Ahmad Shah Abdali, Politics, and Pashtun Loyalties.

[Toramana]

Barakzai, kindly stop making a mountain out of a mole to make history compatible with your thoughts...Abdali's call for Jehad against Marhatas was motivated more by conquest and imperial expansion (also other strategic considerations e.g. the rise of a potential rival power in Marhatas in the adjoining India) than any deeper love for Islam...he annexed Punjab and Kashmir to Afghanistan...and declined to extend his campiagn to thwart rising British power in India (possibly due to concerns for maintaining order back home)...

And Asad Durrani used to say these things in Area Study Center of Peshawar University as one reliable source told me...

[ScimitarXEdge]

It's a ludicrous effort of Modern Imperialists and their cronies to re-invent Ahmad Shah Baba as not a Pan Islamist; it is their usual tactic to maintain divisions between Muslims and keep their international power structure alive by sedimenting rifts and preventing Muslim unity. Divide and Rule policy yet again, exploiting ethnic insecurities and inferiority complexes to trivialize the need for Muslims to come together as a united block.

[Toramana]

It's a ludicrous effort of Modern Imperialists and their cronies to re-invent Ahmad Shah Baba as not a Pan Islamist; it is their usual tactic to maintain divisions between Muslims and keep their international power structure alive by sedimenting rifts and preventing Muslim unity. Divide and Rule policy yet again.

Do something about Isreal...the tiny state that has put that miserable lot called Arabs 300 millions and spread over two continents with petro-economies to shame and humuliation...Develop some rational response to that instead of coming here and spitting whatever irrational things you want to assuage the hurt Arab ego including twisting history, ecology, and the bare fact...

[ScimitarXEdge]

Barakzai, when I see your propaganda on this forum, somehow I see strands of Pakistani strategic thinking in what you say e.g., General Asad Durrani, the ex-DG, ISI, used to say exactly the same things about Ahmad Shah Baba as you are saying i.e. Ahmad Shah Baba was actually a Taleb and Taleban phenomenon is not an exception to Pashtun history but is rather a norm...In this way, he used to emphasize the central role and status of Talibs in Pashtun society and used to plead the case for Mullah Omar...

And the British used to say the same things you are saying. Sir Oraf Caroe used to write in his assessment of Pashtuns that Ahmad Shah was an ethnocentrist and that he only used other Muslims for his own self centered ethnic goals. and that Islam for Ahmad Shah was merely a springboard for his own power agenda.

[ScimitarXEdge]

Do something about Isreal...the tiny state that has put that miserable lot called Arabs 300 millions and spread over two continents with petro-economies to shame and humuliation...Develop some rational response to that instead of coming here and spitting whatever you want to like a typical Arab...

Israel is merely a red herring; they have no power without imperial support, and likewise with Current Arab States, they exist by the same coin. All the things you mentioned are just an imperial smokescreen by British and European Masters.

Your logically inconsistent and misinformed banter like a Typical British servant of Hindustani origin does not measure rationality.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai, kindly stop making a mountain out of a mole to make history compatible with your thoughts...Abdali's call for Jehad against Marhatas was motivated more by conquest and imperial expansion (also other strategic considerations e.g. the rise of a potential rival power in Marhatas in the adjoining India) than any deeper love for Islam...he annexed Punjab and Kashmir to Afghanistan...and declined to extend his campiagn to thwart rising British power in India (possibly due to concerns for maintaining order back home)...

And Asad Durrani used to say these things in Area Study Center of Peshawar University as one reliable source told me...

Same response as predicted in the original essay. No one said Abdali is an incarnation of the Prophet Muhammad. However, his adherence and friendship with Waliullah and answering the call of this latter mentor of his is scrupulously documented in his tarikh. As are his poems that lay bare his obeisance to God. Not to mention your impotence in dealing with his thoughts on the Uighars.

"Suddenly the breeze of victory began to blow,
and as willed by the divine Lord,
the wretched Deccanis suffered utter defeat..."

Ahmad Shah's letter to Madho Singh Raja of Jaipur

"I capture every province with the aid of God; It is with his help that I go everywhere without failure. Yet I, Ahmad, consider the world worthless and unimportant. I shall leave the world behind and go the next, armed only with my faith"

The man appears to, even in death, contradict you from the grave, with his words.

Yield brother, your age is showing. This back and forth and your repeated losses amount to elder abuse on my part.

[ScimitarXEdge]

Most of Toramana's opinions are European orientalist manufactured versions of Asian History.

[Toramana]

Hay Barakzai, hold on...Have you read Khushal Baba kalam...In that you can find stuff that is more religious than that of Ahmad Shah Baba you have quoted above but turning a few pages of his kalams and you find things that can hardly be uttered in front of another person...

That is how our heroes and nacestors were...religious-minded as for matters of the other world but secular in daily life and social/political affair and matters of this world...not interested to establish theocracies...

