Hazaragi cap, the Hazara Yadgar logoHazara Yadgar

Abdur Rahman Khan's campaigns against the Hazaras

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In the 1890s, the forces of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan carried out mass killing, enslavement and forced displacement of Hazaras. Legal scholars have argued that these acts constitute genocide.

What happened

Amir Abdur Rahman Khan ruled Afghanistan from 1880 to 1901. Mistreatment by his officials, including heavy taxes, looting, enslavement and assaults on Hazara women, drove Hazaras to revolt between 1890 and 1893.1

The Amir secured a religious ruling from Sunni clerics that declared Shia and Ismaili Muslims to be infidels and called for holy war against the Hazaras. He also offered booty as an incentive to fight.1

The human cost

Hakimi writes that it is impossible to establish how many Hazaras were killed or exiled, but that an estimated sixty percent were "massacred, enslaved, or forcibly displaced".1 This figure is often repeated as a death toll. As stated here, it covers killing, enslavement and displacement together.

Survivors fled to places including Quetta, Mashhad and Central Asia.2 See Hazaras in Pakistan.

Land and legacy

The state seized Hazara lands and handed many to others. In 1894 it ordered the confiscation of grazing land across the Hazarajat.1

The main contemporary record is the Siraj al-Tawarikh of Faiz Muhammad Katib Hazara, himself a Hazara writing at the Afghan court.1

Is it genocide?

Hakimi argues that these acts meet the definition in Article II of the Genocide Convention, and calls for official recognition.1 No international court has ruled on the question. The Convention dates from 1948, long after these events, so the argument is a historical and legal assessment rather than a judgment.

Remembrance

Many Hazaras observe 25 September as Hazara Genocide Memorial Day.3 In 2024, KabulNow reported that a Canadian parliamentary committee supported recognising 25 September each year as a day of remembrance.4

Footnotes

  1. Mehdi J. Hakimi, The Afghan State and the Hazara Genocide, Harvard Human Rights Journal, vol. 37, 2024. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. Wikipedia, Hazaras. ↩

  3. KabulNow, Canadian MP marks Hazara Genocide Memorial Day, September 2025. ↩

  4. KabulNow, Canadian committee recognizes historical massacre and ongoing Hazara persecution, October 2024. ↩