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Sharbat Gula (Pashto: شربت ګله) (pronounced [ˈʃaɾbat]) (born ca. 1972) is an Afghan woman who was the subject of a famous photograph by journalist Steve McCurry. Gula was living as a refugee in Pakistan during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when she was photographed. The image brought her recognition when it was featured on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic Magazine at a time when she was approximately 12 years old. Gula was known throughout the world simply as "the Afghan Girl" until she was formally identified in early 2002. The photograph has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Mona Lisa^[1][2] and is sometimes popularly referred to as "the Afghan Mona Lisa".^{[3][unreliable source?]}

Photo's subject[link]

Pashtun^[4] by ethnicity, Gula was orphaned during the Soviet Union's bombing of Afghanistan and sent to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan in 1984. Her village was attacked by Soviet helicopter gunships sometime in the early 1980s. The Soviet strike killed her parents — forcing her, her siblings and grandmother to hike over the mountains to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in neighboring Pakistan.^{[5][unreliable source?]}

She married in the late 1980s and returned to Afghanistan in 1992. Gula had three daughters: Robina, Zahida, and Alia. A fourth daughter died in infancy. Gula has expressed the hope that her girls will receive the education she was never able to complete.

1984 photograph[link]

At the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984, Gula's photograph was taken by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry on Kodachrome color slide film, with a Nikon FM2 camera and Nikkor 105mm F2.5 lens.^[6] The pre-print photo retouching was done by Graphic Art Service, based in Marietta, Georgia. Gula was one of the students in an informal school within the refugee camp; McCurry seized a rare opportunity to photograph Afghan women and captured her image.

Although her name was not known, her picture, titled "Afghan Girl", appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyes staring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. The image itself was named "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the magazine.^[7]

Search for the Afghan Girl[link]

The identity of the Afghan Girl remained unknown for over 17 years; Afghanistan remained largely closed to Western media until after the removal of the Taliban government by American troops and local allies in 2001. Although McCurry made several attempts during the 1990s to locate her, he was unsuccessful.

In January 2002, a National Geographic team traveled to Afghanistan to locate the subject of the now-famous photograph. McCurry, upon learning that the Nasir Bagh refugee camp was soon to close, inquired of its remaining residents, one of whom knew Gula's brother and was able to send word to her hometown. However, there were a number of women who came forward and identified themselves erroneously as the famous Afghan Girl. In addition, after being shown the 1985 photo, a handful of young men falsely claimed Gula as their wife.

Stenciled rendition on rock at the Albany Bulb.

The team finally located Gula, then around the age of 30, in a remote region of Afghanistan; she had returned to her native country from the refugee camp in 1992. Her identity was confirmed using biometric technology, which matched her iris patterns to those of the photograph with almost full certainty.^[8] She vividly recalled being photographed—she had been photographed on only three occasions: in 1984 and during the search for her when a National Geographic producer took the identifying pictures that led to the reunion with Steve McCurry. She had never seen her famous portrait before it was shown to her in January 2002.

Legacy[link]

More recent pictures of her were featured as part of a cover story on her life in the April 2002 issue of National Geographic and she was the subject of a television documentary, entitled Search for the Afghan Girl, which aired in March 2002. In recognition of her,^[9] National Geographic set up the Afghan Girls Fund, a charitable organization with the goal of educating Afghan girls and young women.^[10] In 2008, the scope of the fund was broadened to include boys and the name was changed to Afghan Children's Fund.^[11]

In 2010, the South African photographer Jodi Bieber won the World Press Photo of the Year award for her photograph of Bibi Aisha, an Afghan victim of facial mutilation at the hands of her estranged husband. In making the photograph, Bibi was inspired by Afghan Girl: "For me, it was putting a moment of history in perspective. It was just one thing that added to the image", she said.^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• A Life Revealed
• High-resolution image on deviantArt
• Search for the Afghan Girl at the Internet Movie Database
• Before and After - The Afghan Girl (1984 and 2002) - National Geographic
• 'Afghan Girl': Taking National Geographic's Most Famous Photo, FORA.tv, "The Chautauqua Institution", YouTube, July 29, 2010. (Video clip)

