introduction
Other shrines are constructed over the graves of shahids, individ-
uals who died in the cause of Islam, while qadamgahs, literally footprints,
commemorate visions, miracles or visitations by holy individuals. Some
shrines are said to cure specific ailments. such as blindness, dog bites,
madness or impotence. All ziyarats are believed to be infused with baraka,
a mystical power that can bless the devotee, ensure good fortune or even
heal. Women are particularly attached to shrines, and Wednesday is
observed as women’s day at shrines. There are also a number of shrines
devoted to women. In Balkh the shrine of Rabi‘a Balkhi is dedicated to
a young woman whose throat was cut by her uncle after she was found
to be having an affair with a slave. The modern shrine of Bibi Nushin in
Shibarghan is centred on the grave of a teenage girl who was killed because
her family turned down a marriage proposal.
Despite the historic presence of Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Jews,
Christians and Hindus, Afghanistan today has only a tiny minority
of non-Muslim citizens. The first mention of a Christian presence in
the country dates from the last decade of the second century; by the
fifth century there were at least four Nestorian bishoprics in western
Afghanistan, which at the time was part of the Sasanian Empire. During
the Safavid and Mughal era, a few hundred Armenians established trad-
ing communities in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Balkh. Later Ahmad
Shah Durrani brought a number of Armenians from Lahore who were
skilled in casting cannon: until 1879 there was an Armenian church
in Kabul’s Bala Hisar. In the 1840s a daughter of one of the leaders of
the Armenian community married Sardar Muhammad ’Azam Khan,
who was briefly Amir of Afghanistan from 1867–8. In the mid-1890s
the family of this Armenian woman were expelled by the then Amir,
‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, and from this point forward they made Peshawar
their home, where some trained as medical personnel in the Mission
Hospital. A handful of Georgian traders are also recorded as living in
Kabul, Kandahar and Herat, and early European explorers noted the
grave of a Georgian bishop on the slopes of Kabul’s Koh-i ‘Asmayi. Over
the past thirty years or so, a small, indeterminate number of Afghans have
become Christians, though they mostly live in Western countries for fear
of persecution and even death. Afghan Christians living in the country
rarely declare their faith publicly for fear of imprisonment or execution.
For the same reason Afghanistan’s small Ahmadiyya and Baha’i commu-
nities rarely surface, for while these movements were born out of Islamic
millenarian movements in Lahore and Shiraz respectively, followers of
these faiths are regarded as apostates.
nandana
(Nandana)
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