The Once and Future King

The visual images adorning the proclamation created an idealized picture of the Afghan nation as Abdur Rahman wished his subjects to see it. I now want to examine in greater depth the principles of monarchical authority by which he thought that nation should be ruled. Monarchical authority, of course, is illuminated on the map we have been analyzing (can a more striking depiction of the king's stature and power be imagined than this image of the great tower looming over the agrarian landscape?), but it is more systematically revealed in the accompanying text, which neatly articulates the principles of kingship on which Abdur Rahman based his rule. In explicating these principles, I will make reference both to the proclamation itself, which supplies the essential outline of those principles, and to the previously cited autobiography, which demonstrates in dramatic fashion the way in which Abdur Rahman saw these principles guiding and defining his own life experience.

Originally published in Kabul in 1886 as Pandnama-i dunya wa din (Book of Advice on the World and Religion), the autobiography details the trials and tribulations of the Amir's early years up to his ascension of the Afghan throne in 1880. The work was translated from Persian into English by a Punjabi official named Sultan Mahomed Khan (who had served for many years as a secretary [munshi] to the Amir) and was then published in London as the first volume of The Life of Abdur Rahman Khan: Amir of Afghanistan (1900). While Afghan historians have questioned the extent of Abdur Rahman's input on the second volume (which provides an account of the Amir's daily life and the government he established), they have confirmed that the first volume is a more or less faithful rendition of the Persian pandnama previously published under the Amir's direction in Kabul.^[7]

Periodically tapped for information on Abdur Rahman's early life and the historical events of that time, the narrative contained in volume one of The Life has been otherwise overlooked by scholars, and its virtues, both as a story and as a treatise on kingship, have been largely ignored. This is a strange oversight, if only because Abdur Rahman's life history is a fascinating tale of adventure and intrigue. As the translator of the autobiography notes in his preface, Abdur Rahman's early life is “like a chapter of the `Arabian Nights,' [and] the reader cannot help being interested to notice that a monarch like the Amir, setting aside the idea of boasting, should condescend to make a clear statement of how he was a prisoner in fetters at one time, and a cook at another; a Viceroy at one time, and a subject of the Viceroy at another; a general at one time, and under the command of the general at another; an engineer and a blacksmith at one time, and a ruler at another.”^[8]

Beyond its sheer drama, however, the story of Abdur Rahman's early life deserves attention for what it tells us about the Amir's vision of kingship and his understanding of the reciprocal obligations of ruler and ruled. Written originally as a book of advice, The Life retains its sense of moral instruction even in its English incarnation. The Amir wanted the readers of the original work to learn from his life and to follow his example, and this sense of direction, injunction, and exhortation is visible in the account of his life experiences, just as it is in his official proclamation. In the case of the life history, however, the idiom of instruction is more often stories than outright admonition, and we are thus afforded the opportunity, as we watch Abdur Rahman's odyssey from displaced heir to rightful king, to see enacted the principles of royal authority that are abstractly delineated in the royal firman.

A second merit of The Life is its coherence as a narrative. While it is replete with interesting characters and strange encounters, the story of Abdur Rahman's early life is not a pointless picaresque. Rather, it is a clearly moralized account of a king's coming of age and bears a striking similarity to the saga of Sultan Muhammad's youthful ordeal that was presented in the last chapter. The story of Abdur Rahman's youth is far more detailed, of course, and the canvas is broader, but the essential outline of both stories is much the same, and the moral pivot around which each revolves is the relationship between father and son.

Like Sultan Muhammad's father, Abdur Rahman's father, Muhammad Afzal, was a man of influence and authority, but in his case the authority was on a grand scale. Muhammad Afzal was, in fact, the eldest son of the Afghan amir, Dost Muhammad, who twice ruled the kingdom of Kabul (1826–38, 1842–63). As the narrative begins in 1853, Abdur Rahman is called away from his mother's home in Kabul to join his father, who is serving as governor of Afghan Turkistan. Though only nine years old, Abdur Rahman was Muhammad Afzal's eldest son, and it was time for him to sit by his father's side and imbibe the lessons of rulership. Much of the first part of the story is taken up with a depiction of the joys and vicissitudes of this apprenticeship. But we also encounter our first indications of the misunderstandings that are to plague Abdur Rahman's relationship with his father; they are, in fact, the same sort of tensions that we have already seen in the story of Sultan Muhammad and his father.

The first sign of trouble occurs when Abdur Rahman is about fourteen years old. He has been assigned by his father to serve as the governor of Tashkurgan district, but shortly after beginning his appointment, he is rebuked by his father for reducing the taxes of his impoverished subjects and giving presents to some of his loyal attendants. Abdur Rahman resigns over this infringement on his authority, but he gets into even more trouble with his father shortly thereafter when a treacherous advisor persuades his father that his son has taken up wine and hashish. Trusting the word of his advisors over that of his son, Muhammad Afzal has Abdur Rahman thrown in prison, where he languishes in chains for a year.

Abdur Rahman eventually regains his father's favor and the command of his father's armies, but after serving faithfully and well in this capacity, Abdur Rahman's position in society is again endangered by another error of judgment on the part of his father. These events transpire following the death of Amir Dost Muhammad in 1863. The great amir had ruled for more than thirty years, and his demise created a power vacuum in which his two eldest sons, Muhammad Afzal and Muhammad Azam, were pitted against their younger half-brother, Sher ‘Ali Khan, who had succeeded in gaining the favor of the late amir prior to his death. Through the first of many acts of treachery, Sher ‘Ali managed to defeat Muhammad Azam, and he then turned his attention to Muhammad Afzal who, as Dost Muhammad's oldest son, had the strongest claim to the throne.