Abdul Rahman Baba (1650–1715) (Pashto: عبدالرحمان بابا) is popularly known as Rahman Baba (Pashto: رحمان بابا), was a Pashtun/Afghan Muslim poet. He remains the most popular poet among the Afghans/Pashtuns.^[1] His poetry expresses a peaceful mystical side of local culture which is becoming increasingly threatened by less tolerant interpretations of Islam.^[2]

Rahman's lineage[link]

Rahman was a member of the Khalil Muhmand (Bahader Kalay) sub-tribe of Pukhtuns, a group which originally migrated from Kandahar to the Peshawar valley, from the 13th to the 16th century. He grew up in a small pocket of Mohmand settlers on the outskirts of Peshawar.^[3] Rahman apparently lived peacefully in the area, and never mentions his involvement in the fierce inter-tribal conflicts of his day.

Opinion is divided about Rahman's family background.^[4] Several commentators are convinced that his family were village Maliks (chieftains).^[4] However, Rahman Baba was more likely to have been a simple, though learned man. As he himself claimed: "Though the wealthy drink water from a golden cup, I prefer this clay bowl of mine."^[5]

Abdur Rahman Baba died in 1715 CE, and his tomb is housed in a large domed shrine, or mazar, on the southern outskirts of Peshawar (Ring Road Hazar Khwani). The site of his grave is a popular place for poets and mystics to collect to recite his popular poetry. In April each year, there is a larger gathering to celebrate his anniversary.

Religious background[link]

Rahman Baba was an ascetic but various unfounded theories have been made about who Rahman's guide may have been, and to which order he was attached. Sabir suggests that Rahman had a Naqshbandi Sufi tariqa initiation in Kohat, as well as training from the sons of Pir Baba. Schimmel and Saad Ahmed Baksh casually assign Rahman to the Chishti order. Aqab, himself of the Qadiriyyah order, claims Rahman was a Qadiri.

Published work[link]

A collection of Rahman's poetry, called the Diwan (Anthology) of Rahman Baba, contains 343 poems, most of which are written in his native Pukhto, which is a dialect of the Pashto language found in Afghanistan and parts of Western Pakistan. The Diwan of Rahman Baba was in wide circulation by 1728. There are over 25 original hand-written manuscripts of the Diwan scattered in various libraries worldwide, including ten in the Pukhto Academy in Peshawar, four in the British Library, three in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, as well as copies in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the University Library Aligath. The first printed version was collected by the Anglican Missionary T.P. Hughes and printed in Lahore in 1877.^[3] It is this version which remains the most commonly used to this day.

Selected verses from Rahman Baba's Diwan translated into English rhyme[link]

About 111 verses were translated into English Rhyme and published by Arbab Hidayatullah, himself a Ghoriakhel Mohmand, in 2009. The original Pashto version has been transliterated into the Roman alphabet in order to make it easier to read for those who can not read the Pashto alphabet. This translation, with a tilt to the romantic side of Rahman Baba's poetry, has been very well received.^{[citation needed]}

Recommended reading[link]

Rahman Baba High School in Kabul, Afghanistan

• H. G. Raverty, The Gulistan-i-Roh: Afghan Poetry and Prose
• H. G. Raverty, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, from the 16th to the 19th Century
• Rahman Baba, Abdu'l, Robert Sampson, and Momin Khan. The Poetry of Rahman Baba: Poet of the Pukhtuns. Translated by Robert Sampson and Momin Khan. Peshawar: University Book Agency, 2005.
• Robert Sampson. "The Poetry of Rahman Baba: The Gentle Side of Pushtun Consciousness." Central Asia 52 (2003): 213-228.
• Robert Sampson and Momin Khan. Sow Flowers: Selections from Rahman Baba, the Poet of the Afghans. Peshawar: Interlit Foundation, 2008.
• Robert Sampson. "The War on Poetry: Snuffing out Folk Tradition Along the Pakistan-Afghan Border." The Frontier Post, 7 December 2008.

