dreams melted into air, 1919–29misjudgement, since only one or two commanders around Balkh declared
support for him. The Kalakanid government, meanwhile, exploited the
fact that Soviet planes had bombed Qal‘a-yi Jangi, and that Ghulam Nabi’s
force included Russian-speaking troops and officers, to declare that he was
merely a figurehead for what was in effect a Soviet invasion. As a result of
this propaganda, religious leaders in Mazar-i Sharif and Balkh declared a
jihad on Ghulam Nabi. The Turkman pir and former basmachi leader, the
Khalifa of Qizil Ayaq, who commanded an army of 12,000 murids, retook
Mazar. In Qataghan, Ibrahim Beg, the Turkish basmachi commander, also
declared for Habib Allah, while in Kabul the Kalakani regime abrogated the
Soviet-Afghan Treaty and threatened the Soviet ambassador with expulsion
if his country did not withdraw its ‘advisers’.
Ghulam Nabi finally came face-to-face with the Kalakanid army at
Kotal-i Rabatak, between Pul-i Khumri and Tashqurghan, only for Ghulam
Nabi to be defeated and flee back across the Amu Darya. His defeat and
’Aman Allah Khan’s loss at Muqur ended any hopes the king had of regain-
ing the throne. Further humiliation followed. The Viceroy refused the
ex-king’s request for sanctuary in India and ’Aman Allah Khan spent the
rest of his life in exile in Italy where, as a Knight of the Order of the Most
Holy Annunciation, he was effectively an honorary citizen. Following
Uzbek and Turkman talibs, or religious students, in the madrasa of Khalifa Qizil Ayaq, near
Shibarghan. Originally from what is now Turkmenistan, in 1929 the Khalifa and his murids
supported Habib Allah Kalakani’s Islamizing revolution.