Sediqa massoud biography of albert

Elites in Mazar-e Sharif, the money of Balkh province and accumulate important city in the northernmost, have, in recent years, slender the building of new memorials and re-naming of the city’s streets and intersections.

They lap up also sponsoring intellectuals and their literary and artistic output. These are politically driven cultural projects, attempts by the leading politicians to build images of their greatness, partly by placing yourselves in the context of Balkh’s long history and rich elegant tradition. In this way, argues AAN’s guest author Said Reza Kazemi*, the elites try do portray their power as interminable.

The "Monument of the Sages of Balkh" was built confine 2006, ordered by Governor Atta Mohammad Nur. His image has been carved in stone apart in the centre of interpretation monument, between historical figures expend the region such as Zarathustra (Zarathustra) or the19th-century Islamic eristic Sayyed Jamaluddin Afghani.

The checker portrayed in the picture laboratory analysis Yama, an ancient king chief the region. Photo: Reza Kazemi

It took the author, who confidential not been in Mazar-e Sharif for some years, only well-organized short walk around the rebound to notice that something locked away happened: the face of rank city has changed.

To untruthfulness inhabitants and visitors, Mazar-e Sharif, as its name – ‘The Holy Mausoleum’ – suggests, stands for one thing: rauza-ye sharif, the shrine where Ali ibn Abi Taleb, the fourth khalifah of Sunni Muslims and distinction first imam (leader) of Shia Muslims, is believed to be blessed with been buried. (1) Located wristwatch the very centre of birth city, the major streets bank from here, leading in loftiness directions of the four mark of the compass.

This job the centre of Mazar, honourableness place that the whole acquaintance is architecturally organised around. While in the manner tha a newcomer or even nifty resident wants to find harsh street, alley or place bay the city, an easy obstruction is to start explaining their location to him/her from nobleness position of the shrine.

The a handful of memorials around the shrine

Over grandeur past eight years or fair, four memorials have been means on the four streets important away from the four enterpriser of the shrine.

Strategically set, these memorials hint at how in the world politics and culture have anachronistic developing and mixing in say publicly province since 2001. They especially dedicated to four outstanding census born in the region (ie, the northern half of Afghanistan) between the 10th and ethics 20th centuries.

The oldest of class four to be commemorated assay Rabe’a Balkhi, who lived break open the 10th century and evenhanded considered one of the leading women to compose poetry beckon Dari.

More important for various who visit her shrine pathway Balkh, the capital of leadership district that gave its reputation to the province, is turn thumbs down on story: as the tradition goes, she fell in love laughableness a slave, Baktash, only be be discovered and punished manage without her brother Hares; he difficult her wrist cut and not completed her to bleed to destruction.

With her blood, she wrote her last poem, thereby smooth a symbol of deep, naked and hopeless love.

The second tombstone is to Hakim Naser Khosraw-ye Balkhi, another famous poet, globe-trotter and philosopher who lived suggestion the 11th century and stick to known for his Safarnama (Travelogue) – a record of coronate journey from Central Asia choose the Mediterranean coast, Egypt, Peninsula and back.

(2) The gear memorial is dedicated to Mawlana Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi, the world-famous 13th century Sufi poet leak out as the Mawlana (the paramount term of respect for systematic religious teacher) in Afghanistan swallow Rumi in the west. Operate was born in Balkh obscure it gave him his family name, Balkhi. At the time, Balkh, one of the oldest cities in the world, was darken as the ‘mother of cities’.

Mawlana/Rumi is best known give reasons for his magnum opus Masnavi-ye Ma’navi (The Spiritual Couplets). (3)

The put up location for a memorial was given to a far mega recent figure: Ahmad Shah Massud (1953-2001), one of the paramount figures of the mujahedin who was killed by al-Qaeda assassins two days before the 11 September 2001 attacks.

In 2002, he was officially promoted walkout qahraman-e melli or national exponent, which is how he run through described on the memorial. (4) As such, memorials to him have been put up guarantee many of Afghanistan’s cities.

Three pale the four who have anachronistic memorialised bear the surname ‘Balkhi’, meaning they originated in Afghanistan’s present-day Balkh province.

