20. The Valleys of the Assassins

Prince Afghana

In 1868, British agent Jamal ud-Din al Afghani would become counselor to the new Amir of Afghanistan, Azam Khan (1820 – 1870), whose father, Dost Mohammad Khan, hired as special military advisor Josiah Harlan, “Prince of Ghor” (1799 – 1871), an American adventurer who travelled to Afghanistan and Punjab, and whose intention of making himself a king inspired Kipling’s short story The Man Who Would Be King. Prefiguring the polarity that would persist through the Cold War and the Clash of Civilizations, in a poem first published in 1889, Rudyard Kipling—a Freemason who used a swastika as his personal emblem—declared “Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” The context of Kipling’s expression being the Great Game. Also known as the Tournament of Shadows in Russia, the Great Game refers to the strategic rivalry and conflict for supremacy in Central Asia, what Halford Mackinder (1861 – 1947) called the “Heartland,” between the British Empire and the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. The term was introduced into mainstream consciousness by Kipling in his novel Kim (1901), about a boy orphaned from his Masonic father, who eventually works for the secret service in India.

The Man Who Would Be King is a story about two British Masons and adventurers who become kings of Kafiristan, a remote part of Afghanistan inhabited by a people who were known to the surrounding predominantly Sunni Muslim population as Kafirs, meaning “disbelievers” or “infidels.” They are closely related to the Kalasha or Kalash of Pakistan, who claim descent from the armies of Alexander the Great.[1] R1a genetic haplogroup is also found among the Kalash, the only non-Muslim ethnic group living in three small and valleys of district Chitral.[2] During the Muslim rule in Chitral in the fourteenth century, most of the Kalash gradually converted to Islam, except a small number of them who upheld a form of Indo-Iranian, pre-Zoroastrian Vedic traditions that recognizes many gods and spirits related to the religion of the Ancient Greeks.[3] There is also a tradition among the Pashtuns, a people native to Afghanistan and Pakistan, of being descended from the exiled Lost Tribes of Israel as well.[4] According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites is traced to Maghzan-e-Afghani, a history compiled for Khan-e-Jehan Lodhi in the sixteenth century.[5] In his universal history Mirat-ul-Alam (“The Mirror of the World”), Bukhtawar Khan (d. 1685) describes the journeys of the Pashtuns from the Holy Land to Ghor, Ghazni, and Kabul.[6]

In what British female explorer Freya Stark referred to as the Valleys of the Assassins, was not only the old stronghold of the Assassins, Alamut, but also the so-called Throne of Solomon, legendary origin of the Afghan people. It was in honor of their ancestor Prince Afghana of Israel, that the Barakzai named their Kingdom “Afghanistan.” The Barakzai claim descent from the children of Israel in a direct line through the first Israeli King Saul, whose family intermarried with the family of his successor King David.[7] King Saul’s grandson, the Prince Afghana, was raised by King Solomon, and acted as his commander in chief and manager in the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem.[8] However Prince Afghana sought refuge in a place called Takht-e-Sulaiman (“Throne of Solomon”), a peak of the Sulaiman Mountains in Pakistan, where he settled as Exilarch.[9]

A legend, recorded by the medieval Arab explorer Ibn Battuta, recounted that Solomon climbed Takht-e-Sulaiman and looked out over the land of Hindustan, which was then “covered with darkness.” After staying on the peak, he turned back without descending into this new frontier, and left only the mountain which is named after him.[10] Henry McMahon (1862 –1949)—who would later become involved in the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, and who was then British Joint Commissioner of the Afghan-Baluchistan Boundary Commission—reported that according to some legends, Noah’s Ark alighted there after the Flood, while others another story that connects the Mountain to Solomon recounts that he once came to Hindustan to marry Balkis, the Queen of Sheba. While returning from India with her in a flying throne, she requested Solomon to stop for a while, to allow her to take a last look at her native land. The throne alighted on the peak, which has ever since borne the name of Takht-e-Sulaiman, or Solomon’s Throne.[11]

Another legend says that a direct descendant of Prince Afghana, Qais Abdur Rashid, said to be the legendary ancestor of the Pashtun people, is buried on top of Takht-e-Sulaiman, which gives the peak the local Pashto name of Da Kasi Ghar (“Mountain of Qais”).[12] Upon hearing about the advent of Islam, Qais Abdur Rashid’s tribe sent him to Medina, where he met Mohammed, embraced Islam, was given the name Abdur Rashid by Mohammed, and married the daughter of Khalid ibn al-Walid. According to Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779 –1859):

 

The Afghan historians proceed to relate that the Children of Israel, both in Ghore and in Arabia, preserved their knowledge of the unity of God and the purity of their religious belief, and that on the appearance of the last and greatest of the prophets (Muhammad) the Afghans of Ghore listened to the invitation of their Arabian brethren, the chief of whom was Khauled (or Caled) son of Waleed, so famous for his conquest of Syria, and marched to the aid of the true faith, under the command of Kyse [Qais], afterwards surnamed Abdoolresheed.[13]

  

Qais Abdur Rashid’s descendant Sulaiman, also known as “Zirak Khan,” is regarded as the forefather of the Durrani Pashtuns to whom the Barakzai also belonged, next to the Popalzai and Alakozai.[14] The genetic haplogroup R1a (especially R1a1), shared by the Pashtun, which is unique for its diversity and distribution, is found in disparate pockets of concentration in Poland, Northern India and the Altai Mountains of northwestern Mongolia.[15] R1a is distributed at high concentrations in the Balkans, including Macedonia, and particularly the Altai Mountains of Northern Mongolia, linking the mysterious heritage of Alexander with the supposed Lost Tribes of Israel and Gog and Magog. Three populations from northern Pakistan, the Burusho, Kalash, and Pashtuns, claim descent from soldiers left behind by Alexander the Great, after whose brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire expanded influence on the Pashtuns until 305 BC.[16] A genetic study by Mansoor, Mazhar and Khaliq, et al., determined that “Admixture estimates suggest a small Greek contribution to the genetic pool of the Burusho and Pathan and demonstrate that these two northern Pakistani populations share a common Indo-European gene pool that probably predates Alexander’s invasion.”[17]

