Under the absolute Amir

The religion of the Afghans is the Mussulman, or Mahomedan religion, as it is more generally called in Christian countries, and if the people were to act up to the tenets of their religion, as taught by the Koran, then a good Mussulman would be a good man, for it is as a rule the people who practice a religion who bring credit or discredit on it. There are two sects of this religion in the country, the Shiah and the Suni. The latter sect includes the royal family and the bulk of the people, while the Shiah sect is chiefly composed of the Kuzilbash people, who are the descendants of Persians. These Kuzilbash live in the south-west portion of Kabul, called Chindawal, and form a small colony of their own; but a great number of them live in Kandahar and Herat, and near the Persian frontier. The difference between these two sects appears to be more in form of ritual than in any real difference in belief; but there is, however, a great deal of ill-feeling between them, and this leads at times to much bloodshed, much as it used to in days gone by between those of the Roman Church and Protestants.

The moullahs, or priests, are those who are brought up in the musjids, and who understand the Koran, or at least can read it in the old Arabic, in which language only is it allowed to be written. They live a holy life of constant prayer combined with a good deal of fasting, and their beads, similar to the rosary beads, are always in their hands. While walking or sitting, or even carrying on a conversation, these beads are rapidly slipped between the finger and thumb as they repeat the name of God for each bead so handled. The sight of a kafar, and all who are not Mussulman are infidels, is so obnoxious that they spit on the ground when passing him in the street, and to kill one of them is quite a meritorious action in their eyes. The majority of the people are equally fanatical, and they also consider it no sin to lie to or swindle a kafar.

The influence the moullahs exert over the people is very great, and they have little trouble in getting them to join in the Jihad or holy war against the enemies of their religion. They argue that the enemy of their religion is the enemy of God and therefore a loathsome thing, and that the Koran commands them to kill all such, and promises that if they are themselves killed in doing so, they shall go straight to Paradise, and that the man who fails to kill a kafar, but suffers death himself in the attempt, has only a little less rank in heaven than the one who succeeds.

The moullahs also teach that in Paradise good Mussulmans shall lie in the shade of gold and silver-leafed trees, whose fruits are precious stones, with beautiful houri around attending to all their desires, and with rivers of milk and honey flowing past them; and in this Paradise, if they desire one of the many beautiful birds which sit singing in the trees about, it is instantly placed ready cooked before them, and when they have eaten, the bird will assume its former shape and fly back to the branches above, for there is no taking of life in Paradise. There is enough in this picture of future happiness to fire the desire of the average Afghan, for his life is generally one long struggle for existence.

The Koran is always kept and handled very reverently, and when not in use it is wrapped in several cloths, and the person who intends reading it washes his hands before taking it out of its wrappings. The Koran is written in Arabic only, and when I wondered why it was not translated by competent moullahs into Persian, so that all who could read might understand, I was told that the language of the Koran was such that no one could copy or imitate it, and therefore any translation must necessarily be full of errors, and the word of God violated. For this reason also, those who read it are taught to pronounce each word exactly, for the short vowels are not written in Arabic, and it would be easy for a beginner to wrongly pronounce a word, because there are many words which are similarly written and differ only in the pronunciation of the unwritten short vowels, and therefore the meaning would become confused, and they say that there is no greater sin than misconstruing the words inspired by God. Very few, with the exception of the moullahs, can read the Koran, and the latter apparently give very free translations when it suits their purpose; such, for instance, as that of killing unbelievers, on which is built up the principles of Jihad, holy war, and the Amir has had printed in pamphlet form and distributed throughout the country of late. I have been assured by Mussulmans of other countries that the meaning of the Koran has been twisted in this, for true Mussulmans are exhorted in the Koran to live with unbelievers for neighbours in such manner that all may know them for good and upright men, and when the time comes to fight against them, then to fight to the utmost of their power.