See also[link]

• Khushal Khan Khattak
• Abdul Ghani Khan
• Ameer Hamza Shinwari

References[link]

1. ^ Sampson, Robert. "Abdu'l Rahmān Bābā: The Legacy of His Poetry in Expressing Divergent Islamic Theology in Pushtūn Society." M.A. Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2003.
2. ^ Sampson, Robert. "The Poetry of Rahman Baba: The Gentle Side of Pushtun Consciousness." Central Asia 52 (2003): 213–228.
3. ^ ^{a b} Rahman Baba, Abdu'l, Robert Sampson, and Momin Khan. The Poetry of Rahman Baba: Poet of the Pukhtuns. Translated by Robert Sampson and Momin Khan. Peshawar: University Book Agency, 2005.
4. ^ ^{a b} RB-P.
5. ^ D 135/9.

External links[link]

• / Rahman Baba's Kalaam Dase Makh de Manawwarr (translated)
• The Life of Rahman Baba
• Biography and Information
• Abdur Rahman Baba
• Rahman Baba in English
• Mohammad Zarin Anzor about the life and works of Rahman Baba
• Interlit Foundation
• Pashto Poets by Dr Tanvir Orakzai
• [1]
• The Afghan Pashto Poet Rahman Baba: Philosopher and Poet of the Heart

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Ahmed Wali Karzai احمد ولی کرزی
Ahmed Wali Karzai speaking to the media following a shura in Kandahar in June 2010.
Born	1961 Karz, Afghanistan[1]
Died	12 July 2011(2011-07-12) (aged 50) Kandahar, Afghanistan
Nationality	Afghan (Popalzai)
Occupation	Politician and tribal chief in the Kandahar province of southern Afghanistan
Known for	Politics
Children	2 sons and 3 daughters

Ahmed Wali Karzai (Pashto: احمد ولي کرزی, Aḥmad Walī Karzay, 1961 – 12 July 2011) was a prominent politician in Afghanistan and the younger paternal half-brother^[2] of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and son of Abdul Ahad Karzai. As an elder of the Popalzai Pashtun tribe, he was elected to the Kandahar Provincial Council in 2005 and served as its chairman.^[3][4] Karzai formerly lived in the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, where he worked in a restaurant owned by his family.^[5] He returned to Afghanistan following the removal of the Taliban government in late 2001. He was shot and killed by one of his bodyguards on July 12, 2011.^[6]

Early life and political career[link]

Karzai was born in 1961 in the village of Karz, located in the Dand district^[7] of Kandahar in Afghanistan.^[1] He is the son of Abdul Ahad Karzai and brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Mahmud Karzai and Quayum Karzai. He attended Habibia High School in Kabul but was not able to finish his studies due to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He migrated to neighbouring Pakistan and then went to the United States where lived for about ten years. He married there and has two sons and three daughters.^[8]

He came to political prominence in Afghanistan following the US occupation of the country in 2001, where he was a key ally of the US military in the country's south.^[9] He was elected to the Kandahar Provincial Council in 2005 and exercised influence in the province to the extent that he was described as "effectively the governor".^[10] At the time of his death, he was the Council's chairman.^[11]

A few days before his death, Ahmed Wali Karzai appeared on a British television programme, "Afghanistan: The Unknown Country," presented by Lyse Doucet, at his home in Kandahar, talking about public perceptions of him.^[12] Doucet said: "Like most strong men, he depended on family and fellow tribesmen to protect him."

