dreams melted into air, 1919–29
Civil war was avoided only because the officer corps of the Jalalabad
garrison declared for ’Aman Allah Khan and arrested Nasr Allah Khan,
Nadir Khan and Loynab ‘Ali Ahmad. Nasr Allah Khan was then forced
at gunpoint to write a letter of abdication and he and the other prisoners
were sent to Kabul under heavy guard. Meanwhile ’Inayat Allah Khan and
Hayat Allah Khan, seeing which way the wind was blowing, drove post-
haste to Kabul where they tendered their allegiance to their brother, only
for them too to be arrested. When they reached the capital, Nasr Allah
Khan, ’Inayat Allah Khan and Hayat Allah Khan were brought before a
kangaroo court that convicted Nasr Allah Khan of plotting the Amir’s
assassination. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but a few months
later he was secretly put to death and his body buried in an unmarked
grave on the Koh-yi ‘Asmayi. 3 ’Inayat Allah Khan and Hayat Allah Khan
were imprisoned but eventually released, although their role was reduced
to a purely ceremonial one. Loynab ‘Ali Ahmad too was set free following
the intervention of his aunt, Ulya Hazrat, and despite his shifting loyalties
he became a key member of Amir ’Aman Allah Khan’s administration.
Nadir Khan, who was in charge of Habib Allah Khan’s bodyguard
the night he was slain, was exonerated by the court and reappointed as
Commander-in Chief, Minister for War and Tribal and Frontier Affairs.
Nadir’s three brothers also suffered no penalty and retained their military
rank. Later Shah Wali Khan, Nadir’s youngest brother, married one of
’Aman Allah Khan’s daughters. The Musahiban family escaped punish-
ment probably because the Amir feared their imprisonment might lead
to a revolt, for Nadir Khan and Shah Wali Khan were popular with the
army and the tribes of Nangahar. However, ’Aman Allah Khan made sure
Nadir Khan was kept as far away from Kabul as possible, dispatching him
first to Khost and later to remote Qataghan.
The assassination of Habib Allah Khan and the subsequent arrests
provided the Young Afghans with the opportunity they sought to dispose of
their dynastic and ideological opponents. One individual who was particu-
larly hated by the reformers was Mustufi Mirza Muhammad Husain Safi.
As far as we can tell from the sources, the mustufi had no hand in the
assassination of Habib Allah Khan and, according to his descendants, the
mustufi tried to warn the Amir about the conspiracy in a letter before he
left for his hunting trip. Unfortunately for Habib Allah Khan, he never
read the note, which was recovered, unopened, in his jacket pocket after
his death. The letter was then used against the mustufi as proof that he
had had a hand in the assassination. He was condemned to death and
unceremoniously hanged from a mulberry tree in the Dilkusha Palace.
nandana
(Nandana)
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