 

The Man Who Would be King 

Dost Mohammad Khan established the Barakzai dynasty in 1823, after the Durrani dynasty was removed from power. In 1820, Harlan embarked on his first travels after joining the Freemasons.[18] Harlan’s brother, James Burnes (1801 – 1862), was the Provincial Grand Master of Western India.[19] In July 1824, he enlisted as a military surgeon with the East India Company. Harlan first asked Ranjit Singh, the Maharaja of Punjab, to enter into his service, but was later accepted by Shah Shujah Durrani (1826 – 1827), ruler of the Durrani Empire, colloquially known as the Afghan Empire. By the fall of 1827, Harlan had recruited about 100 mercenaries, a mixture of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs interested in loot and plunder, and set out to depose Dost Mohammad Khan. Upon meeting him, however, Harlan discovered he rather admired him.[20] Harlan noted that, although a Muslim, Dost Mohammad drank heavily and had brought prostitutes to his court, which he described as “promiscuous actors in the wild, voluptuous, licentious scene of shameless bacchanals.”[21] During this time, Harlan met an Afghan Maulawi (Islamic scholar) who also worked as an alchemist and doctor, that he discovered “was an enthusiastic Rosicrucian” who was seeking the Philosopher’s stone, and who kept Jubbar Khan, Dost Mohammad Khan’s brother, happy with the supposed medical secrets that his occult knowledge gave him.[22] The Maulawi, who taught Harlan about “the traditional lore of Arabia,” wanted Harlan to sponsor him to join a Masonic lodge, as Harlan noted, “My refusal to explain the craft of Freemasonry added to his conviction that in the secrecy of that forbidden region of science lay the Philosopher’s Stone.”[23]

Having evaluated the situation, Harlan decided that Dost Mohammed’s position was too strong, and sought his luck instead in Punjab. Harlan came to Lahore, the capital of Punjab, in 1829, where Ranjit Singh offered him the position of Governor of Gujrat District. One of Harlan’s visitors was the Reverend Joseph Wolff, (1795 – 1862), a Messianic Jewish missionary born in Weilersbach, Germany, who had converted successively to Catholicism, then the Church of England, and was persuaded to train as a missionary at Cambridge University, at the expense of The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. After being ordained a minister at Cambridge, Wolff had set off to Asia to find the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and covert all the peoples of Asia to the Church of England, including Anatolia, Armenia, Turkestan Afghanistan, Kashmir, Simla, Calcutta, Madras, Pondicherry, Tinnevelly, Goa and Bombay, returning via Egypt and Malta.[24]

On September 20, 1837, as part of the “Great Game” between Britain and Russia for influence in Central Asia, Alexander Burnes (1805 – 1841), the Scotsman who had been appointed the East India Company’s agent in Kabul, arrived, and immediately became Harlan’s rival. Together with the pseudo-American Charles Masson (1800 – 1853)—the pseudonym of James Lewis, a British East India Company soldier—Burnes and Harlan were the only westerners in Kabul, and all three men hated one another.[25] Joining them in December 1837 was a Polish orientalist in the Russian service, Count Jan Prosper Witkiewicz (1808 – 1839), who had arrived in Kabul as the representative of the emperor Nicholas I of Russia. While still studying at Kraziai College run by Jesuits, Witkiewicz helped found the secret society Black Brothers, an underground revolutionary-national resistance movement, who are described by the Frankist poet Adam Mickiewicz in his poem Dziady. In 1829, Witkiewicz became an interpreter for Alexander von Humboldt, whose friends and benefactors included Moses Mendelssohn’s eldest son Joseph and his favorite disciple David Friedländer.[26]

In 1836, Harlan had a falling-out with Ranjit Singh after he was informed that Harlan was secretly employing his time in his fortress in the practice of alchemy and transmutation of metals with the Maulawi, refusing to share the knowledge and allegedly minting counterfeit coins.[27] Fearing for his life, Harlan defected over to the service of Dost Mohammad Khan, who by this time had become more pious, and given up drinking and prostitutes. In 1838, Harlan set off on a punitive expedition against the Uzbek slave trader and warlord Mohammed Murad Beg. Harlan, who thought of himself as a modern-day Alexander the Great, took along with him a war elephant. Before leaving Kabul to hunt down Murad Beg, Dost Mohammad, knowing of Harlan’s fascination with ancient Greece, gave him a gift of a piece of jewelry found at Bagram, the site of the ancient Greek city of Alexandria ad Caucasum, depicting the goddess Athena, which greatly moved him.[28]

Harlan’s first major military engagement was a short siege at the citadel of Saighan. As a result of this performance, Harlan impressed the local rulers. Among them was Mohammad Reffee Beg Hazara, who came to an agreement that Harlan and his heirs would be the Prince of Ghor in perpetuity, with Reffee as his vizier.[29] Harlan tracked Murad Beg down to his fortress in Kunduz, who then chose to make a treaty with Harlan to recognize Dost Mohammad as the Emir of Afghanistan. However, when Harlan returned to Kabul the British forces with Sir William Macnaghten arrived to occupy the city in an early stage of the First Anglo-Afghan War.

