µþ´¡ÄŒÄŒ´¡-YE ³§´¡²Ï²ÏÄ€ (popularly BaÄe SaqqÄw), “the water-carrier’s child,” the derogatory name given to the leader of a peasants’ revolt which succeeded in placing him on the throne of Afghanistan in 1307 Š./1929. He reigned for nine months with the title AmÄ«r ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh Khan ḴÄdem-e DÄ«n-e RasÅ«l AllÄh.
ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh was his real name. He was born about 1307/1870 into a poor family settled at KalakÄn, a large Tajik village in the KÅhdÄman district some 30 km north of Kabul. His father had once been a water-carrier (²õ²¹±ç±çÄå) in the Afghan army. The son also enlisted, and in 1298 Š./1919 he fought in the third Anglo-Afghan war, serving in one of the best regiments and earning distinction for bravery and marksmanship. In 1303 Š./1924, however, he deserted, being unwilling to take part in the campaign against the Mangal tribe, whose antipathy to the regime of King AmÄn-AllÄh he shared. After living for a few years as a fugitive in the tribal areas of northwestern India, he reappeared in his native district in the role of a traditional Iranian Ê¿²¹²â²âÄå°ù (chivalrous bandit), attacking official convoys, holding rich travelers to ransom, and distributing part of his booty among the peasants. The insecurity which he caused throughout the strategic Samt-e ŠamÄlÄ« region at the head of his fellow outlaws was so troublesome that King AmÄn-AllÄh several times sent troops on unsuccessful missions to capture him. Their reverses enhanced BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ’s popularity and brought more recruits to his cause, which, moreover, received active support from local NaqšbandÄ« ³¾´Ç±ô±ôÄås and Ê¿´Ç±ô²¹³¾Äåʾ, who were now calling in their sermons for disobedience to the central government, which in their eyes had become impious and therefore illegitimate.
The revolt of the ŠÄ«nwÄrÄ« tribe in the NangrahÄr district in Ê¿Aqrab, 1307 Š./November, 1928, posed a grave threat to the regime. Out of concern for the few troops left behind in Kabul, King AmÄn-AllÄh offered an amnesty to BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ. The latter sent a pretended acceptance, but then took the chance to seize the fortress of Jabal al-SerÄj on 19 Qaws/10 December. From this stronghold he immediately launched an offensive against Kabul, but failed to advance much further than the hill of BÄḡ-e BÄlÄ, northwest of the capital, before being forced at the end of ten days of confused fighting to retreat toward PaḡmÄn and the KÅhdÄman in order to regroup his forces. He resumed the offensive on 23 JadÄ« 1307 Š./13 January 1929 and this time his men, said to have been 15,000 strong, easily outflanked the few thousand royal troops left in Kabul. In desperation AmÄn-AllÄh abdicated on the following day in favor of his elder half-brother Ê¿EnÄyat-AllÄh and fled from the capital by car, taking the main road to the south. His action shattered the morale of his remaining supporters. When the fallen king reached QandahÄr, the water-carrier’s son was in control of the capital except the Arg (citadel), which held out for a few more hours while the leading NaqšbandÄ« ³¾´Ç±ô±ôÄås negotiated Ê¿EnÄyat-AllÄh’s abdication. They then crowned BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ amir of Afghanistan on 27 JadÄ« 1307 Š./17 January 1929.
The resumption of this old title, which AmÄn-AllÄh had replaced with shah, epitomized the program of the new ruler of Kabul and the conservative forces which he represented. National traditions were to be reestablished through abolition of AmÄn-AllÄh’s modernizing reforms in the political, fiscal, judicial, and, above all, socio-cultural fields. Steps were to be taken for a return to the &³§³¦²¹°ù´Ç²Ô;²¹°ùÄ«Ê¿²¹ and for immediate closure of state schools, removal of dress constraints, and reinstatement of the lunar calendar. (In point of fact, all coins minted for Amir ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh bear the lunar year-date.)
