Sayyids of Kunar

Sayyids of Kunar

For centuries, the long and narrow valley of Kunar, with Pashat as its main town, had been ruled by a Pashtunized Sayyid family of Arab descent. They were descendants of Sayyid Ali Tirmizi, popularly referred to as Pir Baba by Pashtuns. He had accompanied Zahir al-Din Babur from Tirmiz. His shrine in Pacha Killay (meaning “the village of the king” in Pashto) in Buner is venerated to this day.

Emperor Humayun, the son and successor of Babur, granted him Kunar free of revenue. His descendants in Kunar collected revenue at the rate of one-third of agricultural production, and in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries their annual income fluctuated between sixty and eighty thousand rupees. [1]

Kunar remained more or less independent until the early nineteenth century. Muhammadzai interference began in the 1820s, taking the form of annexation of regions near Jalalabad (Shewa), occasional plundering raids against the Sayyids, and intervention in rivalries within the ruling family. Nevertheless, the Sayyids continued to control their core possessions until the 1880s. During Amir Sher ‘Ali Khan’s reign, the ruling Sayyid received an allowance and acted as a middleman for the Amir in dealings with the more remote regions of Bajaur and Dir. [2]

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Sayyid Mahmood, the “Badshah” of Kunar, 1879.

Syed Mahmud, 1879.

Sayyid Mahmud with Major Cavagnari.

Arrival of Sayyid Mahmood, Khan of Kunar, at Jalalabad, 14 January 1879. (Source)

References

1. A Political and Diplomatic History of Afghanistan, 1863–1901, M. Hasan Kakar, p. 69
2. State and Tribe in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan, Christine Noelle, p. 205