Warburton Family and Shah Begum Jehan

[Iblis_Efreetzai]

I found this link online when I was googlng Warburton and Shah Jehan Begum. Allegedly this person is a descendant of Robert Warburton and Shah Jehan Begum, the Niece of Dost Muhammad Khan. She was actually married to Sardar Faiz Talab Khan. Meaning she betrayed her spouse.

Many people act boastful and proud about Afghan History, without looking objectively at some of the black spots and moments of disgrace. Indeed Pashtuns on the whole have a culture that encourages dignity and principles above all else. But let us not be deluded to believe that Our Self Proclaimed Ruling Class embodied those principles.

Shah Jehan Begum was a Muhammadzai lady who sheltered, aided and eventually married a British Soldier. an supposed "Afghan Noble Woman" to marry not only a Kafir, but a rank and file soldier of the Army invading her people's homeland and allowing him to issue sons through her body.

Please keep this in mind before you let your egoes get the better of you.

http://warburton.one-name.net/?page_id=635

http://warburton.one-name.net/?page_id=635

Shah Jehan Begum

[Golden]

hmm she should have asked for taulaq from her afghan husband before eloping with British soldier. Is that huka in picture?

[Iblis_Efreetzai]

It looks like it.

[Forreigner]

I found this link online when I was googlng Warburton and Shah Jehan Begum. Allegedly this person is a descendant of Robert Warburton and Shah Jehan Begum, the Niece of Dost Muhammad Khan. She was actually married to Sardar Faiz Talab Khan. Meaning she betrayed her spouse.

Many people act boastful and proud about Afghan History, without looking objectively at some of the black spots and moments of disgrace. Indeed Pashtuns on the whole have a culture that encourages dignity and principles above all else. But let us not be deluded to believe that Our Self Proclaimed Ruling Class embodied those principles.

Shah Jehan Begum was a Muhammadzai lady who sheltered, aided and eventually married a British Soldier. an supposed "Afghan Noble Woman" to marry not only a Kafir, but a rank and file soldier of the Army invading her people's homeland and allowing him to issue sons through her body.

Please keep this in mind before you let your egoes get the better of you.

http://warburton.one-name.net/?page_id=635

http://warburton.one-name.net/?page_id=635

Shah Jehan Begum

**** this *****. she doesn't represent Afghan values or Afghan women. You know that yourself my Pakistani friend. She doesn't even look Afghan. she looks Indian. It was the Indian slave blood. THe British invaded Afghanistan from India, so it was probably a Hindu admixed ''Pathan'' from Pakistan.

[Iblis_Efreetzai]

**** this *****. she doesn't represent Afghan values or Afghan women. You know that yourself my Pakistani friend. She doesn't even look Afghan. she looks Indian. It was the Indian slave blood. THe British invaded Afghanistan from India, so it was probably a Hindu admixed ''Pathan''.

Brother, as much as I'm aware you're a Forum Troll, possibly Killzai or Black Pakistani

She is Afghan for sure, she's the niece of Dost Muhammad Khan, who was a Mohmadzai. She comes from the self proclaimed ruling class of Afghanistan

Most Afghans are ignorant of Afghan history and like you exhibit ignorant and misinformed statements

Of course she doesn't represent the mainstream Afghan society; but SHE was apart of the MOST Higher End of Afghan Society. to make claims like "Afghans never bowed to the British" means you have no knowledge about the Rulers of Afghanistan ....or you do but to spread your forum trolling, you pretend that you don't..

[Forreigner]

Brother, as much as I'm aware you're a Forum Troll, possibly Killzai or Black Pakistani

She is Afghan for sure, she's the niece of Dost Muhammad Khan, who was a Mohmadzai. She comes from the self proclaimed ruling class of Afghanistan

Most Afghans are ignorant of Afghan history and like you exhibit ignorant and misinformed statements

Of course she doesn't represent the mainstream Afghan society; but SHE was apart of the MOST Higher End of Afghan Society. to make claims like "Afghans never bowed to the British" means you have no knowledge about the Rulers of Afghanistan ....or you do but to spread your forum trolling, you pretend that you don't..

