afghanistan
When the Tarzis returned to Kabul in early 1905, Mahmud, his brothers
and nephews were culturally Ottoman rather than Afghan. Ideologically
they were committed to the anti-British, Pan-Islamic agenda of al-Afghani
and the social and political reforms of the Young Turks, which included
a distaste for traditional Islamic leaderships, the need for rapid social
and legislative transformation as well as technological modernization. To
most Afghans and Europeans working in the country, Mahmud Tarzi was
known as The Turk, or Mahmud Beg. After two decades of the cultural
and intellectual sophistication of Damascus, Afghanistan must have been
a profound cultural shock for the Tarzis. However, the very ‘backwardness’
of his native land made Mahmud even more convinced that Afghanistan
needed its own Tanzimat revolution to bring the country out of its political,
cultural and educational Dark Ages. Within a matter of months after his
arrival in Kabul, Tarzi formed a group of young, like-minded reformers,
which he called the Young Afghans.
The second prominent Muhammadzai family to return to Afghanistan
was that of Sardar Muhammad Yusuf Khan, who were known as the
Musahiban or Yahya Khel (Chart 5). Yusuf was a grandson of Sultan
Muhammad Tela’i, the Peshawar sardar whom Dost Muhammad Khan had
displaced in 1826. Like Ghulam Tarzi, he and his family had been support-
ers of Amir Ya‘qub Khan, accompanying him into Indian exile in 1880,
but they returned to Afghanistan shortly before ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan’s
death, a pardon no doubt due to the influence of Yusuf ’s half-brother,
‘Abd al-Quddus Khan. The Musahiban’s experience of exile, however, had
been very different to that of the Tarzis. Yusuf ’s sons and daughters were
educated in Dehra Dun in northern India and spoke Urdu as their first
language. During his exile Yusuf had fathered five sons by his two wives:
Muhammad ‘Aziz Khan, Muhammad Nadir Khan, Muhammad Hashim
Khan, Shah Mahmud Khan and Shah Wali Khan. They would eventu-
ally dominate the political life of Afghanistan for a generation. Initially,
however, Yusuf and his sons were appointed to mid-ranking posts in the
army, with the youngest son, Shah Wali Khan, becoming head of Amir
Habib Allah Khan’s personal guard. Following Nadir Shah and Shah Wali
Khan’s successful suppression of the Mangal rebellion of 1912, Nadir Khan
became commander-in-chief of the army.
The third prominent Muhammadzai returnee was Loynab Khushdil
Khan, whose father, Sher Dil Khan, had first served under Dost Muhammad
Khan and married one of the Amir’s daughters. Subsequently Amir Sher
‘Ali Khan appointed him as Shahghasi, or Lord Chamberlain, and governor
of Afghan Turkistan. 4 The Loynabs had gone into exile with Amir Ya‘qub
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