt
found very different from supporting a newly created
chief over his tribe" (1845a:3l0). During the same per
iod, an individual by the name of Jabar from the Ahrnadzai
clan gained the position of khan of the eastern Ghilzais
in return for the protection of the road between Kabul
and Jalalabad (Ibid:3l0-l2). In his account of the early
Ghilzais, Leech makes an observation that is of wider
significance. He stated that "the Hotakees I suppose from
being removed from the high road were not required by
[Jahangir], and therefore remained unnoticed; that
monarch's sole object being to secure his communication
with Ghuznee, Cabool and Hindustan, and not being coveting
revenue from their Karazees [underground channels], and
almond orchards" (Ibid:310).
Mir Wais, a Hotaki clansman, after being appointed
khan of the western Ghilzais by the Safavid governor of
Kandahar, founded an independent state in Kandahar in
1709; under his son Mahrnud, the Ghilzai Pashtuns con
quered the Safavid capital of Isfahan in 1722 thereby
putting an end to that dynasty.
32l
It is with the advent of individuals who emerged as
khans or sultans that aristocratic lineages, expressed in
Pashtu through the notion of Khankhel (lit. the lineage
of khans) make their appearance. At this point the dif
ference between historically demonstrated and stipulated
descent becomes clear. Afzal Khan, for instance, traces
his descent through six individuals, covering a period
of about one hundred years, to Akory. But he only men
tions seventeen individuals, about whom he provides no
information and whose existence cannot even be verified
from other sources, as his links to Qais, the putative
ancestor of all Pashtuns who allegedly lived at the time
of the Prophet of Islam. Each of the male lineal des
cendants of an ancestor who first founded a Khankhel lin
eage had, on the other hand, the potential for being con
sidered as the beginning of a distinct sub-lineage. Whe
ther he actually did become the founding ancestor of a
new segment was linked to the degree his name could serve
as justification for strategic resources.
Despite the patrilineal ideology, the matrilineal
link could also become significant in the determination
of segmentation. This fact is especially clear among the
Morchakhels, who formed the Khankhel of the Lalpura clan
of Mohmands which controlled the road between Jalalabad
and Peshawar. The lineage was named after Malik Morcha
"who lived during the reign of Akbar Shah and served at
322
Moradabad returning afterwards to take charge of the
Moghul fort near Dakka, of which he and his sons appear
to have acquired hereditary command" (Merk,1881:11). His
son's grandson had two wives called Jahana and Araba. The
descendants of the former, called Jahana Kor (lit. house
of), never held the Khanship, while the Araba Kor was the
Khankhel (Ibid).
The financial base of khans was provided by tolls
on roads, jagirs in more centrally located areas, and,
possibly, stipends in cash from the state. Moreover, as
they furthered the cause of the state in their wars with
autonomous clans and participated as well in joint actions
with other forces of the state, they must have received
a regular supply of arms and the means of destruction from
the states. They made full use of these resources for the
expansion of their own territories and the increase of
their revenue as demonstrated by reports of constant war
fare against their less well-endowed neighbours, whether
Pashtun oronon-Pashtun.
The financial security of a khan could be radically
affected, however, by actions of the ruler or the agents
of the state. These took the form of change of jagirs,
assigning profitable jagirs for higher revenue to other
individuals, and even interfering with the collection of
tolls (Afzal Khan:275-76,348,368,etc.). Indeed, it was
the resistance of Khushal Khan (the grandfather of Afzal
323
Khan and the most renowned Pashtun poet and warrior) to an
edict of Aurangzeb forbidding the collection of tolls,
which brought about his imprisonment and subsequent strug
gle against the Mughal state (Ibid:275ff).
Policies of the states aimed at checking the ambi
tions of khans were helped by the inherent oppositions
within a Khankhel. There was no fixed order of succes
sion to the khanship and, as power and financial rewards
of the office were chiefly concentrated in one person and
the direct group of his adherents, competition for the
office was intense. The main contestants were the des
cendants of a khan as well as descendants of the colla
teral branches. As the khan's appointment had to be con
firmed by the state which could also remove him from his
functions at will, various factions in the Khankhel had
to cultivate relations with state dignitaries in their
provinces. The conditions imposed on an aspirant could
be stiff. When Khushal Khan, who was the father of fifty
six sons, revolted against Aurangzeb, the terms for the
appointment of one of his sons as khan included the cap
turing of his own father. This he agreed to undertake
but failed to achieve (Ibid:30l).
State support alone was not sufficient to underwrite
the authority of a khan. He had to command the loyalty
of a sufficiently large number of his clansmen to prevent
his father, brothers, and cousins from disturbing the
324
peace of the highway. Indeed, an obvious avenue for the
demonstration of the power of a deposed or aspirant khan
was his ability to disrupt the flow of traffic and this
measure was frequently resorted to; when the show was im-
impressive enough, it brought the desired end (Ibid:304,
316,etc.). The outcome of conflicts between khans and
states was not the reassertion of some sort of structural
equilibrium. It often brought about fundamental altera-
tions in the balances of power between the two parties.
And, depending on the location of his clan, a khan could
engage in relations with more than one state and thereby
help in determining the rapidity with which territory
changed hands between states. The example of Sher Khan
Abdali will serve to illustrate the point.
Abdul Hamid Lahouri, contemporary historian of the
reign of Shahjahan (1627-1658), reported that Sher Khan's
father, under pressure from the Mughal governor of
Kandahar, was forced to move to Iran where his son was
raised. When Shah Abbas I conquered Kandahar in 1621,
he appointedSherKhan as khan of the Pashtun clans of
Kushan (1867,vol.I:419). As Sher Khan is reputed to be
the grandson of Sado, founder of the Sadozai lineage and
an ancestor of Ahmadshah, the founder of the Afghan state
(Fofalzai,1967,vol.I,21), it can be presumed that he al
ready led a faction among the clans. After the death
of Shah Abbas, relations between Sher Khan and the Safavid
3 ~-~
governor of Kandahar deteriorated, and Sher Khan started
to interfere with the flow of long-distance trade; "fre
quenters of the road between Iraq and India could not tra
vel to and from easily" (Ibid). The governor of Kandahar,
therefore, with 3,000 horsemen of his own and 1,000 horse
men of the zamindars (landowners) of Kandahar, attacked
Sher Khan's fort while the latter was on a raid in
Baluchistan, and subsequently forced him to India. In
1603, Sher Khan presented himself to Shahjahan and was
appointed to the rank of 2,000 zat, 1,000 horses, and
granted a reward of 20,000 rupees in cash as well as a
jagir in Punjab (Ibid:420-42l). Shahjahan's generous
attitude towards Sher Khan was due to the fact that the
Mughal ruler had long planned the conquest of Kandahar,
which he eventually achieved in 1637. A local account
of Sher Khan's tribulations, which neglected to mention
his stay in either Iran or India, reported that Sher
Khan was forced to seek aid from the Mughal state when
the Safavids extended patronnage to a rival cousin. Sher
Khan seem to have remained in control of the khanship and
was succeeded by his son (Leech,R.,184c:458-462; Tarikh
i-Sultani,188l:6l-64) .
In general, Safavid policy was less tolerant towards
the consolidation of hereditary leadership within a lin
eage. As I have already indicated, the Safavid governor
of Kandahar managed to force the Abdalis out of Kandahar;
326
he also replaced the old Khankhel of the western Ghilzais
by an appointee of his ow~ from the Hotak clan. The weak
ness of the Safavid state, however, allowed the new
Pashtun leadership to put an end to it. Yet, the Ghilzais
failed to consolidate their power either in Afghanistan
or Iran, and Nadir Afshar, after ousting them from Iran,
conquered their stronghold of Kandahar. Nadir's attitude
towards aristocratic Pashtun lineages is best summarized
in the words of the court historian of Ahmad Shah, the
founder of the Afghan state: "In whichever clan where
there was a respected and powerful lineage or group he
would attempt to reduce their dignity in public. In their
place he would promote people without fame and distinction
so that considering their importance as derived from him
they would not think of disobeying him" (Mahmoud Monshi,
1974,vol.I:34). Thus, when Nadir subdued the Abdalis
in Herat, and demoted Ahmad Shah's father and brother,
he appointed one of their former chamberlains as khan of
the Abdalis and governor of Kandahar (Ibid:35). Nadir
did, however, select the young Ahmad as one of the com
manders of the Abdali contingent of his army. This con
tingent, numbering five to six thousands men was often
preferred to the qizil.bash soldiers. Upon the assassina
tion of Nadir in 1747, his empire crumbled overnight and
the various contingents started to carve out states for
themselves. The Abdali contingent fought its way back to
327
Kandahar and, after some deliberations, the Pashtun khans
agreed to the choice of Ahrnand Khan as their king.
What were the structural contours of this newly
formed state and how was it reproduced over our unit of
long duration? I shall attempt to provide an answer in
the remaining part of this study.
Within months of his election, Ahmad Shah (1747-1772)
led his army to the successful conquest of the towns of
Ghazni, Kabul and Peshawar, where the "Ayan and Izza"
(nobles and notables) carne to present themselves and "un
dertook the payment of the rights of divan and the ob
ligatory dues of the ruler" (Mahmud Monshi,1974:8). As
shown by map 13., he had, by the time of his death and
through the power of arms, imposed tribute over a large
expanse of territory.
He fought his memorable battle in 1761 on the fields
of Paniput near Delhi, where he decisively defeated the
newly risen Maratha power in India. Yet, when after his
victory he returned to his capital of Kandahar and at
tempted to build a new city there, he was twice refused
the 12 qulbas, roughly 300 acres, that were needed for the
site, by two Durani clans that owned the land. The con
struction could only start when the Popalzais, his own
clansmen, offered him the needed land (Faiz Muharnrnad,vol.
I,1913:25-26) .
These two events bring to sharp relief the external
328
and internal aspects in the operation of the Durani state
during Ahmad Shah's reign. Both the internal and external
aspects of the relations of domination underwent radical
changes after Ahmad Shah's death. By concentrating on
four conjunctural periods, I shall examine changes in re
lations between rulers and other political forces in the
state. Before doing so, I shall first take account of
the ethno-linguistic diversity that has been character
istic of the people living in the present territory of
Afghanistan.
In contemporary Afghanistan, linguists have recorded
the existence of some thirty-two languages (A.G. Rawan
Farhadi,1977,personal communication). These can be traced
back to three main families, Iranian, 86 percent; Turkic,
13 percent and Dardic, 0.5 percent; others make up 0.5
percent (Humlum,1959:95). But people who have spoken kin
dred languages or even the same language have identified
themselves through other attributes. Pashtuns, Tajiks,
and Hazaras, who are all speakers of Iranian languages -
the former speaking Pashtu and the latter two Persian -
have had considerably different im~ges of themselves and
others from that of members of a common language family.
The same holds true for speakers of Turkic languages, the
Uzbecks, Turkomans, and Qizilbashes. Even religion has
not been a factor of unity. While Pashtuns, Tajiks,
Uzbecks, and Turkomans have, in most cases, adhered to the
329
Sunni interpretation of Islam, Hazaras and Qizilbashes
have generally followed the Shi'i interpretation. Non-
Muslim groups such as Hindus, Jews, Armenians and, until
their conversion in 1896, Nuristans -- commonly called
kafirs (infidels) -- have also coexisted at various per-
iods. There is no reliable data on the relative number
of these groups for our period of long duration. The
following two sets of figures J offered by Elphinstone and
British intelligence officials for the beginning and end
of the nineteenth century, can be taken as educated
guesses. Elphinstone's figures refer to the territory
of the Durani state while figures from the military re-
port refer to the present territory of Afghanistan.
Table I. population Breakdown at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (Elphinstone,vol.I,1839:114)
Pashtuns Beloches Tartars [Turkic populations] Persians (including Tajiks) Indians (Casmeerees,Juts,etc) Miscellaneous Tribes
Total
4,300,000 1,000,000 1,200,000 1,500,000 5,700,000
300,000
14,000,000
330
Table II. population Breakdown at the End of the Nineteenth Century (Military Report on Afghanistan, 1906:194-9)
Pashtuns Tajiks Uzbecks Hazaras Char Aimaqs
2,684,000 1,500,000
750,000 516,000 245,000
Total: five to six millions.
Qizil-Bashes Kafirs Baluchis Hindus Arabs
100,000 70,000 40,000 30,000 25,000
The political and economic role played by various
groups was not a reflection of their numerical strength.
The differences can be traced to the position of a group
in relation to the organization of production, circula-
tion, and domination. Since the mid-eighteenth century,
and despite the mobility of groups, the ethnic distribu-
tion was as follows. Hazaras were the main group in the
central region and Uzbecks and other Turkic-speaking
groups -- with the exception of the Qizilbashes -- the
major group in the north. Badakshan was for the most
part inhabited by the Persian-speaking Tajiks as well as
speakers of a number of other languages. "Kafirs" in-
habited the mountainous terrain of Nuristan. Pashtuns,
Tajiks, Hazaras, and various minor groups were inter-
mingled in the western, southern, and eastern regions.
At the beginning of the Durani state, the Persian-
speaking population, identified by the name of Tajik,
Parsiwan, and so on, was occupying the areas in or around
331
332
central places in the western, southern, and eastern re-
gions while Pashtuns, in general, lived in more marginal
places. In intermediate places, there seems to have been
more of an intermixture.
Besides general remarks on the part of contemporary
historians and travellers, the predominance of the Per-
sian-speaking population in central areas can be quanti-
tatively demonstrated in one case. In a census of Kabul
-- capital of the state from 1775 onwards -- taken in
1876, the ethnic breakdown was given as follows (GA,Kabul:
221ff.):
Pashtuns: Duranis 3,000 Ghilzais 2,000 Safis 4,000
Persian-Speakers: Kabulis 103,050
Tajiks 12,000
Others: Armenians 100 Hindus 4,000 Jews 50 Kashmiris 3,000 Parachas 3,000 Qizilbashes 6,500
Total 140,700
As people of Kabul usually identify themselves as Tajiks,
it is not entirely clear as to why the Afghan official
in charge of the census classed Tajiks and Kabulis in two
different categories. It is possible that through the
category of Tajik he might have wanted to differentiate
the newly migrant from the older established inhabitants
of Kabul. By contrast to other major groups of popula
tion -- Hazaras, Pashtuns, and Uzbecks -- , Tajiks were
not organized in clans. The continual presence of
state power in central places and the consequent sub
ordination of the people living in these areas might ac
count for the absences of clanties among Tajiks.
Unlike the Tajiks, who were mainly engaged in agri
cultural production, the Hindus performed a major func
tion in the sphere of circulation. In their capacity as
bankers, along with Armenians and Jews, they cashed bills
of exchange in all the central places of Afghanistan,
Iran, India, and central Asia. These bills of exchange,
which obviated the problem of carrying money in bulk as
well as the danger of robbery in unsettled times, were
extremely important in the functioning of long-distance
trade. Inside Afghanistan, their operations were not
confined to long-distance trade. In the western, south
ern, and eastern regions, they formed the bulk of shop
keepers in villages. Besides being the conduits in the
rural areas for products from central and foreign places,
they played, as grain merchants, an important role in the
circulation of agricultural products. Their function as
middlemen between producers and consumers of rural and
urban products was considerably facilitated by their ac-
333
tivity as money-lenders.
The existence of Hindus as a well organized group in
Afghan society pre-dated the rise of the Abdali clan to
power. Ahmad Shah and the subsequent Abdali powerholders
made use of the banking and other services they provided
so that their position may not have undergone radical
change. Some Hindu bankers may have benefitted from their
connection with Abdali khans.
The same cannot be said, however, of the Tajik and
Hazara populations in the districts of the central place
of Kandahar. As this is one of the situations where
relationship to mode of domination directly affected the
relation of ethnic groups to the means of production and
to each other, I shall briefly examine the situation. The
word "Afghan," until the beginning of the twentieth cen
tury, was exclusively applied to Pashtuns, and whenever it
appears in a quotation it should be understood in that re
stricted sense.