How is a Hindu admixed Pathan/Pakistani running off with a British soldier making Afghans ''bowed'' to British?

lool the point is Afghans fought the British Empire, and actually beat them and were never enslaved/subdued. Only Indians were enslaved and had to cry for mercy to get off their slave chains. This never happened with Afghans. A Hindu low caste admixed Pakistani Pathan running off with some British soldier doesn't tarnish our reputation at all.

who cares about a Hindu admixed Pakistani pathan *****, what matters is Afghans didn't let themselves come to a situation like this:



GHAIRAT is encoded part of Afghan DNA.

[Iblis_Efreetzai]

[MENTION=19462]Forreigner[/MENTION]

Nice trolling bro; how many accounts do you have? I'd like to bring to everyone's attention this is Killzai/Black Pakistani

Anyways, as I said this woman was from the So Called Royal Afghan family so not sure where you're getting the idea she's mixed with Indian from. Sounds like this is just some defense mechanism you use when faced with uncomfortable information.

[maneatinglizard]

Just heard about this one today. Are we sure this claim is legitimate? I can't find a record of Dost Muhammad Khan having a niece named Shah Jahan Begum other than in relation to Robert Warburton. According to one site she was supposedly the daughter of "Abdul Rahim Khan," but again I don't think Dost Muhammad Khan had a brother by that name. Are there any Afghan records of this marriage? If they were married in Afghanistan, there should be some record of it. The details of the story seem suspect to me as well. The claim is that the two fell in love and eloped, but where would they have met? Even the nobles back then practiced satr as far as I know, so it's hard to imagine a meeting between them ever taking place.

You can find the family tree here, maybe I missed them: Barak1

And while the picture of Shah Jahan Begum is too faded to make out much detail, their kids don't look Afghan.

I wouldn't be surprised if the lady was actually some random prostitute that Warburton found and married, and then either he tried to claim that his wife was actually an "Afghan princess," or his son claimed it to try to improve his standing with the Afridis. This would reflect the way colonialists viewed women as part of the conquest, and how they frequently bragged (and probably lied) about how many local women they romanced. These relations happening anywhere in high frequencies is doubtful (I know everyone here likes to mock Indians, but I doubt their women were actually as "easy" as the colonialists like to claim), but in Kabul in particular I have really doubt that there were any relationships between the local women and the British, and yet the British claim they were frequently having illicit relationships with Afghan women. In fact, they claim the mob that killed Alexander Burnes was partially composed of all the angry fathers and husbands of the many women he supposedly romanced.

All this goes back to the colonial and orientalist mindset of Europeans that exists to this day. They perceived Muslim/Eastern women (and society in general) as overly sexual, saw themselves as being highly desirable to them, and fancied taking Muslim women as a further form of conquest. It's likely that they also did this as a form of humiliation, as they knew how protective Muslims were of their womenfolk. It's similar to the way their paintings of Muslim lands always depicted women without clothing. This was despite the fact that even their artists, who were used to being able to easily find nude models in Europe, couldn't get a glimpse of the women at all. So if artists couldn't successfully gain access to the inner portions of peoples' homes, how were occupying soldiers so easily able to not only get into them, but also pull the women out long enough to have relations? This wasn't just an Afghan thing either. The colonialists of North Africa had zero access to the women, and that's one of the more successful examples of colonialism in Muslim lands. European adventurers complained that they never caught a glimpse of a woman in Bukhara. It's only recently that Muslims have lost their adherence to satr/hijab/parda. Before the 1900s, Muslim women all over the world dressed like they do in the Pashtun heartland today, and would avoid contact with foreign men completely. The only exception was prostitutes.

All that said, we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that Pashtuns are magical creatures that all have ghairat, and that there are no bad elements among us. This type of union, while unlikely in the past, happens all the time now. While Pashtuns have held on to Islamic notions of modesty better than most, we still have a ways to go, and rather than think ourselves superior to others who have become more Westernized, we should seek to better our own society, and prove that it can be successful again.

[Samandri]

Just heard about this one today. Are we sure this claim is legitimate? I can't find a record of Dost Muhammad Khan having a niece named Shah Jahan Begum other than in relation to Robert Warburton. According to one site she was supposedly the daughter of "Abdul Rahim Khan," but again I don't think Dost Muhammad Khan had a brother by that name. Are there any Afghan records of this marriage? If they were married in Afghanistan, there should be some record of it. The details of the story seem suspect to me as well. The claim is that the two fell in love and eloped, but where would they have met? Even the nobles back then practiced satr as far as I know, so it's hard to imagine a meeting between them ever taking place.

You can find the family tree here, maybe I missed them: Barak1

And while the picture of Shah Jahan Begum is too faded to make out much detail, their kids don't look Afghan.

