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The Art of Chieftaincy in the Writings of Pashtun Tribal Rulers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2019

MIKHAIL PELEVIN
MIKHAIL PELEVIN*
Affiliation:
Saint Petersburg State Universitymosprolege@gmail.com
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Abstract

The article surveys the views of Pashtun military-administrative elite on governance in the works of Khushḥāl Khān Khaṫak (d. 1689) and Afżal Khān Khaṫak (d. circa 1740). The texts under discussion pertain to the universal literary genre of “Mirrors for Princes” (naṣīḥat al-mulūk) and include the Khaṫak chieftains’ didactical writings in prose and verse, as well as still poorly studied documents on real politics from Afżal Khān's historiographical compilation “The Ornamented History” (Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ). Rooted in the medieval Persian classics, early modern Pashto “mirrors” are distinguished by local ethnocultural peculiarities which manifest in shifting the very subject from statesmanship to chieftaincy and declaring regulations of the Pashtun unwritten Code of Honour. The study proves that the outlook and behavioural patterns of Pashtun tribal rulers stemmed from a combination, partly eclectic and contradictory, of Islamic precepts, feudal ideologies of the Mughal administrative system, and norms of the Pashtun customary law (Pashtunwali).

Keywords

PashtunsPashto literaturemirrors for princespolitical authoritychieftaincyearly modern Islamic societies
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 485 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2019 

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References

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12 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, p. 18.

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14 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, p. 29.

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16 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, pp. 47–49.

17 Ibid., pp. 83–84.

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22 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, p. 272.

23 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, p. 26.

24 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, pp. 273–274.

25 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, p. 26.

26 Ibid., pp. 29–35.

27 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, p. 540.

28 Khaṫak, Khushḥāl Khān, Bāz-nāma, (ed.) and prefaced by Hewādmal, Zalmay (Kabul, 1983)Google Scholar; idem., Kulliyāt, pp. 77–78, 253–254, 597–600, 626–627, passim.

29 Khushḥāl, Dastār-nāma, p. 46.

30 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, pp. 269–271, 273, 276–277.

31 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, pp. 818–820.

32 Ibid., p. 183.

33 Khushḥāl, Firāq-nāma, pp. 71–72; idem., Swāt-nāma, (ed.) with preface and notes by ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Kabul, 1979), pp. 20–32.

34 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, pp. 560–562.

35 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, pp. 301–316.

36 Ibid., pp. 482–285, 494–510.

37 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, p. 183.

38 Ibid., pp. 860–861.

39 Ibid., p. 268.

40 Ibid., p. 660.

41 Ibid., p. 221.

42 Ibid., p. 822.

43 Ibid., p. 368.

44 Ibid., p. 852.

45 Ibid., p. 582.

46 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, p. 264.

47 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, p. 853.

48 Ibid., p. 418; this is an allusion to the history of wars for succession to the Mughal throne between Aurangzeb and his brothers Dārā Shikūh (d. 1659), Shāh Shujāʿ (d. 1661) and Murād Bakhsh (d. 1661) in 1657–9.

49 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, pp. 586–587.

50 Khushḥāl, Swāt-nāma, p. 29; Idem., Kulliyāt, p. 528.

51 Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, pp. 104–105, 233, 847–848.

52 Khushḥāl, Swāt-nāma, pp. 22–23, 28.

53 See in Pelevin, M., “The Khataks’ Tribal Chronicle (XVII-XVIII): Extra literary Text Functions”, in Iran and the Caucasus, 18/3 (2014), pp. 201–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, p. 449.

55 Ibid., pp. 3–14.

56 Cf. Katkov, I. E., “Sotsial'nyie aspekty plemennoy struktury pushtunov,” Afganistan: istoriia, ekonomika, kul'tura, (ed.) Gankovskii, Yu. V. (Moscow, 1989), pp. 42–51Google Scholar.

57 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, pp. 264–265.

58 Ibid., p. 11.

59 Ibid., p. 10.

60 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

61 Ibid., pp. 9–10.

62 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

63 Ibid., pp. 292–293.

64 Cf. brief poetical account of these events in Khushḥāl, Kulliyāt, p. 942.

65 Afżal, Tārīkh-i muraṣṣaʿ, pp. 262–263, 266.

66 Ibid., pp. 423–425.