You cannot build a nation... any more than you can build a house by

starting at the top. Amanullah tried to change the minds of people by

changing their hats. He failed. I am working from the foundation. The

painstaking, difficult tasks involved... take as much time as sending

the structure into the sky.

king nadir shah 1

T

he flight of ’Aman Allah Khan and the defeat of Ghulam

Nabi Charkhi still left Habib Allah Kalakani’s government facing a

variety of military challenges. Nadir Khan and his brothers were in

Khost, while the Shinwaris in Nangahar still refused to submit despite their

defeat, and the Safis of Tagab, aided by the Ghilzais of Laghman, briefly

occupied Sarobi. Then, after ‘Abd al-Rahim took Herat, ostensibly in the

name of Habib Allah Kalakani, he refused to recite Habib Allah’s name in

the khutba and had it read in the name of the ‘King of Afghanistan’.

The reign of Amir Habib Allah ii (Bacha-yi Saqau)

In Kandahar, while supporters of ’Aman Allah Khan squabbled over who

would succeed him, Ahmad ‘Ali Khan Lodi, the ex-governor of Charikar,

secretly contacted General Purdil Khan, commander of the Kalakanid

army, and it was probably due to his intrigue that the city elders agreed

to surrender, on condition the town was not plundered. On 1 June 1929,

Purdil Khan marched into Kandahar unopposed and the heads of the

Durrani clans pledged their allegiance to Amir Habib Allah ii. The

amnesty, however, did not include ’Aman Allah Khan’s family or other

high officials in his government. Loynab ‘Ali Ahmad Khan and his two

sons were hunted down. The elder son was put to death on the spot, as

for ‘Ali Ahmad and his other son, along with princes Hayat Allah Khan

and ‘Abd al-Majid Khan, Ahmad ‘Ali Lodi and Maulana ‘Abd al-Wasi‘,

they were sent in chains to Kabul, where they were paraded semi-naked

eleven

11 Backs to the Future, 1929–33