Allegations of corruption[link]

A June 2009 U.S. embassy cable alleged that much of the actual business of running the Afghan city of Kandahar "takes place out of public sight, where Ahmed Wali Karzai operates, parallel to formal government structures, through a network of political clans that use state institutions to protect and enable licit and illicit enterprises." ^[13] In addition, James Risen of the New York Times and others^[14] stated that Ahmed Wali Karzai may have been involved in the Afghan opium and heroin trade. This was denied by Karzai, who called the charges political propaganda and stated he was a "victim of vicious politics."^[15]

In meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, including a 2006 session with former US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald E. Neumann, the CIA's station chief and their British counterparts, American officials talked about the rumors in hopes that the president might move his brother out of the country, said several people who took part in or were briefed on the talks. "We thought the concern expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him out of there," one official said. President Karzai has resisted, however, demanding clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing, several officials said. "We don't have the kind of hard, direct evidence that you could take to get a criminal indictment," a White House official said.^[15] Ahmed Wali Karzai dismissed the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime rival groups in his country.

Before the 2009 Afghan presidential election, Wali Karzai and Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, former governor of the Helmand Province and a member of the Upper House of the Afghan parliament, were accused of vote rigging.^[16] After the election, reports mentioned that all those running in the election were involved in electoral fraud.

CIA connections[link]

In October 2009 the New York Times reported that Ahmed Wali Karzai received payments from the CIA for "a variety of services", including the recruitment of the Kandahar Strike Force, an Afghan paramilitary force run by the CIA in the Kandahar region. It also stated that he was paid for allowing the CIA and U.S. special forces to rent the former residence of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar.^[17] However, Karzai has denied taking any payment from the CIA.^[18] U.S. Senator John Kerry and former Afghan Ambassador to the United States, Said Tayeb Jawad, defended Karzai in recent years, Kerry saying "We should not condemn Ahmed Wali Karzai or damage our critical relations with his brother, President Karzai, on the basis of newspaper articles or rumors."^[19][20] and Jawad saying, "There is presence of the intelligence, there's presence of many institutions of the United States and NATO countries in Afghanistan, why don't they come up with a clear evidence of any corruption involving the president or his family?^[21][22]

Assassination[link]

Wikinews has related news: Ahmad Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan President, shot dead in Kandahar

Karzai survived a number of assassination attempts by Taliban militants^[23] and at least two attacks against his office in Kandahar: one in November 2008^[24] and the other in April 2009.^[25] According to Karzai himself, he had survived a total of nine assassination attempts.^[26]

On 12 July 2011, Karzai was assassinated by his long-time head of security, Sardar Mohammad. Reports say that Wali was shot twice with a pistol, once in the head and once in the chest, as he was coming out of the bathroom inside his residence.^[27] Abdul Raziq, Police Chief of Kandahar, stated that the assailant Sardar Mohammad was well known by the Karzai family.^[7] He had served as Wali Karzai's most trusted security guard for the last seven years. "As he entered Wali's room, Wali came out of his bathroom. Mohammad fired twice at Wali without any conversation passing between the two. Wali received one bullet in the chest and second in the head," Abdul Raziq said.^[7] The assailant was immediately killed by other bodyguards and then his body was hanged at a city square on public view.^[28] In the meantime, Karzai's body was taken to Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar.^[29]

Thousands of people turned up for his funeral the next day, led by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and many more waited in buses where his body lay to be taken to his hometown of Karz. Security was tightened around the funeral procession and some reports indicated Hamid Karzai's elite security team were deployed to secure Kandahar, where the funeral was held.^[30] At the funeral procession Hamid Karzai issued a message to the Taliban:

"My message for [the Taliban] is that my countryman, my brother, stop killing your own people. It's easy to kill and everyone can do it, but the real man is the one who can save people's lives."^[31]

—Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said that "We know we live in a dangerous country. We know that security has to be tight all the time and the president knows [this]. He's got good security and that is not a worry for the president. The president is upset, he is still in grief, about the death of his brother. Wali was a very close brother of the president."^[32] En route to the funeral Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal escaped an assassination attempt, while later in the evening two more blasts went off in Kandahar. Though Hamid Karzai led the funeral procession, he was not present at a memorial service which was attacked by a suicide bomber killing the senior cleric of the mosque Hikmatullah Hikmat, the head of the Provincial Ulema Council, who died along with three others while 13 others were also wounded.^[33]

