Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University
Afghanistan Inside Out: History, Culture, and Politics in Afghanistan Studies
Agenda
Date: August 11 – 12, 2018
Venue: Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University
Program Abstract:
In addition to studies carried out by orientalists in the nineteenth century, scholars have studied Afghanistan from different disciplinary perspectives in the twentieth century. As a matter of fact, it was during this later century when certain local and global institutions, individuals, and social and scholarly processes, such as Anjuman-e Adabi Kabul, Pashto Tolana, Anjuman-e Tarikh, DAFA, and others inside and outside Afghanistan, built the foundations of studies of Afghanistan. They have studied the country in relation to
development of social structures and processes, such as historical evolution of state, society and culture. Their general subjects of analyses have been rise and fall of the state in the country, movements and makeup of nomadic as well as tribal populations, cultural tribal
organization, ethnic dynamics, and most recently development and conflicts. Cultural
historians as well as anthropologists have also studied different systems of power, cultures,
and even learned communities like Sufis and individual polymaths, and cosmopolitan groups
like mercantile communities and caravans, movements of peoples like refugees, and
emergence of cultural identities and ideologies, such as political Islam. They have studied
these aspects of Afghanistan’s history, culture, and society in the contexts of socio-cultural
epistemologies developed in the 19th and 20th centuries pertaining to consideration of
organized civilizational developments, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Indo-Persian spheres of
culture, society, and politics. Expanding this body of scholarship, art historians and
archaeologists have further studied Afghanistan’s built urban environments of empires and
emperors, such as monuments, like Minerat-e Jam in Ghur, Bagh-e Babur in Kabul, and other
architectural and archaeological remains.
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Beside these disciplinary studies of Afghanistan, today the country is understood in the
development and political science studies as one of the most impoverished countries in the
world in general, and in Asia in particular. Indeed, there is no doubt that Afghanistan is
linked to these global trends. As a matter of fact, the country has been subject to several of
these global and local events in its recent histories including the American-Soviet fight over
the country during the Cold War, subsequent Soviet invasion in the 1980s, and the rise of
political Islam afterwards. Although Afghan people might be the primary victim of these
global and local rivalries and ideologies, our knowledge remains poor about the country’s
deep pre-Islamic and Islamic histories, culture, and politics. Existing scholarship, dominated
by foreign specialists of the country, represent the country as a monolithic and
chaotic country fragmented into factional tribes and ethnicities who believe deeply in conservative
forms of Islam and traditions, thus detesting the world outside theirs. As a result, the country’s
historical and political experiences are particularized to a banal cycle of conquests and
local resistances. The latest example is the argument that ‘Afghanistan is America’s longest
war,’ and Afghans are resisting it.
In light of these previous and on-going trends in studies of Afghanistan, this symposium
bringing together a younger generation of Afghan scholars will ask several conceptual as well
as methodological questions: What is Afghanistan Studies? Should one think even of a ‘field’
of Afghanistan Studies? What are its pros and cons? How indeed do disciplinary and
interdisciplinary fields, both in humanities and social science, converge and diverge in
studies of Afghanistan? Are there unique human or institutional limitations in studying
Afghanistan? If so, why and if not, why not? What are the benefits or limitations of an
‘Afghanistan Studies’ approach? What about Afghanistan’s cultural, social, economic,
political, historical, geographical and epistemic linkages to other studies, such as Iranian
Studies, South Asian Studies, Central Asian Studies? Are these linkages methodological?
Theoretical? What are the most recent changes in the field of Afghanistan Studies? Which
scholars and institutions have shaped Afghanistan Studies? What has been the contribution of
Afghans, both at home and in diaspora, to Afghanistan Studies?
To address these and other questions a new generation of Afghanistan scholars will come
together from their respected field of studies to Kabul. During a two-day symposium,
organized by the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University, the premier centre of academic
research in the country, the scholars will present their scholarly works in several disciplinary
panels. In addition to their disciplinary works, there will be several disciplinary roundtables,
in which the presenters will have a collective dialogue discussing the various methodological
and theoretical limitations and opportunities available in their respected field in general, and
concerning studying of Afghanistan in particular.
While the scholars of this symposium have studied abroad at several important global
research universities, they are all Afghans with deep cultural and familial links to
Afghanistan. One of the main purposes of this symposium is to bring these scholars together
in front of a local audience inside Afghanistan to share their knowledge and experience.
