1. From a proclamation by Amir Abdur Rahman; quoted in Edwards 1996, 78.

2. Quoted in Poullada 1973, 60.

3. On unveiling and other symbolic changes undertaken by Amanullah, see ibid. and Gregorian 1969.

4. For an account of the twisted tale of Nadir’s assassination, see Dupree 1980, 474–475.

5. Nur Muhammad Taraki addressing a delegation of elders, June 5, 1978; quoted in FBIS, South Asia Review, vol. 5, June 6, 1978.

6. Two mutually comprehensible dialects of Pakhtu are spoken in Afghanistan. Pakhtu is spoken in the eastern part of the country; Pushtu is spoken in the south and west and was the dialect used by the royal family. The speakers of this language are referred to variously as Pakhtuns, Pushtuns, and Pathans.

7. Transcript of a Taraki press conference, Kabul Times, May 13, 1978. Taraki speaking to Behsud and Wardak elders, July 11, 1978; quoted in FBIS, South Asia Review, vol. 5, July 25, 1978.

8. See Stewart 1973 and Poullada 1973.

9. An article in the May 6, 1978 issue of the Kabul Times announced that “the people in different areas of Tirah in Pashtunistan . . . have wished for the health of Noor Mohammad Taraki,” along with residents of Sultani Maseed and Waziristan in “Pashtunistan.” The next day, elders from Shinwar, Utmanzai, Ahmadzai, Wazir, Daud, Beitni, Masid, Karam, Wazir, Khyber, Mangal, Bangash, Nawi, and Turi were all said to have praised the new regime, while Taraki met with more elders from other border tribes: Atmerkhel, Khwajazai, Khogakhel, Utmankhel, Mohmand, Kukikhel Afridi, and Ahmadzai Wazir.

The May 17 Kabul Times published separate photographs of Taraki and tribal elders from Ahmadzai and Wazir; Mohmand, Utmankhel, and Bajawar; and Afridi and Afridi Tirah.

Similarly, on May 21, more pictures appeared of Taraki with leaders from the Wazir, Masud, Daur, Madakhel, Pari Zamkani, Shinwar, and Taraki tribes. On May 22, a photo was published of Taraki with elders from the Zadran and with other Paktia elders, along with a second photo of him with elders from Badakhshan and Qandahar.

10. Kabul Times, May 20, 1978.

11. These meetings picked up again the following year, as antigovernment violence increased. From late April through November 1979, there were successive waves of meetings with ulama (religious authorities) and tribal elders, mostly from Paktia and Kunar, as well as Kohistanis from specified areas such as Mir Bachakot, Kalakan, and Panjshir—all famous for their past involvement in antigovernment insurgencies. After Taraki’s assassination, in late September 1979, Amin staged a new round of meetings with tribal elders from both sides of the border.

12. Kabul Times, July 17, 1978.

13. Margaret Mills has pointed out that Afghans generally utilized a personal credit arrangement known as gerau, in which the borrower hands over a piece of real property to the lender in exchange for money. At the end of the designated term (usually seven years), the debtor gives back only the original sum, the lender’s profit deriving from usufruct of the collateral property—not from interest on the loaned money, which is illegal in Islam. In Mills’s view, “the government’s rationale for forgiving gerau after seven years was that the lender would already have gotten a usufruct equal to the cash value of the loan. Hence they tried to counter any allegation that release from gerau obligations amounted to the theft of the lender’s principal” (personal communication, 2000).

14. Kabul Times, October 18, 1978. In justifying the government’s promulgation of this decree, the Kabul Times in its July 19, 1978, issue noted that conditions had worsened for the average peasant because of “his persistent observation of unhealthy customs and traditions, such as holding lavish feasts for circumcision, paying of dowry, and large wedding and engagement ceremonies, huge expenditures on funeral and mourning ceremonies and the like.” Social pressure “compels numerous peasants to resort to borrowing on interest from the usurers or soliciting advances and loans from the landlords, which binds him to the land virtually the whole of his life, with little hope for being relieved from the burden of loans and mounting interest.”

15. Ibid.

16. Kabul Times, October 3 and October 18, 1978.

17. Kabul Times, October 18, 1978.

18. Kabul Times, July 18 and August 6, 1978.

19. Kabul Times, November 4, 1978, and January 31, 1979.

20. Kabul Times, February 13, 1979.

21. Kabul Times, June 30, 1979.

22. Interview with Sayyid Mahmud Hasrat, March 31, 1983.

23. Margaret Mills has aptly noted that Afghans didn’t generally view fifteen to thirty jeribs of land as excessive wealth, in part at least because they understood the fragile nature of the agricultural economy. “People well knew that ‘just enough’ land would become ‘not enough’ during regular, periodic droughts—that they would need to borrow again. . . . Gerau’s seven-year cycle in a way took account of periodic crop failures and surpluses” and provided “a bridge strategy that any small landowner had to know well” (personal communications, 2000). The failure of the Khalqi regime to appreciate the importance of these arrangements to those trying to survive in a marginal environment and its failure to institute an alternative source of credit after abolishing the existing system were important factors in the loss of support for the government.

24. Kabul Times, April 22, 1979.

25. The first example of this kind of photograph appeared in the June 17, 1979, issue of the Kabul Times.

26. Taraki in an address to citizens of Behsud and Wardak Province, July 11, 1978; quoted in FBIS, South Asia Review, vol. 5, July 25, 1978.

27. See Anderson 1978.

28. Kabul Times, May 4, 1978.

29. See Edwards 1993a.

30. One example of the regime’s support for Pushtunistan (or Pakhtunistan) was the celebration in late August 1978 of Pushtunistan Day. The Kabul Times on that day published an illustration of the red flag of Pushtunistan on its front page, along with pictures of Abdul Ghafar Khan and his son Khan Abdul Wali Khan, long-time Pakhtun nationalist leaders from the Pakistani side of the border. In addition, various Pushtun and Baluchi “freedom fighters” were also lauded. Kabul Times, August 30, 1978.

31. Kabul Times, June 13, 1978.

32. Kabul Times, August 6, 1978.

33. FBIS, South Asia Review, vol. 5, August 17, 1978.

34. Kabul Times, June 4, 1979.

35. Kabul Times, May 23, 1979.

36. Kabul Times, April 1, 1979.

37. See Edwards 1996 and Ahmed 1976.

38. Quoted in Stewart 1973, 59.

39. Quoted in Lewis 1998, 95.

40. Kabul Times, May 16, 1979; reprinted in the Afghanistan Council Newsletter 7, no. 3 (June 1979).

41. Kabul Times, June 18, 1979.

42. Kabul Times, August 15, 1979.

43. On the PDPA’s use of terror, see Kakar 1995.

44. See Girardet 1985, 107–110.

45. Gregory Massell (1974) has discussed earlier attempts by the Soviets in Central Asia to create a “surrogate proletariat” through the liberation of women. See also Bacon (1980 [1966]).

46. In the 1970s prior to the revolution, far more scholarly works were published on Buddhism in ancient Afghanistan than on Islam in contemporary Afghanistan. Robert Canfield (1973) wrote a paper on Shi ءa/Ismaili relations in Bamiyan Province; Louis Dupree (1966 and 1967) wrote a few articles on Islam; and there were some descriptive works on khanaqas (centers of activity associated with Sufi pirs) in western Afghanistan, but little else. This lack of publications reflects the shared sense of scholars, diplomats, and other observers that Islam was no longer an effective form of political mobilization.