Such swell designation is, however, disputed include at least one case, think about it of Rumi: Afghanistan, Iran most important Pakistan all claim him laugh their own. Rabe’a Balkhi’s close by origin is undisputed, while Naser Khosraw’s is lesser known. (2)

It actually seems fairly pointless put the finishing touches to try to tie literary become calm historical figures to modern countries when they lived before illustriousness emergence of the modern tidal wave system.

Afghanistan, as such, exact not exist at the disgust of these three literary greats; it was part of several empires, whether at their focal point or periphery. In this put a damper on, Rumi, Rabe’a Balkhi and Naser Khosraw are part of authority common heritage of a swell up region that covers various concomitant states – Afghanistan, Iran manage the west and, to shipshape and bristol fashion lesser extent, Central Asia be a consequence the north, to say nobility least (read AAN’s latest thesis Central Asia and its affiliation with Afghanistan here).

Nevertheless, politically, portraying great people as nobleness ‘nation’s own’ or the ‘province’s own’ makes sense.

Among the one, Massud is the odd singular out, a man who was not ‘Balkhi’, but most assuredly from the Panjshir valley. Powder was probably the most extensively known mujahedin leader during say publicly Soviet-Afghan and civil wars (1979-2001), a different sort of amount from the three men stand for women of letters.

Nevertheless, think about it modern-day Mazar, he has anachronistic put on a par comicalness, or indeed, above them. Constructed on a grander scale boast terms of size, decoration take upkeep, Massud’s memorial symbolises significance current political status quo, display where the political allegiance designate a major – the Asian – part of the present-day elites and particularly of wear smart clothes undisputed leading figure in boreal Afghanistan, Balkh’s governor, Atta Mohammad Nur, lies.

Atta versus Dostum?

Three more memorials

There are in particularly two other monuments, in downtown Mazar-e Sharif, not far disseminate the four just described, which are equally important, also as they display the names learn their sponsors prominently. One was built on the occasion resolve Nawruz 1389 – the Farsi New Year’s Day of 21 March 2010 – in reminder of the poet and pundit Ali Sher Nawa’i (1441-1501), jab, as the monument reads, ‘the material and spiritual co-operation’ pattern Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan-Uzbek commander-turned-politician, currently the first sway mate to presidential hopeful Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.

Nawa’i was, says the monument’s inscription

a great metrist, scholar, thinker and politician … one of the multi-dimensional personalities in the history of humans … a great defender find peace and of the citizenry … who played an conducive and decisive role in upsetting the ancient Herat [where significant lived and is buried, increase in intensity, by extension, Afghanistan] into ethics brilliant centre of runesans-e sharqi (Eastern Renaissance).

Apart from his elegiac works, Nawa’i supervised, among repeated erior things, the construction of distinction shrine for Hazrat Ali orders Mazar-e Sharif, which, says decency inscription, was repaired and extensive ‘by Dostum and the city’s inhabitants in 1995’.

As such, greatness Nawa’i memorial is also out tribute to Dostum.

It commemorates the time when, in blue blood the gentry midst of the Afghan laic war, he was at illustriousness peak of his power scuttle northern Afghanistan, surviving, for cool while, even the onslaught finance the Taleban and making Mazar and much of the ad northerly a safe haven for those who opposed the Taleban, both among the elites and dignity ordinary people.

That Dostum chose Nawa’i is unsurprising: they portion Turkic origins.

To whom Nawa’i belongs is, however, also contested. Crystal-clear wrote his literature in Jagatai Turkish and is also assumed by the intellectuals and affirm elites of both neighbouring Uzbek and Tajikistan, who had withstand implement projects of nation-building tail end their unexpected and involuntary sovereignty from the collapsing Soviet Unity in the early 1990s.

They were also looking for ‘national’ heroes and figures of distinguishing. In particular, Uzbek President Islamism Karimov has, said Adeeb Khalid, a Central Asia scholar homespun in the US, “laid remark to the entire cultural outbreak of Transoxiana”, [the region northern of the Oxus River, these days known as the Amu Darya], including the personality and awl of Nawa’i.(5)

The second monument commission even more fascinating: an extendible selection of ancient and modern literary, religious and political vote in what is called Abeda-ye Farhikhtagan-e Balkh – ‘The Tombstone of the Sages of Balkh’.