Kipling, who was himself a Freemason, had always said he received the inspiration for “The Man Who Would Be A King” while working as a journalist in 1880s India, saying that an unnamed Freemason had told him the stories that inspired him, which suggests that Harlan’s adventures in Afghanistan were still being retold in Masonic lodges in India in the 1880s.[30] Kipling’s story follows two rogue ex-soldiers, former non-commissioned officers in the British Army and Freemasons, who set off from late nineteenth century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway “Kafiristan,” where one is believed to be a descendant of Alexander the Great and taken for a god and made their king. The story became a popular 1975 film directed by John Huston and starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine.

 

Aga Khans

Aga Khan I (1804 – 1881), the 46th imam of the Nizari Ismailis—descendants of the Assassins—a community known in India as Khojas, who converted to Islam from Hinduism by the fourteenth century by the Ismaili Da’i, Pir Sadrudin. The Nizari Khojas acknowledged the Imams of the Qasim-Shahi Nizari line.[31] Sadrudin converted large numbers of Hindus from the Lohana trading caste and granted them the title of “Khoja,” derived from the Persian word “Khwaja,” an honorary title meaning “lord” or “master,” and corresponding to the Hindi term “Thakur,” by which the Hindu Lohanas were addressed. Sadrudin is also reputed to have built the first Jamti’at-Khana (“community house”), in Kotri, Sind, for the religious and communal activities of the Khojas. He successfully preached the Da’wa in Panjab and Kashmir, where he built more Jamti’at-Khanas, laying the foundations of the Nizari communal organization in India.[32]

According to Sir Thomas Erskine Perry (1806 – 1882), was a British Liberal politician and judge in India who presided over a case that involved the Khojas:

 

Although they call themselves Mussulmans, they evidently know but little of their Prophet and of the Qur’an… Nor have they any scholars or men of learning among them, as not a Khoja could be quoted who was acquainted with Arabic or Persian, the two great languages of Mahomedan literature and theology.[33]

 

The specific form of Nazari Ismailism that developed in India, explains Daftary, became known as Satpanth (“true path”), a term used by Khojas and throughout their Ginans, devotional hymns or poems recited by Ismailis.[34] According to Daftary, “In time, Satpanth Ismailism developed its own set of themes and theological concepts emanating from an interfacing of Hinduism with Ismaili Islam and a number of other traditions and mystical movements prevalent in Indo-Muslim milieus of India, including Sufism, Tantrism and the Bhakti tradition.”[35] Thus, a Hindu façade for the Khojas served the purposes of Taqiyya to protect the Khojas against certain persecution from Sind’s Sunni rulers who would not tolerate Shiah Ismailism.[36] In particular, the Khojas adopted a Hindu framework for the doctrine of the Imamate, as reflected in an important ginan entitled Dasa Avatära. The Dasa Avatära presents Pir Sadrudin as the tenth and long-awaited savior within a Vaishnavite framework concerning ten Dashavatara, who are primary avatars or incarnations of Vishnu, a principal Hindu god, who is said to descend in the form of an avatar to restore cosmic order.[37]

Sadrudin was succeeded as pir by his son Kabirdin, who also converted numerous Hindus and eventually settled in Ucch, which served as the seat of the Satpanth, the specific form of Nizari-related Ismailism that developed in India. Pir Kabirdin’s name appears in the list of the spiritual masters of the Suhrawardi Sufi order.[38] Given the internal dissensions that was causing a rift in the Khoja community, Nizari Imams of the Anjudan made systematic efforts to control the hereditary authority of the Pirs, and decided to appoint Kabirdin’s brother, Taj al-Din, as successor, instead of one of his numerous sons.[39] One of Kabirdin’s sons, Imam al-Din Abdul-Rahim, better known as Imam Shah, tried unsuccessfully to assert this role as Pir in Sindh. On Imam Shah’s death, his son Nar Mohammed seceded from the Nizari Khoja community and founded an independent sect known as the Imam-Shahis, named after his father. By the end of the eighteenth century the Muhammed- Shahi  line went extinct. The majority of the Khojas of Gujarat, on the other hand, remained loyal to the Nizari Imam in Anjudan, who appointed Dadu to succeed Taj al-Din, and dispatched him to Sindh in the second half of the sixteenth century. Dadu played an important role in strengthening relations between the Khoja community and the Nizari Imams in Anjudan.[40]

When Shah Khalil Allah II, the last of the Qasim-Shahi Nizari Imams to reside in Anjudan, died in 1680, he was succeeded by his son Shah Nizar, who transferred the Da’wa headquarters to the nearby village of Kahak. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Imams moved to Shahr-i Babak in the province of Kirman. By that time, both in terms of their numbers and financial resource, the center of gravity of the Nizari community had clearly shifted towards the Khojas. With the improved flow of funds from India, the forty-second Imam, Hasan Ali, acquired extensive properties in Shahr-i Babak as well as in the city of Kirman. He was also the first Nizari imam to abandon the traditional Taqiyya practices. When the forty-fourth imam, Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali, rose to political prominence in Kirman, the Nimatollahi Sufi order, named after its fourteenth-century Sunni founder and Qutb, Shah Nimatullah, was revived in Persia by its contemporary master Riga Ali Shah (d. 1799).[41] Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali in 1792 and was succeeded by his son Shah Khalil Allah III (1740 – 1817), who was married a relative, Bibi Sarkara (d. 1851), whose father and brother were prominent members of the Nimatollahi, and close relations with Zayn al-Abidin Shirvani (1779/80 – 1837), who became Qutb of the order.[42]

