Maiwand is remembered in Afghanistan largely through the figures of Ayub Khan and Malalai. Malalai’s story has been widely presented in Afghan educational books as a symbol of courage and resistance [1]. But behind these symbolic names stood an army that was not made up of a single ethnic group. Regular forces from Herat and Kabul, ghazis, and various local forces took part in the battle. Sources also mention Jamshidi and Kohistani cavalry among Ayub Khan’s forces [4]. Mohammad Omarjan Herati was another prominent figure whose role in mobilizing ghazis against the British at Maiwand was documented in records from the period and later sources [2][3].
This is just one example of a reality that has often been overlooked in dynastic accounts of Afghan history: the names of kings and commanders are prominently recorded in history, while the people who fought and shed blood to build, defend, and preserve those states have often been pushed to the margins.
The question of this article is simple: If the crown and monarchy were largely held by Pashtun dynasties, was the force that built, preserved, and defended these states also exclusively Pashtun? Historical records do not support such a picture.
This reality can be seen as far back as the time of Ahmad Shah Durrani. The senior command of the newly established state was largely in the hands of the Sadozais and other Durrani leaders, but the army was not made up solely of Pashtuns. His professional and military forces included Durranis as well as Qizilbash, Tajiks, Hazaras, Firozkohis, Jamshidis, Taimanis, and other groups. The Qizilbash and non-Durrani forces, in particular, held an important position in the professional corps known as the “Ghulam Khana” [5].
Therefore, the army that made some of Ahmad Shah’s conquests in India possible was far more ethnically diverse than the dynastic name of the state suggests. The crown belonged to one dynasty, but the cost of war, the bloodshed, and the construction of the empire were not borne by that dynasty or a single ethnic group alone. The main privileges of power, however, remained in the hands of the same dynasty.
Similarly, during the First Anglo-Afghan War, the names of Dost Mohammad Khan and Wazir Akbar Khan are repeated more frequently than those of many others. But Kohistan and Koh Daman were among the most important centers of resistance against the British-backed regime.
Mir Masjidi Khan, Ali Khan Tutumdara, Sultan Mohammad Khan Najrab, and other regional leaders played important roles in the resistance. Mir Masjidi and the Kohistani forces fought alongside Dost Mohammad Khan in the battles of this period. Even after Dost Mohammad Khan surrendered to the British for political interests and was sent to India, resistance in these areas continued [5][6]. In reality, these people were not necessarily fighting to preserve an emir’s power. For many of them, the issue was defending their land and homeland.
The same pattern was repeated during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Around Kabul, Mir Bacha Khan Kohdamani and Mohammad Jan Khan Wardak, the former from Koh Daman and the latter a Pashtun from Wardak, stood on the same front against the British [7]. At Maiwand, too, Ayub Khan’s army consisted of regular forces, ghazis, and local forces from various regions [4].
Omarjan Sahibzada played an important role in mobilizing the ghazis at Maiwand. His role is recorded not only in later accounts but also in the description of the historical photograph of Ayub Khan’s delegation [2][3]. His fate later became part of the very contradiction at the center of this article.
After Maiwand, Abdul Rahman needed forces from various regions to defeat Ayub Khan and consolidate central power. During the capture of Herat in 1881, a force of about 20,000 Taimanis, Firozkohis, and Hazaras from Lal and Sar-e Jangal, under the command of Abdul Quddus and Anbia Khan Taimani, played a role in the fall of Herat in Abdul Rahman’s favor [8].
The central government’s response to this support was not long in coming. In 1885, Abdul Rahman ordered the destruction of a large part of Herat’s historic Musalla, a complex that included the Gawhar Shad Mosque and madrasa as well as other scholarly and religious institutions. The Gawhar Shad Madrasa had been established for teaching, scholarly debate, and religious education, and research shows that the Timurid madrasas of Herat operated in an environment where Hanafi jurisprudence was an important part of the educational curriculum [9][10].
Two years later, in 1887, Mohammad Omarjan and one of his sons were sent to Kabul and killed. Some later sources identify the son as Abdul Baqi. The execution of Omarjan in Herat and Kandahar caused considerable discontent, and some members of his family were exiled [3].
