BY J. H. S.
A number of years ago there came over the cable an announcement that the Akhoond of Swat had died, and immediately there was an outburst of merriment in the newspapers. No one could tell who or what he was, many believed him to be a myth, and for a long time the Akhoond was a standing joke among paragraph writers all over the world.
But the Akhoond was a real personage and no joke, and it is only recently that we have found out what a really great man he was.
Swat itself is a considerable province of Afghanistan, bordering on India, and just southwest of the Pamirs. The Akhoond was not, however, its civil ruler. At any rate, he was not nominally so. The title Akhoond merely means “teacher,” and he was, primarily, a religious teacher and nothing more.
He lived in the town of Saidu, and he reached manhood and began to teach the people more than half a century ago, when Dost Mohammed was Ameer of Cabul.
An intense fanatic and a mystic, he exerted a marvelous sway over the people of Swat, who like all the Afghan tribes, are nervous, imaginative, and given to mysticism. So he became not only their spiritual prophet, but their military leader as well.
He led the hosts of Islam against the Sikhs, in the days when Dost Mohammed planned to conquer all India, and many are the stories told of his prowess.
Nor did he fight alone against the Indians, but in 1863 he led the Afghans in their battle with the British at Umbeyla, and made himself the most feared man in all the Afghan empire.
When not busy in the wars, the Akhoond was always to be found at Saidu. From sunrise to sunset he sat in his mosque, reproving the erring, comforting the mourners, encouraging the faithful, and cursing the obstinate unbelievers.