Sir Henry Rawlinson, who served as political agent
in Kandahar during the first Anglo-Afghan war (1839-1842)
and, in that capacity, had access to state papers that
have since been lost, stated, in his report on the Durani
(names assumed by the Abdalis after Ahmad Shah assumed
power) clans, that prior to the conquest of Kandahar by
Nadir in 1738, "the land had been cultivated by a mixed
peasantry, composed of Parsiwans, Hazaras, Kakars,
334
Baluchis, etc., with a small proportion of Afghan colon
ists, all of whom considered themselves from long posses
sion to have a right of proprietorship to the soil, and
who during the short period of Ghilzai sovereignty paid
their land tax and other duties to that Government at the
same rates to which they had previously been liable under
the Saffaveen monarchs" (1841/1980,GA,Kandahar:509).
Nadir, as a consequence of his conquest, claimed the
rights to the land had been transferred to the state and
was therefore entitled to bestow it to his Abdali soldiers.
In response to appeals from the peasantry, he divided the
lands into three categories. He reserved about 500 kulba
of the best land in the vicinity of the city of Kandahar
as khalisa (state land) and assigned it to Pariswan
(Persian-speaking) cultivators, according to a system
where half of the produce went to producers and the other
half to the state. On the basis of the provision of one
horseman per kulba, he assigned 6000 kulba to the Abdalis
in tiyul. Contiguous to every village, he assigned a
section of land, called ryoti (lit. that of subjects) for
the support of the former proprietors. These lands were
subject to taxation but supposed to have been free of
Abdali interference. As the officials who determined the
location of these lands were themselves Parsiwans, these
lands were among the most valuable. Rawlinson estimated
their extent at about one third of the lands alloted to
335
the Abdalis (Ibid:509-5ll).
At first, the Abdalis employed the services of the
original owners for the cultivation of their lands, but
they gradually took over the management, and, being free
of taxation, they planted "gardens and vineyards, proper
ty which always gives large return" (Ibid:5l0). In addi
tion to the irrigated land, the Abdalis had been granted
considerable land in the valleys of the Kadanai, Do:i,
Afghastan, and Tarnak rivers which, due to insufficiency
of water, were called khushkaba (waterless). For the
Abdalis who maintained a total or partial nomadic style
of life, these valleys must have provided an important
source of pastures. Prior to their explusion from
Kandahar by the Safavid state, the Abdalis had moved be
tween Kandahar and the valley of Toba and Zamindawar in
the northwest and Karabagh, Ghazni, and Kabul in eastern
region (Mahmud Monshi,vol.I,1974:3l). Unfortunately,
neither Rawlinson not any other source provides any in
formation as to the location of the Abdali summer and
winter pastures and the routes followed by them.
Rawlinson does, however, mention the fact that the val
leys of Kandahar provided an important outlet for the
expansion of Abdali lands through their investments in
karezes [underground irrigation channels] and, because
of their privileged position under Ahmad Shah, the Abdali
clans "spread themselves over these valleys almost to the
336
exclusion of the native peasantry" (Rawlinson,184l/l980,
GA,Kandahar:5ll). The special relation of the Abdalis to
the state was due to the circumstances under which the
state was founded.
In October of 1747, when the Pashtun khans gathered
to elect one of their number as king, Ahmad Khan had been
neither governor of the province of Kandahar and, thus,
khan of the clans there, nor commander of the Abdali con
tingent in Nadir Shah's army. Since both of these posi
tion, according to Ahmad Shah's biographer (Mahmud Monshi,
vol.I,1974:43,50), were filled by members of the Alizai
clan, it is clear the Nadir had not promoted a rival
member of Ahmad Khan's Sadozai lineage or even of the
larger Popalzai clan, to a position of major authority
among the Pashtuns. Ahmad Khan's father and brother had
both ruled Herat during Abdali hegemony there, but even
in Herat their power had not been unchallenged. Members
of another Sadozai sub-lineage, which traced its descent
to Sher Khan's brother and which with the Mughal with
drawal from Kandahar had moved to Multan, had provided
more khans for the clan than Ahmad Khan's branch (Tarikh
i-Sultani,188l:65,97-l04) .
In a deadlocked assembly of khans who could not a
gree to the election of a ruler from a military strong
clan, a Sufi proclaimed Ahmad Khan king. The historian
of a rival clan asserted that the more powerful khans
337
consented to the choice "because the Sadozai lineage was
small in number and they knew that in ruling he would pay
attention to the wishes of the Durani nobles and if he
attempted to become authoritarian or oppressive, his over
throw would be easily within the power of the Durani clans"
(Ibid:123). Indeed, during the first months of his reign,
Ahmad Shah was challenged by a group consisting of the
former governor of Kandahar, khans of the Barech and Tarin
clans, and a number of Abdali clans, but he was able to
defeat them and either execute or imprison the main ring
leaders (Mahmud Monshi,1974:59-77). He owed his victory
to the fact that most of the Abdali khans that he had
appointed to the major offices of the state closely
modeled on the Safavid and Nadir's state in formal struc
ture -- as well as the majority of the Abdali clansmen
had remained loyal to him (Ibid:71).
Ahmad Shah had gained their loyalty through two mea
sures. First, after his proclamation as king, a convoy
was seized which was carrying the taxes of the Kabul and
Peshawar provinces to Nadir -- variously estimated from
one million three hundred and sixty thousand rupees to
twenty million rupees (Ghubar,1967:360i Tarikh-i-Sultani,
1881:124). "Depending on their rank and importance
[Ahmad Shah] bestowed on every Durani elder (lit. white
beard) and leader an appropriate gift and stipend" (Mahmud
Monshi,vol.I,1974:56). His second set of measures in-
338
corpora ted the clans directly to the structure of the
state and needs to be considered more fully.
After his assumption of kingship, Ahmad Shah took the
title of Dur-i-Duran" (the pearl of pearls or the pearl
of ages) and renamed the Abdali clans as the "Durani"
clans. Having conquered the central places of Kabul and
Peshawar, he gave the Pashtun clans residing in the coun
try "enclosed between the range of Hindoo Coosh, the
Indus, the Salt Range, and the Range of Solaiman" (Elphin
stone,vol.II,1839/1972:2) the name of Ber-Duranis (the
upper Duranis). They consisted of the Yusufzais, Othman
Khails, Tarklanris, Khattaks, the clans of the Khyber and
the plain of Peshawar as well as those of Bangush (Ibid).
Through their re-naming, Ahmad Shah was clearly aiming at
forging a closer relationship with these powerful clans.
According to traditional Pashtun genealogies, as shown
in the following charts, some of the clans were reputedly
descendants of the same son of Qais, the alleged ancestor
of all Pashtuns, yet other clans, such as the Khattaks,
belonged to different branches. Closer at home, in
Kandahar, the renaming of clans might, however, have been
intended to emphasize a more restricted rather than a
broader level of segmentation.
339
Diagram 1. Sarbanri I -- \\Testern Afghanistan
Sharkbun (or Shakarbun or Sharjyun)
I Sherani Tarin Barech
(from a Kakar woman, so went to join Ghurghusht branch to which Kakars belong)
Sheranis
Spin (white)
I
I Tor
(black)
I Spin Tarins Tor Tarins
Abdal
(Duki in (Pishin Abdalis Baluchistan) B I tan) or
I Zirak
?= Popalzais Alikozais Barakzais Achakzais
(Afghanistan)
Duranis (Afghanistan)
I
Nurzais Alizais
\. V
Ishaqza J (Pishin
and Toba) (Afghanistan, also
Sadozais
(One branch) Ruled Afghanistan 1747-1818
Muhammadzais
(one branch) Ruled Afghanistan 1826-1978
Source: adapted from Caroe, 1958:12.
"Multan Pathans")
340
Diagram 2. Sarbani II -- Eastern Afghans
Kharshbun (or Krishyun) I
I Kand Zamad Kasi
I I I
Khweshgis Muhammadzais Kasis Shinwaris Ketrans ---... <' -:v" (Quetta) (Ningrahar (Baluch (Hashtnagar) and border)
Ghoriah Khakhay
Ii Ghoriah Khel Khakhay Khel
I I I
Khalils Daudzais Mohmands
(Peshawar and adjacent border
Source: Caroe,1958:13.
Khaibar)
I Chamkanis
adopted (Kurram & Peshawar)
Mand Muk
I Gigianis (Doaba) ,----'--..,.
Yusuf
I Yusufzais
(Dir, Swat, etc. )
Umar
I l'1andar
I
Mandar Yusufzais (Marden and Swabi)
Tarklanris Bajaur
341
Diagram 3. Bitan (or Batni or Bait) [Qais' second son]
warSh~in
Bhitannis (Bannu and Tank)
Bitan
Bibi :>:lato Shah Hussain of Ghor
Mati tribes
Niaz
Niazis
(Isa Khel and Mianwali)
I Ghalzoe
(conceived out of wedlock)
I all the Ghalji (Ghilzai) tribes of Afghanistan
Siani
I
I
I Ibrahim Lodi
I Lodis
Dotan
I Dotanis
(South Wariristan)
praray Ismcdl
Lodis and Biluts ---(paniala)
I Lodi dynasty
of Delhi
A.D. 1451-1526
Source: Caroe,1958:15
Sur
Sur dynasty of Delhi
A.D. 1539-55
I I
Lohanis
Marwats Daulat Khel Barbars etc.
(Bannu,Tank,etc.)
342
Diagram 4. The Kar1anris
Kar1anri (father unknown)
~KOday
1st if
I Utman
utmal Khe1 (Peshawar border)
Di1azak
Di1Jzaks (extinct)
Orak
oraJzais (South Tiran)
Mani Lugman Manga1 I I I
F ar:.. dun Khataks Manga1s (Kohat Muqbils
Khugi
I Khugianis
Turis Peshawar Zadrans Zazis(Jajis)
and Afridis Mardan)
(North Tirah, Bazar and Khaibar, Kohat Pass)
(Khost) (Kurram border)
Wazir I
I Musa Darwesh Mubarik
I Ahmad
I Ahmadzai
Wazirs (South Waziristan)
Source: Caroe, 1958:21
I I
Utman
I Utmanzai
Wazirs (North
Waziristan)
I Gurbuz (Khost)
Su1aiman
I l>lahmud
I Mahsud
Mahsuds (Central
~'Iaziristan)
Kakay
Shitak
Daurs Bannuchis
(Tochi &
(Bannu)
Malikmir
I Bangash (Kohart
and Kurram)
343
From diagram I., it can be readily seen that the
Duranis or Abdalis are believed to be descendants of Tarin
who, beside Abdal, is shown to have had two other sons.
Sher Khan, father of Ahmad Shah's paternal grandfather,
was regularly referred to as Tarin in the Mughal contem
porary sources. This may have been due to the fact that
the Safavid and Mughal states appointed only one khan for
all the western Sarbanri Pashtuns. If this were the case,
it follows that the state, through appointing khans at
certain levels of segmentation, can strongly influence
the tendencies towards the production of smaller or lar
ger number of segments. The empirical example for this
assertion is provided by Ahmad Shah's example of the re
cognition of the Achakzais as a full-fledged Durani clan.
In diagram 1., they are represented as a segment struc
turally equal to other segments. In fact, they were a
sub-clan of the Barakzais "from whom they were separated
by Ahmad Shah, to reduce the formidable numbers of the
latter" (GA,Kandahar:16). The exclusion of the Tarins
and Barechis from the framework of the Durani clans
might have been related both to the armed opposition of
these two clans to Ahmad Shah at the beginning of his
reign and to a desire not to increase their strength
which closer association with the state would have brought
about.
The Durani power being the mainstay of the state in
344
its foundation, Ahmad Shah had to seek ways to create a
firm nexus between clans, their khans, and the state. To
this end, the category of lands called khushkaba (water
less), which were located in the outer valleys, were
granted to the Durani clans as mawrusi (hereditary) and
from then on fully treated as private property. This
was justified on the assumption that these lands had been
the original settlements of the Duranis before their ex
pUlsion from Kandahar. Prior to Ahmad Shah's reign, these
lands, according to Islamic laws of taxation, had been
subject to the payment of one-tenth of the produce to
the state. Ahmad Shah reduced the obligation to a "small
supply of wheat, barley, or chaff on the occasion of the
passage of the army in their vicinity; and under this
light obligation, the valley of Tarnak was soon occupied
throughout by the Alikozai; the Arghastan fell to the lot
of Barakzai and Popalzai; and the Kadanai and Dori to the
Achakzai and Nurzai, a very small proportion of any of
these lands being left to the cultivation of the native
peasantry" (Rawlinson,GA,Kandahar:512).
Lands held as tiyul were not formally converted to
any other form of tenure and Ahmad Shah required two
horsemen from each kulba, on the understanding that only
one would actually serve at any time. But instead of
considering the land as the soldier's pay, Ahmad Shah al
so paid him for the duration of his service as well as
345
for a quarter of a year when his services were not called
upon. Therefore, the Durani clansmen looked upon the land
as fully belonging to them.
The concessions made to the khans were even more
significant. The military pay of the leaders "varied ac
cording to the rank of the individual from 100 to 1,000
tomans [2,000 to 20,000 rupees] annually" (Ibid:511). But
instead of being paid in cash, the Durani khans were given
assignments on the produce of khalisa lands which fell un
der their mana9"ement. Furthermore, they were 9"i ven the right
to farm revenues of the districts as payor on behalf of
the state treasury. These revenues were calculated from
taxes on ryoti (subjects) lands and other taxes extracted
from non-Durani populations. The income from these
sources was usually "debited at an aggregate equivalent
in money to the Chief of the Durani Ulus [clan], who re
sided upon the spot, and to whom this general superinten
dence of the local revenues gave the most favorable oppor
tunities for improving the condition of his own followers"
(Ibid:5l2). In addition to these financial powers, Durani
khans -- the highest ranking of whom were called sardar
-- commanded their followers in battle and acted as "the
civil magistrates of the country allotted to maintain
them" (Elphinstone,1839/l972:10l).
~lilitary divisions were made to correspond to those
of the clans. Thus, the Sardar of each clan commanded
346
the troops of that clan, and his subordinate officers
were the khans, maliks (headmen) and mashirs (elders) of
the sub-clans and lineages (Ibid:102). Significantly,
while the king selected the sardars governing each of the
major Durani clans "out of the head family," khans of the
subdivisions were "appointed out of their head families
by the Sirdars; and the Maulliks and Mushirs of the still
smaller divisions [were] in most cases, elected from the
proper families by the people, subject to the Sirdar's
approval; but in others, appointed by the Sirdar, with
some regard to the wishes of the people" (Ibid:104).
Khans were bound to make use of their extensive po
wers for their own enrichment as well as that of the
clansmen on whose loyalty their position depended. Not
surprisingly, they turned towards acquiring the lands of
the Parsiwan and other local landowners and, through a
combination of financial and political pressures, com
pelled them to dispose of their lands to Duranis "at a
rate very far beneath their value, exchanging their for
mer independence to work as hired labourers on the Durani
lands" (Rawlinson , GA,Kandahar: 515) .
Access of all Duranis to strategic resources was, of
course, by no means equal. The most powerful Durani khans,
who controlled large tracts of land, did not directly man
age their lands but entrusted them to subordinate clans
men. During the reign of Ahmad Shah (1747-1772) I through-
347
out Kandahar the lucrative positions of the management
of lands [entrusted to kishtgars] fell into the hands of
the Duranis, while the actual manual labor of cultivating
the land [undertaken by buzgurs] "resolved upon Parsiwans
and other ryots, who received from their employers a daily
pittance, just sufficient to subsist them" (Ibid:5l6).
Thus, it was through the agency of the state that class
positions were seen to be derived and coincide with eth
nic identities.
