Muhammad Nabi
The
career of Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim Khan’s nephew, Muhammad Nabi the son of
Muhammad Hasan Khan, a former dabir
al-mulk, did survive the change of regimes and prospered. Muhammad Nabi was
born in 1244 (1828 or 1829) and died in 1892. He was from the Murad Khani
Qizilbash, one of the six principal Qizilbash groups whose names appear in
contemporary sources. According to British reports, Mirza Muhammad Nabi (as he
was styled) succeeded his father as dabir
al-mulk at the court of Shir ‘Ali Khan in 1291 (1874) when the governor of
Turkistan, Naib Muhammad ‘Alam Khan, died and Muhammad Hasan Khan was sent to
Turkistan as a member of the new administration there.
The
circumstances under which Muhammad Nabi became ‘Abd al-Rahman’s dabir al-mulk when the latter came to
the throne remain unclear. Part of what may have attracted the new amir to him
was his aloofness from court politics. The fact that he was also a renowned
literary figure would also have appealed to ‘Abd al-Rahman whose interest in
and patronage of literature is frequently mentioned by the Siraj al-tawarikh. Muhammad Nabi’s nom de plume was “Wasil”. Ghulam Muhammad Ghubar, writing in Part 5
of Tarikh-i Adabiyat-i Afghanistan,
describes Muhammad Nabi “Wasil” as a man with a remarkable, perhaps
photographic, memory — a not inconsiderable gift for a bureaucrat. Besides
poetry, according to Ghubar, Muhammad Nabi wrote an account of the royal family
at the time of Amir Shir ‘Ali Khan, a manuscript of which existed in Kabul at
the time Ghubar was writing.
Muhammad
Nabi’s relations with ‘Abd al-Rahman were not uniformly good. British reports
state that he was suspended in 1883 from “management of the postal arrangement
and relieved of charge of Amir Abdur Rahman’s seal. Afterwards reinstated, he
accompanied the amir to Rawalpindi in 1885 and was present at the meetings
between Amir Abdur Rahman and the Viceroy of India and the Foreign Secretary.”
R. D. McChesney — A Farman issued by Amir Shir 'Ali
Khan in 1877 (1983)
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