The Resilience of a Frontier: Ottoman and Iraqi Claims to Kuwait, 1871–1990

With the advent of independence, Pakistan almost immediately became embroiled in the hegemonic struggle of the cold war. Courted by the United States for its strategic North-West Frontier, Pakistan quickly became a Western ally. Fears of tribal unrest in the region and conflicting Pakistani and Afghan claims to the frontier, however, soon complicated the United States’ broader strategic vision. As Afghanistan continued to call for the establishment of an autonomous ‘Pakhtunistan’ comprising the North-West Frontier settled districts and tribal zone - and threatened to turn to the Soviet Union if US policy-makers did not support the Afghan position - US officials were torn between their official alliance with Pakistan and their desire to prevent a Soviet–Afghan understanding. Mirroring circumstances elsewhere in the Third World, local conflicts on the North-West Frontier mired US strategists’ wider plans for spreading Western influence. Officials ultimately opted for a flawed neutral position, angering the Pakistan government and alienating the Afghans. The US position towards the North-West Frontier - or lack thereof - eventually resulted in failure and a continued impasse in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.     

Abdul Ghaffar Khan: An Islamic Gandhi

Abstract

Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a mid-twentieth-century Pashtun of the Northwest Frontier Region known as the "Frontier Gandhi" or the "Islamic Gandhi." His career was marked by rejection of the badal blood feud, and the belligerent Pashtun tribal code. Accepting instead a non-violent interpretation of Islam, Khan was heavily influenced by Mohandas K. Gandhi, and came to interpret the heart of Islam, including the concepts of jihad, as essentially about peace, service, and non-violence. Khan traveled widely in the frontier region that later became Pakistan, and his most significant achievement was to raise a non-violent army of Khudai Khidmatgars or "Servants of God" from his own Pashtun people. His legacy is important to further understand a non-violent alternative of Islamic political resistance.