Aga Khan I, or Hasan Ali Shah, the son of Shah Khalil Allah III and Bibi Sarkara, was only thirteen when he succeeded his father as the forty-sixth Nizari Ismaili Imam. On the murder of Shah Khalil Allah, Bibi fled to Tehran to the court of Fath Ali Shah Qajar, seeking justice for her husband and children. The instigators of the Imam’s murder were punished, and the Shah appointed Hasan Ali Shah to the governorship of Qum, and gave him properties in nearby Mahallat. In addition, Fath Ali Shah gave one of his daughters, Sarv-i Jahan Khanum, in marriage to Hasan Ali, and bestowed upon him the honorific title (Laqab) of Agha Khan, meaning lord and master, becoming was the first Nizari Imam to hold the title.[43] After suffering a decisive defeat in Rigan on the border of Baluchistan in 1841, Aga Khan fled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, a town that had been occupied by an Anglo-Indian army in 1839 in the First Anglo-Afghan War. “Henceforth,” explains Farhad Daftary, in The Ismailis: Their History in, “a close association developed between the Agha Khan and the British, who may possibly have encouraged his earlier activities in Persia in the interest of safeguarding British rule in India.”[44] Major Henry Rawlinson (1810 – 1895), the local British political agent, granted Aga Khan a daily stipend of one hundred rupees for the duration of his stay in Kandahar.[45]

After his arrival, Aga Khan wrote to Sir William Macnaghten, discussing his plans to seize and govern Herat on behalf of the British and their puppet, Shah Shujah Durrani, who had been temporarily placed on the throne of Kabul in 1839 in succession to the rebellious Dost Mohammed. Although the proposal was apparently approved, the plans of the British were thwarted by the uprising of Dost Mohammed’s son, Mohammed Akbar Khan (1816 – 1847), who defeated and annihilated the British-Indian garrison at the Battle of Gandamak on its retreat from Kabul in January 1842. The uprising extended to Kandahar, and in the ensuing confrontations the Aga Khan aided General William Nott (1782 – 1845), a British military officer of the Bengal Army, East India Company, in evacuating the British forces from the city in July 1842.[46]

The Aga Khan soon headed southwards to Sindh where he rendered further service to the British, when he placed his cavalry at their disposal and endeavored to persuade Nasir Khan, the last Baloch Talpur mir of the land that included Sindh and parts of present-day Baluchistan, to cede Karachi to the British. When Nasir Khan refused to cooperate, Aga Khan disclosed his battle plans to Major James Outram (1803 – 1863), the British political agent in Sindh, which saved the British camp from a night attack. Following the Battle of Miani in February 1843, between forces of the Bombay Army of the East India Company, under the command of Charles Napier (1782 – 1853) and the Baloch army of Talpur Amirs of Sindh, led by Nasir Khan, Haydarabad and then all of Sindh were annexed to British India. For his services in Sindh, the Aga Khan received an annual pension of £2000 from Napier, who had maintained a friendly relationship with him.[47]

After the conquest of Sindh in 1843, Aga Khan again helped the British militarily and diplomatically in their attempt to subjugate neighboring Baluchistan. From Jerruck, where he was staying after February 1843, the Aga Khan contacted the various Balochi chieftains and advised them to submit to British rule. He also dispatched his brother Mohammed Baqir Khan together with a section of his cavalry in order to help the British defeat Mir Shir Khan, one of the important Balochi Amirs. Despite himself becoming the target of a Balochi raid, and having his possession plundered, the Aga Khan continued to help the British, always with the hope that they would arrange for his safe return back to Persia. It was with the approval of the British that in April 1844 the Agan Khan sent his brother to capture the fortress of Bampur, in Persian Baluchistan. Later, he dispatched his other brother, Sardar Abul-Hasan Khan, who finally occupied Bampur and won other military successes in Baluchistan while Mohammed Baqir Khan was relieved to join the Aga Khan in India.[48]

After controlling parts of Baluchistan for approximately two years, Sardar Abul-Hasan Khan was defeated in battle in 1846 by a Persian army sent against him from Kirman. He was taken as prisoner to Tehran, and after spending some time in detention, he was pardoned by the son and successor of Mohammad Shah Qajar, Nasser ad-Din, who subsequently offered him a Qajar princess in marriage. Sardar spent the remainder of his life in Persia, managing the family lands in Mahallat and occasionally performing services for the Aga Khan.[49]

Aga Khan left Sindh in 1844 for the city of Bombay, passing through Cutch and Kathiawar where he spent some time visiting the Nizari communities in the area. When the Persian government demanded his extradition from India after his arrival in Bombay in February 1846, the British refused and only agreed to transfer his residence to Calcutta. The British also negotiated his safe return to Persia, as he had been hoping for all along. To that end, in February 1847, Justin Sheil (1803 – 1871), the British minister in Tehran, forwarded yet another appeal on behalf of the Governor-General of India. The Persian government consented under the stipulation that he would avoid passing through Baluchistan and Kirman and that he was to settle peacefully in Mahallat. Aga Khan was eventually forced to leave for Calcutta in April 1847, where he remained until he received news of the death of Mohammed Shah Qajar. Aga Khan left for Bombay and the British attempted to obtain permission for his return to Persia, hoping that Nasser ad-Din would be more lenient. The Aga Khan wrote a letter to Nasser ad-Din’s chief minister, Amir Kabir, who, however, warned him he would be arrested at the borders as a fugitive. After the downfall and execution of Amir Kabir in 1852, Aga Khan sent a final plea from Bombay, and sent Nasser ad-Din Shah an elephant and a giraffe as gifts. He also sent presents to Amir Kabir’s successor Mirza Aqa Khan Nuri (c. 1807 – 1865), who was the Aga Khan’s personal friend. When new the Grand Vizier was unable to arrange for his return, the Aga Khan sent Nasser ad-Din Shah another gift, this time of three elephants and a rhinoceros.[50]

