A HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN
Volume I
This classic work was the first complete history of Afghanistan which, because of its geographical location and strategic position, has always been at the heart of power struggles in Asia. Lying between Central Asia, Iran and Pakistan, and bounded by immense mountain ranges and vast tracts of sandy desert, it has been the object of conquest since at least the sixteenth century B.C., by leaders who through the ages have included Alexander the Great and Baber, founder of the Moghul Empire. Drawing upon his first hand knowledge of the region acquired over many years as well as original sources, the author has prepared the work in two volumes. Volume One deals with the history of the region from prehistoric times to the siege of Herat in 1833 A.D, including chapters on The Seleucid Dynasty and the Rise of Parthia; The Kingdom of Bactria; Arab Conquests in Central Asia and Afghanistan; Tamerlane; The Renaissance of Art Under the Timurid Princes and Nadir Shah. Volume Two presents the history of Afghanistan from the first Afghan War in 1839 to the accession of King Zahir Shah in 1988, and includes chapters on The Retreat from Kabul; The Advance of Russia Across Central Asia; The Second and Third Afghan Wars; the Anglo-Russian Convention and the election of Nadir Khan as King of Afghanistan. It concludes with eight detailed appendices on treaties and agreements. Both volumes contain maps and illustrations. First published in 1940, A History of Afghanistan remains a definitive work on the subject, and an important and essential work of reference for all historians of the area and of international relations.
Percy Sykes was a distinguished British diplomat and scholar who served as Consul in Seistan, and as Consul-General in Khurasan and in Chinese Turkestan. For many years he was involved in the struggle for influence in Persia with Russia.
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THE KEGAN PAUL LIBRARY OF CENTRAL ASIA
THE PATHANS
Olaf Caroe
AMONG THE TIBETANS
Isabella Bird
AT THE COURT OF THE AMIR OF AFGHANISTAN
John Alfred Gray
MODERN HISTORY OF MONGOLIA
C. R. Bawden
TENTS IN MONGOLIA
Henning Haslund
ISLAM AND REVOLUTION
Imam Khomeini
THE MONGOLS
Jeremiah Curtin
A HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN
(VOLS. I & II)
Percy Sykes
THE ROAD TO TAKHT-I-SULAIMAN
(From Holdich, The Indian Borderland. Methuen)
A HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN
Volume I
PERCY SYKES
First published 2005 by
Kegan Paul Limited
Published 2013 by Routledge
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Kegan Paul, 2005
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 13: 978-0-710-31174-0 (hbk)
This book is dedicated to
BRITISH FRONTIER OFFICERS IN ASIA
PAST AND PRESENT
Along many a thousand miles of remote border are to be found our twentieth-century Marcher Lords. The breath of the Frontier has entered into their nostrils and infused their being. Courage and conciliation for unless they have an instinctive gift of sympathy with the native tribes, they will hardly succeed patience and tact, initiative and self-restraint, these are the complex qualifications of the modern school of pioneers.
CURZON
PREFACE
FEW countries present problems of greater interest to the historian than landlocked Afghanistan, the counterpart in Asia of Switzerland in Europe.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century B.C. the first great migration of the Aryans swept across this rugged country in their long march from their homeland in Central Asia to the plains of India. We next read of Alexander the Great leading his army up the valley of the Helmand and crossing the mighty range of the Hindu Kush into Bactria, to win laurels in Central Asia. Two years later he again crossed these mountains and marched down the passes into the valley of the Indus to gain fresh victories in the Punjab. From this province he led his war-weary veterans across the deserts of Baluchistan to triumphal celebrations at Susa.
Coming down the ages, we see another famous conqueror in Baber who, after capturing Kabul, founded the Moghul empire of India early in the sixteenth century. From this period his successors were faced with the necessity of maintaining Afghanistan as a buffer state against attacks from the Shahs of Persia to the west, and from the Uzbeg rulers of Bukhara to the north. By the Moghul Emperors Kabul and Kandahar were rightly recognized to be the keys of India and the British, who succeeded the Moghuls, are faced with the same problem today, with Russia as the successor of Bukhara.
I first travelled in Central Asia nearly fifty years ago and, since that journey, I have been a keen student of the problems of which Afghanistan constitutes the kernel. The appointments which I have held have, generally speaking, kept me in touch with Afghanistan, whether serving as Consul in Seistan, as Consul-General in Khurasan (where I was in political charge of the Herat province through a native Agent), or again as Consul-General in Chinese Turkistan, when I travelled on the Pamirs. For many years I took part in the struggle for influence in Persia with Russia and, during the last Great War, I helped to foil Germany in her designs on Afghanistan by the capture of her supporting missions in Persia.
In writing this work, the first complete history of Afghanistan, my aim has been to supply British officials and the British public with accurate information. If the results of my studies and journeys are also appreciated by Moslems in Afghanistan and India, I shall be doubly rewarded.
P. M. SYKES
THE ATHENAEUM
September 1940
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Road to Takht-i-Sulaiman
MAPS
AFGHANISTAN THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
That empire, bounded on the north and east by immense mountain ranges, and on the south and west by vast tracts of sandy desert, opposed to external hostility natural defences of a formidable character. The general aspect of the country was wild and forbidding; in the imagination of the people haunted with goules and genii; but not unvaried by spots of gentler beauty in the valleys and on the plains, where the fields were smiling with cultivation, and the husbandman might be seen busy at his work.KAYE, The War in fghanistan.
A Geographical Sketch.Afghanistan or the Land of the Afghans, correctly speaking, has not borne that name until the foundation of the Kingdom of Ahmad Shah, Durrani, in the middle of the eighteenth century. I am, however, for the sake of convenience, using the term throughout this work.1 The country occupies the north-eastern portion of the arid Iranian plateau.2 Northwards it is bounded by the valley of the Oxus and the Central Asian depression and eastwards by the low-lying plains of Northern India, watered by the Indus and its tributaries. Westwards its neighbour is the kingdom of Persia, while southwards in its most waterless area it unites with the deserts of Baluchistan.