[ScimitarXEdge]

See the difference between BarakzaiAbdali's argument and Toramana

is that BarakzaiAbdali has actually read the known literature regarding Abdali and Abdali's views

where as Toramana merely regurgitates things he allegedly heard from "reliable sources".

I think we can discern from that who has a more meritable and most importantly rational argument here.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Most of Toramana's opinions are European orientalist manufactured versions of Asian History.

It pulls at the heart strings to know that one I thought so formidable is but a shadow of what he once was. He is reduced to algorithms as opposed to originality. I saw a glint of that old Toramana fire in that unsubstantiated claim regarding Ahmad Shah neglecting to take on the British (perhaps because, as the Indians note, it was Abdali's incursions themselves that weakened Mughal India and prepared it for a ripe British invasion)... then I remembered that he is temporally wrong in the sequence of subcontinent invaders. In fact everyone in Kandahar proper with a literate background knows of Padshah Bibi, his Indian wife of Mughal origin. The British had yet to lay bare the shin so as to speak and present a reasonable threat to attract the lion, Abdali.

Toramana, please brother, you are making this harder than it has to be. Its time to hang up your guns brother. They have turned into pea shooters and your causes are showing rotten fruit. I prefer, out of respect for you, that you enjoy the remainder of your days in retirement.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

See the difference between BarakzaiAbdali's argument and Toramana

is that BarakzaiAbdali has actually read the known literature regarding Abdali and Abdali's views

where as Toramana merely regurgitates things he allegedly heard from "reliable sources".

I think we can discern from that who has a more meritable and most importantly rational argument here.

I know, I should have recognized the early signs of his impending decline... those voices that he hears... the mysterious sources... yet he is but from a "lower" or sometimes "middle" class family, yet he appears to know every single one of these ISI shadow men and goes to tea parties with the children of the elite.

I really started to feel bad for him when he bought Irshaad Manji into all of this. Then there were the mysterious threats of being banned that Admin Khan appeared to also deny ever happened.

Dont worry Wrorre, we will get you good help. Until then, the historians please! And please none of this "I knew a guy who heard Hamid Gul say that Ahmad Shah was a Muslim and so since Hamid Gul says it etc."

Toramana, Hamid Gul also eats food, he proceeds to digest it... so does Karzai. I assume that eating food may very well be an Islamist contrivance.

[Toramana]

Ok, Bacha za darna larama...da laga shan angatha chai mai darwachawala da pora wa...noor bal wakhth...dair karuna mai di..dair ghamona ra pa sar di...

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Hay Barakzai, hold on...Have you read Khushal Baba kalam...In that you can find stuff that is more religious than that of Ahmad Shah Baba you have quoted above but turning a few pages of his kalams and you find things that can hardly be uttered in front of another person...

That is how our heroes and nacestors were...religious-minded as for matters of the other world but secular in daily life and social/political affair and matters of this world...not interested to establish theocracies...

I will have to read Khushal's poems again and have admitted that I know generally less about him as he hails from your region more than mine, but have read some of his work. In general though, Ahmad Shah is far more clever in his poetry. In his famous ode to his land, he makes the reader initially think he is talking about a woman but quickly and properly segueys into an ode to his land.

Even when he writes about the dark lashes of Laila and of love, he speaks modestly. He does not go to Khattaks level of referring to other tribes as dogs and the the private parts of the donkey (he accused the Yusufzai of this). Nor does he ever single out a single khel and praise their women as he (Khushal Baba) did the Adam Khel Afridi women, which would have gotten him beaten in our neck of the woods.

[ScimitarXEdge]

Hay Barakzai, hold on...Have you read Khushal Baba kalam...In that you can find stuff that is more religious than that of Ahmad Shah Baba you have quoted above but turning a few pages of his kalams and you find things that can hardly be uttered in front of another person...

That is how our heroes and nacestors were...religious-minded but secular in daily life and social/political affair...not interested to establish theocracies...

False

"Ahmad Shah based his state on the Sunni Hanafi School, in which SHARIAH was applied in a flexible manner. He paid great attention to the Ulama and other clergy to give his rule religious legitimacy"

source: Pakistan and the emergence of ... - Google Books

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Ok, Bacha za darna larama...da laga shan angatha chai mai darwachawala da pora wa...noor bal wakhth...dair karuna mai di..dair ghamona ra pa sar di...

Well brother, I am sorry to hear you have such worries besetting you. Best of luck and we shall keep you in our prayers. I appreciated your commentary on the Mrathas and the British. I believe it is more than rebutted, but shall investigate even further regarding the relationship between that quintessential Pashtun, Ahmad Shah Baba, and the British. It appears that Raverty and Elphinstone had to write much about him after his earthly demise, hence the interaction was limited if at all. They had to reference his tarikh and hearsay.