CONFERENCE AGENDA
Day 1, August 11, 2018
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Registration, Welcome Reception and Opening Remarks (8:00 am –9:00 am)
1) Recitation from the Quran (Qari Omar), 8:30-8:40 am
2) Welcoming Remarks (Abdul Wahid Wafa, Director of ACKU), 8:40-8:50 am
3) Opening Remarks (Hamidullah Farooqi, Chancellor of Kabul University), 8:50-9:00 am
Panel 1 (9:00-10:45 am), Political Science: People & State
Chair: Shahrzad Akbar
1) Omar Sadr, “Debating Individual Rights and Diversity in a Multicultural Society.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Nasir Ahmad Andisha
2) Weeda Mehran, “Jihadi Propaganda Strategies and Inter-Group Competition.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Timor Sharan
3) Yaqub Ibrahimi, “State-Building and State-Society Relationships in Afghanistan.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Arian Sharifi
Tea Break (10:45 am – 11:00 am)
Roundtable 1 (11:00 am – 12:30 pm), Political Science View: People & State in
Afghanistan Studies
Participants: Arian Sharifi, Weeda Mehran, Omar Sadr, Nasir Andisha
Moderator: Hamid Saboory
Lunch (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)
Panel 2 (1:30 pm -3:15 pm), Anthropology: Culture & Communities
Chair: Sami Mehdi
1) Bibi-Zuhra Faizi, “Community-based schools and the promise of quality education.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Orzala Nemat
2) Solaiman Fazel, “Ethnohistory: Why it matters in Afghanistan Studies?”
Disciplinary Discussant: Sayyid Askar Musavi
3) Omar Sharifi, “Nauroz Festival, Living in an Afghan Atmosphere.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Nazif Shahrani
Tea Break (3:15 pm – 3:30 pm)
Roundtable 2 (3:00 pm – 4:30 pm), Anthropological View: Afghan Cultures and
Communities in Anthropological Studies
Participants: Ghafor Lewal, Zuhra Faizi, Nazif Shahrani, Askar Mosavi, Omar Sharifi
Moderator: Rohullah Amin
ACKU Official Dinner (6:00 pm – 10 pm)
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Day 2, August 12, 2018
Registration & Coffee (8:30 am – 9:00 am)
Panel 3 (9:00 am – 10:45 am), History: Themes in Afghanistan Historiography
Chair: Kambaiz Rafi
1) Jawan Shir Rasikh, “The Coming of Islam to Afghanistan: Muslim Conquests of Ghur, 9-11
Centuries, CE.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Mohammad Moheq
2) Hakeem Naim, “Modernity and Dependency: The Paradoxes of Eurocentric Thinking and its
Reproduction in the Ottoman Empire and Afghanistan during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth Century.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Mujib Rahman Rahimi
3) Mejgan Massoumi, “Kabul Cosmopolitant? Radio Broadcasting and Afghan Connectivity to
the World, 1960-1979.”
Disciplinary Discussant: Belgheis Alavi
Tea Break (10:45 am – 11:00 am)
Roundtable 3 (11:00 am – 12:30 pm) Historical View: Trends in Afghanistan
Historiography
Participants: Mohyadin Mehdi, Hakeem Naim, Mejgan Massoumi, Ali Amiri, Mujib
Rahman Rahimi
Moderator: Jawan Shir Rasikh
Lunch Break (12:30 pm – 1:30 pm)
Roundtable 4 (1:30 pm – 03:00 pm), ACKU Afghanistan Studies Annual Conference
Participants: Abdul Waheed Wafa (Direcotr of ACKU), Global Presenters, and other
ACKU-invited individuals, launching Afghanistan Studies Annual Conference.
Afghanistan Research Evaluation Unit (AREU) Dinner, (6:30 pm – 9:00 pm)
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BIOGRAPHIES & PAPER ABSTRACTS
Omar Sadr, Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS), University of Afghanistan
Omar Sadr is Senior Research Associate at Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS),
and assistant professor at University of Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan. His primary
research interests are laid in the intersection of culture and politics. He earned a doctorate
degree from South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi, India (2013-2018). His doctoral
thesis was on ‘Negotiating Cultural Diversity in Afghanistan’.