The expression of these tensions was not confined
to the sphere of production. It also conditioned the
relation between the Durani khans and the kings. Rawlin
son, from whose report I have been quoting extensively,
claimed that "Ahmad Shah appears to have hardly been a
ware of the danger to which he was subjecting the State,
in thus laying the foundation of formidable and almost
independent Durani power. He considered the Durani tribes
to constitute the true and intrinsic strength of his king
dom, and he believed that the more their power was devel
oped the stronger would be his means for achieving for
eign conquest, and the safer would be his bulwark against
foreign aggression" (Ibid:5l7). As far as the situation
in the southern region was concerned, this description is
largely to the point. The situation was, however, far
more complex as far as the overall organization of the
state and ethnic relations in other regions of the coun-
348
try were concerned.
The seizure of the treasure intended for Nadir Shah,
which laid the financial basis of Ahmad Shah's state,
brought him an additional asset. The official in charge
of the convoy was a Qizilbash by the name of Taqi Khan
Shirazi. After being informed of Nadir's assassination,
"Taqi Khan and a number of the Qizil Bash were persuaded
to accept employment with Ahmad Shah and on the orders of
Ahmad Shah he gathered the Qizil Bash who were dispersed
in Kabul, Lahore, and other places around himself and
convinced them to take service with Ahmad Shah" (Mujmal
Ul Tawarikh, contemporary account, 1965 ed.:60-6l). This
force became the nucleus of the Ghulaman Khasa (slaves of
the state) (Mahmud Monshi,vol.II,1974:990) more generally
known as Ghulam Khana (household slaves). Owing loyalty
only to the person of the Shah, this force, as we have
seen, was used from the beginning of Ahmad Shah's reign
to balance the influence of the Durani forces and played
a very important role in the reign of his successors.
In recognition of this service, Taqi Khan was later as
signed to farm the revenue of the provinces of Derajat
and Multan. When he died in 1756, despite outstanding
financial debts to the state, his descendants were not
held accountable and were given permission to take re
sidence anywhere they pleased (Ibid,vol.I:596).
The recruitment of troops from among minor ethnic
349
groups was not confined to the Qizilbash. After the con
quest of the northern region in 1756, the commander of
Ahmad Shah's army brought him a force of 5,000 Uzbecks
taken hostages (Ibid:609). In 1767, another Durani khan,
after conquering the northern region and Badkhshan, uhired
servants from all Uzbeck clans" (Ibid,vol.II;12ll). Fur
thermore, throughout Mahmud Monshi's narrative of the var
ious battles, there are references to the Topchian-i
Farhangi Nizad (artillerymen of European descent) (Ibid:
236,367,519,782,1007), which although not supported by
other sources, implies the hiring of Europeans on the part
of Ahmad Shah. Nonetheless, the commander of the artil
lery was a Durani khan.
An important factor in the consolidation of the
Durani power in Kandahar was probably the decision of the
Ghilzai contingent of Nadir's army to remain in Iran.
This force, under one co~~ander by the name of Azad Khan,
first found a theater of action in Azerbaijan. Azad Khan
later conquered the Safavid capital of Isfahan and, until
his defeat by more powerful rivals in 1760, was one of the
contenders for the mastery of Iran (Perry,J.R.,1979:48-
79) .
The armed forces \'lere not the only elements whose
careers, in periods of rapid political change, were
characterized by a high degree of geographical mobility.
The specialized staff needed for the management of the
350
financial and administrative organizations of the state
were equally ready to offer their services to those capa
ble of seizing and maintaining political power. The a
bility of the bureaucratic staff to adjust to new loca
tions was considerably facilitated by the fact that, for
several centuries Persian had been the main language of
administration in Iran, central Asia, Afghanistan, and
India. Any newly-formed state, if it intended to realize
regular revenues from the subjugated populations, had to
allot a place in its structure for Persian-speaking func
tionaries. A striking illustration of this principle was
provided by the "British policy of continuing Persian as
the language of administration [in India] until 1835 and
of continuing the pre-British pattern of drawing civil
servants from families of Persian origin who made their
livin'3" as administrators and scribes" (Cohn,B. ,1969:79).
Pashtun rulers who, out of long association with the
Persian and Mughal states, were fully conversant in the
Persian language, did not have any hestitation in adopting
the administrative structure of the Safavid state and hir
ing a large number of Qizilbash and other Persian-speak
ers as accountants and scribes (Mahmud Monshi,1974,vol.I:
533-534; Ghubar,1967:359). Their services were not lim
ited to the central government. Throughout our period
of long duration, tax-farming remained the main form
through which the state collected its revenues. Pashtun
351
khans, who became the major though by no means the only
group of tax-farmers, needed their own bureaucratic es
tablishment. Thus, despite the reduction of the majority
of the Persiwan landowners of Kandhar to the status of
dependent cultivators on Durani lands, the specialized
knowledge of some members of the group made the function
ing of the whole system dependen~ on them.
Even more significantly, the existence of these
groups freed the ruler from an exclusive reliance on the
power of Durani khans and clans. Yet, unlike states where
ethnic or religious groups other than that of the ruler
were totally relied upon for the armed forces and the
civilian administration and ultimately gained control of
the machinery of the state, the access of the Durani and
other Pashtun clans to the means of destruction, as well
as to the highest offices of the state, allowed the ru
ler to maintain a degree of control over the situation
by carefully balancing and manipulating the power of the
various ethnic groups within the bureaucracy and the army.
Relations among ethnic groups were characterized by a
high degree of tension. Whether these tensions broke into
actual armed confrontations leading to the de structuring
of the total system depended on the financial resources
of the state, the wayan individual ruler had gained the
throne, and the capacity of the ruler in catering to the
interest of the various groups. Before describing the
352
the actual unfolding of these complexities, I must take
account of two elements in the structure of domination.
Throughout the rule of the Durani Sadozai clan (1747-
1818), the religious stratum "was in control of the judi
cial courts and the mosques" (Ghubar:1967:357). The for
mal list of religious functionaries as recorded by
Elphinstone (vol.II,1839/1972:262-65,277-78), resembles
that of the Safavid state but, unlike the situation in
Iran, the dominant form of Islam in Afghanistan was the
Sunni interpretation. Courts of sharia were present in
all central places and had deputies "over the whole coun
try" (Ibid:263). Qudat (judges), upon the advice of the
Imam (prayer-leader) of the king's household, were
appointed by the king but their pay was provided in most
cases from a "small tax imposed on every family in the
district" (Ibid). They could nowhere initiate a case
unless an application was made to them and, although
they based their judgements on sharia, it was in practice
modified by Pashtunwali (way of the Pashtuns) or "custom
ary law" (Ibid:262). In this period, some new awqaf,
such as that around the alleged cloak of the Prophet of
Islam in Kandahar, were founded by the state and, as ln
Safavid Iran, there was an office holder, bearing the
title of sadr, who kept a registry of all awqa£ in a
central place, whether granted by private persons or by
the state (Ibid:276). In general, there seems to have
353
been little interference with members of the religious
stratum and, as the policy of territorial expansion was
usually justified in terms of restoration of "true ortho
doxy," rulers regularly met with groups of the leading
ulama. The actual influence of ulama over the course
of events seems to have differed greatly from the reign
of one ruler to that of another. In rural areas, prea
chers in charge of mosques, called imams or mullahs, had
"grants of land from the headmen of the tribe, or from
354
the tribe itself" (Ibid:278) and many also received grants from
the state as well as voluntary contributions from the
people (Ibid).
Historical precedents which were drawn upon to
shape the Durani state policies in regard to the religous,
the bureaucratic, and the military strata, also guided
the relations of the state with non-Durani Pashtuns and
other ethnic groups. As far as Pashtun clans were con
cerned, the most important aspect of this relationship
was the extension of the recognition and/or creation of
khans among all clans. It is indeed from this period on
wards that the title of khan gained general currency and
ended up being used as a qeneral form of address in
the twentieth century.
Under Ahmad Shah, the major thrust of the state was
that of territorial expansion. To achieve this goal as
well as to prevent dissension at horne, he needed to se-
cure the cooperation of other Pashtun clans. The recog-
nition or creation of khans served both to give other
clans a stake in the future of the state and to provide
the state with the necessary manpower for its geographical
expansion. As no other Pashtun clan held all its lands
as a grant from the state, Ahmad Shah required, instead
of taxes which would have been resisted, an agreed upon
number of horsemen. The difference in the relation of
Durani and other Pashtun clans to the state can be gath-
ered from the following table which portrays the distri-
bution of the Kandahar horse (Rawlinson,GA,Kandahar:5l3).
Distribution of Kandahar Horse, with their allotment of lands under Ahmad Shah
Name of Tribe Number of Kulbas Quota of Horses
Durani Popa1zai 965 1/4 806 Alikozai 1,050 851 Barakzai 1,018 1/2 907 Alizai 661 3/4 819 Nurzai 868 1/2 1,169 Ishakzai 357 1/2 635 Khogani 163 423 Maki 121 1/2 100
Total 5,206 5,710
Tribes not Durani Tokhi 14 1,061 Hotak 10 507 Kakar 56 30 Dawi 5 45 Tirin 25 729 Barechi 518 ---Total llO 2,890
Royal attendants 3,995
Total of ku1bas 5,316; Total of horse 12,559.
355
The notion of supplying horse in lieu of taxation
was, however, fictional. In the case of the Tokhi and
Hotak clans of the western Ghilzais, Leech reported that
whenever their services were called upon by the state,
rulers "invariably found it necessary to give them pay
from the Royal Treasury" (L/P&S/3/ll,184l:6). Since
these contingents were raised by and fought under their
own khans, they became the main link between the state
and non-Durani Pashtun clans. Yet, as the state kept
as its prerogatives the appointment of khans, their
scale of pay, and the recognition of a clan as a segment
of another clan or as an independent clan, the state's
impact on the structure of segmentation and on relations
between different named groups and lineages within a clan,
was not negligible. Elphinstone's diagram portraying
the various levels of segmentation among the Ghilzai
clans and the names of khans appointed by the state, to
gether with the positions left vacant, illustrates the
general relation between the state and these clans. As
can be seen, no cornmon chief was appointed for the
Boorann branch of Ghilzais.
356
Daigram 5. The Ghilzais
Ghiljie (chief) Abdooreheem
Boorann (no common chief)
I
Irjub (no common
chief)
Sukhank (chief) OtInaun
Soliman Khail
I pitch
I Kyser
Moosa (no common
chief)
I Turruk Undar (chief) (chief) Hyder Lauleh
I Ali
I Ismaelzye
(no common chief)
I Dosso Abdoorehem
Baubukr Khail
(chief) Afzal
Maroof Khail
(chief) Aluned
Alladeen Khail
(chief) Khudraun
Source: Elphinstone,vol.I:2l2.
Bauraun Khail
(chief) unknown
Toraun (chief) Abdooreheem
I Tokhee (chief)
Sahaubodeen
Hotukee (chief)
Abdoorehem
Sooltaun
Yehya Khail
(chief)
Ahmedzye (chief) Khaunan
I Esau Moosa
Khail Khail (chief) (chief)
Soliman Abdoola Khaunan
357
The importance of the connection with the state for
the finances of a khan can be gathered from the fact that
direct allowances received by Abdur Rahim Khan Hotak, re
presented in diagram 5. as khan of all Ghilzai clans, as
well as khan of the Turan section and the Hotak clan, was
150,000 rupees during the reign of Timur Shah (1772-1793).
In addition, he was given the right to tax-farm several
districts in what is today the north-west frontier pro
vince of Pakistan, "by the collection of the revenues of
which districts he derived much profit" (Leech,184l:6).
At that time, he was supposed to supply the ruler with
7,000 horsemen, the choice of whom must have provided
him with strong means for maintaining his influ~nce with
in his clan. The relationship to the state of other
khans who, according to the diagram, were formally sub
ordinate to the Hotak khan, was not mediated ti1rough him,
as shown by the fact that the khan of Tokhis received a
pay of 160,000 rupees. In addition, Tokhis were allowed
to collect taxes from all caravans passing between Kabul
and Kandahar; they were also in control of the revenue
of some land (Ibid:7-ll).
Exemption of all Pashtun clans from taxation was not
automatic but reflected the balance of power between the
state and the various clans. According to the revenue
settlement of an official of Ahmad Shah, all Ghilzai clans
living in the Logar valley, immediately south of Kabul,
358
were paying taxes. But even here, different ethnic groups
were treated differently by the state. Parsiwans (Per
sian-speakers, consisting of Tajiks, Qizilbash, Hazara,
and others) were paying twelve time as much in taxation
as the Pashtuns. However, when Pashtuns bought land from
Parsiwans, they were expected to pay the same rate of
revenue as the former owners. Unlike the situation in
Kandahar, in Logar, the correspondence of class and ethni
city was more complicated. Pashtuns were described as
small crofters, farm-labourers, merchants, camel-breeders,
shepherds and drovers; Tajiks as the chief carriers; and
Hazaras mostly as farm servants. Qizilbash, on the
other hand, were said to be landowners who "mostly re
tain Hazaras, Ahmadzais or Abdrahimzais [Pashtun Ghilzais]
as servants. They live on their estates, or serve the
Crown as Cavalry soldiers" (GA,Kabul:348-370).
Here again, the differential access of different
ethnic groups to the state had a considerable impact on
their access to means of production. At the same time,
it can be readily seen that the position of various
groups in relation to means of production and domination
took on very different configurations in the different
regions of the country and, consequently, found very dif
ferent forms of expression in day to day as well as long
term patterns of interaction. Furthermore, considerable
differences in the financial basis of the state at differ-
359
ent conjunctural periods during our unit of long duration
gave expression to different forms of contradictions
among the state, the different classes, ethnic groups,
and strata, in the different regions of the country. It
is towards an examination of this issue that I will now
turn.
The following are estimates of the revenue of the
state during the reign of the Durani rulers.
Ahamd Shah (1747-1772), 31 million rupees (Ghubar, 1967: 358) i
Timur Shah (1772-1793),10 million rupees (Fofalzai, vo 1. I I , 1967 : 35) i
Zaman Shah (1793-1800),10 million rupees (Husaini, 1797/1967:32) ;
Shah Mahmud(1800-1803), ?i
Shah Shuja (1803-1809), 20 million r~pees (Elphinstone,vol.II:258)i
Shah Mahmud(1809-1818), ?i
Elphinstone, who first offered a figure of 30 million
rupees as the revenue of the total territory claimed by
the Duranis, considered that 10 million of it went direct-
ly to "half-subdued princes" and could, therefore, not be
counted as part of the income of the state. That figure
corresponds, however, to the estimate by Ghubar of the
income during Ahmad Shah's reign. Of the remaining 20
million rupees, Elphinstone wrote that "of this a great
part (about halfj is assigned in Teeool (Jageer), most
360
of it granted on condition of military service ... ; the
rest is alloted to maintain the Moolahs or religious
officers, or given in charity to dervises and Syuds".
He estimated the sum directly received by the ruler at
"upwards of nine millions of rupees" (Ibid). This later
figure comes very close to the estimates of Husaini and
Fofalzai and it can be assumed that these historians were
referring to this figure as the income of the Crown.
Husaini's territorial breakdown of the revenue, al
though incomplete, reveals some major differences in the
relation of the state with different regions. He gave
no information about the revenues from the provinces of
Kabul, Herat, and Badakhshan. Of Kandahar, he wrote that
the whole province is "allole:d as jaqir to the Duranis"
and, of the province of Balkh, that "its income is not
even sufficient to cover the expenses of the governor and
the army that is stationed there and these expenses are
covered by His Majesty" (1797/1967:31-32). On the other
hand, he reported that the amount paid by tax-farmers
or hereditary rulers of the provinces of Kashmir, Multan,
Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismael Khan, and Peshawar were
respectively 2.4 million, 2-300,000; 700,000; 250,000; and
700,000 rupees (Ibid:30-32). He also claimed that the
tax-farmer of Kashmir realized 1.6 million rupees above
what he paid to the state and tax-farmer of Dera Ismael
Khan realized 150,000 rupees (Ibid:31).
361
Thus, the fiancial basis of the Durani state and its
sanctioning of privleges for special classes and ethnic
groups at home rested on income from provinces which be
came part of "British India" in the nineteenth century.
