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Habibullah Kalakani حبیب‌الله کلکانی
King of Afghanistan
Portrait of Habibullāh Kalakāni
King and Emir of Afghanistan
Reign	17 January 1929 – 13 October 1929
Coronation	14 December 1928 and again on 18 January 1929
Predecessor	Inayatullah Khan
Successor	Mohammad Nadir Shah
Born	19 January 1891 Kalakan, Emirate of Afghanistan
Died	1 November 1929(1929-11-01) (aged 38) Kabul, Kingdom of Afghanistan
Names Habibullah Kalakani
Father	Aminullah Kalakani
Religion	Islam

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Habibullah Kalakani (Dari: حبیب‌الله کلکانی‎, 19 January 1891 – 1 November 1929), derogatively called "Bacha-ye Saqao" (also romanized Bachai Sakao; literally son of the water carrier), was the ruler of Afghanistan from 17 January to 13 October 1929, as well as a leader of the Saqqawists. During the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929), he captured vast swathes of Afghanistan and ruled Kabul during what is known in Afghan historiography as the "Saqqawist period". He was an ethnic Tajik. No country recognized Kalakani as ruler of Afghanistan.

During the 1928–1929 Afghan Civil War he contested the Afghan throne with Amanullah Khan. After defeating Amanullah, he was eventually defeated by Mohammad Nadir Shah. Khalilullah Khalili, a Kohistani poet laureate, depicted King Habibullah Kalakani as the "best manager of governmental imports and exports".

Early years

Habibullah Kalakani was born in either 1891 or 1870 in the village of Kalakan, north of Kabul. He was an ethnic Tajik. His father was a water carrier during the Second Anglo-Afghan War for Afghan Soldiers in Kabul, hence why Pashtuns and people who dislike him call him Bacha Sakao as an insult to his father's background. In his memoirs, Kalakani stated that his home village was "miserable" and that he had "conceived a deep hatred of its poverty-stricken exterior". At age 14, he left for Kabul on horseback with his friends Nur and Jamal. Later, he joined King Amanullah Khan's army, and fought in the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the Khost rebellion of 1924. During the latter war, he served as officer with the Afghan Army's "Model Battalion" and served with distinction during the suppression of the insurgents. Nevertheless, he deserted the unit at some unspecified time, and after working in Peshawar moved to Parachinar where he was arrested and sentenced to eleven months of imprisonment by the British.

Kalakani began a life of banditry, since he considered the occupations common among the Kuhdamanis, like viticulture and selling firewood, to be beneath him, reasoning that these could hardly ever provide wheat bread for his table. Instead, he began to rob caravans and nearby villages. He was joined by Sayyid Husayn and Malik Muhsin, as well as others, totaling 24 in all. For three years, they lived in mountain caves, venturing out during the day to rob and hiding out at night, all the time fearful of government retaliation. Sometime later, Kalakani fled to Peshawar where he was a tea seller and a petty thief.

The word "bandits" derived from "Basmachi", which the Soviets used to refer to their opponents in Central Asia, since Habibullah Kalakani supported Ibrahim Bek Lakay, in his fight against the Soviets in Dushanbe and he was a part of the resistance movement (Basmachi) against Bolsheviks, therefore the Soviets called him and his comrades Basmachi meaning "bandits".

After British police arrested and jailed an accomplice of his, he fled to Peshawar where he stayed a while, supporting himself by petty theft. Kalakani and his bandit group also murdered Ghulam Ghaws Khan, Governor of Charikar.

Revolt

While the Afghan Army was engulfed in battle with Pashtun outlaw tribes in Laghman and Nangarhar provinces in the east of the country, the Saqqawists, led by Kalakani began to attack the unprotected Kabul from the north in 1928. The revolt caught steam and the country was thrown into a civil war. Wild tribesmen from Waziristan had the southern areas of Kabul surrounded, and Kalakāni's forces were moving into the heart of Kabul from the north.

In the middle of the night, on 14 January 1929, Amanullah Khan handed over his kingdom to his brother Inayatullah Khan and escaped from Kabul, with his BMW, towards Kandahar in the south, fearing people's wrath. Two days later, on 16 January 1929, Kalakani wrote a letter to King Inayatullah Khan to either surrender or prepare to fight. Inayatullah Khan responded by explaining that he never wished to become king, and agreed to abdicate.

Kingship

The powerful Pashtun tribes, including the Ghilzai, who had initially supported him against Amanullah, chafed under rule by a non-Pashtun. When Amanullah's last feeble attempt to regain his throne failed, those next in line were the Musahiban brothers. They were also from the Mohammedzai and Barakzai family trees, and their great-grandfather was an older brother of Dost Mohammad.

The five prominent Musahiban brothers included Nadir Shah, the eldest, who had been Amānullāh's minister of war. They were permitted to cross through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to enter Afghanistan and take up arms. Once on the other side, however, they were not allowed back and forth across the border to use British-Indian territory as a sanctuary, nor were they allowed to gather together a tribal army on the British side of the Durand Line. However, the Musahiban brothers and the tribes successfully ignored these restrictions.