With the Aga Khan’s settling in Bombay began the modern period in the history of Nizari Ismailism. Although some of his lands were restored to the control of his relatives, his safe return could not be arranged, and Aga Khan was forced to remain a permanent resident of India. While in India, Aga Khan continued his close relationship with the British, and was even visited at his Bombay home, the Aga Hall, by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII—also a friend of Vambery—when he was on a state visit to India. The British came to address the Aga Khan as “His Highness.” “As the spiritual head of a Muslim community,” noted Daftary, “Agha Khan retained the protection of the British establishment in India, which strengthened his position and helped him in the exercise of his authority.”[51]

An incident in 1866 known as the Aga Khan case was a court decision in the High Court of Bombay by Justice Sir Joseph Arnould (1813 – 1886) that established the authority of the Aga Khan as the head of the Khoja community of Bombay. The case arose when a group of dissidents rejected the Aga Khan’s claim of authority over them by arguing that he was not a Khoja and that the Khojas had always been Sunni Muslims. In support of the Aga Khan, his attorneys claimed that the Khoja community had a long history of loyalty to the Aga Khan and his ancestors, and sought to invalidate the argument that the Khojas had been Sunni, citing Perry’s 1847 ruling. Arnould restated the defense’s position that Ismailis were often forced to resort to Taqiyya to avoid persecution, citing Richard Burton’s Pilgrimage to Mecca about discrimination during the Hajj season against the Shiah. The plaintiffs’ lawyer attempted to undermine the Aga Khan’s legitimacy by showing he was a descendant of the “Old Man of the Mountains, Chief of the Assassins.”[52] Arnould noted that the story of Hasan-i Sabbah is “connected with the principal defendant in the suit, the Aga Khan,” through the figure of Hasan ‘Ala Zikrihi Salam, “the 4th in succession from Hassan-bin-Saba, of those whom Von Hammer calls ‘the hereditary Grand Masters of the order of the assassins of Alamut.’”[53] Arnould noted that Pir Sadruddin was an Ismaili missionary sent by one of the Aga Khan’s ancestors, and accepted the defense’s argument that the Dasa Avatära facilitated the conversion of the Khojas from Hinduism to Islam. Thus, Arnould concluded, the Khojas were Shia Ismaili, and the Aga Khan was their rightful leader.[54]

 

Jamal Effendi

British intelligence reports of the time confused Afghani with an influential Bahai missionary by the name of Jamal Effendi, an Iranian from a minor noble family of Tunukabun in Mazandaran, not far from Bahaullah’s ancestral home, who travelled throughout India and succeeded in converting many people, including some notable figures, to the faith. One of such report, dated 1891, is from an unnamed Indian Muslim, acting as a British agent, who pretended to become a Bahai in order to gather more information, and reads:

 

The following is the substance of a statement made by an apparently well informed person, as to the real objects of the presence in India of Saiyid Jamal-ud-din, who is described by the informant as a Persian, but who calls himself a Turk of Constantinople:—

       In the city of Akka (? Acre) shore now lives one Husen Ali, a Turk, who calls himself Baha-ullah Effendi alias Jamal Mubarik [the Blessed Beauty]. This man declares all religions to be bad, and says that he himself is God. He converted a number of people and collected them at Baghdad. About four years ago they rebelled against the Shah, but they were suppressed and gradually withdrew from Persia to Turkey in Asia. Baha-ullah is now under surveillance at Akka, which is called “Az Maksud” [Ar Maqud, a common term among Iranian Bahais for the Holy Land] by the converts. Balla-ullah’s agents go about to all countries and endeavour to persuade people that he is visited by messengers of God, and that his converts will become rulers of the earth. Baha-ullah’s son, Mohammed Ali, came to Bombay on this mission, and then returned to Akka. Agents are appointed everywhere, Saiyid Jamal-ud-din is one of these agents. He came to Kailaspur and stayed 10 days with me. He told me all about Baha-ullah and his own mission, and proposed to appoint me as his agent, and asked me to go with him to Bombay to see Mohammed Ali. I agreed to become a disciple of Baha-ullah in order to discover why Saiyid Jamal-ud-din had come to India. I agreed to become his agent for the same reason, and he now often writes to me. I have not got his letters with me, but can produce them if wanted. He is now in Farukhabad, and I believe that he has obtained a number of converts in India. He has plenty of money and spends it freely, and goes first class by railway. There is in Bombay a man named Agha Saiyid Mirza [Afnan], a merchant of Shiraz, who supplies him plentifully with money.[55]

…On the 21st September 1891, the same informant wrote direct to the General Supdt., T. and D. Department [General Superintendent, Thagi and Dakaiti Department, responsible for monitoring criminals and trouble-makers], as follows:— “The man Saiyid Jamal-ud-din Shah is no ‘Rumi,’ he is a man from Astrabad Mazinderan in Persia, and his name is Mirza Muhammad Ali. He is no Muhammadan [Muslim] but a “Babi,” and his head-quarters are at Akka in Palestine.

