Islam, Shari‘a, and State Building under ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan

The modern state of Afghanistan came into being in the last two decades of the nineteenth century as a buffer between the British and Russian empires in Asia. While the concept of maintenance of a buffer-state was part of the British policy to protect India, the Afghan ruler ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan was not an inactive pawn in the imperial strategies. This chapter reviews the Afghan amir’s state-building efforts and his imposition of governance into hitherto independent or semi-independent tribal territories. He centralized his authority through a process justified by Islamization, namely by the dispensation of Islamic justice. The chapter briefly touches on the effects of the amir’s policies on various segments of the Afghan population such as religious minorities and women as well as on customary laws prevalent in the country.