6 Islam, Shari‘a, and State Building under ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan

Abstract

In July 1880, ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan (r. 1880–1901) became the new amir of Afghanistan thanks to his own resourcefulness, some measure of luck, and the assistance of both the Russian and the British empires. His life experience had prepared him for the “Great Game” that he was entering, and the new amir seems to have fully understood the position of the political entity he was ruling over. ‘Abd al-Rahman’s Afghanistan was to serve as a buffer, or in the amir’s own terminology, “a curtain,” between the Asiatic colonies of Britain and Russia.1 As an active player in the AngloRussian “Great Game” that was being played out in South and Central Asia, the amir had chosen to side with Britain. As he wrote in 1885, it would have been “impossible for the people of Afghanistan to become friendly with the Russian state, because that latter is not abandoning its designs on India, for which it must step on this [Afghan] people.”2 With his foreign policy in the hands of British control and guarantees to protect Afghanistan from any foreign aggression, ‘Abd al-Rahman channeled his energies into extending his authority over hitherto-independent or semiautonomous regions of the country. In the words of Barnett Rubin, under ‘Abd al-Rahman, “Afghanistan became a buffer state, in which an indigenous ruler began to build an internally autonomous state with only external colonial support.”3