It can also be seen that access to privileged positions
of influence in the state -- such as an assignment of
tax-farming, governorship, or khanship -- could almost
immediately turn into immense financial advantage. Ten
sions arising out of access to these positions and the
protection of already established privileges permeated
the history of the entire period bringing about the de
structuring of the Durani state, the loss of the Indian
provinces and the re-structuring of relations of domina
tion in the present territory of Afghanistan. I will now,
briefly, consider the highlights of these complexities
between 1747 and 1818.
When Ahmad Shah was elected king in 1747, the inter
nal crisis of the neighbouring states was so advanced
that, despite their larger resources, they were not able
to check the territorial expansion of the Durani state.
Consequently, the flow of cash to coffers of the Afghan
state and khans was constant. Ahmad Shah's conquest of
Punjab in 1751, resulted in the payment by the defeated
governor of the province to Ahmad Shah and his officials
of a huge sum of IT".'l1ey as we 11 as the acceptance of an
annual tribute (;..:. ten million rupees. In the same year 1
362
the Emperor of India, in return for an undertaking by
Ahmad Shah not to invade his capital, ceded the province
of Multan permanently and offered ten million rupees in
cash (Mahmud Monshi,vol.I,1974:326,332). Even the means
of destruction with which Ahmad Shah effected his con
quests were largely collected from his opponents (Ibid:
44,88,114). After his historic victory over the Mara
thas in 1760, for instance, he seized 5,000 artillery
guns, 100,000 handguns and 5,000 elephants (Ibid,vol.II:
1025). The impact of these victories on the finances of
the state was such that, in 1758, Ahmad Shah decreed that
all forms of taxation in the realm were to be remitted
for two years (Ibid,vol.I:588).
The Durani khans, who occupied most positions in the
state, were undoubtedly the major beneficiaries of this
expansion. This has led most Afghan and other historians
to conclude that khans of the major Durani clans had an
hereditary claim to the main offices of the state. A
careful reading of the evidence presented in Ahmad Shah's
biography, which prior to 1974 was not available to re
searchers, shows that, from the beginning of his reign
onwards, he exercised the right of dismissing, appointing,
creating new officers, choosing the tax-farmers, and pro
moting his own dependents to the rank of khan. These
were not mere theoretical prerogatives. Indeed, he ap
pointed a number of non-Durani and non-Pashtuns as gover-
363
nors and tax-farmers of some of the major provinces. He
also bestowed the rank of khan on some of the eunchs who
had accompanied him from the court of Nadir and appointed
one of them as the governor of the predominantly Pashtun
province of Peshawar (Ibid:546,l2l6).
He exercised power in the choice of khans of Durani
and other clans. Even in those cases where a khankhel
already existed, limiting his selection to members of
certain families, as the order of succession was not
fixed, his decision confirming one of a number of rival
candidates could materially affect differential access
to strategic resources and contribute to the formation
of distinctive sub-lineages within a lineage. The in
dividuals passed over could look to improve their for
tunes by seeking an office in the state or hope to create
a faction in the clan and, by offering their services to
claimants to the throne, hope to gain khanship or other
high offices in the state. Khans dismissed from lucra
tive posts or demoted to less influential positions could
also opt for armed confrontation with a ruler. The net
result of these tensions was the creation of long-lasting
feuds among various individuals, lineages, and clans,
which affected the whole system of domination.
The trend started in the reign of Ahmad Shah reached
crisis proportions under his successors. In 1751, Ahmad
Shah's brother's son, who, in the absence of his uncle
364
was acting as his deputy in Kandahar, with the help of a
number of prominent Durani khans and his own Arab body
guards, declared himself king. His rebellion was crushed
and he and his adherents executed (Ibid:348-350).
An even more important event, as an early expression
of future tendencies, was, in 1764, the dismissal by Ahmad
Shah of Shah Wali Khan, chief-minister and the most power
ful Durani khan of his reign. Shah Wali Khan had made
use of his control of the financial machinery of the state
to build an extensive network of followers throughout
the realm and seemed directly to threaten Ahmad Shah's
control of the state. He was consequently dismissed from
the control of finances without being asked questions
about his accounts and given the rank of cornrnander-in
chief of the army. As Mahmud Monshi remarked, "from the
requisi tes of the office he had nothing but the name" (Ib
id:1148). Even more significantly, he was replaced by
a non-Pashtun mulla from the town of Daulatabad, in the
northern region (Ibid). Yet, after the death of his suc
cessor in 1769, he was reappointed as chief-minister
(Ibid: 1219) .
When Ahmad Shah died, his second son and heir appar
ent, Timur, was ruling in Herat with the title of Shah
and full powers of appointment and dismissal of his of
ficials. But Shah Wali Khan declared another brother of
Timur, who was also his son-in-law, as king in Kandahar.
365
On the arrival of Timur's army in the vicinity of Kanda
har, Shah Wali attempted to seek an interview with him
but was seized and executed. Sensing the alienation
caused by this measure among the Durani khans, Timur Shah
appointed his own son as governor of Kandahar and moved
to Kabul, which he soon declared as his capital in 1775.
Even before Timur's accession to the throne, the po
litical situation of the neighbouring states had consider
ably changed. From a persecuted religious sect, the Sikhs
were transforming themselves into an organized state and
Ahmad Shah, in his last campaign in 1769, had failed to
destroy their hold over the Punjab (Ganda Singh,1959:320).
The British had become a strong territorial power in
India, and in Bukhara and Iran new dynasties, bent on con
solidating their power at horne and seeking external con
quests, were established. The expansi0n of the territory
of the Afghan state was no longer a viable alternative
to consolidation of its power.
To increase his own power at the expense of Pashtun
khans, Timur relied heavily on the Qizilbash and other
members of the Persian-speaking ethnic groups. He even
placed his twelve-thousand strong bodyguards under the
command of a Qizilbash. "From the powerful khans, he
only accepted the services of those individuals who un
conditionally obeyed the monarch" (Ghubar,1967:374). It
was not long before Pashtun khans reacted to Timur's
366
policies. In 1774, Durani and Ghilzai khans declared a
Durani khan, previously tax-farmer of the province of
Sind, king of the country and, at the head of an army of
twenty five thousands, marched on Kabul. However, a num
ber of Durani khans defected to Timur who was able to
crush the rebellion (Ibid:374). One of these khans,
called Painda Khan, was awarded by Timur the khanship of
the Barakzai clan, replacing his brother. His descendants
ruled Afghanistan from 1826 to 1978.
After the rebellion of 1774, Timur tried to keep
Pashtun khans in check by granting or withdrawing the tax
privileges of influential khans as well as regulating the
access of various individuals to positions of authority
in the state. He did not dare, however, confront the
financial privileges of the khans as a class or those of
the Durani clans as a group. Despite a number of minor
rebellions at home and a few foreign wars, his reign was
the calmest period of Durani power in Afhghanistan. With
his death in 1793, all the tensions within Afghan society
broke to the surface.
Timur left behind thirty three sons all but two of
whom (governors of the provinces of Kandahar and Herat)
resided in Kabul. In return for the dismissal and execu
tion of some of Timur's most influential Parsiwan offi
cials, the Pashtun khans recognized his fifth son, Zaman,
as king, and imprisoned all his other brothers who were
367
in Kabul. The two brothers in Kandahar and Herat refused
to accept Zaman's authority and confronted him militarily.
War followed war. After accepting the authority of one
brother, disgruntled khans would, as the autobiography
of Shah Shuja (1954:1-62) shows, flock to the standard of
another brother. A brief battle or usually the defection
of a powerful khan would decide the issue of the contest
one way or the other.
A major reason for these shifts of allegiance was
the attempt of Timur's sons to imitate the example of
their father in checking the power of Pashtun khans. By
the time of Shah Mahmud's second reign (1800-1803;1809-
1818), most of the powerful Durani khans had been killed
in battle, executed, or had died. Mahmud's son, gover
nor of Kandahar, was also initiating a systematic policy
of eliminating them through a series of individual plots
without challenging the financial privileges of the group.
His last victim was Shah Mahmud's chief-minister whom he
had blinded in 1817. But the chief-minister, a son of
Painda, khan of the Barakzais, had managed to place his
numerous brothers in such major posts as the governor
ships of Kashmir, Sind, Peshawar, and elsewhere. His
blinding led to a confrontation between his brothers and
Shah Mahmud as a result of which the Sadozai dynasty in
Afghanistan came to an end.
The Barakzai brothers had managed to overthrow a
368
structure but were unable to agree among themselves as to
how to replace it. Between 1818 and 1826, they plunged
the country into a series of civil wars. By 1826, a num
ber of regional states had emerged: the western region of
Herat was ruled by the former king Shah Mahmud and his
son Kamran; the southern region of Kandahar was ruled by
five Barakzai brothers who were from the same mother; the
eastern region of Kabul was ruled by another Barakzai
brother by the name of Dost Muhammed; the central region,
northern region, and Badakshan were ruled a number of
autonomous chiefs. Until 1834, when the area was com
pletely annexed by the Sikh state, a number of Barakzai
brothers also ruled in Peshawar and other localities in
the present territory of the north-western frontier pro
vince of Pakistan.
During the years 1826 to 1839, which form my second
conjunctural unit of analysis, the history of the nor
thern part of the country was almost totally separate from
the southern part and the Pashtun influence on the shape
of politics of the northern region, Badakhshan, and a
considerable part of the central region, was either negli
gible or totally absent.
During the Sadozai period, these regions had contri
buted little to the financial revenues of the state and
even the existing revenues were assigned either to khans
or to clans. with the constellation of forces that
369
emerged after 1826, the financial needs of states had to
be met from local resources. Confrontation between rulers
and hitherto privileged elements was therefore inevitable.
Given the complex pattern of interpenetration of central
and peripheral zones of production in Afghanistan, each
of the states faced a different set of tasks and their
degree of success differed considerably. The trans
formation of the Durani clans from a formidable military
and political power into a subjugated group can serve as
a general example of the restructuring of relations of
domination during this conjuncture, and I shall now out
line the salient features of this change.
The Barakzai brothers who took over Kandahar, re
ferred to as the Sardars of Kandahar, relied on two groups
to reduce the power of Durani clans. In return for the
support extended to them by their own Barakzai clansmen,
the tax-exempt status of the clan was not interfered with
(Rawlinson,GA,Kandahar:529). But the main instrument of
their power was a force 6f 3,000 mercenary horsemen "from
whose ranks the Duranis were jealously excluded ... These
were all picked men under the command of a few noted des
perados, whose only guides to action were their own per
sonal advantage and the will of the ruler whom they
served" (Ibid:533). It was with this body that the
Sardars goaded segments of the clans into rebellions and
speedily crushed them.
370
The Sardars' main object was the commutation of the
Durani horse into revenue, and the reduction of the
Duranis to the same status of tax-payers as other groups.
Indeed, since the time of Ahmand Shah, the Kandahar horse
had rarely been called upon, yet, in return for supplying
it, the Duranis held their financial privileges (Ibid:
526). The direct suppression of these privileges would
have confronted the Saradars with the united opposition
of all Durani clans. Instead, they attempted to achieve
their goal through indirect means.
The neasures resorted to were mainly financial in
character and their imposition was entrusted to descen
dants of the Parsiwan ministers of Timur Shah who had been
executed by Zaman Shah upon the insistance of Durani khans.
Backed by the armed might of the non-Durani troops, these
agents started imposing taxes on the direct producers who
cultivated Durani lands. This was gradually extended to
taxes on lands converted to gardens, bought from Parsiwans,
newly brought under cultivation, or converted from khalisa
into private property. These financial maneuvers were so
successful that the Duranis were finally compelled to
"come forward and declare their readiness to submit to a
reasonable assessment of their tiyul lands, on the under
standing that the liability was to be clearly sp~~ified,
and was to secure for them the guarantee against any of
the grievous exertions to which they had been lately sub-
371
jected" (Ibid:528). Their taxes, however, were still not
calculated at the same rate as those of other subjects
of the state. At the time of the British invasion of
Afghanistan in 1839, despite the fact that tiyul lands
had long been treated as private property and "about two
thirds of the dependent tiyul-kulbas had passed from the
possession of the parties on whom they had been original
ly conferred by Nadir Shah" (Ibid:532) , the Sardars were
still planning on revoking the grant. By this time, the
financial obligations of the Duranis in the areas border
ing the central place of Kandahar were such that they were
"gradually led to dispose of their horses and arms as use
less and expensive encumberances" (Ibid:534). Having been
thus dispossessed of their means of destruction, the
Duranis responded to the Sardars' new measures by selling
their rights of cultivating tiyul lands to their Parsiwan
producers or even abandoning them (Ibid:534-35).
In the outlying Durani districts and the lands in
habited by Ghilzais, the situation was entirely different.
Leech stated that the Sardars of Kandahar "completely
failed in establishing an influence in the Guljie
[Ghilzai] country, and their troops ... experienced a total
defeat by a small party of the Hotuk headed by Gool
Muhamad Khan" (1841:4). The Tokhi clan, which controlled
the road between Kabul and Kandahar, also managed to main
tain its independence from the rulers of Kabul and
372
Kandahar alike, and imposed a toll on caravans passing
through its territory.
In other parts of the country, the situation was much
the same and every region witnessed a series of wars
through which an enterprising ruler or rulers extended
their Rr.en of influence at the expense of competitors.
In contrast to our first conjunctural unit (1747-1818),
during this period of the breakdown of central government
and the re-emergence of regional powers, a greater subju
gation of the population of the country to the power of
the state took place. Tension between states and the
forces in society had reached such an intensity that when
Shah Shuja, son of Timur, marched at the head of a British
army to Afghanistan, both the ruler of Kabul and the
Sardars of Kandahar fled from their seats of government.
The British invasion of Afghanistan, as J.A. Norris's
re-examination of the evidence shows, was rooted on the
one hand in the fear posed by Russia to India, and on the
other in the belief in the capacity of central Asian mar
kets to absorb British manufactured goods (1967:59). In
deed, in 1841, these markets were flooded with English
cotton goods (Lurnley,1862:298). The immediate political
cause of the invasion was the dominance of Russian in
fluence in the Persian court and the invasion of the re
gion of Herat by the Shah of Iran in November of 1837
(Kaye,J.W.,1857:211-300). The Sardars of Kandahar had
373
374
just entered into an alliance with the Shah of Iran when
a British mission, sent to win over Dost Muhammad, the
ruler of Kabul, failed to achieve its mission. The gover-
nor-general of India opted then for an invasion of
Afghanistan. The British government also sent a naval
expedition to bombard the Iranian island of Kharg bring-
ing about the withdrawal of the Iranian army from the
gates of the beseiged city of Herat.
In the British Foreign Secretary's words, the object
of invading Afghanistan was "to reorganize the country
under one Chief ... A good Afghan state in connection with
British India would make a better Barrier than Persia has
been, because it would be more under our control. We
should have the same kind of geographical Pull upon such
a state that Russia has upon Persia" (Palmerston, Aug . . ~~,--~ .. ..,. ... ~
25,1838,quoted in Norris,1967:209). To implement these
policies, Shah Shuja who, after his overthrow in 1809,
had lived as pensioner of the British government in India,
was put at the head of a British army and, finding no re-
sistance, entered the city of Kandahar on April 25, 1839.
On the 6th of August, he was reinstated in his palace in
Kabul. From then on, the policies of European powers,
either directly or indirectly, determined the territor-
ial limits of Afghanistan as well as the character of re-
lations of domination in the country.
The ease with which the British gained possession of
the southern, eastern, and parts of the central region,
did not translate into an ability to restructure state
and society as initially intended. By 1842, the British
garrison In Kabul was destroyed by a popular uprising and,
although an "army of retribution" marched through the
country, destroyed the great bazar in Kabul and looted
the city, the British government was forced to evacuate
Afghanistan. By 1843, the Sardars of Kandahar had re
turned from their Iranian exile to regain the southern
region and Dost Muhammad, after two years of exile in
India, had resumed his position in the central place of
Kabul and the eastern region.
