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QIZILBASH 641
constantly felt waves of discrimination emanate from the dominant Sunni population.
Also, not all Qizilbash were administrators, clerks, traders and craftsmen.
Many pockets of them existed in the countryside and still do. For example
Qizilbash make up one of the four villages known as Chahardeh-i-Ghorband (the
four villages of the Ghorband Valley). The other three are occupied by Sunni
Pushtun and Sunni Tajik.
But the real impact of the Qizilbash in Afghan history relates to the urban
scene. Many groups lived not only in Kabul but also in Kandahar Herat and
Mazar-i-Sharif, among other places. Nineteenth-century European travellers reported
the following Qizilbash subdivisions: Jawansher, Kurd, Rika, Afshar,
Bakhtiari, Shahsevan, Talish, Bayat and others. (Several names relate to the
Persian origin of the Qizilbash and even include names of other ethnic groups,
such as Kurd, Bakhtiari, Shahsevan.)
The British invaded Afghanistan twice in the nineteenth century, during the
First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842) and the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-
1880). The wars were a result of real or imagined threats to British India by
czarist Russia. In both instances, groups of Qizilbash (and others) who opposed
any Afghan government in power supported the British. According to British
sources, at least 6,500 Qizilbash served as tax collectors, clerks, commissary
suppliers and mercenaries. For example, 600 Qizilbash cavalry accompanied
Captain Richard Shakespear on a mission to rescue the British hostages being
held at Bamiyan in September 1842.
Some Qizilbash left with the British army after both wars. They settled in
British India and became influential in the army, bureaucracy and commerce
both before and after the 1947 Partition, which divided the subcontinent into
India and Pakistan. The British also hired a number of Qizilbash as "news
writers," actually spies, who represented the British Indian government in Afghan
cities from 1880 to 1919, at which time the Afghan government permitted
the British to send Englishmen as diplomatic representatives.
Qizilbash influence in the Afghan court continued to diminish after Abdur
Rahman Khan (1880-1901) became Amir in Kabul and spread his influence, if
not actual control, over most of what is now Afghanistan. He engaged in "internal
imperialism," conquering and attempting to pacify the countryside, while the
British and czarist Russia drew his boundaries.
One of the bloodier fights of Abdur Rahman was the 1891-1893 conquest of
the Hazarajat (see Hazaras). The Shia Qizilbash were accused of supporting the
Shia Hazaras, some openly, some secretly. Because of this, many Afghans today
consider all Hazaras also to be Qizilbash. In April 1893, the Qizilbash refugees
in Mashad (Persia) declared a holy war on Abdur Rahman. The Sunni population
of western Afghanistan supported Abdur Rahman, and the revolt failed.
Abdur Rahman Khan attempted to convert forcibly the Qizilbash to Sunnism.
Those who refused were forced to wear red turbans. Partly because of the blatant
discrimination, many Qizilbash outwardly accepted Hanafi Sunnism but practiced
taqiyya (secretly remained Shia).