The late Amir, who distrusted the moullahs, as he had reason to do, for on more than one occasion they caused the people to rise against him by proclaiming that he did not act up to his religion and was therefore a kafar, always treated them in such manner as to lower them in the eyes of the people rather than give them honour and uphold their influence; and he did not fail to punish them as he did the rest of the people when they deserved it. One such case was when the moullahs of a holy shrine wrote him a petition praying for money to repair the walls and rooms of the tomb, which were in a dilapidated condition. A holy grave is usually surrounded by a building, in the rooms of which the priests who guard the tomb live. The Amir knew that this place, in common with others, was much visited by women ostensibly for prayer, but in reality to keep assignations made with lovers, and that many had lovers among the moullahs themselves. A woman’s prayers usually have her own fruitfulness for objective, and they are supposed to have greater virtue at a holy shrine, and, under the circumstances, it is possible that results in some cases were such as to encourage this supposition. The Amir accordingly sent for the moullahs, who were sleek and well-fed men, and told them that he knew of their iniquities, and, cursing them, ordered the place to be closed and the moullahs dispersed.

The present Amir, who has not yet the self-reliance of his father, treats all moullahs with great honour, and when he became Amir he sent for them all and gave them money and robes of honour, and otherwise treated them with distinction. It was no doubt politic to do so, for the time was critical; but they are a rather double-edged weapon, and he may find that they can cut both ways should he ever offend them.

There are many holy men and fakirs in the country, who are honoured by the people and treated with great consideration. They are credited with the power of curing sickness by reciting some part of the Koran over those who are ill, or by breathing on the water given them to drink; but more usually they write a verse of the Koran on a piece of paper and give it to the sick person to swallow. Holy graves are also supposed to cast out sickness, simply by the person living at the grave until cured, and one of my servants tried this remedy rather than take English medicine, but died there on the third day.

Lunatics are said to be God-afflicted, and no one therefore attempts to control their actions or in any way interfere with them. They are treated instead with great deference, and are asked for their prayers and advice in any difficulty or trouble. Offerings of food and money are taken them, and they are allowed to go where they will, and no one will stop them even if they wander into the Amir’s durbar. One such, who was known and reverenced all over Kabul, used to go about with nothing on but a long shirt, and this was open in front and exposed the chest, and in the depths of winter a posteen only was worn over the shirt. I have seen this man on the coldest days lying asleep on the bare ground in the open, bare-headed and barefooted. The man’s constitution who can stand such privation and live must be an exceptional one. He used sometimes to go to the Government stores, which were guarded by sepoys, and, breaking the padlock from a door, would walk in and lie down there, and no one dared to interfere with him; and he would also wander occasionally into the late Amir’s durbar and give expression to his opinion of the Amir’s character, which is a thing no other man could have done and lived to boast of. When the Amir gave him money he threw it broad-cast from him, and refused to be propitiated, and he would at times do this with the food and presents sent him by other people. He had many followers, of course, and these waxed fat on the good things sent their chief, and they copied his ways too, and tried to perfect themselves in them so that they might also receive honour, and perhaps, when the day came, step into their master’s shoes, and live free from the trials and worries governing other people.

There are many Sayids in the country; a Sayid is said to be a lineal descendant of the prophet, and they are looked upon as people of consequence, and are respected by others, but this does not prevent them having to work for their living. Several worked under me, and I found them superior to the bulk of the men I came in contact with, and generally more intelligent, which was, perhaps, the outcome of generations of trying to be superior to others.

A Hafiz is one of those who can recite the whole of the Koran by heart, and they are employed during Ramazan, the month of fasting, to recite a portion of it each evening in the musjids until the Koran is ended. It takes many days to do this, and the recital is so apportioned at times as to make it last until the end of the fast.

The fakirs, or holy mendicants, are a great institution in the country, as they are indeed throughout the East. They (men, women, and children) profess to do no work, but beg for the day’s requirements. They also profess to take no heed for the morrow, and to make a point of keeping nothing which is given them for the next day, but to expend all they receive from the charitable the same day that they receive it. They may be seen on the sides of the roads and bazars with their wooden or copper begging bowls, suspended by a string round the neck and hanging in front of them, continuously calling out to the passers-by for charity. Winter and summer they sit in the same place all day, but in winter they have a small iron bowl under their posteens, in which a little lighted charcoal is kept in order to keep them warm. The present Amir is much against the mode of life of these people, and he has those boys whom he sees upon the road begging, caught and taken to the workshops, where they are ordered to work, and receive food twice a day and clothes once a year in lieu of pay. They are practically kept prisoners in the workshops, for they are not allowed to go out day or night. So far as benefit to the Government is concerned, they are useless, for they do nothing but play about and idle all day. Coercion has no effect on them, and many of the ustads in the shops who tried to get work out of them, gave them up at last as hopeless, and from what I saw of them, they did nothing but spoil good material when their masters forced them to do anything, and as they did this with even the simplest sort of work, it was easy to see that they hoped by these means to be eventually sent away as useless.