From Malcolm Yapp's detailed description of the
resistance (1962:499-523;1963:288-313;1964:333-381), it
is clear that the revolts first started in peripheral
areas then gained momentum in central areas. The Afghans
managed to eliminate entirely British garrisons in the
towns of Ghazni and Kabul in the eastern region, but they
failed to dislodge the British forces from the central
place of Kandahar in the southern region, and the town
of Jalalabad in the eastern region. In claiming that the
movement was "very much a revolt of Sunni Pashtu speakers"
and that, because the total idiom of revolt was pervaded
by Islamic symbolism, it could not in any sense be con
sidered nationalist, Yapp commits a factual error and mis
ses the essential part played by Islam in the social re-
375
lations of the society. Kabul being in the midst of a
mainly Persian-speaking area, some of the prominent lead
ers of the revolt, as well as a major section of the rank
and file, were Tajiks. The military leadership of the
revolt was provided by Durani, Ghilzai, and Persian
speaking khans, whose financial privileges had been se
verely curtailed by the British, but the main ideologi
cal leadership of the groups came from heads of Sufi or
ders, whose organizational networks, as I have argued
earlier, crosscut all forms of ethnic and class cleavages.
Yapp is, however, correct in pointing out that one of the
important long-term consequences of the invasion was the
education "provided in the creation of stronger systems
of government, and particularly by the example of the use
of disciplined forces and the training of Afghan troops
which paved the way for the subsequent creations of a
powerful standing army by Dost Muhammad with which he
could extend his power to the rest of Afghanistan" (Ibid:
381) .
Indeed, my third conjunctural unit, encompassing the
period from 1843-1878, was dominated by the changes in
·troduced in the mode of domination during Dost Muhammad's
second reign (1843-1863). Through military or political
maneuvers, Dost Muhammad brought all the regions of the
present territory of Afghanistan under his control (Faiz
Muhammad,vol.II,1913:198-251). The effective use of means
376
of destruction was certainly an important part of the pro
cess through which he consolidated his power. There also
was an equally important, if subtle, shift in the legiti
mation of relations of domination.
Pashtun clans, as we have seen, regulated their so
cial relations through a code they referred to as "Pash
tunwali" in which notions of honor, revenge, and hospi
tality were important elements. The code, as an astute
foreign observer noted, did not make any reference to
"paying taxes and following kings" (Broadfoot,1842/1886:
361). Nevertheless, Dost Muhammad's motto was that the
notion of Pashtun honor should not stand in the way of the
state interests. This was illustrated by his dealings
with the Sardars of Kandahar.
Following a conflict with the forces of Kandahar over
the district of Kalat, Dost was visited by one of the
Sardars of Kandahar who, in return for the gesture and on
the basis of Pashtun notions of honor, expected him to
leave the district. Dost retorted that "if a person dis
obeys the monarch, rebels, and then requests a province
of the country, and if the king agrees to the demand and
turns over the province, within a short time, the order
of the state would be destroyed, bloodshed committed, and
every destitute will turn into a ruler or a minister"
(Faiz Muharnrnad,vol.II,19l3:2l4). Dost was able to main
tain firm but peaceful relations with Kandhar. In 1854,
377
two of the Kandahar Sardars died and a struggle for suc
cession between the remaining Sardar and the sons of the
deceased brothers broke into violent confrontation. The
parties agreed to invite Dost Muhammad to mediate the dis
pute. After entering the central place of Kandahar with
his army, Dost assigned the disputants large grants in
cash from the taxes of Kandahar but annexed the southern
region to his domain.
Dost justified his notion of monarchy by reverting
to Islam and the danger posed to the country by "infidel ll
powers. Born of a low-ranking mother, his education had
been neglected and, during his military adventures, he
had become addicted to wine. After conquering Kabul in
1826, he learnt how to read and write, quit drinking, and
strictly enforced the Islamic injunction against alcohol
ic beverages. In 1838, when the Sikhs conquered Peshawar
and were threatening to move on to Kabul, he prepared a
force to combat them. He assumed the title of Arnir jus
tifying it with the following declaration: "Upon the re
quest of the ulama of the nation ..• that jihad [holy war]
is dependent on the existence of a ruler and the raising
of the flag of authority, and that such a person should
issue the coin and khutba [declaration of legitimacy read
every Friday in the mosques], the ruler declares jihad so
that whoever disobeys him would have disobeyed the in
junctions of God and His Prophet" (Ibid,vol.I:127).
378
Islamic theory of government was not limited to de
claration of jihad. Payment of taxes to a legitimate
government was another element and, from the time of Dost
onwards, demands of the state for a share of the produce
kept increasing. Collection of the revenue was still car
ried on through tax-farmers, but Dost Muhammad entrusted
the tax-farming of the provinces and major districts and
sub-districts only to his sons who, in turn, sub-farmed
the districts and sub-districts to the previous rulers
and notables, or to individuals of their choice. In 1843,
he also raised five divisions of infantry of 800 men
each -- which were placed under the command of his sons
who had to provide for their maintenance from revenues of
of the territories assigned to them (Ibid:200).
Dost had twenty seven sons, some of whom died before
him. As his domain increased, more sons acquired access
to the financial and military means necessary to support
their own basis of power. Upon his death, civil war raged
in the country until one son imposed his authority over
all the regions of the country. Sher Ali (1863-66;1868-
1879) embarked on a gradual policy of building centralized
institutions but his efforts were cut short by the second
invasion of the country by the British army.
During this conjuncture, the impact of British poli
cy on the course of events in Afghanistan underwent sever
al changes. Until 1855, there had been no contact between
379
the two governments as such. The implications of the
Crimean war (1853-56) for British interests in Asia, com
bined with the fear of an Iranian invasion of Herat -
which actually occurred in 1856 -- brought the British
government to offer Dost Muhammad a treaty of friendship,
which he accepted. During the years 1856 to 1858, the
material results of the treaty were the acquisition by
the Afghan state of 4,000 flint muskets, 4,000 percussion
muskets, together with 2,000 rounds of ammunition for
each musket, and 2.6 million British rupees in cash (Par
liamentary Papers,48,1882). Dost Muhammad made use of
these resources for his conquest of Herat in 1863. Be
fore that could take place though, the British had to en
gage in a three-months war to bring the withdrawal of
Iranian forces from Herat in 1857 (Alder,1947a:186-209i
1974b:287-311). Alder, who has provided a detailed ac
count of the reasons for British concern over Herat,
states that during the twenty five years following 1838,
Herat "had directly and indirectly cost Britain two wars,
over twenty million pounds, at least as many thousand
lives" (Ibid:186). In the northern region, the British
government reached, in 1872-1873, an understanding with
the Russian government recognizing the Oxus river as the
northern boundary of Afghanistan and acknowledging the
region of Badakhshan as Afghan territory. Without these
agreements, which in 1885-1887 led to the physical demar-
380
cation of the northern boundaries of the state, the cur
rent map of Afghanistan could have looked very different.
The British government was bent on preventing other
powers from annexing various regions of Afghanistan. Yet,
at the same time, it had not devised a clear and consis
tent policy regarding the Afghan state. until 1872, non
intervention and the strengthening of the Afghan state
were i ts ~:1.liding principles. Thus, during the civil war
of 1863-1868, the British government remained neutral,
but as soon as Sher Ali gained the throne, he was active
ly helped. Between 1868 and 1873, the Afghan ruler re
ceived 33,600 muskets and rifles -- with the necessary
ammunition --, 1,000 pistols, 50 friction tubes, one
million percussion cups, 10 pieces of artillery -- moun
tain, siege, and howitzers --, and 2.4 million Indian
rupees in cash from the British government. The money
and the means of destruction were instrumental in the
creation of a large standing army and the reconquest of
the country by the state.
From 1872 on, relations between the two governments
symbolised by Sher Ali's refusal to draw a cash sub
sidy of 1.2 million Indian rupees granted to him in 1873
-- started to deteriorate. Two sets of factors brought
about the clash of interests. On the one hand, the
Afghan ruler was requesting a guarantee of protection a
gainst Russian aggression, the recognition of his des-
381
cendants as the only legitimate rulers of the country, and
the formal acknowledgement of his youngest son as heir
apparent. On the other hand, there had been a consider
able debate regarding the northern boundary of British
India. By 1872, a new doctrine known as the "forward
policy," which proclaimed that the Hindu Kush range formed
the "scientific frontier" of British India (Fraser-Tytler,
1967:70f£) had gained acceptance among British policy-ma
kers.
It was in this context of events that, when Sher Ali
reacted positively to a Russian proposal to enter into an
alliance, the British invaded Afghanistan yet gain in
November 1878. Sher Ali left his capital of Kabul for
the northern region to seek the promised Russian help.
Little was he aware that the Congress of Berlin of July
1878 had resolved the outstanding differences between the
British and Russian governmentsi he was not to receive
any assistance. As he lay on his deathbed, the British
army entered Kabul unopposed and recognized Sher Ali's
eldest son -- just released from a confinement of some
six years on account of his refusal to accept the selec
tion of his brother as heir apparent -- ruler of the
country. He promptly accepted the terms of a treaty dic
tated by Brit~in.
The colonial policy-makers, having forgotten the des
truction of the entire British army, the expenditure of
382
thirteen to twenty million pounds and a permanent increase
of charges on India of 5,500,000 pounds (Dupree,1973/1980:
400), were overjoyed by the ease of their entry into the
capital. By April 1881, as a result on the one hand of
successful revolts led by a combination of religious lead
ers (Pashtun and Tajik khans) with military leaders (of
all ethnic groups) and, on the other hand, of the elec
toral victory of Gladstone's Liberal party, the British
forces again withdrew from Afghanistan.
The single major defeat of the British army was ef
fected at the hands of a force mostly drawn from the
Afghan army, on July 27, 1880. Prior to that date, the
British were planning to sever Kandahar and the southern
region from Afghanistan. The army, on which Sher Ali had
spent the bulk of the state resources, had ensured that
it remained part of the country. During our last conjunc
tural unit of analysis, 1880-1901, except for a brief
encounter with Russian forces in 1885, the army did not
engage against any major foreign power. It was, however,
constantly employed in the reconquest of every part of
the country, in some instances several times over.
Before the withdrawal of their forces, and in return
for the control of the foreign relations of Afghanistan,
the British had recognized the claims of the son of a
brother of Sher Ali as the ruler of Aghanistan. His name
was Abdur Rahman and he was to rule till 1901. During
383
the civil war of 1863-1868, he had twice acted as king
maker, first placing his own father, then his father's
brother from the same mother, on the throne of Kabul.
Defeated by Sher Ali, he had gone into exile in central
Asia where he lived as a pensioner of the Russian govern
ment. In February 1880, he crossed the Oxus river with
some one hundred followers. By July of the same year, he
had entered the eastern region and declared himself Amir.
Hasan Kakr has provided a detailed descriptive account
of Abdur Rahman's military campaigns, from his first
battles in 1880 to the conquest of Kafiristan and the
forceful conversion of its people to Islam in 1896. He
has also recorded the major features of his administra
tion in two books written in English (1971;1979). I
shall, therefore, concentrate only on those aspects of
Abdur Rahman's policies which had major implications for
the de structuring and restructuring of social relations
in the country. This requires that I take account of the
main features of the relations between the state, classes,
strata and ethnic groups at the beginning of his reign.
The available evidence strongly suggests that
throughout the years 1747-1880, most local power-holding
families in most regions had managed to reproduce them
selves socially and politically. But the encounters be
tween the centralizing government and local forces since
1826 had considerably modified the situation prevailing
384
in the conjunctiral period of 1747-1818. By 1878, Afghans
in most regions had been compelled to pay some form of
taxation to the central government. This can be seen by
a comparison of the revenues of the central government
at different periods. Before 1880, the value of the
Anglo-Indian rupee relative to the Afghan rupee was rough-
ly equivalent; after 1880, there was great fluctuation in
favor of the Indian rupee. The revenue figures from 1857
onwards were estimates given by Afghan rulers to British
officials. The figures are:
late 1820s 1.4 ~illion rupees
late 1830s 2,509,238 rupees
1857 3.5 million Indian rupees
1869 7 million Kabuli
1874
1885
rupees
(exclusive of the northern region) 10 million Kabuli
rupees
10 million Indian rupees
(Masson,vol.I,1842/1974:250)
(Mohan Lal,contemporary observer, quoted in Habibi,1970,vol.II:118)
(Afghanistan Imperial Gazetteer, 1908:40)
(Ibid)
(Ibid)
(Ibid)
The regional breakdown is only available for the
year 1885: the eastern region and the revenue-paying
parts of the central region, about 5 million Indian ru-
pees; the northern region, 1.4 million; the southern
region, 1.35 million; the western region, 1.15 million;
385
and Badkhshan, nearly 500,000 Indian rupees (Ibid). All
regions of the country were not equally subjugated to the
state and, within a region, taxes differed from one 10-
cality to another. Furthermore, the state was not in
control of all the revenue from the regions and had to re-
distribute a considerable part of its assumed income to
other forces in society.
The situation involved a broad range of classes,
strata, and ethnic groups, as the data on the expendi-
ture of the very large district of Jalalabad, in the
eastern region, indicates. In 1878, British officials
who took over the administration of the district provided
the following information (GA,Kabul:205): the total re-
venue of the district amounted to 697,038 Kabuli rupees.
Of this amount, 75.53% was derived from revenue, 19.3%
from trade related taxes, and the rest from a range of
other taxes. Of t:le fixed expenditure of the district
of Jalalabad, 37.31% was devoted to the following five
items:
"1. Wazifas -- These are allowances in cash and grain made to men of priestly and religious classes .•• The total amount given away under this head is Rs.56,621 per annum. Every learned and religious person in the district appears to be in receipt of a wazifa ...
"2. Malikana -- These are small allowances in cash or kind granted to the headmen of the villages. They amount to Rs.16,521 per annum ...
"3. Takhfif -- Is the name applied locally to remission of revenue, or payments on account of diluvion, etc. In 1879, the amount so paid was Rs.3,614.
"4. Jagirs -- These are remission or assign-
386
ments of revenue in favour of certain Khans, Sardars, and Maliks residing in the district. They amount to Rs.15,585.
"5. Tankhwah-i-\~ilayati Under this pe-culiarly named heading [lit. provincial allowances] are included all the allowances made to independent and semi-independent tribes, e.g. Afridis, Shiwaris, Mohmands,etc; also the salaries granted to the officials and chief men of the district. They amount to Rs.I,67,7l5."
The khans of Mohmand clans in addition to receiving sub-
sidies had retained, until 1879-1880, the right to levy
their own taxes on goods passing through their territory
(Merk,188l:3) .
Throughout the period from 1747 to 1878, local for-
ces in the intermediate and marginal zones had engaged
in conflict with neighbouring groups without reference
to the state. On occasions, a combination of local for-
ces would manage to inflict heavy defeats on armies of
the state sent to conquer them. It was the ability of
the Pashtun clans, today living in the "tribal agencies"
of the north-west frontier province of Pakistan, to re-
sist the armed encroachment of the Afghan state (Faiz
Muhammad,vol.II,1913:198), that forced Dost Muharrmad and
the subsequent rulers of the country to expand into the
northern region and Badakhshan while maintaining an in-
direct influence among these clans. During the reign of
Abdur Rahman, the clans were formally severed from
Afghanistan through the demarcation of the boundaries of
"British India," an event which has, to a great degree,
,~ 387
determined the conflict of interest between the govern
ments of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the twentieth cen
tury.
Although the territorial limitations of Abdur
Rahman's sphere of operations were thus defined by out
side powers, he showed every sign of exerting state sov
ereignty within that territory. To this end, he fought
four major civil wars and some one hundred major and mi
nor revolts -- including a ten-year war with the
Shinwaris and other Pasthun clans in the district of
Jalalabad whose financial privileges and tax-exempt sta
tus he discontinued. Towards the end of his reign, he
told a British engineer who worked for him that he had
"ordered over a hundred thousand to be executed" (Martin,
1907:157). His policies, however, were not based on
violence alone but involved an attempt fundamentally to
restructure the relations between state and society.