Thus, a government that had benefited from the people of Herat’s military support in war and in consolidating power left them with a significant legacy: the loss of one of the prominent figures of the resistance and the destruction of part of one of the city’s most important scholarly and religious heritages.
Abdul Rahman’s policies were not limited to Herat. He brought various centers of independent power under the authority of Kabul in order to establish centralized power. In Badakhshan, Mir Baba Khan was imprisoned and the traditional authority of local mirs was restricted [11]. In the north, the uprising of Mohammad Ishaq Khan in 1888 was defeated, while repression, imprisonment, exile, and confiscation of opponents’ property expanded. In Hazarajat, the wars of the 1890s were accompanied by killings, captivity, forced displacement, and land confiscation [12][13].
The contradiction is that groups could fight for the state at one point and become targets of that same state at another. This is a pattern that has appeared repeatedly in Afghanistan’s history in different forms and circumstances.
In 1929, following the fall of Amanullah Khan and the short-lived rule of Habibullah Kalakani, Mohammad Nadir Khan reached Kabul with the support of tribal forces from Waziristan and border areas. After Kalakani retreated to Koh Daman, he surrendered in exchange for a promise of amnesty. However, that promise was not honored, and he was executed on November 1, 1929, along with about 10 of the main figures in his government [14].
The resistance in Koh Daman was violently suppressed in 1930, while the last centers of the Saqqawist resistance in Herat were eliminated in 1931. The Encyclopaedia Iranica also refers to Nadir Shah’s policy of “eliminating opponents” [14][15]. Here again, the same contradiction can be seen in the structure of statecraft: a mindset that often views political opposition and local autonomy as threats to the survival of the center.
More than two centuries of Afghan history cannot be reduced to a single pattern. Ahmad Shah, Abdul Rahman, Nadir Shah, the republic, and the Taliban have not been identical systems, and their motivations were also different. But one pattern has repeatedly emerged: during times of war, the state needs the strength of everyone, but after victory, the circle of power becomes smaller than the circle of those who fought for it.
The same logic of “recruitment, use, and then exclusion” was also repeatedly seen during the republic. Under the current Taliban, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and other ethnic groups are also present, but a 2025 report by the United Nations Security Council monitoring team noted the increasing dominance of Pashtuns within the Taliban structure at the expense of Tajik and Uzbek commanders, as well as tensions resulting from ethnic divisions within the group [16].
If Afghanistan’s history is read only through a list of kings, the resulting picture is highly incomplete. Ahmad Shah Sadozai was Pashtun, but his army was not made up only of Sadozais or Pashtuns. Dost Mohammad was a Barakzai emir, but the forces of Kohistan continued to resist the British even after his surrender. Ayub Khan was a Durrani commander, but at Maiwand, forces from Herat, ghazis, and various local groups fought against the British. Abdul Rahman also consolidated his power with the help of a diverse society and later suppressed parts of that same society.
Therefore, perhaps the right question is not: Which ethnic group built Afghanistan? The more important question is: Why has a state that has repeatedly been preserved through the blood, taxes, and strength of all its people failed, at different points in history, to distribute political power and ownership of that state equally among those same people?
Another question this history raises is: Why have the people and different ethnic groups repeatedly tied their fate to powers that, after victory, failed to honor their promises and did not recognize the contributions of those who fought for them?
Perhaps this is where Afghanistan’s historical problem lies. Governments have repeatedly asked people to be a “nation” during times of war, but after victory, have once again divided them by ethnicity, region, tribe, sect, supporter, and opponent.
If the cost of defending Afghanistan has been shared, then ownership of its state, history, and pride should also be shared.
A state that needs everyone’s strength for war and survival but keeps power in the hands of a limited group after victory will sooner or later reproduce the same divisions that generations before it paid a price to overcome. The question this time is whether Afghanistan’s ethnic groups will once again repeat the same historical mistake, or learn from the past and take steps toward building a new, fair, citizen-centered, and participatory structure.