Prior to that he had worked as Academic Assistant at the National Centre for Policy Research
(NCPR), Kabul University. He has written about politics, history and culture in a number of
local and international publications. His recent writings are ‘Political Culture and Attitudes of
People of Afghanistan toward Peace Process and Taliban,’ Kabul: Afghan Institute for
Strategic Studies (AISS), forthcoming; ‘Mahmud Tarzi: Intellectual and Reformist’, in Dev N
Pathak and Sanjeev Kumar H.M. (eds.), Modern South Asian Thinkers, Delhi: Sage, 2018;
‘Afghanistan: the Vulnerabilities of Minorities’, in Sajjad Hassan (ed.) South Asia State of
Minorities Report- 2016: Mapping the Terrain, Delhi: Books for Change, 2016;‘Rethinking
Stability for Afghanistan: Socializing Great Powers in a Multilateral Order’, in Rajen Harshe
and Dhananjay Tripathi (eds.), Afghanistan Post-2014: Power Configurations and Evaluating
Trajectories, London and New Delhi: Routledge, 2015.
Paper Title: Debating Individual Rights and Diversity in a Multicultural Society
Abstract
There are two scenarios that lead to controversy in the multicultural society. The first one is
the balance between individual rights and group rights. The primary concern is whether
recognition of group rights undermines the right to dissent within a community. What if the
community’s cultural practices are in contradiction with the fundamental human rights,
particularly, women rights? The second controversy is the moral contradiction between
cultural values and practices of different groups within a multicultural society. For instance,
the cultural practices of one community can possibly offend the values of the other fellow
community and hence may lead to limitation of individual rights of people from other
community. Or in the same context, a cultural practice may not be considered a violation of
individual rights and liberties by the follower of the same culture, but it might be perceived
by the followers of other culture. This issue is directly related to tolerance within a
multicultural society. The question is to what extent the opposing cultural practices of
another community shall be tolerated.The proposed paper explores the ways to understand
the internal diversity of groups vis-à-vis counter-homogenisation policies. It will seek to
suggest means through which group rights can be reconciled with the individual rights and
choice in Afghanistan. The paper first discusses the challenges of multiculturalism and its
limits to acknowledge the diversity as well as inequality within the communities. It will
discuss what if recognition of one culture imposes limitations on the individuals of another
community. Subsequently, it picks three different cases from Afghanistan to show how
community cultures and recognition of group rights led to the curtailing of individual rights
and freedom. The first case examines the lack of religious tolerance and the lack of right to
dissent within the Muslim practices of Afghanistan. The second case argues how recognition
of Shia Hazara Personal Law curtailed rights and freedoms of the community’s women. And
finally, the last case presents the Pashtun’s culture and possible challenges to human rights.
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Weeda Mehran, Political Science Department, Georgia State University
Weeda Mehran is a post-doctorate fellow at Global Studies Institute, Georgia State
University. Her research takes a multidisciplinary approach to studying propaganda campaign
across a number of militant groups such as the Islamic State, Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Tahrik-e
Taliban of Pakistan. She is particularly interested in investigating dynamics of online
communities and the relationship between online and offline structures, social and political
relations and logics that produce and reinforce extremist ideologies among youth. Before
joining the Global Studies Institute, Dr. Mehran worked at Hamburg University and McGill
University. In 2015, she completed her PhD dissertation entitled “The Political Economy of
Warlord Democracy in Afghanistan” at the Department of Politics and International Studies,
University of Cambridge. In 2007, she obtained a Masters degree in Sociology from the
University of Oxford as the first Afghan woman who graduated from Oxford University. She
also has an MA degree in International Conflict Analysis from Kent University where she
focused on studying mediation and negotiations. Dr. Mehran is actively involved in national
and global policy processes. She has worked with a number of organizations such as
Afghanistan Human Rights Commission, Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan,
Integrity Watch Afghanistan, Afghanistan Research, Evaluation Unit, and a number of UN
organizations. She has written numerous policy reports on various issues in Afghanistan.