Religious crimes and offences are tried by a jury of moullahs, under an appointed head, who is chosen from among themselves. For a capital religious offence the moullahs can order a person to be stoned to death, but the sentence must be ratified by the Amir. When the punishment is to be carried out, the condemned man, with hands tied behind him and chains upon his legs, is led along the streets of the city, some of the moullahs following, and at an appointed place the first stone is thrown by the chief moullah among them. The populace, who have joined the throng, and arm themselves with missiles as they go along, wait until the moullah throws the first stone, and then they commence throwing too. The condemned man is forced on by the shower of stones, which takes more and more effect on him as it is continued, for the incessant impact of stones gradually weakens him with pain, until a place called Siyah Sang is reached. This is a small hill of black rock, about two miles out of the city, surrounded by a stony tract of ground, and here larger stones are selected and thrown, so that soon the man is staggering forward feebly, knowing that where he falls his life will be ended, and trying to keep on a little longer. Eventually he can bear no more, or a stone larger than others brings him to his knees and he falls full length, and then the hail of missiles increases, some taking small boulders they can barely lift and heaving them on the man’s body, and so it continues until a mould is piled up over him, and there he is left, hidden by the heap of stones. Death does not always occur at once, although a man become unconscious when he falls, and cases have been known of a man living for some hours after, and dying at last in great agony.

The people are looked after by the moullahs, who see that they keep to their religion, and examine them periodically to see if they know their prayers; and for this purpose a party of them are appointed by the chief moullah to make occasional excursions into the bazars and workshops and to the public gardens about. On these occasions each man they come across is made to repeat his prayers, and if he says them correctly he is allowed to go his way, and his way is usually in the track of the moullahs, where he helps to swell the mob by which they are followed, for all those who pass the ordeal like to see what happens to the next man. The man who makes a mistake in his prayers, or has forgotten part of them, is beaten with sticks; but if the case is a bad one, and the man does not know his prayers at all, or those who owe him a grudge come forward and testify to his not saying them the stipulated number of times each day, then he is seized, and, with his face blackened and hands tied behind his back, is placed backwards on a donkey, which is led by moullahs through the principal bazars of the city, with, of course, a large crowd of men following and making rude jokes at his expense. The shame and disgrace of this proceeding is said to have such a lasting effect on the man as to ensure the due performance of religious observances in the future, and his friends and relations for years after ungenerously twit and joke him about it. I once saw a man, who was vigorously and arrogantly expressing his opinion on some subject, interrupted quietly by one of those present to be asked if he knew his prayers yet; the poor fellow collapsed, tried to brave it out for a little while, and then made a rapid exit, followed by the jeering laughter of his companions. Most of the Afghans are very susceptible to ridicule, and too much of it is apt to rouse their worst passions.

All good Mussulmans are supposed to pray five times a day, but before doing so they must wash their hands and feet, that they shall present themselves for prayer before God in a becoming manner. I was told that the reason wines and spirits are forbidden in the Koran is, that a man under the influence of drink does not fully comprehend what he does or says, and therefore his prayers, while in that condition, would be a sacrilege.

The musjids in Kabul are mostly small ones, and are usually constructed so that three sides are enclosed and the fourth side left open, and they are built in such position that the direction of their length points to Mecca, in which is the tomb of the Prophet, for it is in the direction of Mecca that all Mussulmans face while saying their prayers. One very large musjid, called the Jumah Musjid, was built by the late Amir, who issued a proclamation that all those who were good Mussulmans must bring at least one stone from the mountains to be used in its construction as their share of the work. A large quantity of stone was collected in this way, but the size of the building necessitated the use of carts and coolies to complete the quantity of materials required. It is in this mosque that the people congregate for prayers on festivals, and twenty to thirty thousand are present at times, so that the musjid, and the grounds surrounding it, are filled with men standing, kneeling, and genuflecting all together in long rows, one behind the other. Here, too, they congregate for prayer when cholera or other calamity visits Kabul and makes a long stay, hoping that their united supplication will have the effect of averting the calamity.