Abdur Rahman's image of the state is revealed in a
number of religious handbo'oks, issued under his instruc
tions, and drawn on for preaching by religious dignitar
ies across the country. It was asserted that "without
the monarchy, there would be encroachment of everyone on
everyone, and this would bring about certain chaos"
(Resala Mawaza,1893:61). Kings are not accountable for
the oppressiveness of their rule since injustice "is a
result of our sins, not of faults on their part" (Abu
388
Bakr,Taqwim Din,1888:116). Similarly, it was claimed that
as all Islamic activities would come to a standstill
without a king, even the rule of an evil king was better
than perpetual mischief" (Ibid:121-122)
Abdur Rahman's conception of the monarchy was not
shared by other leading contenders for the throne, two
of his father's brothers I sons. Ayub Khan, a son of
Sher Ali, commander of the forces that defeated the Bri-
tish in 1881 and in control of both the western and sou-
thern regions, wrote to Abdur Rahman:
"We were both in exile, but now God has given us Afghanistan between us ... What I propose is this: do go to Turkistan [the northern region], which was your father's share. Let the son of Azim Khan take Kurram. Let Kabul go to Yakub; Kandahar to the sons of Amin Khan; Girishik to Hashim; Herat to mell (quoted in Kakar,H.1971:77).
At the same time, Ishaq Khan, referred to by Ayub as the
son of Azim Khan, who controlled the northern region,
dre\" on the same set of precedents, declaring that
"Turkistan was acquired at the cost of my brother's life. Your father during the reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan -- on whose throne you are now seated -- was acknowledged the semiindependent ruler of Turkistan, and only under exceptional and pressing circumstances did he assist his father, the Amir. Under these circumstances, it is proper and right that you should acknowledge me as the exclusive owner of Turkistan, liable to render you help in case of extreme emergency. My father was Amir as well as yours, and my claims must not be over looked II (quoted in Adamec,1975:168).
389
Abdur Rahman managed to defeat Ayub Khan in battle in
1881, establishing his rule over the southern and western
regions, but the northern region came under his authority
only after he defeated Ishaq in 1888.
Opposition to Abdur Rahman's policies was not confined
to members of the royal lineage but included every politi
cally influential sector of Afghan society. To consolidate
the power of the state, Abdur Rahman undertook both to re
press this general opposition and to reintegrate these
groups within the structure of the state. In order to
analyze this complex process, I shall examine the inter
related changes in the control of the means of destruction,
administration, persuasion, adjudication, and finance.
When Abdur Rahman acceded to the throne, the destruc
tive impact of the British armed intervention was clear.
In the words of the Viceroy of India, "the military opera
tions in the country [Afghanistan] during the years 1378-
79-80, and its prolonged occupation by British troops, have
left the Civil Government and the military resources of the
Afghans in a state of dilapidation which will require a
long time to repair" (FO 539/19,May 8,1881:258). By con
trolling the supply to the ruler of the Afghan state of
the means of destruction as well as money, British policy
makers were able significantly to condition the pace of
restructuring the relations of domination in the country.
They were aware of their weight, as is shown in the fol-
390
lowing passage of a letter, sent to Abdur Rahman in 1889,
in answer to his insistence on conducting internal affairs
independently and his refusal to open up the country to
British influence. The letter read:
"I may, perhaps, remind your Highness that since the time when, nine years ago, you were placed on the Throne of Afghanistan by the Government of India, you have received from successive Viceroys a steady support, both moral and material, which has contributed in no small degree to the permanence and stability of your rule. It has been closely shown to the world that the Government of India was on your side; those who rebelled or intrigued against you have been discouraged; and you have received, in money and military stores, assistance to the following extent: 144 lakhs [one lakh = 100,000 rupees]; 74 guns with ammunition in proportion; 25,000 breach-loading and 11,500 muzzle-loading rifles, with several million rounds of cartridges. You are receiving from my Government a lakh of rupees every month" (Viceroy of India to Abdur Rahman,FO 539/44.Sept.lO,1889:15).
The timing of the delivery of these armaments was
often crucial to the success of Abdur Rahman's policies.
In the midst of a revolt of Ghilzai Pashtuns (1886-1887)
and just before the outbreak of Ishaq Khan's revolt of
1888, the British speedily arranged for the delivery of
one million "Martini-Henry and the same number of Snider
Cartridges" (FO 539/36.Inc.4-43,Aug.28,1887:31). Abdur
Rahman had requested that the cost of cartridges be de-
ducted from his subsidy, but the Viceroy informed him that
he had "much pleasure in presenting the ammunition to you
as a gift, and as an indication of the unfailing good-will
of the British government" (Ibid,5-43,Sept.15,1887:32).
391
On the other hand, the British also made use of their
control over the timing and delivery of means of destruc
tion to extract concessions from the Amir. In 1893, when
Abdur Rahman finally agreed to a demarcation of the boun
dary with British India, which removed the Pashtun clans
in the present territory of Pakistan from under his in
fluence, his yearly subsidy was increased by 600,000 ru
pees. Even more important to the Amir was the agreement
that "restrictions on purchase of arms and ammunition
will be removed. Ameer will also receive presents of
arms and ammunition from British Government" (Viceroy of
India to Secretary of State for India,FO 539/64,Nov.8,1893:
89). Indeed, the Amir had embarked on a full program for
the production of means of destruction at home but, given
the landlocked nature of Afghanistan and the costs of
transportation involved, he needed the cooperation of Bri
tish officials in the procurement of the needed supplies.
To fight his wars, the Amir needed soldiers. The
size of the army had, throughout his reign, been estimated
at 79,000 men (IO,Military Report on Afghanistan,1906:ll2).
Besides regular troops, Abdur Rahman made use of quasi
regular and irregular troops. In 1885, the pay of all
these forces amounted to 7,262,670 rupees. This consti
tuted 58.6% of the total expenditure of the state which,
including the subsidy from the British government, was
at 12,389,492 rupees (Amir to Viceroy, FO 539/27,July 18,
392
1885:216-222) .
As the reign of Abdur Rahman witnessed some of the
most extreme fluctuations in the availability and price
of food, there might have been a very strong incentive for
the hard-hit inhabitants of central and peripheral areas
to volunteer for relatively lucrative service in the army.
Enf0rcing the principle of collective responsiblity -- as
demonstrated in the material in the court records of the
valley of Kunar -- the Amir tried to discipline his sold
iers. Throughout his reign, he also called on the ser
vices of the cavalry, supported and commanded by local
landowners; he even made use of them in times of peace
and brought them under more strict discipline (Faiz
Muhammad,vol.III,hereafter ST,1915:289,1153). Abdur
Rahman's basic goal, inspired by tha example of the Otto
man Empire (Abdur Rahman,1886:2-8), was that of general
conscription. In 1885, he ordered that people be classi
fied in groups of 20; each year, one of them would serve
at the borders while the others provided for him and his
family. In 1895, he was demanding that one in every
eight men, between the ages of 15 and 20, should report
for duty (ST:541,777,872,and 1217).
Adbur Rahman also made extensive use of the hostility
among different clans and ethnic groups to suppress the
people who revolted. The army and other institutions of
the state were effectively operated to regulate the access
393
of all social groups to means of destruction. In cases of
populations where revolts had been constant, a continuous
policy of confiscating arms was put into effect.
294
Ruthless utilization of means of destruction insured
the de-structuring of existing forms of relations of dom
ination. To restructure these relations, a new set of re
lationships had to be institutionalized. Abdur Rahman's
enduring success lay in the fact that he made use of exist
ing elements to bring about a structural transformation of
relations between the state and the social order. The
new role of the religious strata, the khans, and the royal
lineage can illustrate the extent of the changes.
The revolt of 1886-1888, known as the Ghilzai upris
ing but in fact consisting of some Ghilzai Pashtuns,
Hazaras and Tajiks, was led by a religious leader whose
father had emerged as the single most prominent leader of
the struggle against the second British occupation of
Afghanistan. The son actually assumed the title of Arnir
and set up a rival administration to that of the state
(ST:5l8ff). In this revolt, as in many others, the cen
tral issue was that of centralization of power and focused
on the obligations demanded of the population in the name
of Islam.
In 1885, Abdur Rahman appointed Maulawi (religious
title) Ahmad Jan Khan Kandahari as the head of the depart
ment of estimations and accounting. Ahmad Jan Khan immedi-
ately "undertook the measurement of lands and properties
of the subjects and, on the basis of acreage, increased
the taxes of the state" (ST:475). In accordance with the
Islamic theory of taxation, he demanded one fourth of the
produce from irrigated lands and one-tenth from lands that
were rain-fed. In addition, he imposed taxes on flocks,
gardens, marriages, inheritance (0.5%), and on all other
transactions in the country. He decided "the confiscation
of awaqaf and the assignment of their revenue for the up
keep of imams [religious dignitaries in charge of prayer]
and muizins [persons who give the call to prayer] of the
mosques as well as the expenses incurred in providing
covering, candles, repairs, etc., of the mosques. He also
investigated all edicts by which, in the name of knowledge
and descent from the Prophet [of Islam], former rulers
had assigned stipends to all sorts of people. Since most
recipients had no inkling of knowledge and, with time,
edicts had passed hands enabling people to draw undeserved
sums from Bait ul-Mal [the Islamic treasury], he cancelled
these privileges. Only those whose claims were valid were
given new orders, stamped with the seal of His Majesty ...
Finding these measures in accordance with political law
and sharia, His Majesty approved them" (Ibid).
Ahmad Jan Khan also compiled two handbooks, known as
Asas-ul-Quzat (The Guide to Judges) and Dastur ul-Amal-i-
Hukam (Instructions to Governors) . "as he was an extreme-
395
ly able writer [general form implying knowledge of law,
finances, and composition], he was able to employ many peo
ple who had previously had no access to the diwan [admini
stration] of the state. Many new departments came into
being" (Ibid:63). Furthermore, the Amir uniformally im
posed taxation on all hitherto tax-exempt lands of reli
gious scholars and officials (Ibid:878).
In most cases, alliances formed among members of the
religious stratum, khans, landowners, and the rest of the
population, actually challenging the authority of the
state through armed uprising, can be directly traced to
the imposition of these policies. Abdur Rahman success
fully suppressed all the revolts and his measures were im
plemented. Since his power over the whole country was
uniformly established only in 1896, resistance to his po
licies, though widespread, assumed crisis proportions at
different times in different regions or districts. No
simultaneous uprising from all regions of the country
ever faced the Amir, and he was able to deal with the in
dividual uprisings as they occurred.
Abdur Rahman, as well as his opponents, sought legiti
mation in Islamic symbols. The leaders of the revolt jus
tified their action on the basis of resistance to an un
lawful ruler while the Amir claimed enforcement of the de
mands of sharia. I have elsewhere, described the version
of Islam that was officially propagated as well as the
396
other versions totally challenging its validity (1978:269-
284). The elements stressed in official handbooks in-
cluded the search for true knowledge and practice based
upon it, the absolute duty of working for livelihood, ob-
servance of contracts, and payment of zakat (taxes; parti-
cipation in jihad, service at the borders of Dar-ul-Islam,
and obedience to the ruler.
Acceptance and dissemination of these doctrines be-
came the prerequisites for the assignment of stipends to
members of the religious stratum. The members of the
committee who, under the direct supervision of the Arnir,
prepared the handbooks, were also appointed to a committee
entrusted with examining the religious knowledge of all
claimants to stipends from the state. Even members of the
most influential families of ulama were made to come to
Kabul and be examined by the committee (ST:475,516,517).
Examinations did not merely involve matters of doctrine,
but also aimed at systematically suppressing forms of or-
ganization, such as Sufi brotherhood, that had shown an
ability to challenge the state. The Arnir, himself, took
an active part interviewing these individuals. In a let-
ter dated Shawal 15, 1305 A.H. (May 26, 1888 A.D.), the
Arnir informed the governor of the southern district of
the easterm region that
"Abdul Latif Sahibzada, a dignitary of the Khost region and a partisan of the state, carne to us. We advised him never to participate in mystic or-
397
ders or try to gather adherents, because all these acts give rise to evil. He confessed to the truth of the statement and gave a written guarantee signed and sealed in the court of sharia to this effect ... Therefore, we allowed him to leave, and write that his salary in cash and kind as registered in the books, is to be reinstated to him. You should pay attention that he does not act in violation of his pledge as the condition for his stay in that region is the observance of the said items" (Afghan Archives, Correspondence between Amir and governor,item 53).
Financial privileges, as records of the courts of
sharia of Kunar show, were renewable only on a yearly basis
and depended on the strict observance of conduct laid down
by the Arnir. A large number of spies, kept the Amir (Ibid,
Correspondence between Amir and Prince, throughout the
four volumes) his governors and qudat informed of the ac-
tivities of the individual members. As for sufi orders,
they had shown in other situations a remarkable ability
to turn themselves into secret societies and, although
the state under Abdur Rahman was able to drive them under-
ground, it was not able to destroy their organizations.
The most successful aspect of Abdur Rahman's religious
policy was his resorting to ulama to staff a centrally
directed system of courts of sharia. I have elsewhere
(1982a) provided a detailed analysis of the pervasiveness
of the theme of centralization in Asas ul-Quzat, the hand-
book compiled by Maulawi Ahmad Jan Khan, and its operation
in practice. By contrast to the situation prevailing prior
to Abdur Rahman's reign, where in some extreme cases qudat
398
were appointed by the local khan (Merk,188l:5), during his
reign, qudat became full-time functionaries of the state
-- not even allowed to engage in teaching -- who, as mem
bers of a hierarchial organization, had to submit regular
reports of the proceedings of their courts, through higher
echelons, to Qadi-ul-Qudat (the chief-qadi). They were
forbidden to render judgements in their homes or in mosques
and had to attend to business in the courts. The state
became an automatic party to a case of homocide and, in
addition to a blood-price of 3,500 rupees to be paid to
the family of the victim, the murderer had to pay a fine
of 3,500 to the state as well. The governor of the south
ern district of Kabul, where feuds among individuals, lin
eages and clans, had been very common prior to Abdur
Rahman's reign, wrote to the Arnir that the imposition of
the fine was leading to the ruin of many people and should,
therefore, be reduced. The Arnir, refusing to lower the
fine, replied that the object of the directive was the
elimination of conflict, not the collection of revenues
(ST:I065) •
Controlling feuds was not the only measure through
which Abdur Rahman led his attacks on the institutions of
the Pashtun and other clans. Sharia became the law of the
land and a vigorous attempt to suppress customary forms
of adjudication was undertaken; all the available data in
dicates that it was successful. A detailed breakdown of
399
the case-material from the archives of the court of Kunar
(Ghani,1982b) leads me to conclude that the fact the state
upheld the rights of women to a share of the property of
a deceased relative -- unlike custom which disinherited
them -- was a very significant factor in the ability of
courts of sharia to supercede the institutions of custom.
Decisions reached in courts of sharia, unlike those made
through the channels of custom, were sanctioned by the
power of the state and, as such, were binding on all par
ties to a dispute. Since there were records of decisions
and disputes could be speedily terminated, recourse to
the courts soon became desirable. Thus, the existence
of conflicts of interests among members of families, other
kin groups, and localities, made the recourse to the in
stitution of the court, and thereby further consolidation
of the state, possible.
The negative implications for local notables were
severe and there is direct evidence that, through economic
means at their disposal, they tried to prevent people from
seeking access to the courts (Afghan Archives, Correspond
ence between the Arnir and the governor of the southern
district of the eastern region). Abdur Rahman could not,
however, tolerate the existence of autonomous centers of
power and took energetic measures completely to subordin
ate to the state khans and other men of local influence.
He regularly inteviewed influential men from all regions
400
of the country and personally decided their fate. His let-
ter to the governor of the southern district of the eastern
region, in 1887, provides an insight into his method of
operation. He wrote
"Regarding the influential men of the Mangal clan sent to us, you have acted in a stupid and careless manner. No information with regard to influence, reasons for detention, or for return, was provided. You should have given the name and background of every man, stated whether two hundred or five hundred men in the clan followed him, and what kind of service he would be able to render the state" (Afghan Archives,Correspondence: 11-12) .