Paper Title: Jihadi Propaganda Strategies and Inter-Group Competition
Abstract:
The Internet has changed the image, means and reach of jihad. Jihad is no longer confined to
radio and newspaper calls. Al-Qaeda used to openly make announcements to attract Muslims
from Arab countries to the training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight the Soviet
army in the 1980s and early 90s (Kjuka, 2013). As Umar Patek—who masterminded the
October 2002 bombings in Bali—said during his trial: “For those who do not know how to
commit jihad, they should understand that there are several ways of committing jihad…This
is not the Stone Age…This is the Internet era, there is Facebook, Twitter and others”
(MEMRI 2012 Cited in Weimann, 2016, p. 47). This research conducts a temporal and crossmodal
comparative analysis of media strategies employed by the Taliban and other groups
such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Tahrik-e Taliban of Pakistan. The paper intends to highlight the
differences in propaganda strategies of the Taliban and compare it with other groups and
discusses any inter-group differences in terms of the medium used (i.e. magazines versus
videos and audios), their outreach methods and intended audience. The paper will also
analyse inter-group competition and how and if competition has any bearing on the group’s
propaganda campaign. Taliban’s projection of image, power and messages will also be
discussed and compared with other groups. The analysis is based on the type and production
volume of various media, e.g. videos, audios, and magazines of each group and whether it
has changed since 2015; and an extensive review of the relevant literature.
يعقوب ابراهيمی (ديپارتمنت علوم سياسی- دانشگاه کارلتون)
يعقوب ابراهيمی استاد علوم سياسی در دانشگاه کارلتون در اتاوا است. ابراهيمی دکترای خويش را در رشته علوم
سياسی از همين دانشگاه به دست آورده و در حال حاضر در حوزه نظريههای روابط بينالملل، امنيت بينالمللی و
دولتهای شکننده مصروف پژوهش است. بررسی توسعه سياسی افغانستان از عرصه های اصلی کار اوست. مقالات
علمیِ ابراهيمی در ژورنالهای مختلف از جمله شورشگری و جنگهای کوچک، خشونت سياسی و تروريسم، و سروی
آسيای ميانه نشر شده اند.
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عنوان مقاله: دولتسازی و “مناسبات دولت و جامعه” در افغانستان
چکيده:
افغانستان معاصر بر روی يک دولت مرکزگرا و يک جامعه مرکزگريز بنا شده است. از بدو تاسيس افغانستان در نيمۀ
دوم قرن نوزدهم، دولتها کوشيده اند با طرح سياست های مرکزگرا به نهادهای اجتماعی و سنتی رسوخ کرده و آنها را
در خود ادغام کنند. اما نهادهای جامعۀ مرکزگريز روياروی اين سياستها ايستاده و با بازتوليد نيروی سياسی
حکومتها را به چالش کشيده اند. سياست در افغانستان پيرامون اين دو اردوگاه شکل گرفته و نيروهای سياسی تا
جاييکه منافع شان ايجاب کرده در يکی از اين دو اردوگاه سنگر گرفته اند. مقاله حاضر، با بررسی تاريخ اين تقابل،
تاثير آن را در شکلگيری سياست و دولتسازی در افغانستان معاصر و درچارچوب نظريه “مناسبات دولت و جامعه”
بررسی ميکند. برخلاف ديدگاه های سنتی که دولت سازی را بطور محض برنامههای توسعهيی حکومتها میانگارند،
اين مقاله با برجسته ساختن رويارويی جامعه با دولت در فرايند توسعه سياسی، نقش نيروهای اجتماعی در اين فرايند را
برجسته ميسازد. در اين مقاله، جامعه به عنوان ملغمه ای از نهادها و ساختارهای پويايی که بطور مداوم با دولت در داد
و ستد اند بررسی شده است. مقاله با برجسته ساختن ويژگیِ سيال و درحال تغيير نهادها و نيروهای اجتماعی و رابطۀ
متحول آنها با دولت، خصوصيت نهادهای اجتماعی، چگونگیِ مناسبات آن با دولت و تاثير آن بر فرايند دولتسازی را
بررسی ميکند. بطور مشخص، ابتدا دو روش دولت سازی در افغانستان، يعنی شيوۀ محافظهکارانۀ سلطنت مصاحبان و
دولتسازیِ مداخلهگرانۀ حزب دموکراتيک خلق افغانستان، توضيح و سپس چگونگیِ تقابل نهادهای اجتماعی با اين
سياستها و تاثير آن بر فرايند دولتسازی در افغانستان بحث ميشود. به دنبال آن و با توجه بر تغيير اقتصاد سياسی و
کارکرد نهادهای اجتماعی در اثر جنگ داخلی، کوشيده شده تا رابطۀ اين نهادها با دولت و تاثير آن بر دولت سازی در
افغانستان معاصر بررسی شود. هدف نهايی اين مقاله ارايۀ چشم انداز تازه ايست که از منظر آن به دولتسازی به مثابه
روند نهادمندسازیِ رابطۀ دولت و جامعه نگاه ميشود. طی اين روند، دولت با ريشه دواندن در متن جامعه نهادهايش را
استحکام ميبخشد. در مقابل، جامعه نيز با بهرهگيری از سياستهای دولتی نهادهايش را پويا ميسازد. آيا طی صد سال
دولتسازی در افغانستان گامی در اين راستا گذاشته شده است؟ پاسخ اين پرسش را ميتوان در لابلای اين نوشتار جست.