The month of Ramazan, or fast, entails fasting on all people from sunrise to sunset for thirty days. Nothing whatever must pass the lips during this time, and no one may take snuff or smoke. Very young children, and those who are seriously ill, are exempt, but in the latter case it often happens that a sick person who is unable to bear the ordeal will insist upon fasting, and so dies from exhaustion. The sick person, however, who does not observe the fast must provide a substitute to do so, and pay the substitute for such service, and he must also feed a number of the poor according to his means, and a moullah must certify that the person’s condition is such that he is, by religious law, exempt from fasting. After sunset until the sun rises again the people may eat anything they desire, and they are not limited to quantity. It is usual for a big gun to be fired at sunset as a signal to the people that the day’s fast is over, and many of them have food or their pipes ready to hand, awaiting the signal which allows them to break their fast or take a pull at the pipe, for which the day’s abstinence has created so keen a desire. An hour or so before sunrise another gun is fired to warn those people who have to work the following day that they must wake and eat while there is yet time to fit themselves to bear the next day’s fast. The common practice for those who are able to do it is to turn night into day and sleep during the daytime, and eat and work at night. In the Government offices and factories the working hours are shortened, and men commence work late in the day and finish early. During the first part of the month the men seem to bear their fasting cheerfully, but afterwards the effect of long abstinence during the day, followed by a surfeit of food begins to tell in the way of indigestion and dyspepsia, and tempers get short and quarrels become frequent. Many people get very ill, and not a few die, for more is eaten during the month of fast than any other month, and the people save up all they can against the time, when, after being deprived for hours of all they desire, they can at last eat, drink, and smoke to satiety, and a heavy meal on a stomach which has long been empty is not conducive to good digestion. Those who are heavy smokers, or in the habit of taking snuff, are those who feel the abstinence most, and to them the time seems to pass more slowly than it does to others. Many men have confessed to me how weary are the hours until the gun announces sunset, and I think all smokers will sympathize with them. The mirzas (clerks) are among those who miss their pipe and snuff most, for they are, almost without exception, inveterate smokers. The Mussulman year is reckoned according to the lunar months, and the month of fasting, therefore, comes at an earlier date each year; and when it comes in the summer-time, when the days are long and the weather hot, thirst has to be added to the other discomforts, and, as almost all people in Kabul are in the habit of drinking water frequently during the day, the desire to relieve their thirst becomes almost unbearable, and they say it is the worst suffering of all during the fast.

Six weeks following the Eid of Ramazan, the day of festival which concludes the month of fast, is the great Eid-i-Kurban, or Feast of Sacrifices, and on this day all men, no matter how poor, see that they have new clothes to put on; and should a man be so poor that he cannot do so, he spends the day alone in his house, unable to face his friends, shamed and miserable. It is rare, however, that a man is so situated, for it is the custom to make provision against this day, and, at the worst, old clothes can be mended and cleaned, and made to look good enough to pass muster, for it is not all who can afford to buy clothes first-hand. On this festival, after the prayers in the great musjid which the Amir and princes, together with their officials and the officers of the army attend, a review of troops is held on the large plain facing the mosque. The arrival of the Amir with his suite on the review-ground is greeted with a salvo of forty guns, and the review proceeds; but as it simply consists of the Amir riding past all the regiments drawn up there, and making them a short speech, it is soon ended, and then the regiments are marched back to their barracks, while the roads en route are crowded with people to watch the tamasha, not the least of which is the passing by of the Amir with his retinue and bodyguard, and preceded by the State elephants decked with gaudy trappings. The people afterwards spend the day in visiting their friends and wishing the compliments of the season to each other; and as it is customary for those visited to offer their guests tea and refreshments on such occasions, the cost of doing so is a heavy tax on most of them; but it must be done if a man wishes to retain his respect among his fellows, even though he gets into debt thereby.

