Michael A. Barry | |
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Born | 1948 (age 75–76) |
Nationality | American, French |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Princeton University Cambridge University McGill University École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales |
Influences | Louis Massignon, Stuart Cary Welch |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Islamic civilization |
Institutions | Princeton University, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Aga Khan Trust for Culture |
Main interests | Medieval Islamic Civilization,Afghanistan,Persian Culture &Language |
Michael A. Barry (born 1948,in New York) is a Princeton University professor and historian of the greater Middle East and Islamic world. Since 2004 he has taught as lecturer in Islamic Culture in Princeton's Department of Near Eastern Studies,in addition to serving as consultative chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005-2009) and special consultant to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture since 2009. An established authority on Islamic art and the history and culture of Afghanistan,on which subjects he has written extensively in both French and English,Barry's works include a standard French-language history of Afghanistan (Le Royaume de l'insolence),a biography of the late commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance,Ahmad Shah Massoud (Massoud:de l’islamisme àla liberté),which won France's Prix Femina in 2002,and an interpretive history of medieval Islamic figurative painting from the 15th to the 16th centuries (Figurative Art in Medieval Islam and the Riddle of Bihzâd of Herât (1465-1535)).
His most recent work is Kabul's Long Shadows published in 2011 by Princeton University's Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD). This monograph,which summarizes Barry's views on Afghanistan for the first time in English,addresses current U.S. policy toward Afghanistan in light of the country's political and cultural history,its tribal dynamics and the strategic concerns of the surrounding region.
Prior to coming to Princeton,Barry spent many years in Afghanistan with the International Federation for Human Rights,Médecins du Monde and the United Nations,working in often perilous conditions to provide and coordinate humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people from 1979 to 2001. He holds an A.B. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University,post-graduate degree in anthropology from Cambridge University,M.A. from McGill University and Ph.D. from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan military leader and politician. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 1990s,he led the government's military wing against rival militias;after the Taliban takeover,he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.
The history of Afghanistan,preceding the establishment of the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1823 is shared with that of neighbouring Iran,central Asia and Indian subcontinent. The Sadozai monarchy ruled the Afghan Durrani Empire,considered the founding state of modern Afghanistan.
The Taliban,which also refers to itself by its state name,the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,is an Afghan militant movement in Afghanistan with an ideology comprising elements of Pashtun nationalism and the Deobandi current of Islamic fundamentalism. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001,before being overthrown following the American invasion. It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 following the departure of most coalition forces,after nearly 20 years of insurgency,and currently controls all of the country. Its government is not recognized by any country. The Taliban government has been internationally condemned for restricting human rights in Afghanistan,including the right of women and girls to work and to have an education.
The Hindu Kush is an 800-kilometre-long (500 mi) mountain range on the Iranian Plateau in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH);to the north,near its northeastern end,the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China,Pakistan and Afghanistan meet,after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan near their border.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan politician,former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party,so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis split from Hezbi Islami in 1979 to found Hezb-i Islami Khalis. He has twice served as Prime Minister during the 1990s.
Nuristan,also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan,is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan,located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province,with a population of around 167,000. Parun serves as the provincial capital. Nuristan is bordered on the south by Laghman and Kunar provinces,on the north by Badakhshan province,on the west by Panjshir province.
Kabul University is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul,near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah,whose prime minister at the time was his younger brother,Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan.
The culture of Afghanistan has persisted for over three millennia,tracing record to at least the time of the Achaemenid Empire in 500 BCE,and encompasses the cultural diversity of the nation. Afghanistan's culture is historically strongly connected to nearby Persia,including the same religion,as the people of both countries have lived together for thousands of years. Its location at the crossroads of Central,South and Western Asia historically made it a hub of diversity,dubbed by one historian as the "roundabout of the ancient world".
The Northern Alliance,officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan,was a military alliance of groups that operated between early 1992 and 2001 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At that time,many non-Pashtun Northerners originally with the Republic of Afghanistan led by Mohammad Najibullah became disaffected with Pashtun Khalqist Afghan Army officers holding control over non-Pashtun militias in the North. Defectors such as Rashid Dostum and Abdul Momim allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Ali Mazari forming the Northern Alliance. The alliance's capture of Mazar-i-Sharif and more importantly the supplies kept there crippled the Afghan military and began the end of Najibullah's government. Following the collapse of Najibullah's government the Alliance would fall with a Second Civil War breaking out however following the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's (Taliban) takeover of Kabul,The United Front was reassembled.
Clifford Edmund Bosworth FBA was an English historian and Orientalist,specialising in Arabic and Iranian studies.
Professor Abdul Ghafoor Ravan Farhâdi is an Afghan academic and diplomat who served as Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 2006.
The 1989–1992 Afghan Civil War,also known as the FirstAfghan Civil War,took place between the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the Soviet–Afghan War on 15 February 1989 until 27 April 1992,ending the day after the proclamation of the Peshawar Accords proclaiming a new interim Afghan government which was supposed to start serving on 28 April 1992.
The 1992–1996 Afghan Civil War,also known as the Second Afghan Civil War,took place between 28 April 1992—the date a new interim Afghan government was supposed to replace the Republic of Afghanistan of President Mohammad Najibullah—and the Taliban's conquest of Kabul establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996.
The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War,also known as the Third Afghan Civil War,took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996,and the US and UK invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001:a period that was part of the Afghan Civil War that had started in 1989,and also part of the war in Afghanistan that had started in 1978.
The Battle of Kabul was a series of intermittent battles and sieges over the city of Kabul during the period of 1992–1996.
Baba Jan zahid,is a former senior security official of the Afghanistan government. He was a general of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan,but after the Soviet invasion he joined Ahmad Shah Masoud's forces and fought against the Soviet invasion. After the retreat of the Russian forces,he continued the war against Dr. Najibullah's government. Following the collapse of Najib's government,he entered Kabul with Ahmad Shah Masoud's forces and served in various departments of the Islamic State of Afghanistan under the leadership of Ustad Burhanuddin Rabbani.
The Shura-e Nazar was created by Ahmad Shah Massoud in 1984 at the northern provinces of Takhar,Badakhshan,Balkh and Kunduz,during the Soviet-Afghan War. It comprised and united about 130 resistance commanders from 12 northern,eastern and central regions of Afghanistan.
The Afghan conflict refers to the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the largely non-violent 1973 coup d'état,which deposed Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah in absentia,ending his 40-year-long reign. With the concurrent establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan,headed by Mohammad Daoud Khan,the country's relatively peaceful and stable period in modern history came to an end. However,all-out fighting did not erupt until after 1978,when the Saur Revolution violently overthrew Khan's government and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Subsequent unrest over the radical reforms that were being pushed by the then-ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led to unprecedented violence,prompting a large-scale pro-PDPA military intervention by the Soviet Union in 1979. In the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War,the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen received extensive support from Pakistan,the United States,and Saudi Arabia in a joint covert effort that was dubbed Operation Cyclone.
The following is an outline of the series of events that led up the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021).
The 1975 Panjshir Valley uprising was an Islamist uprising led by Jamiat-e Islami against the government of Daoud Khan,and was the first ever ISI operation that took place in Afghanistan. It was in "retaliation to Republic of Afghanistan’s proxy war and support to the militants against Pakistan".