This information regarding, Jamal-ud-din is curious, if true, and may explain the wanderings of this individual. It is the first intimation received in the C.S.B. [Central Special Branch] of any attempt on the part of the “Babi” sect to proselytise in India. The success of the sect in Persia was mainly due to the communistic doctrines proclaimed by the founder, which attracted the masses. In 1851, the Shah caused the leader of this sect, styled the “Bab” to be seized end executed, and a large number of his followers was put to death. The sect, however, was not extinguished, though compelled to practise their faith in secret. A recent authority (Benjamin) states that there are some 400,000 “Babis” in Persia to be found among all conditions of society. The “Babis” are also said by him to be unusually active in the present day, and to be sending forth emissaries widely to make proselytes. The sect has extended to Turkey, the leader of the Turkish branch residing at Constantinople. (C.S.B.).[56]

 

After visiting Baha Ulla in Akka in 1871-2, Effendi began a period of wandering as a Sufi Dervish mainly in the Ottoman domains. Effendi travelled through India and other regions, in each of which he would call upon the local the ruler or governor and the leading colonial administrator to meet with them. He was in Delhi for the great Durbar held on January 1, 1877, at which the Earl of Lytton proclaimed Queen Victoria as Empress of India. In Burma, Effendi met with perhaps his greatest success, in converting those who would go on to form the basis of the Bahai community there. Effendi next went to south-east Asia in about 1884-5.

From Dhaka in what is now Bangladesh, Effendi was summoned to Bombay by the Afnan family—mentioned in the British intelligence report—who were closely related to the Bab. The Bab was born in the house of Aqa Mirza Ali in Shiraz. Next door lived Khal Azam, who raised the young Bab from 1828, and Ali’s children were associated with the Bab during their childhood. When Ali’s daughter Khadijih Bagum was betrothed to the Bab, a wedding feast was held in Ali’s home. In the 1850s, however, the Afnan family established a trading post at Bombay. The first to take up residence there were Ali’s sons, who had become Babis after meeting Bahaullah in Baghdad in the 1850s. At some point after 1868, the Bahais Haji Mohammed-Ibrahim and Nabil-i-Akbar visited Ali’s son, Haji Mirza Siyyid Hasan (c. 1807 – c. 1892), also known as Afnan-i-Kabir, in Yazd and convinced him of Bahaullah’s claim to be the one foretold by the Bab. In approximately 1881 or 1882, Hasan went on pilgrimage and met Bahaullah in the Holy Land.[57]

It was as a result of the endeavors of another member of the Afnan family, Mirza Ibrahim, another of Ali’s sons, that they established the first Bahai publishing company, the Nasari Press, about 1882-3. However, these Bahais further realized the potential for preaching the Bahai Faith. They therefore wrote to Bahaullah asking for a Bahai teacher who could be sent to Bombay and offered to pay his expenses. For that mission, Bahaullah chose Sulayman Khan, later known as Jamal Effendi.[58] Most of the information available about Effendi is from Abdul Baha’s Memorials of the Faithful, and from Mirza Kasim Samandar (1844 – 1918), who met Effendi in Istanbul, and who was the father-in-law to the son of Bahaullah.[59] Effendi was welcomed to Bombay by the Afnans and installed in the Shiah Husayniyya, a building for commemorations of the martyrdom of the Imam Husayn Ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Also according to Siyyid Mustafa Rumi (1846 – 1945), Effendi’s travel companions, Effendi spoke to Mir Sayyid Mohammed, the Mullah and religious leader of the Twelver Shiah community, whom he reportedly converted to the Bahai Faith.[60]

Khadijih Bagum, then the Bab’s widow, requested to go on pilgrimage to meet with Bahaullah and Hasan’s son, Siyyid Ali Afnan, who agreed to take her to the Holy Land in the early 1870’s if she could secure a marriage between him and one of Baha Ulla’s daughters. In 1886, Siyyid married Furughiyyih Khanum, the daughter of Bahaullah by his third wife Gawhar Khanum. When E.G. Browne visited Yazd in 1888, Hasan invited him to his home where he met several Bahais.[61] Hasan briefly moved to Beirut between 1888 and 1889 where he gained a reputation for his scholarship and helped run a branch of the Afnan family trading company, and was then allowed to move to the Holy Land where he lived close to the Mansion of Bahji. In 1889, Hasan was accused of corrupt business practices, but Bahaullah sent three representatives to Istanbul who successfully defended him.[62] In 1890, Browne was able to meet Hasan again when he visited the Holy Land.[63] Jamal Effendi ended his days in Akka, where he would die on November 9, 1898.[64]

From Madras, Jamal Effendi sailed to Singapore, Jakarta, the seat of the Dutch colonial authorities, then to Surabaya, further along the north Java coast, and to Celebes Island, now Sulawesi, and then on to Thailand.[65] On a trip to the border of Tibet and Kashmir in 1888-9, Jamal Effendi visited the followers of Aga Khan II (1830 – 1885), the son and successor of Aga Khan I as the spiritual leader of the Ismailis, and was also proselytizing for the Bahai faith, purportedly having been sent on such a mission by Bahaullah himself.[66] Aqa Ali Shah, known as Agha Khan II, was a member of the Iranian royal family, as his mother princess Sarv-i-Jahan Khanum, was the daughter of Fath Ali Shah. Agha Khan II’s rank as a prince of the royal family was also recognized by Nasser ad-Din Shah when his father Aga Khan I died. Nasser ad-Din himself carried out a ceremony performed among Persian princes to mark the end of mourning of deceased relations.[67]

