dreams melted into air, 1919–29offer to negotiate with Britain over the issue. Britain had already indicated
to his father that it was prepared to concede some form of conditional
independence, and had the king given diplomacy a chance the war-weary
government in London would probably have made further concessions in
order to retain its strategic interests in the country. Instead ’Aman Allah
Khan’s unprovoked invasion antagonized Afghanistan’s key ally and the
most powerful nation in the world. From this point forward, British offi-
cials regarded ’Aman Allah Khan’s Afghanistan as a hostile neighbour and
worked behind the scenes to undermine his rule.
The loss of what the Afghans called the ‘money from God’ meant the
country faced a severe financial crisis, especially since it became clear
that no other European power was prepared to commit the same level
of financial support to keep the country financially viable. Consequently
’Aman Allah Khan was forced to raise taxes, cut expenditure and borrow
heavily. He then lavished vast sums on pet projects such as Paghman, Dar
al-’Aman and his Grand Tour, rather than on the welfare of the nation as
a whole. By 1928 ’Aman Allah Khan was forced to seek foreign loans to
finance these programmes but in the process he surrendered a degree of
national sovereignty. A loan of £400,000 from a British banker was only
secured in return for a monopoly on Afghanistan’s sugar trade, another
loan of 1 million francs from a French bank was secured at the rate of 7
to 8 per cent interest and only after the king offered as security all the
customs revenues of Afghanistan. The German government also agreed
to a short-term loan of 6 million Reichsmark, but it was conditional on
the king using the money to buy German goods.
It is also a mistake to depict ’Aman Allah Khan’s downfall as a clash of
ideologies between a reactionary Islamic establishment on the one hand
and the forces of ‘modernization’ and ‘progress’ on the other. In 1919 the
Hazrat of Shor Bazaar, the Mullah of Tagab and ‘Abd al-Quddus Khan, none
of whom were noted for their progressive views, supported ’Aman Allah
Khan’s claim to the throne despite his support of Tarzi’s agenda and the fact
that Nasr Allah Khan, who had been declared King in Jalalabad, was a well-
respected and strict Muslim. The Loya Jirga too agreed with the concept of a
Constitution in principle, even though the Deobandis forced major changes
to its provisions. During the rebellions of 1924 and 1928 religious leaders
had divided loyalties and, apart from Nur al-Mashayekh, most religious
opponents of ’Aman Allah Khan were reactive rather than proactive, only
providing religious legitimacy for revolts after hostilities had commenced.
The real tragedy of ’Aman Allah Khan’s reign is that many of the
changes he sought for Afghanistan would have benefited the country