I wouldn't be surprised if the lady was actually some random prostitute that Warburton found and married, and then either he tried to claim that his wife was actually an "Afghan princess," or his son claimed it to try to improve his standing with the Afridis. This would reflect the way colonialists viewed women as part of the conquest, and how they frequently bragged (and probably lied) about how many local women they romanced. These relations happening anywhere in high frequencies is doubtful (I know everyone here likes to mock Indians, but I doubt their women were actually as "easy" as the colonialists like to claim), but in Kabul in particular I have really doubt that there were any relationships between the local women and the British, and yet the British claim they were frequently having illicit relationships with Afghan women. In fact, they claim the mob that killed Alexander Burnes was partially composed of all the angry fathers and husbands of the many women he supposedly romanced.

All this goes back to the colonial and orientalist mindset of Europeans that exists to this day. They perceived Muslim/Eastern women (and society in general) as overly sexual, saw themselves as being highly desirable to them, and fancied taking Muslim women as a further form of conquest. It's likely that they also did this as a form of humiliation, as they knew how protective Muslims were of their womenfolk. It's similar to the way their paintings of Muslim lands always depicted women without clothing. This was despite the fact that even their artists, who were used to being able to easily find nude models in Europe, couldn't get a glimpse of the women at all. So if artists couldn't successfully gain access to the inner portions of peoples' homes, how were occupying soldiers so easily able to not only get into them, but also pull the women out long enough to have relations? This wasn't just an Afghan thing either. The colonialists of North Africa had zero access to the women, and that's one of the more successful examples of colonialism in Muslim lands. European adventurers complained that they never caught a glimpse of a woman in Bukhara. It's only recently that Muslims have lost their adherence to satr/hijab/parda. Before the 1900s, Muslim women all over the world dressed like they do in the Pashtun heartland today, and would avoid contact with foreign men completely. The only exception was prostitutes.

All that said, we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that Pashtuns are magical creatures that all have ghairat, and that there are no bad elements among us. This type of union, while unlikely in the past, happens all the time now. While Pashtuns have held on to Islamic notions of modesty better than most, we still have a ways to go, and rather than think ourselves superior to others who have become more Westernized, we should seek to better our own society, and prove that it can be successful again.

The claim exists in published books of British , but i also have my doubts when i read some thing like this " Robert Warburton married an Afghan lady, formerly the wife of a Kabul Sirdar and said to have been a niece of the Amir Dost Muhammad Khan.".........But if Ghilam Jam of Kabul can sell their bodies in Peshawar today why its surprising back then?







I will disagree with you on your doubt on colonials marrying Indian women..... a whole lot of Angraiz officers married Indian women in early history of East India Company....according to historian William Dalrymple, this trend ceased at one point and was overtaken by racism and superiority complex emerged in Englishmen who began to look down upon Indian race ......their this attitude was one of the major cause of 1857 uprising.....

It will be time consuming for me to find and post all the portraits (which i have come across) of Indian wives of Angraiz/Europeans. Here is 1841's portrait of General Claude Auguste Court's wife, Fezli Azam Joo (Muslim). The general was serving Ranjeet Singh



Here is the portrait of the General

http://www.sikhmuseum.com/schoefft/artist.html#Schoefft_4

[Samandri]

ManeatingLizard if you are uncomfortable at the idea that Pashtun women were eloping with Angraiz then that may not be the case. The city was overwhelmingly non-Pashtun even in 1876.



This enumeration of the residents of the city of Kabul in 1876, was done under supervision of Qazi Abdul Qadir Yousafzai alias Qazi Qadiro who belonged to Peshawar ("A Political an Diplomatic history of Afghanistan", Hassan Kakar, p-18). The Peshawar Qazi Khels are the Yousafzai Afghans of the Dawlatzai branch. ("Chiefs and Families of Note: In the Dehli, Jalandhar, Peshawar and Derajat", Charles Francis Massy, p-460)

The author of the book from which snippet is taken, says ; "The second main group of the city inhabitants were the Pashtuns (Durranis, Ghilzays, and Safays), who had began to adopt to the city ways of life without abandoning the traditional ways of the country (rural) " ("Government and society of Afghanistan during the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman", Hassan Kakar, p-136)

[Iblis_Efreetzai]

The claim exists in published books of British , but i also have my doubts when i read some thing like this " Robert Warburton married an Afghan lady, formerly the wife of a Kabul Sirdar and said to have been a niece of the Amir Dost Muhammad Khan.".........But if Ghilam Jam of Kabul can sell their bodies in Peshawar today why its surprising back then?