Like his father, Aga Khan II was also closely associated with the Nimatollahi Sufi order.[68] Aga Khan II maintained a close friendship with Rahmat Ali Shah, considered the Qutb of the order, who had been his father’s guest in Mahallat. Aga Khan II entertained several notable Persian Nimatollahi in Bombay, including Rahmat Ali’s son Mohammed Masum Shirazi, Na’ib al-Sadr (d. 1926), the author of the celebrated Sufi work entitled the Tara’iq al-haqa’iq. Ṣafi-ʿAli Shah (1835 – 1898)  also enjoyed the Aga Khan II’s hospitality in Bombay. After first visiting the Aga Khan II in India in 1863, on his second visit, Ṣafi ʿAli Shah spent four years there, during which time he completed and lithographed his well-known versified Sufi work, Zubdat al-asra’r, at the Aga Khan II’s request. On his return to Persia, Ṣafi ʿAli Shah spent some time in Iraq, staying at the Aga Khan II’s houses in Najaf and Karbala and winning the approval of certain local Twelver Ulama for Aga Khan II’s marriage to a Qajar princess, Shams al-Muluk, a granddaughter of Fath Ali Shah Qajar. The Ulama had previously raised objections to this marriage on account of Aga Khan II’s Ismaili faith.[69]

 

Great Durbar

The Great Durbar of 1877 in Delhi, attended by Jamal Effendi, was summoned and held by the Earl of Lytton, son of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, during his tenure as Viceroy, in which Victoria was proclaimed Empress, thereby laying claim to the symbolic succession of the Great Mughals. The Earl of Lytton’s youngest son, Neville Stephen Lytton, was married Judith Blunt-Lytton, the daughter of Wilfred Scawen Blunt. The Earl of Lytton was a former Ambassador to France and Viceroy of India. Lytton entered the Diplomatic Service in 1849, when he was appointed as attaché to his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer (1801 – 1872), who was Minister at Washington, DC. He began his diplomatic career in 1852 as an attaché to Florence, and subsequently served in Paris, The Hague, St Petersburg, Constantinople, and Vienna. In 1860, he was appointed British consul-general at Belgrade. By 1874, Lytton was appointed British Minister Plenipotentiary at Lisbon and then Governor General and Viceroy of India in 1876, an appointment that owed in part to the support of Benjamin Disraeli.[70] Lytton was concerned primarily with India’s relations with Afghanistan, even precipitating the Second Afghan War against Russia of 1878-80, due to his concern for an imminent Russian invasion of India.

The new role of Queen Victoria as Empress of India, initiated a renewed interest in imperial pageantry, the ultimate purpose of which was, according to Simon Deschamps, “to create a new narrative that would better accommodate British presence in India.”[71] Freemasonry was also known as the “Royal Art” because of its close association with the royal family. Prince Albert (1819 – 1861), Queen Victoria’s husband, was the great-grandson of Illuminatus Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Alternburg (1745 – 1804), a friend of Adam Weishaupt, and who provided him refuge after his order was banned in Germany in 1787. Many of Queen Victoria’s close relatives were Masons, starting with her two sons. Her father Prince Edward (1767 – 1820), and two uncles George Augustus Frederick (1762 – 1830) and Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773 – 1843) had actually been Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of England.[72] In 1817, the Duke of Sussex sent a letter to Carl Leopold Goldschmidt authorization the Frankfurt Judenloge to operate as a Masonic lodge.[73] The Duke of Sussex was Victoria’s favorite uncle. He gave her away at her wedding to Prince Albert in 1840.[74]

Also according to Simon Deschamps, Masonic membership anticipated the orders of imperial knighthood, such as the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, founded by Queen Victoria in 1861, with the purpose of publicly rewarding loyalty and celebrating Empire.[75] For the same purpose, the Order of the Indian Empire was founded in 1878 by Queen Victoria to reward British and native officials who served in British India. The collar, worn only by knights Grand Commander, was made of gold. It was composed of alternating golden elephants, Indian roses and peacocks, and a pendant that features a red five-petaled rose and a crowned bust of Queen Victoria, with the motto Imperatricis auspiciis (“Under the auspices of the Empress”).

On leaving India in 1890, Queen Victoria’s son, the Duke of Connaught (1850 – 1942), who had served as Governor-General and Grand Master of Bombay, expressed his satisfaction at standing before his Masonic brethren “men of so many nationalities and creeds, but all imbued with the same true spirit of devotion to the Craft and loyalty to our beloved sovereign.” On the same occasion Connaught declared: “I have always felt it to be a very great privilege to be enabled in any way, however small, to help in welding those different elements together in loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign the Queen-Empress.”[76] A few months earlier, the English Masons of Union Lodge No. 767, based in London, had addressed a speech to the Duke of Connaught in which they had declared that: “As loyal subjects of your Royal mother, our beloved Empress-Queen, we believe that Masonry in India will do much to support her Royal throne, as well as to diffuse light, truth, love, and benevolence among the people over whom her Majesty reigns.”[77]

 


[1] Augusto Cacopardo. “Are the Kalasha Really of Greek Origin? The Legend of Alexander the Great and the Pre-Islamic World of the Hindu Kush.” Acta Orientalia, 72 (2011), pp. 47–92.

[2] Firasat Sadaf; Khaliq Shagufta; Mohyuddin Aisha; Papaioannou Myrto; Tyler-Smith Chris; Underhill Peter A; Ayub Qasim (2007). “Y-chromosomal evidence for a limited Greek contribution to the Pathan population of Pakistan.” European Journal of Human Genetics 15 (1): 121–126; Zaheer-ud-Din. “Muslim Impact on Religion and Culture of the Kalash.” Al-Da’wah, 43:30 (2015), p. 13.

[3] Heike Ruhland. Peacebuilding in Pakistan: A Study on the Religious Minorities and Initiatives for Interfaith Harmony (Waxmann Verlag, 2019), p. 107; Barbara A. West. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania (Infobase Publishing, 2010), p. 357, p. 357.

[4] Mohan Lal. Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul. Volume 1. (Longman, 1846), p. 3.

[5] Martijn Theodoor Houtsma. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936, Vol. 2 (BRILL, 1987), p. 150.

