Sayed Isma'el Balkhi () (1918 –14 July 1968) was one of the most prominent
Hazara reformist leaders in 20th-century Afghanistan. As a
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
,
mystic and a political leader, Balkhi is considered the figurehead of modern
Hazara history.
Life
Early life
Sayed Ismael Balkhi was born in 1918 in
Balkhab district,
Sar-e Pol province
Sar-e-Pol, also spelled Sari Pul (), is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the north of the country. It borders Ghor and Bamyan to the south, Samangan to the east, Balkh and Jowzjan to the north, and Faryab to the w ...
in Northern Afghanistan. He received early education in Afghanistan after which he traveled to Iraq for further studies in Islamic theology and
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...
. At the time when Balkhi left the country, the Afghan government did not have standards of higher education that other Muslim countries had. Balkhi was a
Shia
Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...
by religion and thus associated with the greater Hazara community. Balkhi was introduced to reformist movements popular at that time in the Middle East. He imported these intellectual enhancements back to his home region in Afghanistan and became a preacher.
Career
A religious activist, Balkhi was concerned during the liberal late 1940s period in Afghanistan, eventually becoming a political radical. In 1949, Balkhi plotted with at least five associates a
coup d'etat against King
Mohammad Zahir Shah
Mohammad Zāhir Shāh (15 October 1914 – 23 July 2007) was the last King of Afghanistan, reigning from 8 November 1933 until he was deposed on 17 July 1973. Ruling for 40 years, Zahir Shah was the longest-serving ruler of Afghanistan since t ...
(or, more specifically, an assassination attempt on Prime Minister
Shah Mahmud Khan). The plan was foiled, and Balkhi spent some years in prison under the charges of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic.
The dynamism of Balkhi's personality is that he got his education in an environment (i.e. Iraq) where clerics were either turned into radical revolutionaries like
Khomeini and
Khamenei or into self-absorbed mystics or study-oriented scholars. He was an exception among all such individuals. Ismael Balkhi was a
mystic; he was heavily influenced by
Mawlana Jalaluddin Balkhi but in the meantime, he was not unaware of his society. Similarly, Balkhi believed in political change but he never embraced any terrorist ideology or even internationalist approach. He wrote several nationalistic poems whilst in prison.
See also
*
List of Hazara people
References
External links
tasnimnews.com/در «پگاه بیداری»؛ درک و دریافتی از اشعار علامه سید اسماعیل بلخی
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balkhi, Ismail
20th-century Afghan poets
Afghan politicians
1968 deaths
People from Sar-e Pol Province
1918 births
Hazara poets