On Shab-i-barat, a festival similar to our All Souls, fireworks in the evening are the order of the day, and men invite their friends to have food with them, and afterwards witness the firework display, and this is followed in the wealthier houses by music and dancing-girls, when the entertainment is kept up until a late hour at night. When a man invites another to dinner in the evening, it is understood that the guest shall stop the night, and, as it is only on special occasions that guests are invited, the proceedings are always kept up until late. On the night of Shab-i-barat it is believed by the people that the souls in purgatory are visited by angels in order that their papers may be examined to see how much longer they are to stop there, and to release those whose time is up and take them to Paradise.

Pilgrimages to Mecca, or the Haj, as it is called, are undertaken by those who are religiously inclined, and can afford the time and expense incurred. To the Afghan the Haj is a great undertaking, and the chances of return from so perilous a journey are looked upon as very small, so those who undertake the pilgrimage do so more or less convinced that they will never return, and therefore make their wills and settle up their affairs in the same manner as they would do so on the approach of death; for foreign countries inhabited by enemies of their religion and therefore of themselves have to be traversed, and should they get through this ordeal safely, there is still the sea with its storms and other perils to be faced. They have many queer legends of the sea and its inhabitants, some of which will swallow up a ship when they come across it; and a man needs to be thoroughly infatuated with the desire to undertake the holy pilgrimage before he would dare face all the terrors and dangers which have to be encountered. When, however, after safely passing through the perils of the journey, the pilgrim finally returns, entitled to the distinction of being called “Hadjee” for the rest of his days, his friends and relations make much fuss and rejoicing over his return, and for many months after he does little else but relate his travels and adventures, and the sights he has seen, to an eager crowd of listeners, who never seem to weary of hearing all that there is to be told them. I have heard some of them relate their experiences, and I must say their stories do not lose in the telling.

The Afghans are not great travellers, for their rulers do not offer facilities for them to visit other lands, nor do they encourage strangers in the country. They prefer instead to keep the people isolated, and out of touch with the rest of the world, and are fearful that knowledge and enlightenment would lessen their hold on their subjects, who would be less easily swayed in the direction they wished when invoked in the name of their religion were they conversant with the laws and customs of the people of other countries, and could thereby draw comparisons for themselves.

In Western Australia, however, is a small community of Afghans who had been many years in the colony, and do a trade in camel transport across the sandy desert tracts there. One of these returned to Afghanistan a few years ago, bringing with him his English, or rather Australian, wife who had embraced his own religion. She was uneducated, and could not read or write, and from what she said about the visions she had, and voices she heard exhorting her to persevere in the practice of her new religion, one would imagine that her mind was rather unhinged. The man had returned to his own country, wishing to see it again after thirty years’ absence and to be buried in the land of his fathers, and he brought back a small fortune with him; but his relations in Kandahar had borrowed so much and so frequently that he had but little left, and for this reason he had to leave his own place and come to Kabul to see what the Amir would do for him. He lived in a very small house with but one servant, and his wife was allowed a small sum yearly from the Government, and that was all they had to live on. He was very grateful to me for the pipe and occasional presents of tobacco I gave him, and often lamented his want of sense in leaving Australia, where he had all that made life pleasant, but to which he was unable to return. He spoke English like an Australian, and his language was interlarded with oaths which sounded queerly from the lips of a typical Afghan. He died some two years after his return from heart disease; and the cholera, which broke out a few weeks later, carried off his wife amongst other victims, and before she died, one of his nephews was doing all he could to get her to marry him that he might share in her pension.

The Afghan colony in Australia wrote a letter of congratulation to the late Amir on the occasion of his receiving the title of “Light of faith and religion,” and sent him at the same time a copy of the Australian Government’s order forbidding the immigration of Orientals into the country unless each one paid a rather heavy poll-tax, and they asked his help and influence with the Indian Government to have Afghans made exempt from this tax. The Amir, who always had an eye to business and knew that the colonists were wealthy, replied asking three or four of their headmen to visit him in order to discuss the matter; but the headmen were loth to enter the lion’s den, fearing, probably, that they might not get out of it again, and they therefore let the matter drop.

