Tour IV - To the Airport
Of Special Interest
- Royal (Arg) Palace [2]
- Cantonment Sites: 1841 [13], 1879 [8]
- Bemaru Heights [11]
[1] A broad avenue called Jadi Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, and named for the great 11th century philosopher of Herat, leaves
Pushtunistan Square in a northeasterly direction and proceeds directly to the
Airport Terminal (opened on 11 May, 1963.)
[2] The Ministry of Mines and Industries and the Cartographic Institute, both opened in 1963, stand to the right as you leave
Pushtunistan Square, and the long façade of the Royal Guard Headquarters lines the avenue on the left. They form a part of the
outer walls of the Royal Palace also called the Arg, the Turkish word for citadel. The Arg was built by Amir Andur Rahman
(r. 1880-1901) in 1883 for, as he says in his autobiography, "I, as King of the country; had to face the difficulty of having no house to live in ... Until the time I built a new palace for
myself, I lived in tents and borrowed mud-houses belonging to my subjects." The Arg was originally surrounded by a wide moat and well-fortified. During the disturbances culminating in
Bacha Saqao's take over of Kabul in 1929, the palace buildings were heavily damaged by shell and fire necessitating considerable restoration by King Nadir Shah (r. 1929-1933) and further
enlargement by His Majesty King Zahir Shah.
[3] The first gate is the main entrance to the Palace and it was designed by His Majesty. Through it, one may glimpse the imposing inner gateway with His Majesty's standard flying from
its central tower. The Royal Flag is red, and one side is emblazoned with the Afghan coat of arms in white. This emblem consists of a domed mosque with two minarets, a pulpit and a prayer
niche inside, and two banners flanking it on either side. "1348," the Afghan religious Hijra date (1929 A.D.) the founder of this dynasty, King Mohammad Nadir Shah, ascended the throne, is
inscribed below the mosque. This central design is encircled by a sheaf of wheat symbolizing the wreath of wheat with which Ahmad Shah Durrani was crowned in 1747 A.D. On the other side, the
flag bears His Majesty King Zahir Shah's seal (tughra) in the center. Al-Mutawakel' al-Allah (To Trust in God), His Majesty's title, appears above and to the right of the seal,
and below it Da Afghanistan Badshah, King of Afghanistan, is written in Pashto. To right, Independence Avenue. Tour II. [52].
(Click here to view original photos from this section of "An Historical Guide to Kabul.")
[4] The second gate gives entrance to the Salaam Khana (Hall of Public Audience) a long lofty building with pillared verandah which has seen many glittering assemblies since the days of
Amir Abdur Rahman, including the coronations of the Kings of Afghanistan since Amir Habibullah (1901). It served as the seat of the National Assembly prior to the completion of the National
Assembly building on Darulaman Avenue, Tour I [41] and in September, 1964, the members of the Loya Jirgah met here to consider and adopt a new
constitution for Afghanistan. On religious and national holidays, His Majesty sits in audience here.
[5] Through the third gate, one may see the Dilkusha (Heart's Delight) Palace designed by the English architect, Mr. Finlayson, for Amir Habibulah in 1907. State receptions are held here
and Ambassadors to the Royal Court of Afghanistan present their credentials to his Majesty King Zahir Shah within its halls. It was on the lawn of this palace that King Nadir Shah was
assassinated by a student on 8 November while attending a prize-giving ceremony for the graduating classes of 1933. The Palace buildings are not open to the public.
[6] At the crossroads, the Ariana Hotel stands on the right, and on the left, new buildings for Nejat High School, presently situated beside the Kabul River at Pul-i-Shah-do-Shamshira,
Tour I, [13], near completion. Nejat was established in 1920 with a staff of German teachers and the Federal Republic of Germany continues to
assist this important educational institution.
[7] Less than five years ago the area between this corner and the hill of Bemaru, below [11], beyond, was an empty plain; today it is an important
residential section called Wazir Khan Mina after that dashing son of Amir Dost Mohammad (r. 1826-1839; 1843-1863) who played such a leading role in the Afghan revolt against the British and
who deposed and exiled his father in 1839 during the First Anglo-Afghan War. At that time, this side of Kabul was famed for its many gardens with imposing gateways, the most famous being the
half-mile square Bagh-i-Shah (King's Garden) dating from the reign of Timur Shah (r. 1773-1793). Bagh-i-Shah encompassed the area now occupied by the Nejat School.
