The two volumes translated here are a continuation of FayzÌ Muḥammad KÄtib HazÄrahâs monumental Afghanistan history project. The two texts, NizhÄdnÄmah-i AfghÄn, an ethnographic-genealogical history of the peoples of Afghanistan, and Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb, a memoir of the 1929 revolution in which the century-long PashtÅ«n MuḥammadzÄʾī dynasty was toppled by a non-PashtÅ«n, the Tajik ḤabÄ«b AllÄh KalakÄnÄ«, should be considered organic parts of the earlier-published history of his, SirÄj al-tawÄrÄ«kh, and in terms of both style and content complement that monumental example of Afghanistan historiography.1 We hope that this ensemble of works will serve to enrich future scholarship on Afghanistan and encourage students of Afghan history to think outside the box of colonial history. Taken together, these works offer a treasure trove of new information on economic, social, legal, political, and cultural matters including such issues as gender relations, sectarianism, tribalism, ethnic culture, minority-majority relationships, court and bureaucratic societies, military tactics, and tax and monetary policies.
Besides making available hitherto overlooked information about Afghanistan, the translations have a secondary objective as well: to contextualize and raise fundamental questions about the actual process and exigencies of historiography, i.e. how such writing is initiated and by whom, the motivation behind itâas far as that can be determinedâand the immediate political ramifications and long-term consequences of the final product. Much of FayzÌ Muḥammadâs writing was commissioned and supervised by officialsâthe amir and his representativesâbut these two works were written for FayzÌ Muḥammadâs own satisfaction alone and provide an opportunity to compare âofficialâ and âunofficialâ historiography. These texts remind the reader of the voice which often had to be suppressed in his commissioned and supervised writing.
It is rare in Islamicate and Persianate studies generally and in Afghan studies in particular to get a glimpse of the complex and often-changing circumstances under which a history was written; to know, in some considerable detail, the life, career, and agonies of the historian; and have some insight into the interaction between what was written and what was going on at the same time in the writerâs life. Both Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb and NizhÄdnÄmah-i AfghÄn offer us just such an opportunity, providing insights, from the authorâs perspective, of how politicized the project of history-writing was, the kinds of rivalries that could and did emerge, and the arsenal at the authorâs disposal with which to counterattack and fend off efforts at appropriation.
Both works exist in Persian editions.2 We were fortunate to be able to compare these editions with digital copies of the unicum manuscripts of both works, Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb from the National Archives of Afghanistan in Kabul and NizhÄdnÄmah-i AfghÄn from the Malik Library in Tehran thanks to the work of colleagues in Afghanistan and Iran.
Twenty years ago one of the editors of this volume published a substantially reworked and annotated English translation of a Russian translation of the Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb (Memoir of the Revolution).3 Because the original manuscript, then held by the Afghan National Archives, was at the time (mid-1990s) inaccessible to researchers due to the civil war then engulfing the country, the only available version was the Russian translation published in 1988, towards the end of the Soviet occupation (1979â1989). In retrospect, with the original at hand, A. I. Shkirandoâs translation was a highly competent one. Nonetheless, translating a translation leaves a great deal to be desired. The fact that his translation raised what often seemed a slightly opaque screen of Russian between the Persian and an English rendering inevitably led to occasionally missing the point of what FayzÌ Muḥammad was trying to say and how he was saying it. We trust that this translation captures better the authorâs intent than did the 1999 publication.
On Translating FayzÌ Muḥammad and Other Issues of Style
Here the translation will follow the principles adopted in the multiple volumes of FayzÌ Muḥammad KÄtibâs The History of Afghanistan. The authorâs style is followed as closely as possible while maintaining as high a degree of readability with a modern English-reading public in mind as possible. As noted in our introduction to the 2013 and 2016 publications, we diverge from FayzÌ Muḥammadâs style in one notable way. His sentences are often extremely long and somewhat meandering. For the most part he knew where his train of thought was headed but not until one reaches the verb does the reader know for certain. These sentences often begin with an adverbial phrase indicating time (âduring this time,â âmeanwhile,â âon this same day,â etc.) then introducing the topic/subject immediately followed by a relative clause often introducing another topic followed in turn by another relative clause, eventually returning to the first (and usually main) topic with a verb or gerund indicating action taken or sustained by the subject. Occasionally the sentence drifts away from what appeared to be the first and main topic and concludes with a verb indicating action taken by or against a secondary subject and never quite concluding the thought about the first topic/subject. Gerundive clauses indicate a sequence of events involving the main topic and the thought is then concluded with a perfective verb. An example from volume three of this type of sentence is the following:
When the inter-governmental negotiations and correspondence had reached this point, His Holiness Najm al-Din Akhundzadah, who up to this time having done nothing more than advise and counsel those who had lost their way in the valley of folly and error and guide them back to the high road of the Holy Law and who, having no support from, or involvement with, officials of either [Afghan or British] government, and who, moreover, being fearful of this government and, as has been noted from time to time, having fled and settled in the mountain region of the frontier, was made aware of the secret activities and behavior of the Englishmenâfor, as the [Arabic] saying goes, âa secret known to two people is as good as made publicââalthough they [the English] were communicating and corresponding with those people in a covert manner and, together with the son of Mulla Khalil Muhmand, focused his advice, preaching, and admonishments to prohibit vice and promote virtue on certain men like Ê¿Abd al-Wahid KhÄn, Amin Jan, Tula KhÄn, and Guldad, trouble-seeking and ill-natured Muhmand leaders who more than others maintained contact and corresponded with the English.
