Habibullāh Kalakāni

Habibullah Kalakani (born Habibullah Khan; 19 January 1891 – 1 November 1929), titularly known as Habibullah Khan III, and derogatively known as "Bacha-yi Saqaw", was the Emir of Afghanistan from 17 January to 13 October 1929, and the former leader of the Saqqawists. During the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929), he captured vast swathes of Afghanistan and ruled Kabul during what is known in Afghan historiography as the "Saqqawist period". No country recognized Kalakani as ruler of Afghanistan.

During the 1928–1929 Afghan Civil War, he contested the Afghan throne with King Amanullah Khan. After defeating Amanullah, he was eventually defeated by Mohammad Nadir Shah. Khalilullah Khalili, a noted historian and Kohistani poet laureate, depicted King Habibullah Kalakani as the "best manager of governmental imports and exports".

Early years Habibullah Kalakani was born 19 January 1891 in the village of Kalakan, north of Kabul. He was an ethnic Tajik. His father was a water carrier for Afghan soldiers in Kabul during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. In his memoirs, Kalakani stated that his home village was "miserable" and that he had "conceived a deep hatred of its poverty-stricken exterior". At age 14, he left for Kabul on horseback with his friends Nur and Jamal. Later, he joined King Amanullah Khan's army, and fought in the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the Khost rebellion of 1924. During the latter war, he served as officer with the Afghan Army's "Model Battalion" and served with distinction during the suppression of the insurgents. Nevertheless, he deserted the unit at some unspecified time, and after working in Peshawar moved to Parachinar where he was arrested and sentenced to eleven months of imprisonment by the British. Refn|"Other sources have him arrested in Peshawar in January 1928, then sentenced to three years' imprisonment because he was unable to post bond. But this information seems problematic since by August 1928, he was in Paghman, just west of Kabul, and soon after in Kuhdaman where we pick up Fayz Muhammad's account of him." —Robert D. McChesney in Kabul Under Siege : Fayz Muhammad's Account of the 1929 Uprising The Basmachi operated in Afghanistan due to their alliance with Habibullah Ghazi and after his fall from power they were expelled from Afghanistan.

Death Kalakani as a prisoner in November 1929, shortly before his execution. Kalakani (far left) and his closest followers were ordered by Mohammad Nadir Shah to be executed (likely at the Arg) and their bodies displayed publicly at Chaman-e-Uzuri (pictured) in Kabul on 1 November 1929.

After several unsuccessful attempts, Nadir and his brothers finally raised a sufficiently large force—mostly from the British side of the Durand Line—to take Kabul on 13 October 1929. Nadir considered pardoning Kalakani, even swearing on the Quran according to some, but pressure from loyal tribes led him to execute Kalakani with some of his closest followers on 1 November 1929. Kalakani's last words prior to being executed were "I have nothing to ask God; he has given me everything I desired. God has made me King."

His remains were laid below a hilltop mausoleum at an undisclosed location for 87 years, until a campaign in 2016 by some Tajiks and scholars who wanted him to be reburied in a better place. This caused days of political and slight sectarian tensions in Kabul - Tajiks and religious scholars, who consider Kalakani to have been a devout Muslim, wanted him to be buried at the Shahrara hill and asked President Ashraf Ghani to plan a state burial. Opponents of Kalakani, mostly Pashtuns and secularists, were against this plan, including vice-president Abdul Rashid Dostum who claimed that he could not be buried at a hilltop important to Uzbek heritage. He was eventually buried at the hill on 2 September 2016, with one death and four injuries occurring in clashes between his supporters and pro-Dostum soldiers.