Nasrullah Khan (Afghanistan) - During Habibullah's Reign

During Habibullah's Reign

On October 3, 1901 Nasrullah's father Abdur Rahman died, aged 57, and Nasrullah's brother Habibullah peacefully ascended the throne of Afghanistan by right of primogeniture.

Prior to his death, Abdur Rahman had sought to totally subdue any sources of opposition to his reign and the stability of Afghanistan with strict laws and restrictions. Among those affected by Abdur Rahman's restrictions was the religious establishment. Upon Abdur Rahman's death, the religious establishment sought to regain its power, and saw in Nasrullah a potential ally. Nasrullah was by this stage deeply religious and had qualified as a Hafiz, or "Repeater of the Qur'an", one who has memorised a substantial portion of the Islamic regligious texts. Throughout his adult life he advocated an Afghan policy strongly aligned with Islamic principles.

Recognising his brother as a potential contender for the throne, Habibullah went to lengths to placate and gain the support of Nasrullah. Upon Habibullah's succession to the throne he named Nasrullah commander-in-chief of the Afghan army, and also gave him the title of President of the State Council. Later in his reign, Habibullah named Nasrullah his heir to the throne in preference to Habibullah's own sons. By contrast, Nasrullah's younger brother Mohammed Omar Jar, and Mohammed's mother the Queen Dowager Bibi Hallima, both of whom were powerful political forces potentially of danger to Habibullah, were kept by Habibullah as "practically state prisoners" confined in private quarters under the guise of protection by a strong detachment of the Imperial Bodyguard (Mohammed Omar Jar having been stripped of his own personal bodyguard – and state positions – by Habibullah in 1904).

The level of influence Nasrullah enjoyed led Angus Hamilton in his 1910 book Afghanistan to describe Habibullah as a "weak-willed" ruler, and the possibility of Nasrullah making an attempt on the throne caused Hamilton to describe him as a "stormy petrel in the Afghan sea of domestic politics".