As it stands that sentence could be understood without breaking it into shorter sentences. The following eight sentences were originally one and much more difficult to follow as a single sentence.
Today they captured QÄzÌÄ« Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn KhÄn, who from the very outset of ḤabÄ«b AllÄh KhÄn [KalakÄnÄ«] and Sayyid Ḥusayn KhÄnâs plundering and robbing had resisted them and vowed to AmÄn AllÄh KhÄn that he would catch the bandits. When they learned of this, they murdered his brother and plundered the house he had in KÅ«h DÄman. The enmity between them grew ever more intense. When, as a result of the treachery of ministers and the disloyalty of the residents of Kabul and ChÄrdihÄ«, ḤabÄ«b AllÄh KhÄn and Sayyid Ḥusayn captured the capital, QÄzÌÄ« Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn fled to his home there and in KÅ«h DÄman and KÅ«histÄn joined forces with the son of Malik Muḥammad, Ê¿Aá¹Ä Muḥammad. There, with the residents of TagÄb, he fought ḤabÄ«b AllÄh KhÄn until they captured him in the village of Dih-i Sabz where he was hiding. By order of ḤabÄ«b AllÄh KhÄn, they drew and quartered him in the Chawk while he was still alive. This monstrous infliction of the death penalty, beastly in its cruelty and inhumanity, finally convinced those who witnessed it or heard about it of the godlessness and barbarism of the Northerners.
Other slightly complicating issues in translating are punctuation and paragraphing. As is the style of all of FayzÌ Muḥammadâs manuscripts, there is no punctuation or paragraphing. The usual sign of a completed sentence is a perfective verb followed by the conjunction wa (and) which together perform the same function as a period. In the print editions of both Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb and NizhÄdnÄmah-i AfghÄn, the editors, AmÄ«rÄ« and YazdÄnÄ« and RaḥīmÄ« respectively have added modern Persian punctuation and paragraphing but not always accurately and some of which actually confuses the intended meaning. Because accepted style for the translations obviously also requires both punctuation and paragraphing, we have altered what appears in the print editions wherever it seemed appropriate.
We have done our best to preserve FayzÌ Muḥammadâs relatively limited range of metaphors and his ubiquitous use of repetition. His stock of metaphors generally falls into three categories: geographical ones, those derived from the body, and ones derived from clothing: mountain of adversity, valley of ignorance, highway of obedience, hand of tyranny, head of submission, ear of agreement, tongue of admonishment, foot of obedience, collar of rebelliousness, skirt of humility, sleeve of righteousness. We have also preserved his storytellers use of repetition as a memory aid. There is hardly a substantive for which a synonym is not immediately provided: âadvice and counsel,â âfolly and error,â âcounseling and admonishing,â activity and behavior,â âtroublemaking and rebelliousness,â are some examples.
Here we see the influence of the oral on the written. Metaphor and repetition are the stock-in-trade of storytelling. Such rhetorical devices promote comprehension and keep the narrative thread together. FayzÌ Muḥammad was concerned with style for he knew his readers would be judging his style, perhaps even more than the content of what he wrote. There was also a very functionalist side to his style. He expected to be reimbursed for quantity, for number of words, lines, and pages and therefore had reason to tend towards verbosity. At one point he was told he would have to limit his output, in part because of what it was costing the government. Here we have attempted to maintain much of his often-prolix styles without, we hope, creating an unreadable text.
We have also tried to avoid bowdlerization. There are a number of places, especially in Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb where FayzÌ Muḥammad quotes (or creates) some very crude language on the part of some of the officials of this brief period, or uses such language to describe certain individuals, particularly AmÄ«r ḤabÄ«b AllÄh KalakÄnÄ« and his brother, ḤamÄ«d AllÄh. We have tried to find appropriately crude analogues in English.