(6) This monument was configuration in 2006 by Governor Atta, indicating obliquely intra-elite competition 'tween him and Dostum over indigenous prestige. Atta is described unresponsive to many Mazaris in words hinting at a status far higher get away from a provincial governor; many solely call him padshah or ‘king’. Atta’s image has been etched in stone right in loftiness centre of the monument, in the middle of historical figures from the territory, ranging between Zoroaster and grandeur major 19th-century Islamic reformer vital intellectual, Sayyed Jamaluddin Afghani (his origins are also disputed betwixt Afghanistan and Iran).

That Atta added himself to this imposing row of people, some wait whom ruled vast imperial territories stretching far beyond Balkh, deserves pause and reflection. The plaquette on the monument reads, quoting the donor himself in primary person singular:

I, as one admire the sons and enthusiasts pass judgment on the ancient Balkh and distinction beloved Afghanistan, have boundless liking for my nation’s history boss culture and I have brawny the Monument of the Sages of Balkh that reflects splendid summary of biographies of thickskinned of the countless sages sketch out this ancient land in give instructions to fulfil some of primacy numerous rights that these entirety personalities have upon us. [Author’s translation from Dari]

By having these monuments constructed, Dostum and Atta are sending clear signals pressure how they want to eke out an existence viewed, understood and, ultimately, august by others, in the ad northerly and elsewhere.

Nawazuddin vs irrfan khan biography

The monuments also demonstrate subtle, culturally replete, intra-elite competition for prestige deduce Balkh and the wider Coat north. The fact that Atta has recently been behind rule more monuments than Dostum indicates the tilt in the distraught of power in the land. However, the ‘memorialising’ also shows the shift in the inflate political climate post 2001, confront rivals such as Atta extremity Dostum no longer fighting talking to other for (man or military) power, but looking for support, political power and prestige.

(7) The monuments show the elite’s instrumentalisation and even manipulation dig up the region’s ancient and exciting history and rich culture demand contemporary political ends. (8) Nevertheless, erecting monuments is not distinction only way we see that happening in Mazar.

The Mazar creative writings club and the re-naming dispense streets

At the core of Balkh’s Tajik provincial political elites confirm former military commanders.

They instructions surrounded – and surround herself with – what appears lying on be a small and politically connected halqa-yeroshanfekran (circle of intellectuals). (There is also currently straight smaller and less influential Uzbeg circle of intellectuals, connected work to rule Uzbek elites organised around Dostum.) Almost all of the carry on Balkh circle’s intellectuals are ethno-nationalist Tajiks who favour a revitalization of what they regard pass for ‘authentic’ Tajik civilisation and good breeding in Afghanistan, with connections evaluate the broader region, most patty the northern Central Asian environs (particularly Tajikistan).

However, they hurtle also fairly secular and free when it comes to vaccination of religiosity. This enables them to also relate to what they call shaikhha-ye roshanfekr (intellectual clerics), both Sunni and Shia. Much clerics, for example, have resisted calls by their more obdurate colleagues for banning what they consider un-Islamic cultural practices, specified as Nawruz festivities (on say publicly religious versus secular controversy adjoining Nawruz, read a previous AAN dispatch here).

The almost exclusively Asian intellectual circle membership includes tally like Fayyaz Mehra’in, the belief of the office of blue blood the gentry provincial governor; Saleh Mohammad Khaliq, the head of the zonal department of information and culture; Ustad Farzad, the head get on to the state printing press endure others who are government staff in the area of intelligence and culture, along with historians, writers and poets.

(9) They have been meeting on enjoin off for discussions and readings in the public library cranium the privately-run Aria University, which teaches social sciences to grade from Mazar-e Sharif and away from home and also hires teachers suffer the loss of Iran and Tajikistan for that purpose.

Several members of the downsize circle are regarded as personalities in their own right catch higher education in history, data and arts and with publications in these fields.

Unlike alternative local, informal and unstructured literate associations that are barely become aware of and face numerous hardships be selected for make ends meet, this disc is better connected, politically increase in intensity economically. Both Tajik and Turkic intellectuals largely meet with their co-ethnic political elites, on ethno-nationalist topics.

The intellectuals are minor on the support of greatness political elites to survive socio-economically (ie, they mostly depend gusto the elites for government jobs) and, in return, the elites get a literary outpouring dependably their favour.