During this period anti-Soviet rebels from Central Asia known as Basmachi utilized the period of instability in Afghanistan to launch raids into the Soviet Union. The Basmachi had taken refuge in Afghanistan earlier in the decade after they were expelled from Soviet Central Asia by the Soviet military and they swore allegiance to the Emir of Bukhara, who lived in exile in Kabul. One of these raids was led by Faizal Maksum, who operated under the command of Basmachi commander Ibrahim Bek. Faizal Maksum's forces briefly captured the town of Gharm until they were expelled by Soviet forces. The Basmachi operated in Afghanistan due to their alliance with Habibullah Ghazi and after his fall from power they were expelled from Afghanistan.

Death

After several unsuccessful attempts, Nadir and his brothers finally raised a sufficiently large force—mostly from the British side of the Durand Line—to take Kabul on 13 October 1929. Nadir considered pardoning Kalakani, even swearing on the Quran according to some, but pressure from loyal tribes led him to execute Kalakani with some of his closest followers on 1 November 1929. Kalakani's last words prior to being executed were "I have nothing to ask God, he has given me everything I desired. God has made me King."

His remains were laid below a hilltop mausoleum at an undisclosed location for 87 years, until a campaign in 2016 by some Tajiks and scholars who wanted him to be reburied in a better place. This caused days of political and slight sectarian tensions in Kabul - Tajiks and religious scholars, who consider Kalakani to have been a devout Muslim, wanted him to be buried at the Shahrara hill and asked President Ashraf Ghani to plan a state burial. Opponents of Kalakani, mostly Pashtuns and secularists, were against this plan, including vice-president Abdul Rashid Dostum who claimed that he could not be buried at a hilltop important to Uzbek heritage. He was eventually buried at the hill on 2 September 2016, with one death and four injuries occurring in clashes between his supporters and pro-Dostum soldiers.

See also

• Afghan Civil War (1928–1929)

Notes

1. ^ Kalakāni referred to himself as both "King" and "Emir"
2. ^ Most sources list 17 January 1929, the day that Kalakani captured Kabul, as the date that his reign began. However, he had been formally claiming the title of emir since 14 December 1928.
3. ^ This statement is based on My Life: From Brigand to King, which purports to be an autobiography of Kalakāni. However, various scholars, such as Leon Poullada and Nazif Shahrani do not consider this autobiography genuine. According to the book's foreword, the text is a translation by a “Persian-knowing scholar” of the original notes of a surviving companion of Habibullah Kalakani, one Jamal Gul, who had supposedly been with him since childhood and was now “roaming about in Europe as a Man of no Country.” The translator remains anonymous (he claims he did not want to “uselessly intrude and confuse the essential story” but admits that he introduced “some Latin phrases here and there . . . for the accommodation of difficult Oriental expressions into more familiar European terminology”). The book, however, is fully English in style and "reads like a thrilling adventure story rather than an autobiography."

