Modern-day Afghanistan (Khorasan) is founded upon resistance against Rafidi Shiism and the Persian Rafidi Safavid Empire

By Ebn Hussein (Hassan Shemrani)

Some 300 years ago, in November 1715, a powerful man passed away peacefully in Kandahar. Mirwais Hotak, chief of the Pashtun Ghilji tribe, originally set out to free his city from continued Persian Safavid pressure.

Gurgin Khan was the Safavid governor in the lands of the Pashtuns. He suspected something about Mirwais Hotak and took him as a political prisoner and eventually sent him to the Safavid court at Isfahan, the capital of the Safavids.

Mirwais Hotak was later freed and even allowed to meet with the Safavid Shah, Sultan Husayn, on a regular basis. Having ingratiated himself with the Persian court, Mirwais sought and obtained permission to perform the pilgrimage to Makkah in the Ottoman Empire. At that time the once-powerful Safavids were declining politically and militarily, riven by internal strife, royal intrigues, and endless wars against their arch-rivals, the Ottomans. During his time in Persia, Mirwais tried to learn all the military weaknesses of the Safavids.

The Pashtun tribes rankled under the ruling Safavids because of their continued attempts to forcefully convert them from Sunni to Shia Islam. The fatwa was granted and he carried it with him to Iṣfahan and subsequently to Kandahar, with permission to return and strong recommendations to Gurgin Khan. He began organizing his countrymen for a major uprising, and in April 1709, when a large part of the Persian garrison was on an expedition outside the city, he and his followers fell on the remainder and killed the majority of them, including Gurgin Khan.

Mirwais entered Kandahar and made an important speech to its inhabitants: “If there are any amongst you, who have not the courage to enjoy this precious gift of liberty now dropped down to you from Heaven, let him declare himself; no harm shall be done to him: he shall be permitted to go in search of some new tyrant beyond the frontier of this happy state.”— Mirwais Hotak, April 1709

Mirwais and his forces then defeated a large Persian army that was sent to regain control over the area. Several half-hearted attempts to subdue the rebellious city having failed, the Persian Government despatched Khusraw Khán, nephew of the late Gurgín Khán, with an army of 30,000 men to effect its subjugation, but in spite of an initial success, which led the Afgháns to offer to surrender on terms, his uncompromising attitude impelled them to make a fresh desperate effort, resulting in the complete defeat of the Persian army (of whom only some 700 escaped) and the death of their general. Two years later, in A.D. 1713, another Persian army commanded by Rustam Khán was also defeated by the rebels, who thus secured possession of the whole province of Qandahár.— Edward G. Browne, 1924.

Mir Wais Hotak was proclaimed the “Prince of Kandahar and General of the National Troops,” strangely (for his time) refusing to proclaim himself king. By the time of his natural death in 1715, Mir Wais Hotak has established an independent Afghan state that encompassed the entire province of Kandahar (most of southwestern Afghanistan). This is the seed of modern-day Afghanistan, which was re-established as a large empire in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani.

Mirwais remained in power until his death in November 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who was later killed by Mirwais’ son Mahmud, allegedly for planning to give Kandahar’s sovereignty back to Safavid Persia. In 1717, Mahmud Hotak took advantage of the political weakness of the Persian Shah (Sultan Husayn) and briefly conquered large parts of Persia.

The mausoleum of Mirwais Hotak in Kandahar, Pashtun heartland, Afghanistan. Undoubtedly, compared to luxurious and extravagant Hindu-looking shrines of the Rafidah (just search up Khomeini’s super mausoleum that resembles a Sasanian-Zoroastrian palace) it looks rather modest, however, it is still against the Shari’ah and Sunnah, and to my knowledge, unfortunately, the Taliban never even attempted to level this structure to the ground i.e. to apply the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (s) as reported to us by ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (r).
Inshaallah one day it will be flattened.

Mahmoud Hotak pierced into the heartland of Safavid Persia. Afghan forces defeated Persian troops outside of Isfahan in 1722 (Battle of Gulnabad). Shah Husayn Safawi then surrendered the crown to Mahmud Hotak.

Mahmoud was brutal, it is sad that with two palace guards he butchered all the remaining Safavids in Isfahan (apart from Sultan Husain and two young children). He was soon completely incapable of continuing as shah (horrific descriptions by European residents of his mental and physical condition exist).

Unfortunately, due to domestic and foreign factors, Mahmud Hotak could not hold unto Safavid Persia and the Afghans were eventually expelled. However, the Pashtuns saved Afghanistan from the fate of the majority population of Iran (that was forcefully converted from Sunnism to Rafidism) i.e. the calamity called Rafidi Shi’ism. They humiliated the Rafidi Safavids like nobody before, not even the Ottomans who humiliated them at the Battle of Chaldiran.

Finally, I leave you with the following education videos: