Draft:Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang

Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang (Kabul, Afghanistan, 14 July 1915 – Alexandria, Virginia, USA, 3 April 1990) was an Afghan intellectual, historian, and politician. He is noted for his contributions to the study of Afghanistan's history and his involvement in political and social reforms in the country.

Biography

Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang was born on 14 July 1915 (22 Saratan 1294 in the Solar Hijri calendar) in the village of Chihil Sutun near Kabul. He grew up in a reformist family, with his father serving as the mostofi (finance official) of Kabul, and his uncle being a reformer and Finance Minister under King Amanullah Khan. These influences shaped Farhang's early views and outlook on political and social reform in Afghanistan.

Farhang completed his formal education up to the eleventh grade at the French-speaking Istiqlal High School in Kabul. During his time there, he co-founded a political-literary circle with four classmates, aiming to promote critical thinking and encourage opposition to the regime of Mohammad Nadir Shah. In 1933, following the assassination of King Mohammad Nadir Shah, Farhang was imprisoned at the age of 17 due to his political activities. He was released after a month, thanks to the intervention of a prominent religious leader, Hazrat-e Nour-ol-Mashayekh. He was then placed under house arrest for two years and banned from pursuing formal education. Despite this, he continued his studies as an autodidact with the help of his former French teacher.

From 1935 to 1947, Farhang worked at Bank-e-Milli Afghan, a private Afghan bank. In his memoirs, he recounts how the government barred him from holding public office due to his political views. When he sought employment in the private sector, authorities reportedly prevented the bank from hiring him as well. A bank official eventually hired him and two others in similar situations as chaprasis (janitors), though they were later allowed to work in administrative roles.

In 1947, as political repression eased slightly under Shah Mahmud Khan’s government, Farhang entered politics. He was elected to the Kabul City Council in 1948 during Afghanistan’s first elections held by secret ballot and was later appointed deputy mayor of Kabul. In this role, he oversaw the organization of the first parliamentary elections by secret ballot in Kabul.

In 1951, Farhang was one of the founding members of *Watan*. a reformist political movement that called for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and respect for human rights in Afghanistan. His political activities and his role as editor-in-chief of the movement’s newspaper. led to his arrest in 1952., resulting in more than four years of imprisonment. He was placed under house arrest until 1957 after his release.

Between 1957 and 1963, Farhang worked as an adviser at the Ministry of Mines and Industry. He also served as the acting Director General of Industry on occasion. In 1963, King Mohammad Zahir Shah appointed him to the seven-member commission tasked with drafting a new constitution for Afghanistan. Farhang played a pivotal role in drafting Chapter 3 (The basic Rights and Duties of the People) and the preamble of the constitution, which was enacted in 1964 and introduced significant political reforms aimed at modernizing the country.

In 1964, Farhang took a position as Deputy Minister of Planning but resigned the following year to run in parliamentary elections. He served as a member of parliament for five years, chairing the legal commission and advocating for legislative reform. During this period, he reportedly declined offers to take up ministerial positions on two occasions.

In 1971, Farhang was appointed Afghanistan’s ambassador to Yugoslavia. His primary mission was to study Yugoslavia’s mixed economic model, with the aim of assessing whether it could be applied to Afghanistan’s governance. However, following the coup d'état led by Mohammad Daoud Khan in 1973, Farhang was removed from his diplomatic post.

Exile and Later Life

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Farhang was offered a ministerial position by the communist government under Babrak Karmal, which he refused. Instead, he became an outspoken critic of the regime, joining the opposition movement from exile in the United States. In a letter to Babrak Karmal, he criticized the government's failure to hold a promised referendum on Afghanistan’s political future and expressed his support for the Mujahideen.

Farhang died on 3 April 1990 in Alexandria, Virginia, where he had sought political asylum.

Works and Legacy

Farhang’s writings, particularly his works on Afghan history, remain influential in Afghan historiography. His most well-known work is *Afghanistan: The Last Five Centuries*, first published in Dari in 1988 and reprinted 26 times. This book, along with his memoirs, offers a detailed account of Afghanistan's political and social changes throughout the 20th century. Farhang also contributed to encyclopaedias such as *Encyclopædia Britannica* and *Encyclopædia Universalis*, and he translated several important works into Dari, including Émile Durkheim’s *The Division of Labour in Society* and François Grégoire’s *Logique et philosophie des sciences*, which he translated clandestinely while in prison and was taught for many years in the final classes of Afghan high schools.

Bibliography

• Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang, *The Saffarides* (in Dari), Kabul, Historical Society, Ministry of Information, 1955, 2nd edition.
• Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang, *The Afghan Question, 1841-1878*, translation from English of the work by the Duke of Argyll, Directorate of Publications of the Ministry of Information, 1958, 224 pages.
• Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang, *Afghanistan, the Last Five Centuries* (in Pashto), Maywand Editions, 2010, 1344 pages.
• Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang, *Afghanistan, the Last Five Centuries* (in French), translated by Said Zia Farhang. Vol. 1: From the 16th Century to 1919, Paris: CEREDAF)

, 2011, 368 pages; Vol. 2: From 1919 to 1979, Paris: CEREDAF, 2014, 414 pages, annexes, index.

• Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang, *Afghanistan, the Last Five Centuries* (in Dari), Netherlands: Shahmama Editions, 26th edition (first edition: 1988), 2020, 2 volumes, 891 pages, annexes, index.
• Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang, *Memoirs of Mir Mohammad Sediq Farhang* (in Dari), Netherlands: Shahmama Editions, 2nd edition, 2022, 514 pages, index.

External Links

• Constitution of Afghanistan (1964)