The Arnir then informed the governor that, as a result of
the interviews, he had classified the khans into three
categories: the least influential, whom he had allowed
to return to their localities; some of the influential
ones, who were given employment by the state; and the re-
maining, who were kept as hostages (Ibid).
Those chosen for appointment were usually given com-
missions in the army and sent to areas outside their own
localities, becoming in effect hostages. A large number
of the leading khans were liquidated, forced into exile,
or imprisoned in the capital of Kabul. Colonel West
Ridgeway, British commissioner appointed to the demarca-
tion of the northern boundary of Afghanistan, interviewed
the Arnir in 1886 and reported that "he inflicts savage
punishments, but so long as the people are submissive, par-
ticularly as regards to taxation, he leaves them alone.
401
He wages war on classes not on the masses" (Great Britain,
Biographical Accounts of Chiefs, Sardars and Others of
Afghanistan, 1887:21).
Yet, Abdur Rahman did not intend to eliminate the
khans as a class. His goal was to deprive them of autono
mous political power and completely subdue them to the
central government. The state sill needed the khans to
perform a number of functions in the intermediate and mar
ginal zones of the country. To this end, throughout Abdur
Rahman's rule, khans were appointed within a number of
clans and, in some cases where, due to the remoteness of
the area, khanship had not been instituted, it was pro
moted by the Amir. In these cases, the khans were pro
vided with funds to hire a number of retainers from their
own clan that would be ready for serving the state under
their command (ST:923). The differences in allowances to
khans varied from 2 ,000 to in some cases, even more than
50,000 rupees (Ibid:923,954).
Controlling the financial basis of power of the khans,
Abdur Rahman was able to compel them to act according ~o
his wishes. In 1897, the Amir, who had earlier confiscated
the property of the khan of the Mohammad clan -- a family
that had maintained its position since the reign of the
Mughal ruler Akbar (1556-1605) -- rest.ored him to his for
mer position and pay. Of the 47,704 rupees in cash and
20.825 metric tons of grain alloted to the khan as his
402
overall allowance, he was to consider 12,000 rupees as the
stipends of his mother and wife, 17,704 rupees and all the
grain as his own pay, and 18,000 rupees as the salary of
175 horsemen and infantry under his command (Ibid:954).
When regular forces of the army were not sufficient to
suppress a revolt, these levies were called upon. Loyal
khans were also appointed governors of districts outside
their own areas.
The degree of success of khankhel to maintain some
influence during the reign of Abdur Rahman was directly
related to the speed with which it managed to accept the
supremacy of the state. Ghilzai and Hazara khans, who
led their clans in some of the bloodiest battles of the
period, came for the heaviest punishment. Thousands of
Ghilzai Pashtuns were forced to leave their place of re
sidence in the southern and eastern regions and settle in
the nort~ern region. The fate of the Hazaras was even
worst.
Prior to the reign of Abdur Rahman, Hazaras, in a
large part of the central region, had been little sub
jected to the central government and their khans exercised
extensive power over their people. At first, Abdur Rahman
exploited local rivalries among Hazara khans to acquire
rates of taxation two or three times those paid to earlier
governments (Ibid:399,514-515,654). But khans in the in
terior of the central region, known as Yaghistan (the
403
land of rebellion), were not paying any revenue to the
state. In 1891, Abdur Rahman conquered all of the central
region. His repressive measures soon led to a general
uprising of the Hazara clans and, between 1891 and 1893,
a savage war raged in the central region (Ibid:583-l238).
In his war against the Hazaras, most of whom followed
the Shi'i persuation of Islam, the Arnir gained a fetwa
from Sunni ulama declaring the Hazaras "infidels" and fit
to be sold in slavery. Faiz Muhammad, the official his
torian of Abdur Rahman's era who had full access to all
state papers and was himself a Hazara, provided a full
account of the sale of Hazaras into slavery, the execu
tion of their khans and religious leaders, and the in
human punishments inflicted on all the population. The
intensity of the suppression of Hazaras in the central
region was undoubtedly the most severe case of the per
secution of a single religious-regional group by the
state. A careful reading of the account of other revolts
makes it clear that the dominant motive of the Arnir was
the complete pacification of all the population regardless
of regional, religious, or linguistic identities. However,
military forces recruited from one or several regional
groups were widely used in suppressing other regional
groups, and actors perceived their relations to the state
in even more pronounced regional terms. Assignments of
lands of rebellious groups to people from other groups
404
(Ibid:788,924,934,982,1183,etc.) fueled the tensions even
further.
Abdur Rahman's policy of subordinating the khans to
the state, rather than liquidating them as a class, can
be documented, even in the case of Hazaras. After the
complete pacification of the central region, the privi
leges of some khans were restored and the groups that re
turned to their localities were treated leniently (Ibid:
l182,1237,1238,etc.). From a long-term perspective, two
of Abdur Rahman's measures were crucial in the social re
production of khanly families within the structure of the
state in twentieth century Afghanistan. Young boys were
brought to Kabul as hostages ~s a guarantee for the loyal
conduct of their families. They were given the title of
ghulam-bachas (slave boys) attending the Amir in the court,
and were provided with an education. Many of them became
prominent officials of the state subsequently. Recruiting
the royal guard from sons of prominent families was equal
ly significant. Originally formed from four hundred
Durani khanzadas (descendants of khans), the guard was
later expanded to include members of all other regional
groups. Yet, after the Hazara revolt, Shi'is were ex
cluded from it (Ibid:440,979iAfghan Archives, Correspond
ence between the Amir and prince,vol.IV,ite,7:6). Service
in the guard was considered a high mark of distinction
and candidates had to present a document certifying they
405
were the descendants of a khan or headmen in their locali-
ties. The Arnir personally interviewed all candidates to
make sure of their credentials (Ibid:items 8 and 13:7,10).
Even members of the royal lineage volunteered to serve in
the guard (Ibid:items 6,11,12:5,9-10;ST:980).
Relations between the Arnir and members of his own
lineage, namely the Mohamrnadzais, underwent a radical
transformation during the second decade of his rule. The
implementation of his policy of centralization had brought
him into direct conflict with most of the powerful ~embers
of the lineage and they had been forced to go into exile
in India and elsewhere. In the 1880s, after the Amir had
acquired a firm grip over the country, most were allowed
to return and some were appointed to influential positions
in the bureaucracy (ST:708,842,868,902,etc.). The changed
character of the relations between the Arnir and the
Muhamrnadzai lineage was formally marked in 1892 when the
Amir sanctioned the special status of the lineage in the
state. He issued the following edict:
"Because of their kinship and solidarity with the royal family, His Majesty has chosen the members of the Muhamrnadzai lineage to be superior to the Ghilzai and Durani clans and that they should be more prosperous. Therefore, it is decided that, in order that their lives should be more comfortable than that of other people, each man should receive a yearly salary of 400 rupees and each woman 200, so that the foundation of the state and the dynasty be stable" (Ibid: 914) .
Muhamrnadzai women (who married outside the lineage) were
406
also to benefit from this measure (Ibid). The Amir person
ally checked the genealogy of the claimants before the
treasury assigned them their salaries (Archives,Correspon
dence between Amir and prince,vol.III,2l Rabi' al Awal
1311/1893:3). Shortly afterwards, all major sub-lineages
inside Afghanistan signed, in 1896, a covenant pledging
themselves "to recognize [Abdur Rahman's] sons as inheri
tors to his crown and kingdom; not to deviate from his will,
to keep on obeying them whether he be alive or dead ..• it
is for his sons, neither for us nor for our descendants,
to choose the inheritors" (Archives of the Afghan Ministry
of Foregin Affairs, quoted and translated in Kakar, 1971,
appendices XII and XIII:293).
Muha~~~zais were appointed to positions of influence
within the civil administration but were treated like other
members of the bureaucracy and frequently dismissed by the
Amir when their actions displeased him. The degree of
subordination of the lineage to Abdur Rahman is best re
vealed in a request made by a large number of its members
to appoint them as "inspectors and spies" for the deter
mination of the honesty of officials (ST:933). The Amir
did appoint some of them to inspect financial irregulari
ties in the southern region but, when they began to make
use of their position to enrich themselves, he warned them
that "they would be executed" (Ibid:969,1058).
Abdur Rahman's policy of pacification and his system-
407
atic demands for increasing taxes brought about an expan
sion in the size and role of the administration. Entrusted
with the task of breaking down popular resistance to con
solidate the state, officials made use of their wide powers
to extort the maximum of resources from the population for
their own quick enrichment (ST:475,653,700,763,788,833,94l,
l158,etc.). Tax-farmers who, as in previous periods, con
tinued to be the main collectors of revenue, also attempted
to abuse their power (Ibid:1186,1226027,etc.).
To check the power of officials and tax-farmers,
Abdur Rahman appointed them to short terms of office and
dismissed them frequently. In addition, he attempted to
restructure the financial administration. He tried to set
up a budget; the appointed officials having proven unequal
to the task, he expanded the functions of the aUditing de
partment. Books of the officials were regularly sent
for inspection and members of the department frequently
travelled to the provinces (Ibid:638,668-69,700,842,86l).
Furthermore, contracts of tax-farmers had to be recorded
in the courts of shari a of the locality leased to them and
qudat attended to the complaints of the subjects.
In general, the second decade of the rule of the
Amir was devoted to the institutionalization of gains
achieved through the ruthless use of the means of destruc
tion at his disposal. The degreee of his success in re
structuring tne relations of domination in the country was
408
revealed on the day of his death, October 1,1901. For the
first time since the foundation of the Afghan state in 1747,
the eldest son of a ruler, though born of a concubine, suc
ceeded his father to the throne without encountering any
armed opposition. Abdur Rahman had successully replaced
the old mode of domination with a new one where political
power resided in the institutions of a centralized state.
The ease of transition came as a surprise to the Bri
tish officials, who had watched the scene closely and ex
pected to gain a number of concesssions vital to their
interests from the successor of the Amir. One of these
officials, forecasting chaos in the country following the
death of Abdur Rahman, had stated that "we shall have an
opportunity of making our political and strategic fron
tiers identical, and of completing our defences by bringing
Afghanistan proper under our effectual control, making the
continuation of railroads and telegraphs, and the opening
out of the country the conditions on which its new Ruler
is allowed to exist" (FO 539/33, Dec.20,1886:20).
Despite his dependence on arms and money, Abdur
Rahman had successfully resisted the imposition of these
measures. Similarly, he had accepted only Indian Muslims
as the British representatives to his court; they were
kept in isolation from the people and treated as virtual
prisoners (Martin,1907:301). In 1896, having completed
the consolidation of his regime, Abdur Rahman asked to
409
send an ambassador to London and to have free hand in the
conduct of his own foreign policy (Military Report of
Afghanistan,1906:l83). His request was flatly refused and
British demands for concessions ~.vere maintained (L/P&S/18A
l896,8l:l). In that year, a British official wrote "If
only an exceptional man can hold the whole of Afghanistan,
and if the only means by which the integrity of Afghanistan
can be preserved are a cruel depotism, are the results
worth purchasing at the cost of an unfriendly Amir who
will have his own way and break his agreements?" (Ibid,l09:
6) •
The British were not to win any of their demands dur
ing the reign of Abdur Rahman. When his son succeeded him,
they were still in no position to enforce them on the
Afghans. ~nstead of being dismembered and further en
croached upon by imperial powers, Afghanistan won its
political independence from a British government that had
just recovered from World War I, under Abdur Rahman's
grandson, in 1919. The changes leading to that event and
the reproduction of relations of production and domination
during the twentieth century will have to await future
analysis.
Before concluding, however, and in order to complete
the picture of the Afghan state at the turn of the century,
I must briefly take account of the economic articulation
of the country's regions under Abdur Rahman.
410
The distinctive regional patterns of agrj.cultural pro
duction were not altered during this last unit of our con
juntural analysis. Despite the Amir's refusal to con
struct railways in the country and although the imposition
of high custom duties had resulted in the decline of trade
with India (Kakar,1979:213f) I changes in the larger economy
of the area and in the international system of communica
tions were undoubtedly felt, at least in certain sections
of Afghan society and in certain parts of the country.
Nomads were most receptive to these changes. From
1840 onwards, unaffected by the cost of transportation,
nomadic sheep-owners had become involved in the sale of
their wool to firms which eventually exported it, via
Karachi, to London. The impact on the local scene, as
was the case in the Mizan district of the southern region,
translated into flock-owners maintaining the sheep "for
their wool and unwilling to part with them" (GA,Kandahar:
344). Nomads also served as carriers for agricultural
products that were either cultivated for export or gathered
especially for the Indian market. Of a total amount of
2,197,000 rupees worth of goods taken from Afghanistan to
India during this period, the main items were: fruits,
31.86%; madders, 27.31%; raw silk, 22.76%; wool, 6.8%;
and chars (an intoxicating drug extracted from hemp) ,
4.64%. The goods they transported back from India into
Afghanistan were valued at 1,907,000 rupees, with the fol-
411
lowing breakdown: Indigo, 31.46%; English manufactured cot-
ton goods, 26.22%; Indian manufactured cotton goods, 31.46%:
tea, 5.24% (GA,Kabul:426ff). With the availability of rail-
roads, those groups of nomads who, besides carrying goods
engaged in money-lending and peddling of cloth, extended
their sphere of operations to Indian provinces as far as
Bengal, and some even went to Australia (Roninson,1935:2-
4) •
Abdur Rahman's attempts at turning the political bor-
ders into effective frontiers, where the flov1 of goods
would be controlled by the state, were not successful and
the smuggling of goods was widespread. Lord George Curzon
who, prior to his tenure as viceroy of India (1899-1905),
travelled extensively in Afghanistan and Russian dominated
central Asia, made a revealing analysis of the impact of
British and Russian railroad systems on the structure of
marketing in Afghanistan. He wrote that, from the two
termini of the railroad on the frontiers of the Afghan
southern and eastern regions
"long strings of camels convey British and Indian merchandise into the interior: the caravans in correspondence with the sind-Pishin line serving the Kandahar region, and ultimately Herat; those that start from Peshawur serving Kabul, and ultimately Afghan Turkestan [the northern region]. On the north-west, the Russian railway runs parallel with the English, several hundred miles apart, but at a rather greater distance from the Afghan frontier on that side than is the Indian railway on the south-east. From Merv, however, from Tcharjui on the Oxus, and from Bokhara communication is made with the Afghan interior; and
412
caravans, made up for the most part in Bokhara, but charge with Russian merchandise, serve the frontier markets of Maimena, Andkhui, Shiberghan, Akcha, and Siripul, where the goods, are redistributed onto the inland villages and towns. The situation which it is my object to indicate is this. The Russian, or mosre strictly Bokharan, caravans, in correspondence with the Russian railway on the north, are not only seriously competing with, but are even beating the Afghan or Indian caravans in correspondence with the Anglo-Indian lines on the south. In other words Afghanistan, which has hitherto been regarded as a peculiarly sacred preserve of the British or Indian trader, is fast becoming a battle-ground of international rivalry, and is little by little yielding to Russia that which it steals from Great Britain" (Curzon,1889:447) .
Curzon, who illustrated his observations with data
from official British and Russian sources, provided a
description of a fundamental tension in the articulation
of poliltical and economic relations in the country.
Abdur Rahman had managed to achieve an unprecedented de-
gree of political centralization. Yet the economic in-
tegration of the country had not been reached. Tensions
in the articulation of relations of domination within the
system of production, despite many changed circumstances,
remained as high as they had been at the be inning of our
unit of long duration. Conflicts and alliances had altered
relations of domination but had not transformed relations
in the social and technical organization of production.
At a time when internal political forces had been made to
converge under the sole leadership of the ruler, external
economic forces were pulling the various regions of the
413
country away from each other. Realigning economics with
politics remained to be the strongest challenge of
Afghanistan in the twentieth century.