At Kabul the change of régime proceeded rather smoothly. A considerable number of men of the political class, and even of the royal family, rallied to the new ruler through genuine sympathy or mere opportunism. ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh himself, in an evident quest for legitimacy, contrived to get a place in the royal clan by taking a second wife from the collateral EÊ¿temÄdÄ« line. His staunchest supporters, however, were always the ³¾´Ç±ô±ôÄås, especially those in the NaqšbandÄ« order to which he himself apparently belonged, and the Tajiks of the Samt-e ŠamÄlÄ«. After ten years of erratic effort to secularize Afghan society, the ³¾´Ç±ô±ôÄås got their revenge by recovering their influence and privileges. After two centuries of PaṧtÅ«n ascendancy, the Tajiks turned the scales by looting the homes of MoḥammadzÄ« princes in Kabul and obtaining all the ministerial posts. None of the foreign powers, however, gave the new régime de jure recognition, and most of them evacuated their nationals from Kabul as soon as they could arrange airlifts to Peshawar and Termez.
In Afghan historiography, the rise of ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh, the water-carrier’s son, is called the SaqqÄwÄ« movement or SaqqÄwÄ«ya. Despite the narrowness of its power-base, his government was able to bring the greater part of Afghanistan under control within a few months. No serious opposition was encountered in the west, where Herat surrendered on 14 á¹®awr/4 May, or in the north, where the AymÄq, Uzbek, and Tajik ethnic groups supported him. In other regions events took different turns. The HazÄra people of the center of the country remained loyal to AmÄn-AllÄh out of gratitude for his abolition of slavery and tolerant attitude to ShiÊ¿ism; the amir ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh did not succeed in subduing them, but eventually got them to sign a cease-fire whereby they were to stop their harassment of his troops. As for the PaṧtÅ«ns of the south and east, although most of them undoubtedly disliked AmÄn-AllÄh, they resented the enthronement of a non-PaṧtÅ«n even more deeply. Several ill-prepared risings of PaṧtÅ«n dissidents took place and successively collapsed, more because of internal dissensions and tribal rivalries than because of any military superiority of the SaqqÄwÄ« troops. The old enmity between the DorrÄnÄ« and ḠelzÄ« tribal confederations had been effectively rekindled by NaqšbandÄ« preachers who had acquired great influence among the latter, and the resultant split was the direct cause of the failure of AmÄn-AllÄh’s attempt to reconquer the throne in the spring of 1929, after which he finally left the scene for exile abroad. With this event a spell of good fortune for ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh set in. No longer having to face any serious adversary, he was able to establish his authority in almost all the PaṧtÅ«n country, taking QandahÄr on 10 JawzÄ/31 May, and GardÄ“z on 5 Saraá¹Än/26 June.
The only irreducible stronghold of resistance was the Afghan part of the SolaymÄn mountains, where the tribes traditionally lived beyond the reach of the central government, whatever its complexion. It was in the area of one of them, the JÄjÄ« tribe, that NÄder Khan and his brothers of the YaḥyÄ á¸´Ä“l, a branch of the royal clan very distantly related to AmÄn-AllÄh, established their base after returning hurriedly from exile in France. Spurning approaches from both ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh and AmÄn-AllÄh, they proceeded to organize anti-SaqqÄwÄ« operations for their own account. Their first thrusts toward Kabul in April and June failed.
Before long, however, the SaqqÄwÄ« government’s position began to crumble as a result of lack of money, resentment of high tax demands by newly appointed provincial governors, and defections of influential Ê¿´Ç±ô²¹³¾Äåʾ such as Fażl Ê¿Omar MojaddedÄ«, who swung the ḠelzÄ« tribes to NÄder’s side. Further disorders in PaṧtÅ«n districts began at the end of the summer, and troops of the Kabul garrison had to be sent away to deal with them. Seeing the time ripe for another attempt on the capital, NÄder moved quickly. A three-week campaign ended with the capture of the Arg of Kabul by his younger brother and principal lieutenant, ŠÄh WalÄ« Khan, on 21 MÄ«zÄn/13 October. Two days later NÄder entered the capital, and on 24 MÄ«zÄn/16 October he was proclaimed king by acclamation of his troops, whom he then let loose to pillage the city for three days. ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh, now again only BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ, had fled to the KÅhdÄman, his main stronghold, but on 30 MÄ«zÄn/22 October he surrendered against the promise of an amnesty. The promise was not kept; he and some ten leading figures in his government were executed at Kabul on 10 Ê¿Aqrab 1308 Š./1 November 1929.