[6] Navras Jaat Aafreedi. “Traditions of Israelite Descent Among Certain Muslim Groups in South Asia.” Shofar, 28: 1 (2009), pp. 1–14. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5703/shofar.28.1.1.

[7] R. Kharnam. Encyclopaedic ethnography of Middle-East and Central Asia (Global Vision, 2005), p. 20

[8] Herbert Risley. The people of India (W. Crooke, 1999), p. 64.

[9] Tadhkirat al-Muluk. A Manual of Safavid Administration, Translated by V. Minorsky (Gibb Memorial Trust; 2nd edition, December 1, 1980).

[10] Ibn Battutah. The Travels of Ibn Battutah (London: Picador, 2002), p. 147.

[11] A.H. McMahon. “Ascent of the Takht e Suleiman.” Geographical Journal, 4: 5 (November, 1894). Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20170714213153/http://www.khyber.org/places/2011/Ascent_of_the_Takht_e_Suleiman.shtml

[12] Ibid.

[13] Cited in Mohan Lal. Life of the amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul, Volume 1 (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1846), p. 5.

[14] Hamid Wahed Alikuzai. A Concise History of Afghanistan (Trafford Publishing, 2013).

[15] “Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people.”

[16] Mansoor, Mazhar and Khaliq, et al. “Investigation of the Greek ancestry of populations from northern Pakistan.” Hum Genet, 114: 5 (April 2004), pp. 484–90.

[17] Ibid.

[18]Macintyre. The Man Who Would Be King, p. 12.

[19] Deschamps. “Masonic Ritual and the Display of Empire in 19th-Century India and Beyond.”

[20] Macintyre. The Man Who Would Be King, pp. 123–124.

[21] Karl Meyer & Shareen Blair Brysac. The Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race of Empire in Central Asia (Washington: Counterpoint, 1999), p. 68.

[22] Macintyre. The Man Who Would Be King, pp. 142–143.

[23] Ibid., p. 165

[24] Ibid., p. 167

[25] Ibid., p. 202.

[26] Isidore Singer & A. Kurrein “Friedländer, David.” Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=398&letter=F

[27] Ben Macintyre. The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), pp. 185–187.

[28] Ibid., pp. 214–215.

[29] Ibid., p. 230.

[30] Ibid., p. 289

[31] Daftary. A short history of the Ismailis, p. 177.

[32] Ibid., p. 179.

[33] Teena Purohit. The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India (Harvard University Prees, 2012), p. 26.

[34] Ibid., p. 179.

[35] Ibid., p. 183.

[36] Ibid., p. 183.

[37] Ibid., p. 184.

[38] Ibid., p. 179.

[39] Ibid., p. 181.

[40] Ibid., p. 182.

[41] Ibid., p. 195.

[42] Ibid., p. 195–196.

[43] Ibid., p. 196.

[44] Daftary. The Ismailis, p. 469.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid., p. 470.

[47] Ibid., p. 470.

[48] Ibid., p. 471–472.

[49] Ibid., p. 472.

[50] Ibid., p. 473.

[51] Ibid., p. 474.

[52] Teena Purohit. The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India (Harvard University Prees, 2012), p. 41.

[53] Ibid., p. 52.

[54] Ibid., pp. 49–56.

[55] Samir Raafat. “Freemasonry in Egypt: Is it still around?” Insight Magazine (March 1, 1999). Retrieved from http://www.egy.com/community/99-03-01.shtml

[56] Report of D.E. McCracken, dated 14 August 1897, in file Foreign: Secret E, Sept. 1898, no. 100, pp. 13-14; national archives of the government of India, New Delhi; cited in Moojan Momen. “Jamál Effendi and the early history of the Bahá'í Faith in South Asia.”

[57] “Afnán-i-Kabír” Bahaipedia. Retrieved from https://bahaipedia.org/Afn%C3%A1n-i-Kab%C3%ADr

[58] Moojan Momen. “Jamál Effendi and the early history of the Bahá'í Faith in South Asia.”

[59] Ibid.

[60] Ibid.

[61] H.M. Balyuzi. Eminent Baha'is in the Time of Baha'u'llah (George Ronald: Oxford, 1985), p. 60.

[62] Adib Taherzadeh. The Revelation of Baha'u'llah. Volume 4 (George Ronald: Oxford, 1987), p. 396

[63] H.M. Balyuzi. Eminent Baha'is in the Time of Baha'u'llah (George Ronald: Oxford, 1985), p. 121.

[64] Moojan Momen. “Jamál Effendi and the early history of the Bahá'í Faith in South Asia.”

[65] Ibid.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Naoroji M. Dumasia. The Aga Khan and His Ancestors: A Biographical and Historical Sketch (The Times of India Press: Bombay, 1939), pp. 60–62.

[68] Daftary. The Ismailis, p. 477.

[69] Ibid., p. 477.

[70] David Washbrook. “Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer-, first earl of Lytton (1831–1891).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, Sept 2004).

[71] Deschamps. “Masonic Ritual and the Display of Empire in 19th-Century India and Beyond.”

[72] Ibid.

[73] Katz. Jews and Freemasons in Europe, p. 69.

[74] Edward Walford. “St James’s Palace Pages 100-122 Old and New London: Volume 4. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.” British History Online. Retrieved from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol4/pp100-122

[75] Deschamps. “Masonic Ritual and the Display of Empire in 19th-Century India and Beyond.”

[76] The Freemason, 13 (1890); cited in Simon Deschamps. “Masonic Ritual and the Display of Empire in 19th-Century India and Beyond.”

[77] The Freemason, 14 (1890); cited in Simon Deschamps. “Masonic Ritual and the Display of Empire in 19th-Century India and Beyond.

Divide & Conquer