Mohammad Omar Sharifi, Anthropology Department, Boston University
Omar Sharifi is the former Senior Research Fellow and Kabul Director of the American
Institute of Afghanistan Studies. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Civil
Society Development Center (CSDC) and member of the Board of Directors of the Afghan
Alumni Association and Afghanistan 1400. In addition, he worked as National Consultant
for UNICEF Afghanistan. He is Asia Society Fellow and member of Afghan 21 Young
Leaders Forum. He graduated from Kabul Medical Institute in 2003. Following his medical
studies, he worked as Head of research and publications for the Foundation for Culture and
Civil Society in Kabul, and as Director of the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan. From 2006
to 2008, he studied Cultural Anthropology at Columbia University in New York under a
Fulbright Fellowship. He also received a fellowship at the School of Advanced International
Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. Currently he is a PhD Candidate at Boston
University in the department of Anthropology. Omar Sharifi has written several essays on
social and political issues in Afghanistan, and his articles are published in national and
international journals.
Paper Title: Nauroz Festival, Living in an Afghan Atmosphere
Abstract:
Every year on March 20/21, hundreds of thousands of people from all corners of Afghanistan
gather in the city of Mazar e Sharif (ancient Bactria-Balkh) to celebrate the Afghan/Persian
New Year, Nauroz. The Nauroz festival is held in the Shrine of Ali bin Abu Talib, the cousin
and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad, the fourth Caliph of Sunni Islam and the first
Imam in Shia tradition. The Nauroz festival is not a religious pilgrimage or part of Islamic
calendar, but a syncretic event that happens every year in self-organized way. Despite its
association with the Islamic shrine, the festival and its associated ceremonies such as Janda
bala (raising the flag), public performances of music and theatrical shows, poetry contests,
storytelling and Sufi Zikr sessions, are all perceived as secular (not entirely) event. Both
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Sunni and Shia Afghans from all walks of life, including the high-ranking government
officials gather in the Shrine of Ali to attend the official Nauroz ceremony and other
associated festivities. This important designation of is considered a space for “ethnic and
religious harmony”, manifestation of collective identity and symbolic reaffirmation of the
political legitimacy of the central government. My presentation examines the processes of the
juxtapositions that give rise to Nauroz festival and its associated festivities, and how it came
about to be celebrated in an Islamic shrine, viewing the festival as an arena for reproduction
and possible negotiation about the term of the nation, governance, ethnic identity and
frameworks for plural coexistence.
Solaiman Fazel, Anthropology Department, Indiana University
Dr. Solaiman Fazel was born in Sarai-Ghazni district of Kabul, Afghanistan. He completed
the first four years of his primary education at Sayid Jamaluddin Afghan Elementary School.
During school holidays, the young Solaiman spent countless hours helping his father operate
their family business, Ketab Feroshi Fazel. In mid-1980s, Dr. Fazel’s parents decided to
leave Kabul because of the intensified Afghan-Russian War. After a year of stay in Peshawar,
Pakistan, Solaiman, his parents, and two brothers emigrated to Los Angeles, California –
where completed his middle and high school. After high school, Solaiman Fazel continued
his education at University of California, Santa Barbara, where he received his Bachelor of
Arts degree in Middle Eastern Studies. His interest in Economics, Globalization, and the
Technological Divide between advanced and modernizing societies lead him to earn his
Master’s Degree in the field of History. Solaiman Fazel resumed his Ph.D. studies in the
Department of Anthropology at Indiana University. In 2016-17, he served as a Future Faculty
Fellow. He has taught courses on the Modern History of the Middle East, Afghanistan and
Iran, Globalization, and Introduction to Anthropology. Apart from teaching, Dr. Fazel, has
presented research papers in conferences and symposiums. He has also published books
reviews and articles in prestigious journals. Dr. Fazel is currently trying to turn his
dissertation, “Qizilbash Ethnohistory: Migration, State, and a Shi’a Minority in Kabul” into
an academic book. Dr. Fazel is married to Engineer Mojgan Sarwary. They have two lovely
kids: Tamanah and Sohrab, who are passionate readers and enjoy playing sports. Apart from
research, Dr. Fazel enjoys nature, music, and camping.
