Mohammed Zaher Shah

From Kaiserreich

Revision as of 23:15, 27 October 2008

Mohammed Zahir Shah, (15 October 1914 – ) King of Afghanistan. King since 1933.

Family background and early life

Zahir Shah was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was the son of Mohammed Nadir Shah, a senior member of the Barakzai royal family and commander in chief of the Afghan army under former king Amanullah Khan. Nadir Shah assumed the throne after the execution of Habibullah Ghazi on October 10, 1929. Mohammed Zahir's father was born in Dehradun, Brittish India, after his family having been exiled following the second Anglo-Afghan war. Nadir Shah was a descendant of Sardar Mohammad Yusuf Khan Telai, half-brother of Dost Mohammad Khan. His great grandfather Mohammad Yahya Khan was responsible for the mediation between Yaqub Khan and the British leading to the Gandamak Treaty. After the British invasion following the killing of Sir Louis Cavagnari in 1879, Yaqub Khan and Yahya Khan were seized by the British and transferred under custody to India, where they forcibly remained until invited back to Afghanistan by Emir Abdur Rahman Khan in the last year of his reign (1901).

Zahir Shah was educated in a special class for princes at Habibia High School in Kabul. He continued his education in France where his father had been sent as a diplomatic envoy, studying at the Pasteur Institute and the University of Montpellier. When he returned to Afghanistan he helped his father and uncles restore order and reassert government control during a period of lawlessness in the country. He was later enrolled at an Infantry School and appointed a privy counsellor. Zahir Shah served in the government positions of deputy war minister and minister of education. Zahir Shah was fluent in Pashto, Persian, and spoke some French, English and after of her exile improved Italian.

His preference of the Persian language gave him credibility with the most important group of the country: the elite citizenry of Kabul.

Rule

Zahir Khan was proclaimed King (Shah) on 8 November 1933, after the assassination of his father Mohammed Nadir Shah. Following his ascension to the throne he was given the regnal title "confident in God, follower of the firm religion of Islam"

Throughout the 1930s, agreements on foreign assistance and trade had been reached with many countries, most notably Germany, Russia, and Japan

Family

He married Homairah Begum (1918) on 7 November 1931 and has two sons and one daughters

1. Princess Bilqis Begum (born 17 April 1932) 2. Crown Prince Muhammed Akbar Khan (4 August 1933) 3. Prince Ahmad Shah (born 23 September 1934)