| Summary/Abstract |
This article is about the interplay of defining characteristics in Afghanistan that led to the fall of King Amanullah in 1929. Previously, this has been done by looking at the reforms, tribal society and the ulema, the community of scholars, but the prism through which we examine Amanullah's downfall is Mahmud Tarzi's grouping together of ‘Din, Daulat, Watan, Millat' (Religion, State, Homeland (or Fatherland), Nation). The ideals informing this grouping, as well as the concepts themselves, were key factors underpinning Amanullah’s reform agenda. Where Tarzi wrote of these factors as integrative and functioning together, a perspective taken uncritically by many commentators, we argue here that, as concepts in governance intended to unify the country, they acted as the exact opposite; that they sparked off each other, contradicted each other, and undermined each other in the context of the period. Understanding this explains much of the fragmentation Afghanistan suffered in the 1920s and suggests a structural process of causation for the fall of Amanullah.
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