Coronation 17 January 1929 Name Habibullah Kalakani | Role King | |
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Reign 17 January 1929 – 16 October 1929 Similar People Dost Mohammad Khan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, Hafizullah Amin | ||
Last king of khorasan ghazi habibullah kalakani
King Habibullah Kalakani (Dari: حبیبالله کلکانی; 19 January 1891 – 1 November 1929), was King of Afghanistan from January to October 1929 after deposing Amanullah Khan People knew him as 'Bachi-Saqaw' (literally son of a water carrier). He was murdered nine months later by Nadir Khan, but wasn't buried until 2016. Khalilullah Khalili, a Kohistani poet laureate, depicts King Habibullah Kalakani as a mujahid, a "warrior of God."
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London seminar on king habibullah kalakani s place in the contemporary history of afghanistan
Early years
Amir Habibullah was born in 1891 in the village of Kalakan, north of Kabul. An ethnic Tajik, his father was Aminullah
During his adolescence, Kalakani ventured out of his village and traveled to the city of Kabul. In the south, he met an old sufi who told the young Habibullah that he would become king one day. Later, he returned back to Kabul and joined King Amanullah Khan's army.
Revolt
While the Afghan National Army was engulfed in battle with Pashtoon outlaw Tribes in Laghman and Nangarhar south of the country, Kalakani his friends began to attack Kabul from the north. The revolt caught steam and the country was thrown into a civil war. Wild tribesmen from Waziristan had the southern areas of Kabul surrounded, and Katakana's forces were moving into the heart of Kabul from the north.
In the middle of the night, on 14 January 1929, Amanullah Khan's pro-pashtoon tribal kingdom handed over his kingdom to his brother Inayatullah Khan and escaped from Kabul towards Kandahar in the south, fearing people's wrath. Two days later, on 16 January 1929, Kalakani wrote a letter to King Inayatullah Khan to either surrender or prepare to fight. Inayatullah Khan responded by explaining that he never wished to become king, and agreed to abdicate.
Death
After nine months in power, Nader Shah took over and Habibullah Kalakani was hanged with his men due to his hypocrisy.
His remains were laid below a hilltop mausoleum at an undisclosed location for 87 years, until a campaign in 2016 by some Tajiks and scholars who wanted him to be reburied in a better place. This caused days of political and slight sectarian tensions in Kabul - Tajiks and religious scholars, who consider Kalakani to have been a devout Muslim, wanted him to be buried at the Shahrara hill and asked President Ashraf Ghani to plan a state burial. Pashtuns and secularists, who do not like Kalakani, were against this plan, as well as vice-president Abdul Rashid Dostum who claimed that he could not be buried at a hilltop important to Uzbek heritage. He was eventually buried at the hill on September 2, with four injuries and one death in clashes between his supporters and soldiers of Dostum.