Faiz Mohammad Katib Hazara - Publications

Publications

Faiz Mohammad is best known for his books on Afghan history. During Habib Ullah’s reign, he accepted two commissions to write a comprehensive history of Afghanistan covering events from the time of Ahmad Shah down through the reign of Habib Ullah Khan. The first was a history of Afghanistan entitled Tohfat ul-Habib (Ḥabib’s gift) in honor of the amir, but Habib Ullah Khan deemed the finished work unacceptable and ordered Faiz Mohammad to start over. The revised version is the three-volume history of Afghanistan entitled Siraj al-Tawarikh (Lamp of Histories), an allusion to the amir’s honorific “Lamp of the Nation and Religion” (Siraj al-mella waʾl-din). There were also problems in publishing it, the third volume never being completely printed. It is thought that the process of publishing the third volume lasted several years and only ended after Habib Ullah Khan’s death. Some say the publication on the third volume was halted at page 1,240 for unspecified reasons. Habib Ullah Khan’s successor, Aman Ullah Khan, was initially interested in the work and typesetting resumed in the mid-1920s, but when the amir reviewed the material in it on Anglo-Afghan relations, he reportedly changed his mind, and ordered all published but still incomplete copies of the third volume taken from the press and burned. Despite this reaction, Faiz Mohammad continued work on his chronicle. The manuscript of the remainder of the third volume is widely believed to have been finished, and the autograph was reportedly turned over to the Afghan archives by Faiz Mohammad’s son. Volumes devoted to Habib Ullah Khan and Aman Ullah Khan may also have been written. A farman issued by the latter announced that Faiz Mohammad had been ordered to complete the Siraj and then begin work on a chronicle of the reign of Aman Ullah Khan to be entitled Tarikh-e Asr-e Amaniya. There is some evidence to suggest he did indeed carry out these commissions, although nothing more was ever published.

Besides the monumental Siraj al-Tawrikh, Faiz Mohammad wrote the following works:

• Tuhfatul Habib' Afghan History (1747–1880), in two volumes. (The original script, hand-written by Faiz Mohammed, exists in the National Archive in Kabul)
• Tazkeratul Enqilaab accounts of the days of Habibullah, Bacha-e Saqaw
• History of Ancient Prophets/Rulers, from Adam to Jesus
• Hidāyat-i kisht-i gul-hā va qalamah-hā va ḥubūbāt va ghayrah (1921–1922)
• Jughrāfiyā-yi ṭabʻī va Afrīqā
• Tarikh-e Hokama-ye Motaqaddem, compiled while he was working at the Ministry of Education;
• Fayz al-Foyuzat, a fragment of which, called Afghan treaties and agreements (ʿahd wa misaq-e afghan) was published in Sayyed Mahdi Farrokh’s Tarikh-e Siasi-ye Afghanistan (Tehran, 1314 Š./1935) and which, in tune with the times, was a sharp critique of the Abdul Rahman’s relations with the British;
• Faqarat-e Sharʿiya, which is not known to have survived; and
• Nasab-nama-ye Tawaʾef-e afghena wa taʿaddod-e nofus-e ishan, also known as Nijhad-nama-ye Afghan, a description of Afghan tribes and non-Afghans residing in Afghanistan. The Nijhad-nama was published in Persia in 1933 from a manuscript thought to be the autograph and held in the Kitab Khana-ye Milli-ye Malik in Tehran.

Among the works he is known to have copied is a 230 folio collection of farmans isssued by the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb (1068–1118/1658–1707) which he completed in Jalalabad in 1312/1894; the divan of Šehab-e Torshizi, a late 18th century poet from Herat; and Risala-ye fiuz, a treatise on explosives.

In the late 20th century American scholar Robert D. McChesney extensively researched Faiz Mohammed's life and written works, in particular the Sirajul Tawarikh. In 1999 McChesney published a translation of Tazkeratul Enqilaab's under the title Kabul under siege: Fayz Muhammad's account of the 1929 Uprising.