Elites and their co-ethnic intellectuals have also had comprise impact on how Mazar defamation itself.

Most streets and squares have been re-named, since 2001, largely after persons who blow away regarded as ethnic Tajiks. Remorseless have been re-named after returns of other ethnic origins, on the whole to avoid potential criticism view resistance, as some of grandeur intellectuals told AAN. Drivers, freight and people seeking and donation directions and particularly newcomers catch unawares still confused over the sucker and new names of streets and intersections.

(The same whim, by the way, has in the event to people in almost drop Central Asian capitals to leadership north of Amu Darya neighbourhood people continue to use magnanimity old Soviet, instead of goodness new post-independence, names.)

The old defamation largely stood for elders who had contributed to the manner of the respective city faculties in the first place.

Nobleness re-naming process has been high-sounding by financial and political considerations. Governor Atta has himself finished several business companies pay verify the reconstruction of city intersections, re-naming them after these companies in exchange. Some examples control the Alokozai Intersection that was previously known as Seddiqyar Junction (built by Alokozai group be snapped up companies, most famous for spoil tea) and Moheb Intersection in advance known as Hajji Mohammad Ayub Intersection (the Moheb company evaluation involved in various businesses newcomer disabuse of making water tanks to leadership import and export of zit, metal and cement from countryside to neighbouring countries including Primary Asia) and new intersections specified as the Kamgar Intersection (named after the Kamgar group rigidity companies founded by the remarkable Afghan businessman Zmarai Kamgar, which, among other businesses, owns loftiness airline Kam Air).

Some city streets, however, have been re-named rearguard contemporary and historical Afghan leading, such as Shahid Mazari Path (named after Hazara mujahedin director Abdul Ali Mazari, who was killed by the Taleban) which actually lies in a Tajik-inhabited area or Abdul Rahman Caravansary Street in an Hazara-inhabited square footage (named after Afghan King Abdul Rahman Khan – not untangle sensitively so, as Abdul Rahman, the ‘Iron Amir’, carried organize a brutal campaign to subject the previously quasi-independent Hazarajat).

Legion other streets have been re-named after the ‘sages of Balkh’ who appear on Atta’s monument.

Some local people have staged protests over this top-down re-naming effort, about which they were cry consulted, but so far display vain. In the clash mid the intellectual circle and elites and the ordinary people, leadership former have come out type winners, at least for decency time being.

Many ordinary subject do not care, though, leading continue to use the corroboration names, although some fear prowl the old names might step by step disappear from memory. (10)

Using class love for poetry

Balkh’s provincial elites, headed by Governor Atta, hold also spent a part make public their accumulated wealth on significance direction intellectuals and their literary writings actions.

Atta and his men possess been funding associations of writers, poets and other artists. Glory governor in particular has compensated for the printing of books on the history of Balkh, including its journalism, its facts, etc, implicitly glorifying the manner of the province and honourableness literary accomplishments of its in the springtime of li and rising poets.

(11) That has been positive in fine country where most people adore and recite poetry and haunt young people write poetry. (12) Most of these books transport a specific page acknowledging nobleness support provided by the controller. In a symbolic act, Atta invited a group of these poets and intellectuals to unadulterated shab-e she’r (poetry night) celebration for his guests, including brutal ministers from Kabul.

This piecemeal to look not so unnecessary like a purely literary mild, but the behaviour of orderly burgeoning court.

As far as birth poetry is concerned, there update only rare examples of honourable performed panegyrics for the elites, including Atta, in the replica of traditional court poetry. Description poetry is instead largely focused on entertainment, rather than commendation due to patronage.

Most ticking off the young Mazari poets (and potentially poets elsewhere in greatness country) are concerned with passion and other emotional states, monkey reflected in the traditional styles of poetry they use, plus ghazal, du-beyti, ruba’i, nima’i cope with safid/sapid. These poetry forms arrange more with the sentimental prevail over the spiritual.

Culture, politics, power, future

Strengthened by their consolidated political abstruse economic power, Balkh’s provincial elites have started employing cultural pathway to demonstrate their wealth bear strength and attempt to eternalize their power by celebrating description great historical figures they confederate themselves with.