Among the Afghans birds and animals are broadly divided into two classes, “halal” and “haram,” i.e. those which may be eaten and which may not, and, generally speaking, the bird or beast which lives on meat or carrion is unlawful to eat. Those which are intended for food are killed by having the throat cut, and while this is being done the name of God must be repeated, for otherwise the flesh is haram and sinful to eat. If a bird is shot, the Mussulman who fires the gun repeats the name of God as he shoots—so that if it is shot dead it may be made lawful eating. When I was out shooting myself, the men with me would cut the throats of any bird dropped, repeating meanwhile the prescribed formula, provided it had the faintest spark of life left in it, and so make it “halal,” but if the bird was dead when picked up no one would eat it. If a dog or other “haram” beast touches any food with its mouth, the food is defiled and cannot be eaten, but if it is seen that the animal touches only one part of it, that portion may be cut away and the remainder eaten. Although dogs are looked upon as unclean beasts, they may be handled without defilement, provided the dog’s mouth is not touched, or does not touch the person who is handling it; but should the hands or clothes come in contact with its mouth, the part defiled must be washed.

Some of the soldiers and poor people, however, who keep dogs and make great pets of them do not seem to fear defilement, and in some cases the pet dog sleeps on the same bed as its master, and is treated with every kindness. These men are fond of teaching their dogs to do tricks, and one pet, which was the property of a sepoy, would feign death, and beg, and walk on its hind legs, and take a handkerchief with a copper in it to the tobacco shop in the bazar and bring back the tobacco, and do various other tricks. This dog was also trained to carry in its mouth a short stick, from the ends of which two small lanterns were suspended, and run at night to light the way in front of its master.

The people repeat the name of God in all other things they do besides making flesh lawful. The workmen before commencing any work, or starting a new machine, or pouring molten metal into a mould, say the name of God that a blessing may attend the work and make it successful. They do the same before and after eating, and when naming a child, first they call the name of God in its ear, and then the one the child is to be known by.

When the wife of an official presents him with a child, he takes a present of sweetmeats to the Amir and informs him of the fact, and then asks him to choose the name that is to be given it. It is customary for the Amir to name the children of the officials and those round him, excepting when a female child is born, for then the Queen-Sultana chooses the name. On the birth of a son the Amir gives presents to the father if he happens to be in favour, or if he wishes to do him honour, for the birth of a son is a matter for rejoicing. In the case of a girl, the birth is passed over in silence, for women are of small account in Afghanistan, and sometimes the father will not go near the mother for several days when a daughter is born, in order to show his displeasure and mark his resentment for the woman not better acting up to his desires and wishes.

When one of the Amir’s wives is expected to give birth to a child, preparations are made for the firing of guns and fireworks, and the feasting of all and sundry, in case it is a boy that comes into the world, but if it turns out to be a girl nothing in the way of rejoicing happens, and the mother is left to weep alone in the disappointment of her hopes; for all women desire and pray for a man child, because then the father will visit her, and she is made much of, and everybody else fusses over and congratulates her, so that she enjoys a small triumph.

Plurality of wives is general among the Afghans. There are some with one wife only; but that is either because they can afford no more, or else the wife is decidedly the “better half,” and resents the bringing of other women into the house. I have been told that in all harems there is a never-ending struggle for supremacy among the different wives, and that is why charms and love potions and other magic arts are resorted to by a woman in an endeavour to concentrate the love of the man on herself; and this fight for supremacy, together with jealousy, is one of the chief reasons why poisons which cannot be detected are in request. I have myself been asked if I knew of and could obtain a poison which resembled any ordinary disease in its effect, and once also I was asked for a charm or spell which would ensure one being loved, but I had neither of these things, although I was offered a large amount of money for them. A West End witch would no doubt be able to get together a large clientèle in Kabul and do a good business. The Koran is quoted as the authority for a man having several wives; but there are some, and they claim to know the Koran, who say it is written that a man may marry up to four wives if he can love all equally, and, as this is impossible, it really means that one wife is ordered. The prophet is said to have had more than one wife; but in his case it is stated that, excepting the wife he loved, they were women without other protection, whom he married to give a home to.

All Afghans are religious fanatics, and though their fanaticism may not be always noticeable, it requires only the occasion to bring it out. Believing as they do that their religion has replaced Christianity as Christianity replaced the Jewish religion, and that God inspires a new religion at different eras as the advancement of man requires it, and therefore their own religion, being the latest, is necessarily the true one, it is not a country where Christian missionaries would be likely to produce much effect.