Four days are annually set apart for religious celebrations in Afghanistan. These comprise two Id festivals, one immediately following Ramasan, the other two months and ten days later; the third, the Barat festival, takes place forty-five days before Ramasan. The fourth event is Nauroz or New Year which falls invariably upon March 21. Abdur Rahman created a fifth festival, observed upon 28th of Asad, in remembrance of the day when confirmation of his title “The Light of the Nation and Religion” was received from all the centres of Afghanistan.
Priestly influence in Afghanistan is anything but beneficial. The priests impose upon the credulity of the people, concealing their actual worthlessness by a continuous assumption of godliness which they do not really practise. Their power is opposed to foreign development, since any raising of the veil about the borders of Afghanistan would deal a grievous blow to their position. Habib Ullah is completely subjugated to their will, and his brother, Nasr Ullah Khan, imbibes his anti-foreign prejudices from their bigoted teachings. At once a curse and a power in the land, they are the most enduring menace to our influence which the country contains. As a religion Mahommedanism exacts constant adoration of the qualities of God. The word Allah in a variety of intonations, or the phrase “God knows,” recur without cessation to the lips of every devout follower of the Prophet. All correspondence of an official or private character also addresses itself in the first place to the Supreme Deity—letters beginning with the phrase “In the name of God” and closing with the farewell salutation, “With the will of God,” or “In the hands of God.” This peculiarity quite fails to arouse sentiments of very great depth among the great mass of the Afghans, although the western areas frequently develop a spirit of ghazidom, under pressure of which feeling and excitement become intense.
Religion is allied with the practice of medicine and the pursuit of learning in Afghanistan, although in respect of education no settled procedure has been adopted. Upon occasion Abdur Rahman gave expression to his intention of founding a native university in Kabul, and Habib Ullah in 1904 actually imported from India five Mahommedan graduates from Lahore College for the purpose of founding a college for the education of the sons of Afghan nobles. The plan raised the hostility of the priests and was abandoned. At present the Amir contemplates the erection of a military academy. Unhappily the roads round Kabul are paved with good intentions, and the educational system of Afghanistan has made no advance upon the native principle of oral teaching. There are no schools or colleges under European supervision similar to those which exist in other Eastern countries, and the young idea is only trained to read Persian, to quote extensively from the Koran, to write, to shoot and to ride. Nothing further is desired by the priests, since it is their aim to maintain their authority unimpaired by extraneous suggestion.
THE BALA HISSAR, KABUL
The priests exert in a measure a two-fold power. In the villages of the countryside it is the local mullah who drives into the dull wits of his audience the rudiments of reading, writing, and religion. At the same time, in addition to teaching the countryside he professes to heal it, although attempts have been made from time to time to establish in Kabul European control in medical matters. But the Court is suspicious; and, while Abdur Rahman supported in theory the introduction of improved medical knowledge, enlisting in March 1889 Mr. J. A. Gray as his private surgeon, he was in practice opposed to its acceptance. Nevertheless, under the supervision of various distinguished people attempts have been made to instruct native doctors in the art of vaccination and in simple dispensing; while, in 1894, Miss Lillias Hamilton opened an hospital in Kabul. At their instigation, too, military hospitals, placed in the charge of native druggists who were familiarised with Western ideas, were started. Popular prejudices prevail so strongly in the capital, that no great success has attended these efforts, and the medical arrangements of Afghanistan have remained under the control of the native professors of the healing art, save for those spasmodic interruptions which have occurred when more competent authorities were summoned to Kabul from India by the Amir.
Miss Lillias Hamilton spent three years at the Court of Abdur Rahman, the cause of her becoming medical attendant to the Amir being somewhat curious. Abdur Rahman, observing the good effect that association with English gentlemen had on the men folk of his country, conceived the brilliant idea of providing an example for Afghan women by obtaining the presence of an English lady. On the announcement being made that a lady was required merely to be entertained as a visitor for six months at the Amir’s Court Miss Hamilton applied for the post, and was accepted. Her appointment as physician was due to the fact that the Amir fell ill during her visit, and wisely availed himself of the aid of the only qualified medical practitioner in the country. Miss Lillias Hamilton always described the late Amir as a man of simple mind, who was nevertheless possessed of a progressive spirit. On being asked why he entertained a friendly feeling towards Great Britain, the Amir said:
“If I were to tell you that it is because I love the British you would not believe me, so I will say that it is because it suits my policy. Russia is my geographical enemy, who would seize my country if she could, because it is on her route to a sunny sea and a fertile country from which she could get supplies, but I have nothing to fear from Great Britain.”
This charming and well-known physician relates several characteristic anecdotes of the late monarch, of which one is reproduced here. After an eclipse of the sun Abdur Rahman said to Miss Hamilton: