Ishaqzai

Elphinstone, whose account was published in 1815, divides the Durrani into Zirak and Panjpai and lists the Panjpai clans as Noorzye, Alizye, Iskhaukzye, Khougaunee and Maukoo. Bellew gives the same five and spells the Ishaqzai name Ishak, Sahak, Sak or Ishakzi.

The Khulasat al-Ansab, quoted in Dorn's notes, makes the Ishakzye one of five sons of Isa, a son of Abdal, and says all five Panjpai clans live in the district of Kandahar. Adamec's gazetteer, quoting Biscoe in 1879-80, lists three Ishaqzai sections, Misrikhel (the Khan Khel), Mandinzai and Hawazai, and says the clan is vulgarly called Saozai. The Naval Postgraduate School's Helmand profile gives the same three sections.^1–4,10

پر دې ولاړ: دودیزې شجرې · استعماري اسناد · مرجع اثار

Elphinstone says the Ishaqzai live between Zamindawar and the desert, in country hilly and fertile on the north and flat and barren on the south, with farming and herding in about equal numbers. He rates them at about ten thousand families, and says horses and mules are bred particularly in their country.

Bellew describes them as partly pastoral and partly farmers, on the lower course of the Arghandab between Kandahar and Bost and along the Helmand into the Sistan basin. He names Khan Kishin and the districts of Lash-Juwen and Farah as their principal seats, and reckons them at twelve thousand families, of whom about a thousand were settled in the Balkh country. Adamec's gazetteer adds villages of Ishaqzai on the Arghastan and Tarnak and in Arghandab, among them Mulla Azim near the Band-i-Timur, whose people, by Bellew's account, were descendants of an Afghan saint and held their land rent-free.^1,3,4

پر دې ولاړ: استعماري اسناد · مرجع اثار

In his list of the officers of the Durrani royal household, Elphinstone says the Meer-Akhor, the master of the horse, held an office hereditary in the head family of the Ishakzyes.

The Tribal Analysis Center, a US research firm, tells the earlier story from Hayat Khan's Hayat-i Afghani, which it cites. Musa Khan, called Musa Dungi, left besieged Herat to find salt and grain for his men, returned to share their fate when the city surrendered to Nadir Shah, and later served with Nadir Shah. It says he sat on the council of Pashtun chiefs that chose Ahmad Shah Abdali in 1747. The report calls the Ishaqzai nomad flock-owners who then ranked among the respected Durrani warriors.^1,5

پر دې ولاړ: استعماري اسناد · نوې څېړنې

The Tribal Analysis Center, drawing on Nancy Tapper's 1973 study and Jonathan Lee, says the north-west frontier of Afghanistan had been emptied by Turkman raids by 1880. Abd al-Rahman Khan wished to settle it with Pashtuns, and Durrani chiefs of the south resisted. Lee, quoted in the report, says the Amir invited Taju Khan, leader of the Ishaqzai clan, to Kabul and offered a marriage between Taju Khan's daughter and the heir, Habibullah Khan, which persuaded the chief to move his tribe to Badghis. Taju Khan was regarded in Kandahar as a person of no importance, Lee adds.

The report says the spring of 1887 was a disaster: crop failure the year before and failed spring rains killed the herds, and many colonists returned to Pusht-i Rud while others moved on towards Maimana. Taju Khan returned south. It argues that the Ishaqzai were left scattered, took up farming from necessity, and blamed Kabul. The report presents its reading of the Amir's motives as its own inference, and the phrase "Reign of Terror" in its quotation of Lee is that of a senior British official.⁵

پر دې ولاړ: نوې څېړنې

Adamec says the name is written Sagzai by several authorities and often pronounced Sakzai. The Naval Postgraduate School's profile says that in the past the Ishaqzai were derogatorily called Sagzai, or vegetable people, and the Tribal Analysis Center ties the nickname to the loss of livestock and the turn to farming. In its account the Omarzai Ishaqzai winter at Jawand in Badghis and share a summer camp near Chakhcharan with Dari-speaking Firozkohi, and the Sheikhanzai, about 400 households, graze near Shahrak and winter near Qala-i-Naw, with a former winter base near Gereshk. These case studies come from a 1976 anthropological article the report cites.^4,5,10

پر دې ولاړ: نوې څېړنې · مرجع اثار

Giustozzi, quoted by the Tribal Analysis Center, says Ishaqzai communities were very influential in Helmand under the Taliban at the expense of the Alizai, who had dominated the province until 1994. After 2001 Alizai circles around Sher Mohammad Akhundzada rose again and, in his words, marginalised and taxed the Ishaqzai, and in 2006 a violent conflict broke out. Evans adds that the Taliban granted land to the Ishaqzai in Sangin in the 1990s and that the Afghan government does not recognise it, which is one reason, he says, why the Ishaqzai are seen as a troublesome tribe linked to the Taliban. For them, he writes, affiliation with the Taliban offers protection.

Amiri, for the Afghanistan Analysts Network, says Sangin has two main tribes, the Ishaqzai and the Alekozai, and that the Ishaqzai were mostly in control during the Taliban era and the Alekozai after 2001. He says Dad Muhammad, known as Amer Dado, an Alekozai, took control of the whole district at once and the Ishaqzai, excluded from politics and the drug trade, stood against the government. He describes the Malmand area of Sangin as mostly Ishaqzai and belligerently anti-government since 2001. Amiri also says Nowzad has a large Ishaqzai population, almost half the district, and that the Ishaqzai were the leading force in planning the Taliban's capture of Nowzad on 29 July 2015.

A land dispute between the Ishaqzai and the Alizai of Musa Qala flared up in January 2018, according to AAN. The Helmand governor's spokesman and a Taliban splinter deputy blamed the Taliban, whose spokesman called it a matter of rights. The Ishaqzai there were said to have been ruled by the former Taliban governor of Helmand, Mullah Manan.^5–9

پر دې ولاړ: نوې څېړنې

The Naval Postgraduate School's Helmand profile gives the Ishaqzai 5.2 per cent of Helmand's tribal groups, strongest in Musa Qala, Sangin and Nawzad, with many in Farah and Herat. Its Kandahar profile lists them as a Panjpai Durrani tribe of Kandahar, with the Noorzai and Alizai. The Tribal Analysis Center says more Ishaqzai leaders were linked to the Taliban than to Karzai's government in 2009. Among them it names Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, Taliban minister of civil aviation, and, on the government side, the cleric Maulavi Abdullah Fayez, assassinated on 29 May 2005, and the parliamentarian Malalai Ishaqzai. Amiri names Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur as the new Taliban leader in 2016.^5,7,10

پر دې ولاړ: نوې څېړنې · مرجع اثار