The death of BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ did not mark the end of the SaqqÄwÄ«ya. The KÅhdÄman again erupted in 1309 Š./1930 and was very harshly subdued by means of bombardments, the burning down of the bazaar of SarÄ-ye ḴᵛÄja, summary executions, and seizures of cattle and women by bands of AḥmadzÄ«, Mangal, and JÄjÄ« tribesmen who were sent into the district. The repression was accompanied by systematic planting of PaṧtÅ«n settlers to counteract the local particularism. Such steps, however, could not eradicate memories of BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ. Glorified as the “Lion of the mountains” (ŠÄ“r-e KÅhsÄr), he still remains alive in the folklore of the KÅhdÄman. Men directly descended from SaqqÄwÄ« supporters are known to be active as local cadres of anti-communist movements in the 1980s.
Afghan official historiography has always portrayed the period of SaqqÄwÄ« rule as a deplorable and rather ridiculous interlude, an accident of history due to a temporary upsurge of obscurantist and reactionary forces. It is indeed true that BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ and most of his ministers were illiterate. This portrait, however, is oversimplified. The SaqqÄwÄ«ya was a genuinely popular movement of opposition to the central power and not so narrowly confined to the Tajik ethnic group as is often said, because several notables of the KÅhdÄman, who were of PaṧtÅ«n descent but had become Persian-speaking, threw their weight behind it. On the other hand it was manipulated by ³¾´Ç±ô±ôÄås to such an extent that it cannot be said to have been wholly spontaneous. Many commentators, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, hold that British secret agencies played a part in the destabilization and fall of AmÄn-AllÄh’s régime. Soviet historiography, in particular, asserts this thesis. While it can not be dismissed out of hand, the fact remains that no evidence to support it can be found in the copious British Indian archives pertaining to this period. There can be no doubt, however, that behind the stance of official neutrality which the British maintained throughout the crisis of 1929 lay an unwillingness to help AmÄn-AllÄh to reconquer his throne and a benevolence toward the moves of NÄder Khan. While the Soviet authorities favored AmÄn-AllÄh (though reluctantly) and aided a foray on his behalf by ḠolÄm NabÄ« ÄŒarḵī in the Balḵ region, the British authorities allowed NÄder Khan to reenter Afghanistan through India and to obtain a decisive addition of strength through his recruitment of thousands of armed WazÄ«r and MasÊ¿Å«d frontier tribesmen. Also helpful was their decision to lift a restriction order, imposing residence at a fixed address in India, on Fażl Ê¿Omar MojaddedÄ«, who was to play an apparently decisive role in persuading the NaqšbandÄ« ³¾´Ç±ô±ôÄås of Afghanistan to change sides and later was to become NÄder Shah’s first minister of justice. In short, while all the evidence indicates that BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ’s rise was due solely to the internal disintegration of King AmÄn-AllÄh’s régime, there can be no doubt that British policy, tacit rather than explicit, helped to bring about BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ’s fall. The sudden entry of such a character onto the stage was bound to cause internal instability in Afghanistan, and the British policymakers could not tolerate a long continuance of the threat which this would pose to the delicate geopolitical equilibrium of that part of Asia.