I will disagree with you on your doubt on colonials marrying Indian women..... a whole lot of Angraiz officers married Indian women in early history of East India Company....according to historian William Dalrymple, this trend ceased at one point and racism and superiority complex emerged in Englishmen who began to look down upon Indian race ......their this attitude culminated in 1857 uprising.....

yeah that portrayal sounds like pure "romance novel" nonsense. I don't think it was as mystical as this narrative portrays it. Sir Alexander Burnes was dead at this point, I would think?

[MENTION=19985]maneatinglizard[/MENTION]

You might be right, now that I think about it, it seems implausible, but there's photographs of Muslim women from this era as well as paintings of Afghan women, which is curious as to how they were able to get access.

The French Imperialists completely ruined Morocco. Tunisia and Algeria ...For sure, the North Africans had a very strong sense of reverence for their women. But after the French defeated their resistance, they established a social engineering policy to groom the younger generations that by Camus time, North African girls would be mistresses of the Pied Noir class of French colonialists, what happened with them is sad and a reminder we should always be wary of Faranagiyan, even though we should respect the welfare of humanity and not only ourselves. So it's not impossible

Theres also a lesson in this. Muslims of this time were defeated by the Europeans because they had more advanced weaponry, the Muslims had become complacent and lazy and didn't try to grow and develop and learn more and it ultimately lead to being usurped. This is a testament that Muslims need to stop just hiding behind saying "Allah Akbar" and 'Inshallah", start gaining knowledge and working hard. Personally I become annoyed when someone just says "Inshallah" , not because I hate those words. Those words are beautiful, but I hate how they're used to avoid responsibility.

[Iblis_Efreetzai]

And while the picture of Shah Jahan Begum is too faded to make out much detail, their kids don't look Afghan.

I think those are her maid girls.

[maneatinglizard]

The claim exists in published books of British , but i also have my doubts when i read some thing like this " Robert Warburton married an Afghan lady, formerly the wife of a Kabul Sirdar and said to have been a niece of the Amir Dost Muhammad Khan.".........But if Ghilam Jam of Kabul can sell their bodies in Peshawar today why its surprising back then?

There's a big difference between prostitutes and women from families of repute. While the "royal" Pashtun families of today pride themselves on their Westernization, back then high status families would've been expected to keep their women hidden from public. It's hard to imagine some random British solider somehow being able to get inside the inner quarters of an Amir, let alone somehow getting close enough to one of them as to be able to steal her from her husband.

I will disagree with you on your doubt on colonials marrying Indian women..... a whole lot of Angraiz officers married Indian women in early history of East India Company....according to historian William Dalrymple, this trend ceased at one point and was overtaken by racism and superiority complex emerged in Englishmen who began to look down upon Indian race ......their this attitude was one of the major cause of 1857 uprising.....

It will be time consuming for me to find and post all the portraits (which i have come across) of Indian wives of Angraiz/Europeans. Here is 1841's portrait of General Claude Auguste Court's wife, Fezli Azam Joo (Muslim). The general was serving Ranjeet Singh



Here is the portrait of the General



http://www.sikhmuseum.com/schoefft/a...tml#Schoefft_4

My doubt isn't that it ever happened. In the early days especially, the Europeans who came into India often embraced the local culture to some degree and became Indianized, and as Indians are not generally endogamous, it's easy to see them marrying foreigners. My doubt is rather targeted towards the perception of these relationships. They see them as a form of dominance and conquest over the locals (as they portray the alleged relationship between Warburton and Shah Jahan Begum), whereas it was often closer to assimilation of the Europeans that led to them marrying locally. Your example illustrates this nicely, as Claude August Court was a French mercenary who traveled to India, became a general under the Sikhs, and probably would've stayed in India if the Sikh Empire hadn't collapsed. He wasn't a case of "Western man conquers, takes local woman" as a lot of Western media would portray things.

As for William Dalrymple, I'll just say that from what I've read about him, and from his own writings, it would seem that he is rather Eurocentric, perhaps unknowingly racist, and I'm not sure we should fully trust his research. He makes some pretty outlandish claims about the relationships between Afghan women and British soldiers, citing poetry like:

A Kabul wife under burqa cover,
Was never known without a lover

And mentions some other supposed relationships between Afghans and Englishmen, as well as claiming that Afghan women became prostitutes because there weren't enough Indian ones to meet the demands of the British.