Although he enjoyed a stronger position than Sher ‘Ali, Muhammad Afzal once again committed a fatal error. This was the error of trust—the same offense that precipitated Sultan Muhammad's travails when his father set off alone and unprotected to claim a bride. In that case, the incautious father had rejected the warning of his worldly wise son, and here too we find Abdur Rahman cautioning his father when a messenger from Sher ‘Ali arrives in their camp carrying a Qur’an and professing good faith: “My father being deceived by these assurances, took the Koran on his eyes, and kissed it, starting out for the camp of Shere Ali, leaving his army to return, although they all begged him to fight it out.”^[9]

Against his son's advice, Muhammad Afzal sets off for Sher ‘Ali's camp and is soon taken prisoner. As one would expect, Abdur Rahman prepares to retaliate for this treachery, but before he can do so, he receives a letter from his father threatening to “disown” him if he took to the field.^[10] At this juncture, there is a slight deviation in the two stories, for unlike Sultan Muhammad, Abdur Rahman decides to obey his father's wishes. This choice proves significant for the meaning of the story, but on a narrative level Abdur Rahman's obedience has the same effect as Sultan Muhammad's disobedience, as Abdur Rahman is abandoned by his troops and—like Sultan Muhammad—forced to take refuge with one of his father's old allies, in this case, the king of Bokhara.

Residence in the Bokharan court places Abdur Rahman in the same ambiguous situation that Sultan Muhammad faced in exile when he had to choose between returning to Pech and accepting the secure but demeaning status of a court scribe. In Abdur Rahman's case, the dilemma is presented to him shortly after his arrival in court when a message arrives indicating that the king “wishes to make you one of his Court officials, so that you should attend on him every day.” Like Sultan Muhammad, Abdur Rahman declines the offer and adds the comment, “I had never been a servant, and did not know how to behave as one.”^[11]

Abdur Rahman's father was taken prisoner in the summer of 1864. Two years later, in May 1866, Abdur Rahman returns to Afghanistan to release his father and gain for him the throne from which he had been deprived. To do so, he has to raise an army, a task that requires the same sort of diplomacy employed by Sultan Muhammad when he gathered together his grim band of avengers. This skill is evident in the following letter which Abdur Rahman wrote to his former troops, then under the command of a treacherous relative: “You are my army, therefore I will not fight against you. If you wish to kill me, I will come to the fort to-morrow, and you shall shoot me, and obtain rewards for killing your old employer.”^[12]

This appeal to honor and old loyalties (like that of Sultan Muhammad) “melted their hearts,” and he is soon able to engage and defeat Sher ‘Ali in battle. Following the release of his father from Sher ‘Ali's clutches, Abdur Rahman enters Kabul at the head of his victorious army and immediately avails himself of the opportunity to read “the Khutba [Friday sermon] in the name of my father as king.” Responding to Abdur Rahman's lead, “the chiefs gathered together to congratulate [Muhammad Afzal] on becoming amir, saying that he being the rightful heir, they were pleased to acknowledge him as their ruler.”^[13]

Thus Abdur Rahman achieves redress for the wrongs he has suffered, and we see enacted once again what would appear to be a paradigmatic narrative of fathers and sons, dispossession and vindication. The difference here, of course, is that father and son are reconciled. In this case, obedience to the father has allowed both father and son to reclaim their rightful place in society, or so it would appear, but the story does not end here. Within a year of mounting the throne, Abdur Rahman's father is dead, and Abdur Rahman has ceded his own right to the throne in favor of his uncle, Muhammad Azam. Like his older brother, Muhammad Azam is prone to misjudgment and heeds the advice of courtiers who convince him of Abdur Rahman's bad intentions. He therefore dispatches Abdur Rahman to the north and loses his assistance when the army of the resilient Sher ‘Ali threatens from the south. Because of Muhammad Azam's cruelty, once-loyal troops desert to Sher ‘Ali's side, and Abdur Rahman, with his uncle in tow, must flee to Turkistan. There he remains until 1880, when he finally succeeds in claiming the throne for himself.

Regardless of these later complications in the story (which repeat rather than alter its principal themes), a remarkable series of parallels can be noted between the “coming of age” narratives of Sultan Muhammad Khan and Abdur Rahman. In both cases, certain basic cultural preoccupations are illustrated, among them the ambivalent relations that the two protagonists enjoy with their fathers (an ambivalence that is as much structurally given as individually arrived at), the persistent threat posed by paternal cousins (Paindo and his brood in the first story, Sher ‘Ali and his in the other), the danger of trusting those inferior in rank to oneself (be they women or courtiers), and perhaps most important of all, the overriding importance of continually remembering who you are and adhering to the responsibilities entailed for you by your situation and station (as seen in the exemplary actions of Sultan Muhammad and Abdur Rahman themselves). In both stories, the failure of senior kinsmen to abide by this last precept creates the obstacles that each protagonist encounters in the course of the narrative, and it is finally only the steadfastness and resolve of the hero that allows these obstacles to be conquered and the moral order to right itself.

The similarity in these two otherwise disparate stories indicates that we are in the presence of something like a “cultural script,” but at the same time it is important to note that there are significant differences in the stories as well. Thus, despite the commonalities outlined above, these two stories are ultimately about very different things, and they illustrate dissimilar principles of social action and political relationship. Quite simply, Sultan Muhammad's story is about the individual requirements of honor and the moral authority that joins together the coequals who claim common descent in the universe of tribal relations. Abdur Rahman's story, on the other hand, is about the personal requirements of kingship and the hierarchical moral authority binding the monarch to his dependent and subservient subjects. Both honor and kingship as moral systems draw elements from each other; both, in fact, have the intrinsic capacity of being transformed into the other. But, in their basic constitutions, the two systems are opposed, and it is therefore necessary to focus on the nature of the differences that lie between them in order to understand how they can also be, in certain respects, alike.