References

1. Qassem, Dr Ahmad Shayeq (28 March 2013). Afghanistan's Political Stability: A Dream Unrealised. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 175. ISBN 9781409499428.
2. Wazir, Azmatullah Khan (2002). The immediate solution of Afghan crisis. A.K. Wazir. p. 8.
3. Muḥammad, Fayz̤; McChesney, R. D. (1999). Kabul under siege: Fayz Muhammad's account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 37. ISBN 9781558761544.
4. Muḥammad, Fayz̤; McChesney, R. D. (1999). Kabul under siege: Fayz Muhammad's account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 37. ISBN 9781558761544.
5. Muḥammad, Fayz̤; Hazārah, Fayz̤ Muḥammad Kātib (1999). Kabul Under Siege: Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 1. ISBN 9781558761551.
6. Rouland, Michael (214). Great Game To 9/11. Washington DC: Air Force History and Museum Program. p. 22. ISBN 9781508577218.
7. [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG1502399
9. "Who Was King Habibullah II? A query from the literature". Afghanistan Analysts Network - English (in Pashto). 16 September 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2020. Habibullah's enemies, at the time, derided him for his relatively humble origins and called him Bacha-ye Saqao (Son of the Water Carrier) and "Bandit King."
10. ^ "ExecutedToday.com » 1929: Habibullah Kalakani, Tajik bandit-king". 1 November 2016. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
11. ^ Muḥammad, Fayz̤; Hazārah, Fayz̤ Muḥammad Kātib; Muḥammad, Faiḍ (1999). Kabul Under Siege: Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-55876-155-1.
12. Muḥammad, Fayz̤; McChesney, R. D. (1999). Kabul under siege: Fayz Muhammad's account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-55876-154-4.
13. Muḥammad, Fayz̤; Hazārah, Fayz̤ Muḥammad Kātib; Muḥammad, Faiḍ (1999). Kabul Under Siege: Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 236. ISBN 978-1-55876-155-1.
14. ^ Muḥammad, Fayz̤; Hazārah, Fayz̤ Muḥammad Kātib (1999). Kabul Under Siege: Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN 9781558761551.
15. Adamec, Ludwig W. (2011). Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan. Scarecrow Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-8108-7957-7. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
16. Lansford, Tom (16 February 2017). Afghanistan at War: From the 18th-Century Durrani Dynasty to the 21st Century. ABC-CLIO. p. 235. ISBN 9781598847604.
17. "BAČČA-YE SAQQĀ – Encyclopaedia Iranica". www.iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
18. Muḥammad, Fayz̤; McChesney, R. D. (1999). Kabul under siege: Fayz Muhammad's account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 1. ISBN 9781558761544.
19. ^ Kalakāni, Habibullāh (1990). "Chapter 1 - A village in Kohistan". My Life: From Brigand to King: Autobiography of Amir Habibullah. Octagon Press. ISBN 9780863040474.
20. Ruttig, Thomas (16 September 2016). Who Was King Habibullah II? A query from the literature. Afghanistan Analyst Network.
21. Shahrani, M. Nazif (1986). "State Building and Social Fragmentation in Afghanistan: A Social Perspective". In Ali Banuazizi; Myron Weiner (eds.). The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780815624486.
22. ^ Muḥammad, Fayz̤; Hazārah, Fayz̤ Muḥammad Kātib (1999). Kabul Under Siege: Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 32. ISBN 9781558761551.
23. Parenti, Christian (28 June 2011). Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence (1st ed.). New York, USA: Nation Books. pp. 120–259. ISBN 9781568586625.
24. Egorov, Boris (16 May 2018). "Why didn't the Soviet Union support revolution in Afghanistan?". Russia Beyond. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
25. Ritter, William S (1990). "Revolt in the Mountains: Fuzail Maksum and the Occupation of Garm, Spring 1929". Journal of Contemporary History. 25 (4): 547–580. doi:10.1177/002200949002500408. S2CID 159486304.
26. Ritter, William S (1985). "The Final Phase in the Liquidation of Anti-Soviet Resistance in Tadzhikistan: Ibrahim Bek and the Basmachi, 1924-31". Soviet Studies. 37 (4): 484–493. doi:10.1080/09668138508411604.
27. Fayz Muhammad, R. D. McChesney. Kabul Under Siege: Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising. (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999.)
28. ^ Muḥammad, Fayz̤; Hazārah, Fayz̤ Muḥammad Kātib (1999). Kabul Under Siege: Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising. Markus Wiener Publishers. pp. 275, 276. ISBN 9781558761551.
29. Constable, Pamela; Salahuddin, Sayed (20 August 2016). "The Fight Over a Shrine for a Tyrannical Afghan King". The Washington Post.
30. Moslih, Hashmat. "Kabul burial of Tajik King Kalakani stirs tension". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
31. "Bandit king Kalakani, associates reburied in Kabul". Archived from the original on 9 January 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2017.

Further reading

• Habibulah, Amir (April 1990). My Life: From Brigand to King. Octagon Press. ISBN 9780863040474. - An autobiography of Habibullah Kalakani.

External links

• Media related to Habibullah Kalakani at Wikimedia Commons

v t e Monarchs of Afghanistan
Hotak Empire	Mirwais Hotak Abdul Aziz Hotak Mahmud Hotak Ashraf Hotak Hussain Hotak
Durrani Empire	Ahmad Shah Durrani Timur Shah Durrani Zaman Shah Durrani Mahmud Shah Durrani Shah Shujah Durrani Ali Shah Durrani Ayub Shah Durrani
Barakzai Emirate	Sultan Mohammad Khan Dost Mohammad Khan Akbar Khan Sher Ali Khan Mohammad Afzal Khan Mohammad Azam Khan Mohammad Yaqub Khan Ayub Khan Abdur Rahman Khan Habibullah Khan Jehandad Khan Nasrullah Khan
Barakzai Kingdom	Amanullah Khan Abd-al Karim Inayatullah Khan
Saqqawist Emirate (unrecognized)	Habibullāh Kalakāni
Barakzai Kingdom (restored)	Mohammad Nadir Shah Mohammad Zahir Shah Salemai
‡ Localized rebel monarchs

• 1891 births
• 1929 deaths
• 1929 in Afghanistan
• 20th-century Afghan military personnel
• 20th-century Afghan monarchs
• 20th-century Afghan politicians
• 20th-century executions by Afghanistan
• Afghan Civil War (1928–1929)
• Afghan military personnel of the 1919 Anglo-Afghan War
• Afghan military officers
• Afghan Tajik people
• Ethnic Tajik people
• Executed Afghan people
• Executed monarchs
• Kings of Afghanistan
• People executed by Afghanistan by firing squad
• Usurpers
• Basmachi movement