Sources
[1] Shabana Shamaas Gul Khattak & Hussain Akhtar, “Gender Mainstreaming in Textbooks Discourse via the Metaphorical Account of Malalai of Maiwand, Afghanistan,” in Globalisation and Historiography of National Leaders, 2017.
For the representation of Malalai in Afghan textbooks.
[2] Benjamin Simpson, Ayub Khan’s Ambassadors, 1880–81, Getty Research Institute; and National Army Museum, London, NAM.1951-01-43-20.
For the photograph of Ayub Khan’s delegation and documentation of Omarjan’s role in mobilizing the ghazis at Maiwand.
[3] Ludwig W. Adamec, Historical and Political Who’s Who of Afghanistan, Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, 1975.
For the life of Omarjan Sahibzada, his mission for Ayub Khan, the role of his family at Maiwand, and his killing, along with one of his sons, in 1887.
[4] M. Hassan Kakar, A Political and Diplomatic History of Afghanistan, 1863–1901, Brill, 2006.
For the composition of Ayub Khan’s army at Maiwand, the number of regular forces and ghazis, and the political and military structure of Herat.
[5] Christine Noelle(-Karimi), State and Tribe in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826–1863), Curzon Press, 1997.
For the multiethnic composition of the Durrani state’s professional forces and the role of Qizilbash, Tajiks, Hazaras, Firozkohis, Jamshidis, and Taimanis; as well as developments in Kohistan and the First Anglo-Afghan War.
[6] William Dalrymple, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839–42, Bloomsbury, 2013; and Jonathan L. Lee, Afghanistan: A History from 1260 to the Present.
For the Battle of Parwan, the resistance in Kohistan, and Dost Mohammad Khan’s surrender.
[7] Robert Johnson, The Afghan Way of War: How and Why They Fight, Oxford University Press, 2011.
For the roles of Mir Bacha Khan Kohdamani and Mohammad Jan Khan Wardak in the resistance during the Second Anglo-Afghan War.
[8] M. Hassan Kakar, The Consolidation of the Central Authority in Afghanistan under Amir Abd al-Rahman Khan, 1880–1896, M.Phil. thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1968.
For the force of approximately 20,000 Taimanis, Firozkohis, and Hazaras from Lal and Sar-e Jangal involved in the capture of Herat in 1881.
[9] Bernard O’Kane, architectural research on Masjid-i Jami and Madrasa of Gawhar Shad, Herat; as well as architectural studies of the Musalla complex.
For the existence of the madrasa, mosque, and educational structure of the complex, as well as its destruction in 1885.
[10] Nile Green, Afghanistan’s Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban, University of California Press; citing research by Maria Subtelny and Anas Khalidov on higher education in Timurid Herat.
For the existence of a “Hanafi-centered curriculum” in the madrasas of Timurid-era Herat.
[11] Historical research on Badakhshan and Abdul Rahman’s policy of centralizing power.
For the imprisonment of Mir Baba Khan and the restriction of the authority of local mirs.
[12] Hasan Kawun Kakar, Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, University of Texas Press, 1979.
For the suppression of opponents, imprisonment, executions, exile, and Abdul Rahman’s policy of centralizing power.
[13] Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Hazāra i. Historical Geography of Hazārajāt” and “Hazāra ii. History.”
For the wars in Hazarajat, killings, forced displacement, captivity, and land confiscations during Abdul Rahman’s reign.
[14] Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Bačča-ye Saqqā.”
For the promise of amnesty to Habibullah Kalakani, his surrender, his execution on November 1, 1929, and the severe suppression of Koh Daman in 1930.
[15] May Schinasi, “Moḥammad Nāder Shah,” Encyclopaedia Iranica.
For Nadir Shah’s rise to power, the suppression of resistance in Koh Daman in 1930 and Herat in 1931, and his policy of eliminating opponents.
[16] United Nations Security Council, Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, Sixteenth Report concerning the Taliban, S/2025/796, December 8, 2025.
For ethnic divisions within the Taliban structure and the increasing dominance of Pashtuns at the expense of Tajik and Uzbek commanders.