Bibliography:
Sources for study of the SayqÄwÄ«ya are plentiful but not fully informative on all the episodes. BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ’s autobiography, available only in an English translation, My Life: From Brigand to King. Autobiography of Amir Habibullah, London, n.d. (1936), is in all probability apocryphal and certainly not objective. Reminiscences of several other participants have been published. The well-known poet Ḵ. ḴalÄ«lÄ« (b. ca. 1906), who bore a personal grudge against AmÄn-AllÄh and was treasurer (³¾´Ç²õ³Ù²¹·É´ÚÄ«) of Turkestan under BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ, seeks to rehabilitate the SaqqÄwÄ«ya in his recently published book Ê¿AyyÄrÄ« az ḴorÄsÄn: AmÄ«r ḤabÄ«b-AllÄh ḴÄdem-e DÄ«n-e RasÅ«l AllÄh, Peshawar, n.d. (1980). The views of the other side are expounded in the memoirs of ŠÄh WalÄ« Khan, YÄddašthÄ-ye man, Kabul, 5th ed., 1344 Š./1965 (Russian tr., Moscow, 1960; Eng. tr., My Memoirs, Kabul, 1970), an apologia for the struggles against the “forces of ignorance and tyranny” with details of NÄder Khan’s steps to form the tribal coalition which was to carry him to power. The same tone pervades two very detailed chronicles, one by MoḥyÄ«-al-DÄ«n (AnÄ«s), who recounts the events in strictly chronological order (BorhÄn wa NejÄt, Kabul, n.d., perhaps 1931), the other by B. KoškakÄ«, who writes in a more convoluted way (NÄder-e AfḡÄn, Kabul, 1310 Š./1931).
Diplomatic dispatches, sent in large numbers from the foreign legations at Kabul before the evacuation of the foreigners, have been used by L. B. Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919-1929, Ithaca, 1973, and by L. W. Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs to the Mid-Twentieth Century, Tucson, 1974 (both with a detailed list of documents). The sometimes thrilling account given by R. T. Stewart, Fire in Afghanistan, 1914-1929, Garden City, N.Y., 1973, is also based in the main on official sources but can not be used with confidence because she never cites them. K. Jäkel wrote his article “Reform und Reaktion in Afghanistan. Aufstieg und Fall AmÄnullÄhs,” Mardom nameh 3, Berlin, 1977, pp. 24-57, after obtaining access to unpublished Afghan sources which enabled him to draw attention, for the first time, to the importance of BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ’s links with the rural network of Sufi brotherhoods in the countryside of eastern Afghanistan. The only published account of BaÄÄa-ye SaqqÄ’s last days by a foreign eyewitness is in the book by A. Viollis (pseudonym of A. d’Ardenne de Tizac), Tourmente sur l’Afghanistan, Paris, 1930, a pompous record of events during her stay at Kabul as a journalist in October-November, 1929.
The latest findings of Soviet historiography on the subject are set forth in the work of V. G. Korgun, Afganistan v 20-30-e gody XX v. Stranitsy politicheskoÄ istorii, Moscow, 1979.
Selected texts of SaqqÄwÄ«-inspired folklore from the KÅhdÄman have been published by L. Dupree in his book Afghanistan, Princeton, 1973, pp. 120ff. Also from this source is a quatrain (no. 81) collected by A. FarhÄdÄ«, Le persan parlé en Afghanistan, Paris, 1955.
The SaqqÄwÄ« lineage of anti-communist groups active in the 1980s is documented by O. Roy, L’Afghanistan. Islam et modernité politique, Paris, 1985, p. 89.
Search terms:
| بچه سقا | bache sagha | bacheh saqaa | bacheh sagha |
(D. Balland)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: August 19, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 3-4, pp. 336-339
way into Kabul, recounts in his memoirs how he nearly received a strike from a tribesman's knife as he attempted to wrestle a looted item from his hands.
"By all evidence, there is no justification for such an assertion (and that evidence includes the testimony of Andrée Viollis, the only foreign correspondent in Kabul at the time). It appears rather than the plundering took place during the five days preceding Nadir's entry into the city, and that it was not officially condoned. Indeed, Nadir had issued a manifesto specifically ordering the tribesmen, under penalty of death, to respect the lives and property of foreigners. His orders were simply ignored" (Gregorian, pp. 285-86)
Additional sources:
Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1969.
Leon B. Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan 1919 - 1929. King Amanullahs Failure to Modernize a Tribal Society, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1973.
Sardar Shah Wali Khan (listed in Gregorian's bibliography as Ghazi, Marshal Shah Vali Khan), YÄddaÅ¡thÄ-ye man “My Memoirs,†5th ed., Kabul, 1959.