Amanul Mulk (died ) was an Afghan politician who served as the Minister of Defence under Salemai, who ruled only in the Eastern Province.

Background

In either 1944 or 1945, the Safi tribe rose up against the government of the

Kingdom of Afghanistan The Kingdom of Afghanistan (; ) was a monarchy in Southern Central Asia that was established in 1926 as a successor state to the Emirate of Afghanistan. It was proclaimed by its first king, Amanullah Khan, seven years after he acceded to the ...

. According to British records, the uprising was caused by the Afghan government's attempts to institute conscription among the Safi, trading monopolies granted to Afghan merchant companies, and government surveillance. However, Whit Mason attributes the Safi uprising to "extremely brutal taxation, oppression and poverty".

Minister of Defence

Religious scholars among the Safi ruled that anyone who rebelled against their King and died should be excluded from being counted as martyrs. Therefore, they were required to select one of their own as king. In either 1944 or 1945, the Safi selected Salemai as king,

Amanat Lewana Amanat Lewana ( 1940s) was an Afghan politician who served as prime minister under Salemai, a king of Afghanistan who ruled only in the Eastern Province. Background In either 1944 or 1945, the Safi tribe rose up against the government of t ...

as prime minister and Amanul Mulk as minister of defence. The Safi were ultimately defeated by the Afghan government.

Later life and death

In 1947, Mulk had a reunion in Shulgara with Shahswar and Salemai. Mulk eventually left Afghanistan, and lived in

Peshawar Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...

by the 1980s. In 1983, he met with historian David B. Edwards, who described him as being an "old man" by this time. Edwards interviewed Mulk on the Safi role in the tribal revolts of 1944–1947. In ''The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction'', released in April 2011, it is stated that Amanul Mulk "died recently in Peshawar", that he continued wearing a military jacket until his last days, and that his offspring still live in Shulgara.

References

{{reflist 20th-century Afghan politicians 1940s in Afghanistan Defence ministers of Afghanistan 2010s deaths