Finally, a word needs to be said here about the index. The print editions of Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb and NizhÄdnÄmah-i AfghÄn, while very helpful to producing this translation and containing tables of contents (which the manuscripts do not have), lack indexes, thereby rendering those versions less useful for reference purposes. In volumes 1â4 of SirÄj al-tawÄrÄ«kh we keyed the index to the pagination of the 1913â15 edition of the work and to both the manuscript and the printed edition of volume 4 to allow the interested researcher to consult the original Persian. Here we key the index to the page numbers of our translation but provide page reference numbers to the print editions as well as to the unique manuscripts within the text.
Acknowledgements
We are obliged to many people and institutions for helping us bring these translations to fruition. First and foremost, we want to express our thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a two-year grant in the Scholarly Editions and Translations category. For support during and after the award process we are very grateful to Lydia Medici, program officer.
At New York University, a number of people assisted in preparing the grant application and then in dealing with the minor problems that arose in the administration of it. We would like to single out Cormac Slevin, Dean Georgina Dopico, Alyson Miller, Provost Katherine Fleming, and Farooq Niazi, who helped us through the process with preparation of the proposal as well as with providing extra support for the project. To them our thanks.
To members of the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies we also wish to express our most heartfelt thanks. Professors Marion Katz and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite gave important moral support to the application and Professor Ahmed Ferhadi was unfailingly prompt in responding to questions on the Arabic in the text. Dondette Wendler, Subrina Moorley, and Shafon McNeil gave generously of their time and in some cases went well beyond the call of duty to offer invaluable assistance when potholes suddenly appeared in the generally smooth road of the grant. Special thanks as well to Dr. Guy Burak, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies bibliographer.
For help with problems relating to the Afghan tribal information in NizhÄdnÄmah-i AfghÄn we would particularly like to thank Professor Robert Nichols who steered us to colonial ethnographies and censuses that helped clarify the text.
In Afghanistan, we are deeply indebted to Reza Kateb who provided us with digital images of the holograph Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb which were critical for dealing with the idiosyncrasies of the published edition. For other help with distinctively Afghan issues and terminology, we want to express our appreciation to Dr. Amin Tarzi. For all things Kabul related we deeply appreciate the unstinting help given by May Schinasi. Professor Bernard Haykel was always willing to explain the legal issues that cropped up, for which we are particularly grateful. Moreover, he and Dr. Navina Haider provided generous and delightful hospitality on the frequent trips of one of the translators to meet the other in New York. For this the former will always be thankful.
Special thanks also to colleagues at Brill Publishers who have been enormously helpful throughout the long âHistory of Afghanistanâ project. We would like to particularly single out Nicolette van der Hoek and Wilma de Weert for their patience and encouragement.
Finally, gratitude as always to Constance McChesney for her critical readings and inexhaustible forbearance through the long process.
FayzÌ Muḥammad KÄtib HazÄrah, The History of Afghanistan: FayzÌ Muḥammad KÄtib HazÄrahâs SirÄj al-tawÄrÄ«kh, Vols. 1â3 in 6 vols., edited and translated by R. D. McChesney and M. M. Khorrami, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2013 and Vols. 3â4 in 5 vols., edited and translated by R. D. McChesney and M. M. Khorrami, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2016 (henceforth FayzÌ Muḥammad, The History).
MullÄ FayzÌ Muḥammad KÄtib HazÄrah, Taáºakkur al-inqilÄb, edited with introduction and notes by Ê¿AlÄ« AmÄ«rÄ« and Dr. ḤafīẠAllÄh SharÄ«Ê¿atÄ«, Köln: KÄveh, 2013 (henceforth FayzÌ Muḥammad, Taáºakkur) and idem, NizhÄdnÄmah-i AfghÄn, edited by ḤÄjj KÄáºim âYazdÄnÄ«â and Ê¿AzÄ«z AllÄh RaḥīmÄ«, Qum: IsmÄÊ¿Ä«lÄ«yan, 1372/1993 (henceforth FayzÌ Muḥammad, NizhÄdnÄmah).
R. D. McChesney, Kabul Under Siege: FayzÌ Muḥammadâs Account of the 1929 Uprising, Princeton, Markus Wiener, 1999. The Russian work was Faiz Mukhammad, Kniga upominanii o miatezhe, translated, introduced, and annotated by A. I. Shkirando, Moscow, Nauka, 1988.