Paper Title: Ethnohistory: Why it matters in Afghanistan Studies
Abstract:
What is ethnohistory? How can it be applied to research related to peoples, spaces, and
cultures of Afghanistan? How do you connect the local microhistory to the global
transformations? To answer the aforementioned questions, this paper focuses on the
following three points: 1) Approaching history and culture from bottom is a new direction in
the ethnographic study of Islamic majority societies. 2) Using the ethnohistorical method of
the Americanist Sociocultural Paradigm allows the researcher to incorporate data from a
variety of eclectic sources that includes primary materials, newspapers, hagiographies,
images, participant observation, and in-person interviews. And 3) To weave together the local
to meta-history, I will discuss the “zoom-in” and “zoom-out” technique known as the scalar
framework.
Bibi-Zuhra Faizi, Education Department, Harvard University
Bibi-Zuhra Faizi is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her
research examines the role of local and international actors in providing quality education for
marginalized children in conflict-affected countries with a particular focus on educational
relevancy. She is currently conducting her dissertation fieldwork on community-based
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schools supported by foreign NGOs in Afghanistan. Ms. Faizi serves on the Board of the
Harvard Educational Review and has a Bachelors in Linguistics and Masters in International
Political Economy.
Paper Title: Communities-based schools and the promise of quality education
Abstract:
Globally, 58 million children of primary school age are out of school, with half live in
conflict-affected contexts (UNESCO, 2015a). In Afghanistan, approximately 4.2 million
children remain out-of-school (UNICEF, 2011). While scholars have examined common
barriers to access, such as physical distance and poverty, an emerging body of work raises the
issue of cultural distance. Cultural distance in education refers to “assumptions, expectations,
ideas, and values” that students must navigate as they enter a school outside of their
community (Sperling & Winthrop, 2016, p. 40). In Afghanistan, community-based schools
(CBSs)—schools situated within community spaces—are positioned to mitigate cultural
distance between school and home, primarily through community-selected local teachers.
Teachers act as a possible bridge between school and community ambitions and expectations,
having to balance national education requirements with the identities and aspirations of
community members. During this conference, the researcher will share her research
methodology and preliminary findings from an ethnographic study of community-based
schools in one district of Kabul that serves marginalized communities displaced by conflict
and instability.
Jawan Shir Rasikh, South Asia Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania
Jawan Shir Rasikh is a PhD Candidate in the Department of South Asia Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania. He is writing a dissertation on history of arrival of Islam in
medieval Afghanistan. He has a BA (2010) in International Politics with a minor in the
Middle Eastern Communities and Migrations from James Madison University. He also
earned a MA (2012) in World History from James Madison University for which he wrote a
thesis titled Nationalism in Afghanistan: Colonial Knowledge, Educational Symbols, and the
Junket Tour of Amanullah Khan, 1901-1929.
Paper Title: The Coming of Islam to Afghanistan: Muslim Conquests of Ghur, 9-11
Centuries, CE
Abstract:
This paper examines how early Islamic textual and cartographic sources in Arabic and
Persian imagine the medieval hinterland of Balād-e Ghūr in northwest-central Afghanistan
during the ninth and eleventh centuries, CE. The extant early Islamic sources, such as the
universal histories and geographical manuals, have produced a variety of political and spatial
pictures of the region of Ghur, including its representation as the ‘only kafir/pagan land’
surrounded by Muslims in the eastern Islamic empire. However, the same sources have
enthusiastically also discussed Ghur, mapped it, and linked it politically and geographically
to its various Muslim neighboring regions, such as Herat and Sistan, which were some of the
major urban centers of the medieval Islamic worlds. Moreover, the paper’s cross-examination
of the early Islamic sources regarding Ghur shows more epistemological ambiguities about
how to consider Islamic authority in rural areas, such as Ghur, in the absence of local sources,
and the complex ways that early Islamic historians and geographers had deployed in mapping
them within or beyond the new Islamic empire than about the region of Ghur per se. Finally,
the preliminary findings of the paper challenge the prevailing historiographical arguments
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that portray Ghur and Ghuris as an ‘obscure’ place and people within the eastern Islamic
empire.