[8] The gardens of the early 19th century began to give way to the city during the end of that same century, however, when another of Amir Dost Mohammad's sons, Sher Ali, came to the
throne in 1863 (r. 1863-1866; 1868-1879) and began to build a new city at the foot of Bemaru which he named Sherpur in his own honor. Massive 20-foot high walls with fortified bastions
and turreted gateways had already been completed when the British came to take over Kabul for the second time, in October 1879 during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The British army came to avenge
the massacre of a British Representative and his escort which had taken place in the Bala Hissar a month earlier, and they made over
Sherpur into a cantonment for their troops, renaming the great entranceway "Roberts' Gate" after the occupation commander, General Roberts, who was later to be known as Roberts of
Qandahar for his heroic march from Kabul to relieve the besieged fort of Qandahar after a disastrous British defeat at Maiwand in July, 1880.
[9] Punishment for anti-British activity in Kabul was harsh during General Roberts' rule and one day 26 Afghans were shot by British authorities just outside Roberts' Gate. You will find
a small monument erected by Amir Abdur Rahman (r. 1880-1901) on the very spot where the execution took place, on the corner opposite the Nejat High School, diagonally across from the
Ariana Hotel. The British withdrew from Kabul in August, 1880, after formally handling over the Kingdom of Kabul to Amir Abdur Rahman on the 11th.
[10] All construction from this period has disappeared, however, for King Amanullah (r. 1919-1929) cleared the entire area in order to build Kabul's first airport. When Bacha Saqao rose
against the King and began to bombard the city, the British evacuated the foreign community from the airfield during history's first airlift. The small planes came from a base in Iraq to
Peshawar and from there the pilots flew over the mountains with great daring and many difficulties. Engines were constantly icing up and several landed on remote hilltops, but fortunately, these
planes were more readily repairable than their modern counterparts. One pilot who smashed the tail of his plane while making an emergency landing in Jalalabad, for instance, simply
enlisted the aid of a carpenter and flew off safely a day or so later. A total of 586 persons were flown out of Kabul between the 25th of December, 1929 and the 25th of February, 1930.
[11] The long hill of Bemaru formed the northern defense of Sherpur. Its name is a modern corruption of Bibi Mahru or the Moon-Faced Lady, a sister of Sayid Mehdi Atesh Nafas
(Fiery Breath), whose shrine is located behind the American Embassy. The Sayid was a most respected personality of Kabul who died in 1541
and his shrine is frequently visited by women seeking relief for ailing children.
[12] According to legend, Bibi Mahru died of a broken heart on hearing that her betrothed had been killed in battle. The young chieftain recovered from his wounds, however, and returned to
remain faithful to her memory for the rest of his life. When he died, he was laid to rest beside his beloved and today flags fly above their tombs on the summit at the eastern end of the hill.
[13] The low walls surrounding the tombs were built by the British, according to the residents of Bemaru Village which lies at the foot of the hill below them, and there is no doubt that
the battle of Bemaru was one of the more crucial events of the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842). Lady Sale describes the battle most graphically in her diary for she watched the entire
proceedings from the roof of her bungalow in the cantonments which the British had built along the right side of the modern road. The cantonment walls began in the vicinity of the
Italian Embassy not far from the Ariana Hotel, the site of the commissariat which had been built outside the walls of the cantonment. The early loss of the commissariat contributed
greatly to the terrible suffering of those last days in Kabul. Envoy Macnaghten's private compound was about where a new road cuts from the airport road to the Jalalabad road, and General Sale's
compound was just north of Macnaghten's. The cantonment was plundered and burned after the British left it on the 6th of January, 1842. No trace remains. Those interested in the British retreat
of 1842 will find the detailed accounts of Lady Sale, Eyre, Diver, Macrory and Norris fascinating (see Bibliography).
[14] Today several government buildings line this road. Starting at the stoplight at the Ariana Hotel, one finds: the Ariana Hotel to the right, Nejat High School to the left, followed
by the Italian Embassy on the right and Afghan Films, the Air Authority, Radio Afghanistan, the American Embassy, and the Public Health
Institute to the left. The paved road to the left beside the Health Institute leads to the Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital and the Children's Hospital now under construction with assistance from
India. The Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital was opened in 1964 and is assisted by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
[15] Qala-i-Jahgi (War Castle), an army barracks, stands beyond the Health Institute but after passing through the village of Bemaru, the city comes to an end, to be replaced by a
pastoral landscape filled with fields dotted by high-walled villages.
