The scholarly focus of this panel is exchanges and encounters in modern Afghanistan. By examining scholarly debates, intellectual history, religious influences from the Middle East, and the recent social and cultural history of modern Afghanistan through the lens of a famous Afghan singer, the panel will provide fresh insight into Afghanistan as an independent yet connected center of globalism.
The panel will consist of three presenters (not including the Chair). While focusing on modern Afghanistan, the scope of the panel will encompass diverse topics.
The first presentation will focus on the political, intellectual, and religious encounters and exchanges between the Ottoman Empire and Afghanistan during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The presentation will examine the intellectual confluences between the Afghan and the Ottoman intelligentsia, which shaped both the cognitive and institutional conditions in Afghanistan through discourses and modernity. This will give new insight into the dynamic exchanges between Ottomans and Afghans.
The second presentation will focus on the exchanges between the al-Azhar in Egypt and Kabul in the 1950’s and 1960’s. This will include an examination of theology that was taught by Azhari professors at institutions in Kabul, and how this shaped and incorporated Afghans’ tradition of Hanafi jurisprudence. Although much has been written about Wahhabism and the Taliban movement recently, this presentation will open a window into the exchanges between the Azhar and Afghanistan.
The third presentation will focus on the development of radio in Afghanistan as an important window to the social, cultural, political and economic processes that took place in Kabul during the latter half of the twentieth century. By focusing on Afghanistan’s most popular musical icon to date, Ahmad Zahir, and the circulation of his music across borders, the presentation will offer a close examination of the scale and contours of Afghan connectivity with the wider world.
In sum, the presentations on modern Afghanistan will offer fresh insight into the nation’s history and transnational influences.
Beginning in the 1950’s, a series of steps was taken to advance Islamic education in Afghanistan. This effort at modernization built upon several schools founded by the government in cities such as Herat, Bagram, Jalalabad, and Mazar-i-Sharif. In addition to studying the traditional Islamic sciences, such as tafsir and Hadith, many of these schools incorporated subjects like physics and math. In the early 1950’s, the Islamic Law Faculty was founded at Kabul University. The teachers in this department included Afghans who graduated from al-Azhar University in Cairo; moreover, al-Azhar sent some Egyptians to teach in Kabul. Among other changes enacted under the leadership of Abdul Satar Sirat, who served as Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Sciences at Kabul University, and later as Minister of Justice, a Department of Islamic Studies for Afghan Women was established. This presentation will examine the theology taught by Azhari professors in Kabul and how Afghans’ tradition of adherence to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence may have evolved in this time period. Although much has been written on the alleged ties between the Ikwan in Egypt and Afghanistan—especially in the post-9/11 period—a vibrant history of scholarly exchanges between Egypt and Afghanistan remains open to examination.
In contrast to the well-developed body of scholarly research on the impact of the state, the tribe and Islam for nation building and the formation of political ideologies in the Afghan context, cultural history – including the cultural and social history of everyday technologies – offers much that remains to be studied. This paper brings attention to the history of the development of radio in Afghanistan as an important window on the social, cultural, political and economic processes that took place in a thriving cosmopolitan city in the latter half of the twentieth century. It also highlights the new sounds, voices and communities that the radio cultivated, giving a more rounded understanding of the Afghans’ public life during this time period. By following the thread of appeal of Afghanistan’s most popular musical icon to-date, Ahmad Zahir, we can better appreciate the cognitive dimensions of the unexpected and diverse forms of modernity that Afghans were experiencing during a period where political reforms and civil liberties gave way to unprecedented possibilities for various forms of self expression. In addition, by tracing the circulation of Ahmad Zahir’s music across borders into Iran and India, the paper offers a close examination of the scale and contours of Afghan connectivity with the wider world during this time period. Sources for this paper are drawn from sound recordings, newspapers and other print media, memoirs, historical photographs and a collection of interviews with employees of Radio Afghanistan.
