Amanullah, King of Afghanistan,1919 - 1929. Wikicommons.Some rights reserved.Afghanistan finally took its current name as a country in reformist king Amanullah Khan’s 1923 constitution. Amanullah Khan wanted to rapidly modernize Afghanistan along western lines. Most of the changes that Amanullah Khan initiated rapidly failed. He also met with little success in his goal of creating Afghani national identity. Amanullah Khan’s struggle to forge this national identity continues today.
By 870, Arabic Muslims completed the campaign they began in 642 to dominate the lands that make up present day Afghanistan. During the next five centuries, most Afghanis converted to Islam. Afghani Muslims have made major contributions to Shariah, theology, Sufism, philosophy, physical sciences, literature, and art with local features. The founder of the largest, most rational school of Shariah among Muslims, Abu Hanifah, had Afghani ancestors in Kabul. Balkh, in northern Afghanistan has been a main source of intellectual thought in the history of Islamic theology and was known as Murij Abad (the palace of Murjitte; the most liberal group in the history of Islam which shunned the idea of judging people based on their religious deeds). Very great Sufis like Khawja Abdullah Ansari, Sanaii, Howjwari, Rumi and Jami were Afghanis, and enhanced the Afghani understanding of Islam. The major philosophers of Islam, including al-Farabi and Avicenna, were from Afghanistan and had a great impact on Islamic theology. Biruni, perhaps the greatest scientist in Islamic history flourished in Ghazni. Afghani writers and poets like Firdawsi, Nasir Khesrow, and Rumi generated the greater part of Persian rich literatures. Herat’s school of miniature painting is known for its outstanding style and affected greatly Iranian and Indian schools.
This fertile ground shaped Afghani Islam and culture in a unique form, open to different cultures and traditions. This is why tribal traditions, even among the most conservative people of Pashtu in southern and eastern Afghanistan have been more influential than Islamic traditions. During its reign, the Taliban tried hard to replace several tribal customs with religious ones, such as those regarding women and marriage, but they did not succeed. The tradition-conscious Pashtu and the hierarchical Sufis backed current president Muhammad Ashraf Ghani, though he is known for his western mindset and Christian wife.