414
PART III
Chapter VII
Conclusion
In the preceding pages I have analyzed the historical
process through which structures of production and domina
tion were reproduced as a totality from 1747 to 1901 in
Afghanistan. In this endeavor I have paid equal attention
to structure and history. Systematic relationship among
a set of elements in such a way that changes in one effect
changes in others has been the defining characteristic of
concept of structure to me. But a combination of elements
can be called structural if, and only if, their interrela
tionship endures the test of duration, i.e. history.
To bring the changing articulation of structures in
the total system into sharper relief I opted for a com
bination of temporal and spatial frameworks. Within the
basic unit of long-duration, 1747-1901, I delineated appro
priate conjunctura1 units of 20 to 60 years to document
the degree of continuity or change. Spatially, instead
of taking the whole territory of the state as the unit of
analysis I focused on six regions. within each of these
regions, I distinguished between central and marginal eco
logical zones and then explored the interrelations among
these elements within regional, inter-regional and inter
territorial units.
This procedure al1o~led me to chart the actual tempo
415
of the reproduction of differeLt st~uctures and to deter
mine the ways in which the combination of these structures
gave rise to systemic transformations. The pace of move
ment in the structures of production being relatively
slow a unit of long-duration, 1747-1901, was the most
suitable means of presentation of elements in a structure
such as the technical and social organization of labor
as well as the relations among the entire sets of
structures in the system of production.
This slow pace of movement is not surprising. Karl
Marx provided a graphic portrayal of the differences in
the conditions of reproduction under conditions of capi
talist and pre-capitalist production. He affirmed that
capitalist production is "not only rapid, so that the
commodity quickly acquires the form in which it is suit
able for circulation, but it is continuous. Production
here appears only as constant reproduction and at the same
time it takes place on a mass scale" (Theories of Surplus
Value,III:286). Under these conditions "the stock of
commodities which a shopkeeper "accumulates and keeps in
store, will be small. It is different in the less devel
oped stages of production where reproduction proceeds
slowly -- where, therefore, more commodities must remain
in the circulation reservoirs -- the means of transport
are slow, the communications difficult and, as a conse
quence, the renewal of stock can be interrupted and a
416
great deal ef time elapses as a result between the empty
ing and refilling ef reserveir -- that is, the renewal ef
steck in hand. The pesitien is then similar to. that ef
preducts whose repreductien takes place yearly er half
yearly, in shert in mere er less prelenged perieds ef
time, ewing to. the nature ef their use-values"(Ibid:287).
If these differences in centinuity, scale and tempe
ef repreductien ef ecenemic structures in capitalist and
pre-capitalist fermatiens are net clearly grasped, it
can give rise to. false abstractiens and analytic cenfu
sien. Jenathan Friedman who., fer instance, has rightly
insisted that enly threugh repreductien dees a mede ef
preductien beceme a system (1976:3-16), articificially
impeses in his ethnegraphic analysis ef the Kachin (1972)
categeries that are specific to. capitalist preductien.
In anether piece (1975: 201-276), wi theut effering histerical
or theeretical justificatiens fer his assumption, Friedman
assumes lineages to. be the selid reck areund which his
epi-genetic medel ef evelutien unfelds itself. The ser
ies ef magical transfermatiens is, hewever, perfermed by
deliberately breaking-dewn elements in an existing tetal
structure and re-arranging them in an alleged evelutien
ary sequence ef transfermatiens. There is a deuble
ireny in Friedman's methed ef eperatien. In attempting
to. impreve ever Leach's werk en the Kachin, he returns
to. treating the varieus lineages as iselated systems
417
while one of Leach's major innovations was his analysis
that these were not isolated societies but elements in a
total system in flux. Furthermore, Friedman achieves the
elegance of his model by sacrificing the very el~ment on
which he insists theoretically, namely systemic reproduc
tion. Thus, by refusing to confront his model with tests
of concrete durations, Friedman, instead of enriching our
understanding of historical processes, impoverishes it.
The imposition of organic characteristics on social
processes is not confined to Friedman. Marx, in his dis
cussion of the Physiocrats, asserted that "for them the
bourgeois forms of production necessarily appeared as
natural forms. It was their great merit that they con
ceived these forms as physiological forms of society: as
forms arising from the natural necessity of production
itself, forms that are independent of anyone's will or
of politics, etc"(Theories of Surplus-Value,I:44). Sub
sequently, Marx justified his concept of accumulation
by directly relying on Charles Darwin. He wrote that
accumulation "means assimilation, continual preservation
and at the same time transformation of what has already
been handed over and realized. In this way Darwin makes
'accumulation' through inheritance the driving principle
in the formation of all organic things, of plants and
animals" (T3V,III:294-95). Marx's reliance on Darwin was
not confined to seeking support in an isolated insistance.
418
In a letter to Lassale he asserted that "Darwin's book is
very important and serves me as a natural-scientific
basis for class struggle in history" (January 16, 1861,
Selected Correspondence n.d.:151).
The theoretical area where Marx applied the concept
of inherited social combination was on the issue of domin
ation. He asserted that the "political economy in its
classical period, adopted a severe attitude towards the
machinery of the State, etc. At a later stage it rea-
lized and as shown in practice too -- learnt from ex-
perience that the necessity for the inherited social com
bination of all classes, which in part were totally un
productive, arose from its own organization" (TSV,I:175).
In accounting for the expanding scale of primitive accumu
lation, he put heavy emphasis on the role of the state,
stating that "the different momenta of primitive accumu
lation distribute themselves now, more or less in chrono
logical order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland,
France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th
century, they arrived at a systematical combination, em
bracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode
of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods
depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system.
But they all employ the power of the State, the concen
trated and organized force of society, to hasten, hothouse
fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal
419
great deal of time elapses as a result between the empty-
ing and refilling of reservoir -- that is, the renewal of
stock in hand. The position is then similar to that of
products whose reproduction takes place yearly or half-
yearly, in short in more or less prolonged periods of
time, owing to the nature of their use-values"(Ibid:287).
It these differences in continuity, scale and tempo
of reproduction of economic structures in capitalist and
pre-capitalist formations are not clearly grasped, it
can give rise to false abstractions and analytic confu-
sion. Jonathan Fr~edman who, for instance, has rightly
insisted that only through reproduction does a mode of
production become a system (1976:3-16), articificially
imposes in his ethnographic analysis of the Kachin (1972)
categories that are specific to capitalist production. ~\{1(e.
In another (1975:201-276), without offering historical
or theoretical justifications for his assumption, Friedman
assumes lineages to be the solid rock around which his
epi-genetic model of eVQlution unfolds itself. The ser-
ies of magical transformations is, however, performed by
deliberately breaking-down elements in an existing total
structure and re-arranging them in an alleged evolution-
ary sequence of transformations. There is a double
irony in Friedman's method of operation. In attempting
to improve over Leach's work on the Kachin, he returns
to treating the various lineages as isolated systems
417
while one of Leach's major innovations was his analysis
that these were not isolated societies but elements in a
total system in flux. Furthermore, Friedman achieves the
elegance of his model by sacrificing the very element 'on
which he insists theoretically, namely systemic reproduc
tion. Thus, by refusing to confront his model with tests
of concrete durations, Friedman, instead of enriching our
understanding of historical processes, impoverishes it.
The imposition of organic characteristics on social
processes is not confined to Friedman. Marx, in his dis
cussion of the Physiocrats, asserted that "for them the
bourgeois forms of production necessarily appeared as
natural forms. It was their great merit that they con
ceived these forms as physiological forms of society: as
forms arising from the natural necessity of production
itself, forms that are independent of anyone's will or
of politics, etc"(Theories of Surplus-Value,I:44). Sub
sequently, Marx justified his concept of accumulation
by directly relying on Charles Darwin. He wrote that
accumulation "means assimilation, continual preservation
and at the same time transformation of what has already
been handed over and realized. In this wa'5J.' Darwin makes
'accumulation' through inheritance the driving principle
in the formation of all organic things, of plants and
animals" (TSV,III:294-95). Marx's reliance on Darwin was
not confined to seeking support in an isolated insistance.
418
In a letter to Lassale he asserted that "Darwin's book is
very important and serves me as a natural-scientific
basis for class struggle in history" (January 16, 1861,
Selected Correspondence n.d.:lSl).
The theoretical area where Marx applied the concept
of inherited social combination was on the issue of domin
ation. He asserted that the "political economy in its
classical period, adopted a severe attitud8 towards the
machinery of the State, etc. At a later stage it rea-
lized and as shown in practice too -- learnt from ex-
perience that the necessity for the inherited social com
bination of all classes, which in part were totally un
productive, arose from its own organization" (TSV,I:17S).
In accounting for the expanding scale of primitive accumu
lation, he put heavy emphasis on the role of the state,
stating that lIthe different momenta of primitive accumu
lation distribute themselves now, more or less in chrono
logical order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland,
France, and England. In "England at the end of the 17th
century, they arrived at a systematical combination, em
bracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode
of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods
depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system.
But they all employ the power of the State, the concen
trated and organized force of society, to hasten, hothouse
fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal
419
mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shcrt
en the transition. Force is the midwife of every old so
ciety pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic
power" (Capital,I:175).
This passage is in sharp contrast to his remarks on
the achievements of physiocrats. Instead of explaining
how the state arose out of the "physiological forms of
society" he brings in the state, i.e. politics, to ex
plain the emergence of the capitalist mode of production.
The contradiction between the two remarks is due to Marx'
systematic theoretical neglect of the analysis of rela
tions of domination as structural relations that constant
ly affected the relations of production. If we are to
grasp the totality of social reproduction of systems in
history we can no longer limit our attention to the struc
tures of production and ignore structures of domination.
Understanding the genesis and reproduction of the absolu
tist state, in conjunction with changes in the economic
structures of societies, becomes an important task.
In his contribution to the understanding of the char
acter of the absolutionist state, Perry Anderson wr5:tes
that "in nature and structure, the Absolutist monarchies
of Europe were still feudal states: the machinery of
rule of the same aristrocratic class that had dominated
the Middle Ages. But in Western Europe where they were
born, the social formations which they governed were a
420
complex combination of feudal and capitalist modes of pro
duction, with a gradually rising urban bourgeosie and a
growing primitive accumulation of capital, on an interna
tional scale ..• The increase in the political sway of
the royal state was accompanied, not by a decrease in the
economic security of noble landownership, but by a corre
sponding increase in the general rights of private pro
perty. The age in which 'Absolutist' public authority
was imposed was also simultaneously the age in which
'absolute' private property was progressively consolidated"
(1974:428-29) •
Anderson's observations offer an interesting contrast
to the situation in Afghanistan. As I have shown in chap
ters five and six, the structure of domination underwent
rapid changes while, the structure of production regis
tered very slow changes. Furthermore, Anderson's juxta
position of the absolutist state and modes of production
is important in focusing attention on their interrelation,
yet he has not demonstrated the precise nature of this
"complex combination".
Niels steensgaard has noted that "Marxist scholars
have so far have been unable to determine the nature of
the absolutist state in relation to modes of production"
(1981:253). He points out that "relagating the profits
of the large trading companies and the early colonial
ventures to the category of plunder and windfall gains
421
is highly unsatisfactory, considering the place they occupy
in the preindustrial economy. Ignoring the enormous con
centration of demand resulting from the consolidation of
the early modern state is even more unsatisfactory" (Ibid:
254). Using Fredrick Lane's concept of cost of protection,
Steensgaard argues that, "in the centuries before the fi
nal introduction of a capitalist economy, the dynamics
of the European economy were guaranteed by the competition
among the entrepreneurs in the protection business -- the
only large-scale business that always could find a market.
Parasitic empires have often been the victims of their
own greed when they killed the goose that laid the golden
egg. The Western European governments of the Ancien
Regime were the first parasites to become the victims of
their farsightedness when they fed the goose so well that
it became able to take over. By protecting the productive
investments and innovations the seigniorial sector had
forged the weapon of its O'Yffi undoing" (Ibid:272).
My analysis of the changing balance between the cen
tral government and the class of khans over the control of
means of destruction and imposition of costs of protection
reveals how different the situation was from that in Wes
tern Europe. It underlines the crucial nature of the link
age between the central government and the European power
as suppliers of means of destruction, either directly or
by allowing the purchase of arms in the international mar-
422
keto
The character of the relationship between the absolu-
tist state, the nobility and the peasantry, however, was
not uniform throughout west Europe. Robert Brenner char-
acterizes the contrast between the French and the English
experiences in the following words: IIBy the early modern
period the consolidation of peasant property in relation
ship to the development of the French state had created a
very different sort of class structure in the French coun-
tryside from that which emerged in England. And there
is no better index of these contrasting structures than
the dramatically different sorts of peasant revolts which
marked the early modern era in both countries. In England,
of course, peasant revolt was directed against the land-
lords, in a vain last-ditch struggle to defend disinte-
grating peasant proprietorship against advancing capita-
list encroachment. In France the target of peasant revolt
typically, the crushing taxation of the absolutist
state, which ironically had been instrumental in securing
and protecting peasant proprietorship (and thus impending
capitalist development). Thus in France strong peasant
property and the absolutist state developed in mutual
dependence upon one another. The state increased its
own power by virtue of its ability to get between the land-
lords and the peasants, to ensure peasant freedom, hered-
itability and fixed rents, and thuse use peasant produc-
423
tion, via non-parliamentary taxation, as the direct source
of reVeii.'-l6 for royal strength and autonomy... In England,
by constrast, monarchial centralization developed, especi
ally from the latter fifteenth century, in relationship to
and with ultimate dependence upon the landlord class, as
was most dramatically evidenced in the contemporaneous
growth of parliamentary institutions (while they decayed
in France)" (1976:70-71).
In my analysis of conjunctures of domination I showed
that the relationship of the khans with the central govern
ment underwent fundamental changes during my unit of long
duration. There is marked contrast between the two per
iods 1747-1818 and 1880-1901. During the first period
the khans enjoyed maximum control over the means of de
struction, administration, finance, adjudication and per
suation. During the second conjuncture their powers were
derived from the state. Through institutions such as
the standing army, the centrally directed bureacracy,
the judiciary, the religious establishment, a~d the con
trolled - if not directed - system of finance, the state
was able to get between landlord and direct producers.
Through its redistributive network, the state was able
to directly influence the direction of mobility of in
dividual landlords as well as members of other sectors
of society.
However, as long as centralization of power was
424
founded on an economic structure with a slow tempo of
changes, the reproduction of political centralization re-
mained precarious. For as John Austi~, some one-hundred
and thirty years ago pointed out the tendency "to streng
then the central authority is aided or impeded by causes
extrinsic to political institutions. Such for example
is the facility or difficulty of communication between the
parts of the country; the diposition of their respective
populations to union or separation; the attachment or
aversion of the bulk of the community to the actual hold-
ers of the sovereign power; and the docility or indocility
inherent in the national character" (1847: 226) . Austin also dis-
tinguished between formal and practical centralization, assert-
ing that" in imperfectly civilized countries whose governme!lts
are apparently centralized (as, for example Russia,) the cen-
tralization is really formal. In such a country, the adrnini-
strative authority, however perfect their arrangement, are
not practically dependent on the sovereign power" (Ibid: 234) .
Austin's characterization of centralization is con-
siderably more sophisticated than Karl wittfogel's attempt
to derive the structure of domination in "Asiatic" soci-
eties from their mode of irrigation. By avoiding to con-
cretely investigate his theory in definite historical
periods, Wittfogel often reduces his effort to a random
catalogue of confirmations of his thesis. Furthermore,
for someone who advocates the comparative nature of
the social sciences, his abstraction of the notion of
private property derived from L~e capitalist period of
European history and his silence on the character of
European absolutist states is amazing.
If this work has revealed the inadequacy of such
misplaced concreteness and shown that the anthropological
mode of analysis is capable of posing -- if not success
fully answering -- the issue of articulation of complex
structures through time, it would have served its purpose.
426
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