Hakim Naim, History Department, University of California, Davis
Hakeem Naim is a lecturer at the University of California, Davis and California State
University, Sacramento. He received his M.A. from the University of California, Davis in
Modern Middle East History (West Asian History) and his B.A. from the University of
California, Berkeley in Middle Eastern Studies, where he was a Robert & Colleen Haas
scholar. He was subsequently admitted to the University of California, Davis, where he is
currently a doctoral candidate in modern Middle East and South Asian history. In his
research, Naim focuses on the nineteenth century Islamic nationalism, modernity, colonial
and post-colonial theories, and intellectual history of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia. He attended national and international conferences and
presented his work at Cambridge University, University of Toronto, Stanford University, and
University of California. He has a command of various languages, including Persian (Dari),
Turkish (Modern and Ottoman Turkish), Arabic, Pashto, Uzbek, German, and English.
Paper Title: Modernity and Dependency: The Paradoxes of Eurocentric Thinking and its
Reproduction in the Ottoman Empire and Afghanistan during the Late nineteenth and early
twentieth Centuries
Abstract:
Through a comparative study of Afghanistan and the late Ottoman Empire, I argue that the
adoption and reproduction of modernity, which was simultaneously a progressive structure of
power and a destructive threat, irrevocably changed the conditions for state formation in the
abovementioned places. It also reconceptualised Islam, as a political ideology, which had no
precedent in Islamic history. Modernity was not a choice the Ottoman and Afghan elites
could exercise. But it was a colonial condition that compelled the Afghans and the Ottomans
to render themselves, their objects and their agencies. Thus, chaotic “nation-building”,
religious nationalism, and dependency are products of paradoxes of modernity in non-
European spaces.
Mejgan Massoumi, History Department, Stanford University
Mejgan Massoumi is a doctoral student in the department of history at Stanford University.
Her research investigates the impact of sound and radio technology in Afghanistan during the
twentieth century (1960-79). She received both a B.A. in Architecture (2003) and a Masters
in City and Regional Planning (2005) from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining graduate school,
Mejgan served as the Manager of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley. She
is a co-editor of The Fundamentalist City? Religiosity and the Remaking of Urban Space
(Routledge, 2010) and Urban Diversity: Space, Culture, and Inclusive Pluralism in Cities
Worldwide (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). She has also contributed articles to the
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review,
the International Journal of Islamic Architecture and the Journal of International Affairs at
Columbia University. Mejgan’s current research has been supported by grants and
fellowships from the Stanford Global Studies Division, the Graduate Research Opportunities
Fund, the Diversity Dissertation Research Opportunity Grant, the Abbasi Program for the
Study of Islam in Muslim Societies, the Europe Center, the Center for Russian, East
European and Eurasian Studies, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the
American Institute of Afghanistan Studies and the Stanford Department of History Graduate
Student Fellowship.
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Paper Title: Kabul Cosmopolitan? Radio Afghanistan and the Politics of Popular Culture,
1960-79
Abstract:
Inspired by dynamic flows of people and ideas through Afghanistan and the rich history of
Kabul, the capital city as an important site of cultural production and intercultural exchange,
my research brings attention to the history of the radio as a medium that connected Afghans
to a wider transnational network in the 20th century. In so doing, it highlights this form of
popular culture as the site in which significant patterns of contemporary movement, regional
exchange and connectivity are visible. Although radio broadcasting in Afghanistan began in
the early 1920’s with the purchase of two broadcasting systems that functioned out of Kabul
and Kandahar, it wasn’t until the acquisition of German transmitters in the early 1960’s that a
national radio station was established. For the first time, local broadcasters could offer their
listeners programming on politics, daily news including world events, society, arts & culture,
and music featuring artists in and beyond Afghanistan. The study of the radio allows insight
into diverse content as well as broad range of participants that transcended gender, ethnic and
age divisions. I argue that the radio provided a space in which Afghans showcased their
cosmopolitan sensibilities and actively engaged in global currents as well as the changing
social and political dynamics within the country throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. In
addition to investigating the transnational flow of cultural ideas through the radio, this paper
also deliberates on how this technology allowed for expressions of social and cultural
resistance and encouraged processes of radical deliberation. Music played a significant role in
allowing for these acts of implicit defiance to be projected to the wider Afghan public. As the
shifting landscapes of revolution and counterrevolution continued to impact the country
throughout the 1960s and 1970s, these expressions serve as important frameworks for
understanding how Afghans both experienced and understood themselves as well as others.