| Mahmud Tarzi | |
|---|---|
Mahmud Tarzi in 1919
| |
| Foreign Minister of Afghanistan | |
| In office 1924–1927 | |
| Monarch | Amanullah Khan |
| Preceded by | Sardar Shir Ahmad |
| Succeeded by | Ghulam Siddiq Khan Charkhi (acting) |
| In office 1919–1922 | |
| Monarch | Habibullah Khan |
| Preceded by | Sardar Mohammed Aziz Khan |
| Succeeded by | Mohammad Wali Khan Darwazi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | August 23, 1865 Ghazni, Afghanistan |
| Died | November 22, 1933 (aged 68) Istanbul, Turkey |
| Nationality | Afghan, Turkish |
Early years
Tarzi was born on 23 August 1865 in Ghazni, Afghanistan. An ethnic Pashtun, his father was Sardar Ghulam Muhammad Tarzi, leader of the Mohammadzai royal house of Kandahar and a well-known poet. His mother belonged to Popalzaitribe.In 1881, shortly after Emir Abdur Rahman Khan came to power. Mahmud's father and the rest of the Tarzi family were expelled from Afghanistan. They first travelled to Karachi, Sindh, where they lived from January 1882 to March 1885. They then moved to the Ottoman Empire.
Mahmud began to explore the Middle East, he made pilgrimage to Mecca, visited Paris, and toured the eastern Mediterranean. He also encountered Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani in Constantinople.On a second trip to Damascus, Syria, in 1891, Tarzi married the daughter of Sheikh Saleh Al-Mossadiah, a muezzin of the Umayyad mosque. She became his second wife, the first was an Afghan who had died in Damascus. Tarzi stayed in Turkey until the age of 35, where he became fluent in a number of languages, including his native tongue Pashto as well as Dari, Turkish, French, Arabic, and Urdu.
A year after Emir Abdur Rahman Khan's death in 1901, Habibullah Khan invited the Tarzi family back to Afghanistan. Mahmud Tarzi was given a post in the government. There he began to introduce Western ideas in Afghanistan. If there is a single person responsible for the modernization of Afghanistan in the first two decades of the twentieth century it was Tarzi. Tarzi's daughter, Soraya Tarzi, married King Amanullah Khan and become Queen of Afghanistan. Mahmud Tarzi took up a critical role in the history of Afghanistan, from famed poet to progressive leader.
Journalism and poetry
One of Tarzi's earliest works was known as the Account of a Journey (Sayahat-Namah-e Manzum), which was published in Lahore, British India (now Pakistan). However, Tarzi's most influential work – and the foundation of journalism in Afghanistan – was his publishing of Seraj-al-Akhbar. This newspaper was published bi-weekly from October 1911 to January 1919. It played an important role in the development of an Afghan modernist movement, serving as a forum for a small, enlightened group of young Afghans, who provided the ethical justification and basic tenets of Afghan nationalism and modernism. Tarzi also published Seraj-al-Atfal (Children's Lamp), the first Afghan publication aimed at a juvenile audience
Tarzi was the first who introduced the novel in Afghanistan and translated many English and French novels to Dari and Pashto. He also contributed in editing, translations, and modernization of the Afghan press. He translated into Dari and Pashto many major works of European authors, such as Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island, International Law (from Turkish), and the History of the Russo-Japanese War. When he lived in Turkey and Syria, he immersed himself in reading and research, using Western literary and scientific sources. In Damascus, Tarzi wrote The Garden of Learning, containing choice articles about literary, artistic, travel and scientific matters. Another book entitled The Garden of Knowledge (later published in Kabul), concludes with an article "My beloved country, Afghanistan", in which he tells his Afghan countrymen how much he longs for his native land and recalls with nostalgia the virtues of its climate, mountains and deserts. In 1914, his novel Travel Across Three Continents in Twenty-Nine Days published. In the preface, he makes an apt comment about travel and history...
Journalism and poetry
One of Tarzi's earliest works was known as the Account of a Journey (Sayahat-Namah-e Manzum), which was published in Lahore, British India (now Pakistan). However, Tarzi's most influential work – and the foundation of journalism in Afghanistan – was his publishing of Seraj-al-Akhbar. This newspaper was published bi-weekly from October 1911 to January 1919. It played an important role in the development of an Afghan modernist movement, serving as a forum for a small, enlightened group of young Afghans, who provided the ethical justification and basic tenets of Afghan nationalism and modernism. Tarzi also published Seraj-al-Atfal (Children's Lamp), the first Afghan publication aimed at a juvenile audience
Tarzi was the first who introduced the novel in Afghanistan and translated many English and French novels to Dari and Pashto. He also contributed in editing, translations, and modernization of the Afghan press. He translated into Dari and Pashto many major works of European authors, such as Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island, International Law (from Turkish), and the History of the Russo-Japanese War. When he lived in Turkey and Syria, he immersed himself in reading and research, using Western literary and scientific sources. In Damascus, Tarzi wrote The Garden of Learning, containing choice articles about literary, artistic, travel and scientific matters. Another book entitled The Garden of Knowledge (later published in Kabul), concludes with an article "My beloved country, Afghanistan", in which he tells his Afghan countrymen how much he longs for his native land and recalls with nostalgia the virtues of its climate, mountains and deserts. In 1914, his novel Travel Across Three Continents in Twenty-Nine Days published. In the preface, he makes an apt comment about travel and history...
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