“Your Highness is aware that in December 1895 and in May last I caused the Kaffir refugees to be disarmed, and took measures to prevent their causing your Highness annoyance.
“I now ask your Highness to take similar action in regard to the Orakzais and Afridis, by ordering your local officers to disarm those who enter your limits and to prevent them from making Afghan territory a base for attacks upon my forces.”
From His Highness the Amir of Afghanistan and its Dependencies to the address of His Excellency the Viceroy, dated the 16th Jamadi-ul-Awal, 1315 H., corresponding to the 13th October 1897 (received on October 20, 1897).
(After compliments.)
“I have received your Excellency’s friendly letter, dated the 7th October 1897, enclosing a letter from Mullah Najm-ud-din, the Fakir of Hadda, to the Mian Guls, which I have perused. I have also understood the contents of your Excellency’s letter.
“As to the escape of Mullah Hadda from his house before the British troops reached it, and as to my promise that I would turn him out from this side of the boundary if he should enter my territory, I have now to inform your Excellency that I have issued orders to search for the said Mullah by day and night in view to arrest him. The news-reporters appointed for the purpose report that the Mullah has concealed himself and is secretly moving about. I have also ordered that his whereabouts should be found out and a report made. Please God, the said Mullah’s mischief will be stopped, if he be within the limits of my territory; but if this mischievous man move about in tracts which have not been divided yet between the British and Afghan Governments, the British officials should instruct the Maliks of such tracts to make arrangements about the said mischievous man. This man does not pass a single night at one place. He is in motion like mercury: during night he is at one place, and during day at another. Such are the reports made by news-reporters. Notwithstanding this, I am engaged in endeavouring to arrest him. Your Excellency may rest assured that, if I succeed in arresting him, I will turn him out from my territory.
“I have perused the letter which Mullah Najm-ud-din wrote to the Mian Guls of Swat, and which your Excellency sent to me. I write to say that whatever the Mullah has written, he has done so with the object of deceiving the tribesmen. His object is to excite people to rebel. Some years ago he became hostile towards me, and excited all his disciples to rise against me, and made them fight with my troops. Now in this way he is making the distant people fight with the British Government. He is mischievous; he says what is advisable and beneficial in his own interests. If I had given him the said promise, he was not distant from my country, and at the outside my troops at Jelalabad were only two stages away from his residence. Your Excellency can see from the date of his letter what a lie he has told. Liars tell lies, but wise persons should distinguish (between truth and falsehood). I have known these Mullahs well for years. They are like the priests of the time of Peter the Great, who created great mischief in Russia. These Mullahs pretend before the people that Paradise and Hell are within their power and authority.
“I have understood what your Excellency kindly wrote for my information about sending British troops for the chastisement of the Orakzais and Afridis. I have also learnt about the decision which the high officials of the British Government have come to in regard to punishing the said tribesmen and bringing them to obedience.
“I have further understood what your Excellency wrote about the report which Maulavi Ghafur Khan made to your Excellency regarding the arrival of the Afridi jirga at Jelalabad, and my sending them back to their country from that place; and your Excellency expressing thanks to me for my action. As the people are seeking their own interests, their statements cannot be relied upon.
“Your Excellency writes that, if at the time of the British troops advancing against the Orakzais and Afridis these tribesmen, being obliged to flee, should enter my territory, they should be disarmed and prevented from making any attack on British territory. My dear friend, I will not, please God, to the best of my power, allow my subjects to join the tribesmen who have rebelled, in view to help them in their fights. But when they bring their families to the houses of their own relatives I will take no notice of the circumstance, because these people are mutually related to one another. They have given thousands of their daughters in marriage to one another. If I were to prohibit this mutual intercourse and prevent them from bringing their families to Jelalabad, the tribesmen would become hostile to me, in the same way that they have become hostile to the British Government. Their hostility to the British Government cannot be of much account, because the British Government is a Great Government. They have appointed troops for their punishment, composed of English soldiers, Sikhs, and Hindus. But all my troops consist of these tribesmen. They will never agree to the destruction of their own kith and kin; and they will again, under the orders of the mischievous Mullahs, issue improper edicts against me.