Online-Ressource
The Sirāj al-tawārīkh is the most important history of Afghanistan ever written. It was commissioned as an official national history by the Afghan prince, later amir, Habib Allah Khan (reigned 1901-1919). The author, Fayz Muhammad Khan, better known as “Katib” (The Writer), was a scribe at the royal court. For more than twenty years, he had full access to government archives and oral sources and thus presents an unparalleled picture of the country from its founding in 1747 until the end of the nineteenth century. The roots of much of the fabric of Afghanistan’s society today-tribe and state relations, the rule of law, gender issues, and the economy-are elegantly and minutely detailed in this immense work. The publication of the multi-volume Sirāj al-tawārīkh was originally envisioned by its author as a four-volume work. In the midst of printing volume three in Kabul, publication was summarily suppressed by the Amir of Afghanistan in the early 1920s. Almost nine decades later, the unpublished portion of the suppressed volume three and its subsequent volume four were acquired by the National Archives of Afghanistan in 2008 and a Kabul edition published in the original language in 2011. In 2015 we will add the English translation to the already existing online resource, completing again this unique resource on Afghanistan at the end of the nineteenth century. This newly discovered work covers life in Afghanistan between 1896 and 1925, and encompasses ca. 3000 pages in English. v. 1. The Sadūzāʾī Era, 1747-1843 / translation, introduction, notes, and index by R.D. McChesney -- v. 2. The Muḥammadzāʾī Era, 1843-1880 / translation, notes, and index by R.D. McChesney -- v. 3. The reign of Amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khān, 1880-1901 / translation and notes by R.D. McChesney and M.M. Khorrami: pt. 1. 1880-1889; pt. 2. 1889-1893; pt. 3. 1893-1896; pt. 4. Appendices, glossaries, index and bibliography
