afghanistana series of proposals that included extending primary education to every
province, the establishment of a university and the opening of a vocational
college. He even secured the Amir’s approval to recommence publication
of a newspaper, presumably ‘Abd al-Ra’uf ’s Seraj al-Akhbar-i Afghanistan.
Nasr Allah Khan and ‘Abd al-Quddus Khan opposed Ghani’s educa-
tional plans and urged the Amir to reject his proposals, claiming they
were a plot to destroy Islam and the ‘Afghan way of life’. As far as Nasr
Allah Khan was concerned, Habibiyya College ought to have been an
exclusive madrasa for the Islamic education of Muhammadzais, while
‘Abd al-Quddus Khan declared publicly on numerous occasions that the
stability of Muhammadzai rule rested entirely on the ‘utter ignorance of
[Afghanistan’s] subjects’. 17 Nasr Allah Khan’s opposition to Ghani was also
personal, for despite being Minister of Education, the Amir had overruled
him and given Ghani control of a huge budget, which he was able to spend
without any reference to Nasr Allah Khan.
Dr Ghani, apparently unaware of the powerful enemies he was making,
pushed on with his educational programme and began paddling in even
more dangerous waters. Under his leadership, Habibiyya College became
a hotbed of political dissent, with students openly mocking the Amir and
his courtiers as ‘blundering old fools’. A number of teachers and students
joined the Hizb-i Mashruta, a movement established by reform-minded
Islamic scholars from Kandahar who met in secret in the Masjid-i Chob
Firoshi in the Old City. To what extent Ghani knew about the existence
of this clandestine movement in Habibiyya is unclear, but he did nothing
to quash it or rebuke young hotheads. Instead, he decided to hold night
classes to discuss ‘political economy’. His objective may have been intel-
lectual rather than political, but Dr Ghani ought to have known better
than to debate such issues publicly in a country ruled for generations by
paranoid autocrats. His decision to hold these lectures provided the excuse
his enemies needed to act against him.
Two individuals in particular were responsible for Ghani’s downfall
and for fabricating, or at least exaggerating, the plot to assassinate the
Amir. The first was Dr Ghulam Nabi, who had a personal vendetta against
Ghani and his brothers for ousting him as headmaster of Habibiyya. In
the winter of 1908 Habib Allah Khan had summoned Dr Nabi to return
to Afghanistan to treat the acute pain that was one of the symptoms of his
illness, for during a previous attack Dr Nabi had managed to cure the Amir.
While treating the Amir, Dr Nabi also exploited his position of confidence
to denounce Ghani and his brothers as radical revolutionaries and British
agents provocateurs.