Their attempts conspiracy so far taken at littlest three forms: establishing new memorials and carving their images and/or names on them; re-naming roadstead and squares in Mazar-e Sharif after personalities they prefer cheat history; and patronising a go through the roof of intellectuals and their productivity. This recent trend to modify culture or ‘culturalise’ politics de facto continues a tradition of Balkh – an area with far-out long and eventful history beam rich tradition of interwoven machination and culture.

Curiously, Atta did whimper seek to remove Dostum’s plaque when the balance of procession has clearly tilted in ruler favour.

Atta’s memorial might further stay even if he cascade out of grace due outdo the vagaries of time. That is due to the disaster of completely removing any cabal from the Afghan political bowl because of politics being qawm-based (based on the solidarity stop working a certain group) or ethnically-oriented. This allows every faction tolerate retain some power, even assuming in a minority, at depth for some time.

It remains also because culture is cool sphere where a subtler endure more durable rivalry can guide out between competing political reinforcement. Whether or not the memorials and the names of their sponsors, the re-named streets extract intersections and the literary spate in favour of the elites will remain in the thirster run is, however, an initiate question, particularly in Balkh, loftiness ‘mother of cities’, which has witnessed the rise, fall highest oblivion of far greater living soul beings, time and time again.

* Said Reza Kazemi carried earth field research in Mazar-e Sharif in mid-2013 and March/April 2014 as part of his PhD (2013-2016) at the University doomed Heidelberg’s Cluster ‘Asia and Aggregation in a Global Context’.

Sharp-tasting focusses on the impact an assortment of global migration on the Cloak family in local and transnational contexts. This is part of practised larger study at the academy on the demographic turn fragment the junction of cultures. Unwind has previously worked as on the rocks researcher for the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN).

 

(1) This is doubtful, however.

Majority opinion believes Calif was buried in Najaf, Irak, which is a major expedition site for all Shia Muslims. A dazzling shrine has antiquated built at the site promote to the burial there (see primacy shrine’s official website here). Mazar-e Sharif, though, also receives diverse pilgrims, not only from Afghanistan.

(2) Although Naser Khosraw is as a rule more closely associated with Badakhshan in popular perception (and that makes sense in terms unconscious his lasting influence there) spin his tomb is also befall and widely called La’l-e Badakhshan (Ruby of Badakhshan) (read here), he was in fact innate in Qubadiyan, a town 'tween Merv (in today’s Turkmenistan) challenging Balkh – although there psychiatry sometimes confusion whether it was located on the northern one southern bank of the Oxus river.

Under the Saljuqs, well-heeled was in Balkh, administratively. Particular further reading on Naser Khosraw in English, see Alice Byword. Hunsberger (2003) Nasir Khusraw, primacy Ruby of Badakhshan: A Likeness of the Persian Poet, Gypsy and Philosopher, Vol. 4 lay into Ismaili Heritage, IB Tauris: London.

(3) For further reading in Impartially, see, for instance, Coleman Barks (2010) The Essential Rumi, Instrumentalist Collins: London.

(4) For his wife’s account of who Ahmad Lordly Massud was, see  Sediqa Massoud (2005) Pour l’amour de Massoud, la Grand livre du mois.

This book has been translated into Farsi: Afsar Afshari (1388 [2009/10]), Ahmad Shah Massud: Revayat-e Sediqa Massud (Ahmad Shah Massud: The Narration of Sediqa Massud), Nashr-e Markaz: Tehran.

(5) Adeeb Khalid (2003) “A Secular Islam: Technique, State, and Religion in Uzbekistan”, International Journal of Middle Accustom Studies, Vol.

35, No. 4, pp. 573-598 (p. 579).

Post-Soviet Tadjik has settled on Ismail Samani (or Ismoil Somoni, in integrity Tajik version of spelling), who ruled over Transoxiana and Khorasan, including Balkh, from 893 soft-soap 907 and had denounced Faith in favour of Islam. Samani also appears in Atta’s commemoration.

On post-Soviet Tajikistan’s nationalising scheme, see, for instance, Helge Blakkisrud and Shahnoza Nozimova (2010) “History writing and nation building urgency post-independence Tajikistan,” Nationalities Papers: High-mindedness Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, pp. 173-189.

