afghanistanwomen and imposing the Sunni rites on the region. In the spring of 1891
the Hazaras of Uruzgan had had enough and rebelled. Three brigades
armed with modern British weaponry were sent into the area and quickly
crushed the uprising. The Uruzgan rebellion, however, was just the start of
a war that raged for more than three years. The following year Muhammad
Mir ‘Azim Beg of Deh Zangi and Qazi Muhammad Askara of Fouladi led
another revolt in the Ghurband. In 1879 both these men had pledged their
allegiance to ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan and in return the Amir conferred on
‘Azim Beg the title of sardar.
The rebels blockaded the roads from Kabul to Bamiyan, disrupted
trade and communications with Mazar-i Sharif and Herat, eventually obli-
ging ‘Abd al-Quddus Khan to abandon Bamiyan. The revolt quickly spread
to urban Hazaras, Hazara regiments and Kabul’s Qizilbash community.
‘Abd al-Rahman Khan’s cynical response was to play on sectarian and
racial prejudice. He secured a fatwa damning all Shi‘as and Isma‘ilis as
kafirs and called on the Ghilzai maldar, who had long been at odds with
the Hazaras over migration routes and pasturage rights, to lead the jihad.
As an incentive, the Amir promised them that if they were successful he
would allocate them increased grazing in the region and let them loot the
Hazaras’ flocks and property. He also encouraged Muhammad Husain
Hazara, the rival of ‘Azim Beg, to join the Holy War, offering to appoint
him as head of the Hazara tribes.
The fatwa led to a nationwide persecution of Shi‘as and Isma‘ilis.
Qizilbash civil servants were dismissed, their property plundered and
Sunni imams were put in charge of Shi‘a mosques and shrines. Some urban
Hazaras and Qizilbash fled to the Hazarajat to join the rebels, while many
of Herat’s large Shi‘a community made their way to Persia, potentially inter-
nationalizing the conflict in the process. In April 1893 the Shi‘a mujtahids
of the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad issued their own fatwa legitimiz-
ing war with Afghanistan in defence of its Shi‘a population and the Shah
of Persia threatened to invade. In the end nothing came of this threat, for
the Shah had no wish to risk yet another confrontation with Britain over
Afghanistan. Instead, he wrote a strong protest to the Viceroy. Britain,
he declared, was ‘friends of the Amir and not of the Afghan people’, and
demanded that ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan be deposed. 36 Britain temporarily
suspended arms shipments to the Amir, but as he was already armed to the
teeth this gesture did little to prevent the persecution of Shi‘as and made
not the slightest difference to the outcome of the Hazara War.
By August 1892 the Hazara revolt had been crushed, despite almost
suicidal resistance, and ‘Azim Beg was captured and executed. When,