Afghanistan may be the only country in the world where, over the last century, the struggles to give and take away women’s rights “have made and unmade kings and politicians.” We will retrace this historic path of struggle by Afghan women, who continue to inspire
new generations.

The story begins with Abdur Rahman Khan, who reigned from 1880 to 1901. He, in a sense, started the women’s rights movement in Afghanistan. Coming from the Pashtun ethnic majority, a Sunni Muslim born in Kabul, Abdur Rahman became known as the Iron Emir for his tyrannical methods, which allowed him to unify the country after eliminating his rivals (he was responsible for the genocide of the Shiite Hazara minority in 1888-1893 and other atrocities).

Abdur Rahman Khan, King of Afghanistan from 1880 to 1901. Frank A. Martin/Library of Congress

He adopted reforms to “elevate the status of women in society” as demonstrated by Huma Ahmed-Ghosh, professor emeritus of Women’s Studies at the University of San Diego, California, and Nancy Hatch Dupree, an American historian who has helped preserve Afghanistan’s cultural heritage for more than half a century. “The first spokesperson for women’s rights was Amir Abdur Rahman – Dupree confirms -. Invoking verses from the Koran, he prohibited early and forced marriages [abolishing the tradition of forcing widows to marry the deceased’s closest relative] and recognized women’s right to divorce and inheritance” from their father and/or spouse.
It is true that he imposed the death penalty for adultery and insisted on segregation to ensure “the honour of the nation,” but he also defended “fair treatment” for women.
The thinking of Abdur Rahman, says American historian Dupree, had a great contribution from his wife Bobo Jay: “She was the first queen to appear in public in European clothes, without a veil. She rode horseback and trained maids in military exercises. She was very interested in politics and took part in numerous delicate missions to negotiate
with the warring parties.”

Habibullah Khan was the Emir of Afghanistan from 1901 until his assassination in 1919. Wikimedia Commons.

In 1901, after Abdur Rahman’s death, he was succeeded by his son, Habibullah Khan, who ruled for a decade, continuing his father’s “progressive agenda.” It was he who, in 1903, opened the first university in Afghanistan, for which he recruited professors from India, Turkey, and Germany.
Professor Nancy Dupree acknowledges that Emir Habibullah, “although he did not care much about women, inadvertently took a step that advanced the movement for women’s rights.” That step, described by Professor Ahmed-Ghosh as “his greatest contribution to Afghanistan,” was to obtain an amnesty and encourage the return of families forced into exile by his father. One of these families, living in India, was from the Musahiban dynasty, where the emir went to take his fourth wife, the young and elegant Ulya Jenab, a writer and translator of works from Urdu to Dari. This marriage “created a new phenomenon in the harems of Kabul,” says the American historian Dupree. “Because she was a gentle person without political ambitions, Ulya Jenab did not make much of a stir in society, but she planted the seed of education for women.”

Ladies of the royal harem. “The power of the harem”. CC BY 4.0/Kabul Archives & Manuscripts

His second wife, Ulya Hazrat, from a prominent tribal family in Kandahar, had a strong personality and “represented the power of the harem.”
Ulya Hazrat’s son Amanullah would ascend to the throne, supplanting his elder brother, “thanks to the machinations of his mother,” who “exercised authority throughout the court,” notes Dupree. Nevertheless, “she was confined to the walls of the harem and appeared in public only with a veil and escorted by men of the family.” This was the custom in Kandahar, as Afghan-born Canadian journalist Hamida Ghafour puts it: “The richer the families, the greater the isolation of the women: this signified prestige. Some of the richest women had never walked in the gardens of their homes since the day they were married.” (Open Photo: Closeup of an Afghan woman in Burka. Shutterstock/chomplearn)
M.S.L.