backs to the future, 1929–33for his campaign against Habib Allah Kalakani. Once in power, Nadir Shah
failed to expel Indian nationalists such as Allah Nawaz Khan, leader of the
Indian Revolutionary Party, and even appointed him as an aide-de-camp.
At the same time the good relations with Britain were facilitated by
Nadir Shah and Shah Wali Khan’s long-standing friendship with Humphrys,
Fraser-Tytler and other British diplomats who had served in the Legation
in Kabul. As descendants of the Peshawar sardars, the Musahiban brothers
also had a historic connection with Peshawar and the Punjab and all five
brothers had been brought up and educated in India. This background
led the new dynasty to look to India rather than Turkey as its model for
modernity and reform, and at the opening of the medical school in 1933
the guests of honour included Sir Muhammad Iqbal and Sir Syed Ross
Masood, Vice Chancellor of Aligarh University. Iqbal subsequently visited
Ghazni and wrote a Persian poem in which he declared:
Asia is a body of water and clay,
Of which the Afghan nation forms the heart.As for Nadir Shah and his brothers, they were wary not to appear too
close to the old enemy in case this antagonized the frontier tribes and
The British Legation building in Kabul’s Kart-i Parwan, a mansion commissioned by Lord
Curzon as a statement of British imperial power. In the winter of 1928/9 Legation staff found
themselves on the front line and were evacuated by the raf. In 1994 it was handed over to
the Pakistan government and the following year it was burnt and looted by supporters of
Jami’at-i Islami. The building has recently been bought back by the British government.