ManeatingLizard if you are uncomfortable at the idea that Pashtun women were eloping with Angraiz then that may not be the case. The city was overwhelmingly non-Pashtun even in 1876.



This enumeration of the residents of the city of Kabul in 1876, was done under supervision of Qazi Abdul Qadir Yousafzai alias Qazi Qadiro who belonged to Peshawar ("A Political an Diplomatic history of Afghanistan", Hassan Kakar, p-18). The Peshawar Qazi Khels are the Yousafzai Afghans of the Dawlatzai branch. ("Chiefs and Families of Note: In the Dehli, Jalandhar, Peshawar and Derajat", Charles Francis Massy, p-460)

The author of the book from which snippet is taken, says ; "The second main group of the city inhabitants were the Pashtuns (Durranis, Ghilzays, and Safays), who had began to adopt to the city ways of life without abandoning the traditional ways of the country (rural) " ("Government and society of Afghanistan during the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman", Hassan Kakar, p-136)

Aren't the "detribalized Kabulis" just urbanized Pashtuns who lost track or abandoned their tribal lineages? Regardless, I have trouble believing it happened with any non-prostitute Muslims. All of Central Asia was extremely protective of women back then, not just Pashtuns. I already mentioned the reactions of people traveling to Bukhara, and others were similar. Where were the British finding these Afghan women if they weren't prostitutes?

yeah that portrayal sounds like pure "romance novel" nonsense. I don't think it was as mystical as this narrative portrays it. Sir Alexander Burnes was dead at this point, I would think?

According to this link, the marriage occurred on 10/27/1841, while Burnes was killed on 11/02/1841, so a few days later. Kinda hard to believe they were snatching noblewomen and marrying them while tensions were high enough to have Burnes killed just a few days later lol.

[MENTION=19985]maneatinglizard[/MENTION]

You might be right, now that I think about it, it seems implausible, but there's photographs of Muslim women from this era as well as paintings of Afghan women, which is curious as to how they were able to get access.

The painting were probably just figments of the artists imaginations. At least that's how most of them were. As for photographs, my guess is they were taken without the intention of having them made public. I've seen pictures and paintings of the wives of the later Ottoman Sultans, and with how protective they were (the only unrelated males allowed inside the women's quarter of their palaces were castrated black slaves), it's hard to imagine they were putting those pictures out to the public.

The French Imperialists completely ruined Morocco. Tunisia and Algeria ...For sure, the North Africans had a very strong sense of reverence for their women. But after the French defeated their resistance, they established a social engineering policy to groom the younger generations that by Camus time, North African girls would be mistresses of the Pied Noir class of French colonialists, what happened with them is sad and a reminder we should always be wary of Faranagiyan, even though we should respect the welfare of humanity and not only ourselves. So it's not impossible

That took a long time though. Around 100 years, while the British spent very little time in Afghanistan. The Muslims of Algeria resisted for a long time too, but unfortunately, as with many other failures of our people, people didn't really wake up to the dangers facing them until it was too late.

Theres also a lesson in this. Muslims of this time were defeated by the Europeans because they had more advanced weaponry, the Muslims had become complacent and lazy and didn't try to grow and develop and learn more and it ultimately lead to being usurped. This is a testament that Muslims need to stop just hiding behind saying "Allah Akbar" and 'Inshallah", start gaining knowledge and working hard. Personally I become annoyed when someone just says "Inshallah" , not because I hate those words. Those words are beautiful, but I hate how they're used to avoid responsibility.

Indeed. I think there were other factors involved, but at the end of the day we were caught sleeping, and that's what led to our downfall.

I think those are her maid girls.

The one in the middle is her according to the caption.

[Elite Pakhtun]

Segway:

Whatever living stock of ranjitt singh's kid's there were have all basically mixed in with white people. With all the succeeding generations, I believe they're pretty much almost entirely white at this point.

[Iblis_Efreetzai]

There's a big difference between prostitutes and women from families of repute. While the "royal" Pashtun families of today pride themselves on their Westernization, back then high status families would've been expected to keep their women hidden from public. It's hard to imagine some random British solider somehow being able to get inside the inner quarters of an Amir, let alone somehow getting close enough to one of them as to be able to steal her from her husband.

