The Honey Thief by Najaf Mazari, Robert Hillman Page A

chieftain slew the soldiers who had so dishonoured his wife and rallied Hazara of neighbouring villages to his cause. Within weeks, almost the whole of Hazarajat had risen against the Emir.
    It was the belief of the Hazara that the Emir had instructed his garrisons in Hazarajat to provoke rebellion, so that he might have an excuse to take control of the whole region. Such a claim is impossible to prove, but is it any wonder that it was accepted as fact in Hazarajat after what the people had endured under the reign of Abdur Rahman? To me, it seems likely that the Emir had a plan of provocation in mind, for his soldiers were prepared for invasion in so short a time after the outbreak of rebellion. The Emir had called for the help of the British to instruct his army in techniques of invasion well before the second rebellion, and that help was freely given. The Emir had also foreseen the benefit of having the invasion officially declared a Jihad against all the Shi’a by his council of imams. Amongst his followers, there were those who were unhappy – perhaps I should say, ‘uncomfortable’ – about the massacres of women and children in the earlier rebellion. I am sorry to say, for myself and for Afghanistan, that once Jihad is declared, misgivings are swept away, for the war becomes a conflict in defence of the faith itself. It is meaningful, too, that the Jihad was declared so soon after the commencement of the rebellion. It usually took some time before a council of imams would declare a Jihad. In the modern world, such a declaration can be negotiated swiftly under certain circumstances, but protocols were far stricter in 1890. It seems likely that Abdur Rahman had gained agreement for a Jihad much earlier than the violation of the Hazara chieftain’s wife.
    And think of this: the Emir raised an army of 150,000 foot soldiers, cavalry and well-armed militia inside a month and was ready to invade Hazarajat in the autumn of the year. It would have been no easy task to raise a large army in such a short time – three weeks – for a great many allegiances have to be negotiated with tribal leaders. Such a task can take a year, with many jealousies to be settled before the leader of one tribe will even enter a tent in which the leader of another tribe awaits.Whether the infamy was carried out under instruction from the Emir or not will never be known, as I have said. What is known is that the Emir’s soldiers faced an enemy in Hazarajat weakened by the two-year-long rebellion. The outcome of the rebellion and invasion is also known. The Hazara were crushed, and the whole of Hazarajat was dominated by Abdur Rahman’s soldiers.
    The reprisals against the Hazara were horrifying, even by the standards of Abdur Rahman. It had been a custom amongst the more savage rulers of Afghanistan and its neighbours since the age of the Samarkand tyrant Tamburlaine the Great to show to all what fate awaits a defeated enemy. It was Tamburlaine’s custom to build hills of his enemies’ heads. Abdur Rahman had chosen Tamburlaine as his hero amongst rulers. His most precious possessions were certain relics of the Samarkand tyrant that he had obtained over the years, sometimes through purchase, sometimes by stealth. Amongst these relics – a sword, a tooth, a horse’s bridle – the most valued was a single long hair, said to have come from Tamburlaine’s beard. There seems no doubt that Abdur Rahman had taken to heart Tamburlaine’s motto: an enemy once is an enemy forever.
    After the first Hazara rebellion, beheading of captives was a common form of execution, but not the rule, for it takes much longer and requires much greater effort to behead a hundred captives than to shoot them. After the second rebellion, Abdur Rahman ordered that all captives should be beheaded, and their heads gathered in mounds standing twice the height of the tallest of the defeated enemy. Even those who had died of wounds in battle were beheaded. Hazara who were