(6) The figures embrace from left to right (descriptions summarised in brief from representation monument; author’s additions within brackets):

• Yama: an ancient king of Balkh
• Andani Balkhi: a woman regarded thanks to an ancient poet of Balkh
• Keiqobad: an ancient king of Balkh
• Zoroaster/Zarathustra: founder of Zoroastrianism
• Pruchita-ye Balkhi: orderly daughter of Zoroaster/Zarathustra who was a scholar and poet
• Kanishka: illustriousness great Kushani king
• Abu Muslim: interpretation great leader and ruler have a high opinion of Khorasan
• Khaled Barmaki: a wise vizier/wazir during the Barmaki rule party Balkh
• Ismail Samani (Ismoil Somoni greet Tajik; he is the ‘state saint’ of post-Soviet Tajikistan): influence great ruler of Samanid Balkh
• Shaqiq Balkhi: a classic mystic have a word with poet of Balkh
• Fatema Balkhi: deft woman philanthropist who spent worldweariness wealth on helping the damaging and the destitute
• Abu Ma’shar Balkhi: a scholar and astrologer
• Shahid Balkhi: a sage, scholar and Iranian poet
• Abu Shakur Balkhi: a eminent poet of Samanid Balkh
• Rabe’a Balkhi: one of the first troop to compose poetry in Iranian literature
• Daqiqi Balkhi: a great versemaker of Samanid Balkh
• Ibn-e Sina-ye Balkhi: a philosopher, physician, writer, lyrist and sage [known as Dr.

  in the West]

• Onsori-ye Balkhi: precise great Dari poet of grandeur Ghaznavid period
• Hakim Naser Khosraw Balkhi, a famous traveller and writer
• Watwat-e Balkhi: an intellectual and poet
• Mawlana Jalaluddin Balkhi: the world’s extreme mystic, scholar and poet [known as Rumi in the West]
• Amir Khosraw-e Balkhi: a famous Iranian poet [at the court selected the Sultans of Delhi]
• Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa: a great occult and poet
• Amirulkalam Ali Shir Nawa’i: a famous administrator, patron slap literature and art, discoverer courier developer of Hazrat Ali’s enshrine in Mazar-e Sharif
• Sayyed Jamaluddin Afghan: a well-known Islamic scholar faux the East
• Allama Sayyed Ismail Balkhi: a Shia poet and governmental campaigner in [post-World War II] Afghanistan

(7) The Atta-Dostum relationship psychiatry best characterised by its collected nature: from comrades – Atta was Dostum’s deputy in 1992 – to enemies, to anxious allies against the Taleban, think a lot of largely political rivals after 2001.

(8) On the history of Balkh, see, for example, Elhameh Meftah (1386 [2007]) Joqrafia-ye Tarikhi-ye Balkh (The Historical Geography of Balkh), Tehran: Institute for Humanities current Cultural Studies (especially pp.

13-25); and Jonathan L. Lee (1996) The “Ancient Supremacy”: Bukhara, Afghanistan become calm the Battle for Balkh, 1731-1901, New York: E. J. Boffo (especially pp. 1-61).

(9) Source: author’s interviews with intellectuals and command employees who requested not support be named, Mazar-e Sharif, March/April 2014.

(10) In Italy, for comments, after renaming, both the a choice of and the new names frequently feature on the street plaques.

(11) Some examples are: Roshan Roshna (1391 [2012/13]) Balkh wa Nawruz (Balkh and Nawruz), Suratgar Impression Press: Mazar- Sharif; Habibullah Behmanesh (1392 [2013/14]), Nawruznama-ye Balkh: Gozida-ye She’r (A Nawruz Letter racket Balkh: An Anthology of Poerty), Paimana Paiman: Balkh; Saleh Mohammad Khaliq (1387 [2008]), Tarikh-e Adabiat-e Balkh (The History of Balkh Literature), Afghan Professional Printing Press: Kabul; Saleh Mohammad Khaliq (1389 [2011]) Tarikh-e Ruznamanegari-ye Balkh (The History of Balkh Journalism), Harvester of Balkh Writers: Tehran.

(12) Solitary young poet told this columnist how important this patronage has been for him to establish as a poet.

Revisions:

This unit composition was last updated on 9 Mar 2020

Tags:

BalkhCultureintellectualsMazar-e-SharifPoetrypolitical power