You're probably right, at the same time, the Mohmadzais were known for being opportunists and I feel that culture among them ushered this transition, at the same time, I guess they were not completely bereft of values at least in this respects.

My doubt isn't that it ever happened. In the early days especially, the Europeans who came into India often embraced the local culture to some degree and became Indianized, and as Indians are not generally endogamous, it's easy to see them marrying foreigners. My doubt is rather targeted towards the perception of these relationships. They see them as a form of dominance and conquest over the locals (as they portray the alleged relationship between Warburton and Shah Jahan Begum), whereas it was often closer to assimilation of the Europeans that led to them marrying locally. Your example illustrates this nicely, as Claude August Court was a French mercenary who traveled to India, became a general under the Sikhs, and probably would've stayed in India if the Sikh Empire hadn't collapsed. He wasn't a case of "Western man conquers, takes local woman" as a lot of Western media would portray things.

Though this is in response to Samandri's remark, interesting hypothesis. I'm inclined to agree with you, even with regards to Arab, Persian, Turk and Qizilbash families of Afghanistan, they had essentially culturally assimilated, that is a characteristic difference between colonial enterprise and cultural/social friendships.

As for William Dalrymple, I'll just say that from what I've read about him, and from his own writings, it would seem that he is rather Eurocentric, perhaps unknowingly racist, and I'm not sure we should fully trust his research. He makes some pretty outlandish claims about the relationships between Afghan women and British soldiers, citing poetry like:

I can see that.

A Kabul wife under burqa cover,
Was never known without a lover

I was under the impression that this is an old Pashtun saying about Kabli people..because I've seen ethnocentric Pashtuns make that remark before

And mentions some other supposed relationships between Afghans and Englishmen, as well as claiming that Afghan women became prostitutes because there weren't enough Indian ones to meet the demands of the British.

yeah that doesn't make sense; what motive would they have for prostitution? Prostituting happens generally when people are destitute, that doesn't seem to mark the socioeconomics of Kabul of that time. Most Kabli were not living in places like "macroyan" and apartment buildings of that time. They had family homes and qilley.

Aren't the "detribalized Kabulis" just urbanized Pashtuns who lost track or abandoned their tribal lineages? Regardless, I have trouble believing it happened with any non-prostitute Muslims. All of Central Asia was extremely protective of women back then, not just Pashtuns. I already mentioned the reactions of people traveling to Bukhara, and others were similar. Where were the British finding these Afghan women if they weren't prostitutes?

Yes, but being that influxes of Pashtuns was a more recent phenomena, it wouldn't make sense for that level of obfuscation of tribal heritage to have occurred by then. As for everything else you wrote. You seem to be right

when I originally wrote this post, it was after reading these things and I hadn't taken a critical examination of them as I should have.

According to this link, the marriage occurred on 10/27/1841, while Burnes was killed on 11/02/1841, so a few days later. Kinda hard to believe they were snatching noblewomen and marrying them while tensions were high enough to have Burnes killed just a few days later lol.

yeah that is odd, how would Alexander Burnes have made that journey there to Kabul in less than 4 days.

The painting were probably just figments of the artists imaginations. At least that's how most of them were. As for photographs, my guess is they were taken without the intention of having them made public. I've seen pictures and paintings of the wives of the later Ottoman Sultans, and with how protective they were (the only unrelated males allowed inside the women's quarter of their palaces were castrated black slaves), it's hard to imagine they were putting those pictures out to the public.

Fair enough, but paintings like these, are very good representations of Ghilzai customs of women ....she has a konchey braid on her head, which is a thing peghley wear before marriage.

That took a long time though. Around 100 years, while the British spent very little time in Afghanistan. The Muslims of Algeria resisted for a long time too, but unfortunately, as with many other failures of our people, people didn't really wake up to the dangers facing them until it was too late.

Well look at Afghans in America and Canada now. I really don't want to get into the sad state they're in these days. I'll just say our ancestors would be mournful at how their descendants turned out.

Indeed. I think there were other factors involved, but at the end of the day we were caught sleeping, and that's what led to our downfall.

Of course, Muslim in-fighting, getting too wrapped up in shi'a-sunni stuff (although recent manifestations of it have exacerbated to its worse level in history). Muslim powers warring against each other. Lack of priorities (more concerned with land and wealth, than justice and social health(.

The one in the middle is her according to the caption.

I mean the two women besides her.