Reactions

President Hamid Karzai issued a statement on the day his brother died saying: "My younger brother was martyred in his house today. This is the life of all Afghan people, I hope these miseries which every Afghan family faces will one day end"^[6] Afghan families, every one of us, have suffered from it, and we hope, God willing, for our suffering to be over.^[32] US General David Petraeus ^[34] as well as other top NATO personnel serving in Afghanistan, officials at the White House and many world leaders condemned the assassination.^[27]

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed that one of their agents was behind the assassination saying, "Today in Kandahar city, Hamid Karzai's brother was killed during the Operation al-Badr... We hired a person by the name of Sadar Mohammad, who was hired for this job for some time now. Ahmed Wali Karzai was punished for all his wrongdoings."^[6]

However, according to The Christian Science Monitor, the Taliban has "a dubious record of claiming responsibility for attacks it had nothing to do with",^[35] and its claim has been denied by several sources. Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, head of the counter-terrorism department at the Interior Ministry, told Reuters that "It appears Ahmed Wali Karzai has been killed by one of his bodyguard, and there was nobody from outside involved."^[6] The news was confirmed by Zalmai Ayubi, the spokesman for Kandahar province, as well as by Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior. Following the killing police were mobilised in Kandahar and helicopters were seen overhead as checkpoints were locked down leading towards the hospital his body was taken to.^[36]

Investigation into the murder

Investigators believe that Sardar Mohammad may have been a Taliban sleeper agent or a government defector. Mahmud Karzai, Karzai's other brother, stated that Sardar Mohammad traveled to the Pakistani city of Quetta within the past three months to meet with the Shura Council of the Taliban. Mahmoud Karzai claimed that he has been acting very erratically in recent weeks, including sleeping poorly, moving from house to house during nights, acting suspiciously toward his men and demanding to know who they were talking to on their mobile phones. It suggests that he may have been using narcotics since the area is well known for opium production.^[37]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ahmad Wali Karzai

• Ahmed Wali Karzai. Time Magazine
• Karzai Family Secrets
• Ahmed Wali Karzai Denies CIA Pay
• Ahmed Wali Karzai and the CIA: America's conundrum in Afghanistan
• Politics and Power in Kandahar

Ahmad Wali (Pashto/Persian: احمد ولی‎) is a popular Ghazal singer from Afghanistan. He began his career in the 1970s, becoming popular in his native country before he was forced to flee by political upheaval in Afghanistan. He continued his work after resettling in Germany, performing throughout Europe and the United States.

Background[link]

The son of a Police Commander, Wali was born in Kabul.^[1] He began exploring music as a Tabla player at the age of 12, gradually expanding into singing. While a student at Habibia High School, he recorded a demo tape. This came to the attention of Radio Kabul director Ustad Zaland, who wrote the song "Chashman -e -Abee" for Wali. This and the Wali-penned tune "Mah-ruye-tu" brought him to the public eye. Wali performed live in Afghanistan until after his high school graduation, when he joined an international performance in Iran.

Career[link]

At that early stage in his career, Wali had not yet committed to life as a professional musician, and he enrolled in the Kabul Police Academy.^[1] He continued performing, however, and soon committed to music, being taken as a student by classical musician Ustad Sarahang. He developed a following in Afghanistan, with frequent appearances on television and radio as well as live performances.

After the Saur Revolution of 1978, life in Afghanistan became difficult, and in 1980, shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, Wali—then a well-known musician in his homeland—fled the country with a forged passport.^[1][2] Wali's forged passport got him as far as India, where he obtained a Visa to Germany by faking an illness.^[2]

In Germany, Wali continued his career, performing there and throughout Europe and the United States.^[1]

References[link]