Royal Horse Artillery fleeing from Afghan attack at the Battle of Maiwand

Maiwand is a village in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

within the

Maywand District Maiwand District is situated in the western part of the Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. It borders Helmand Province to the west, Ghorak District to the north, Khakrez District to the northeast, Zhari District to the east, and Panjwayi District to ...

Kandahar Province Kandahār ( ps, ; Kandahār, prs, ; ''Qandahār'') is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southern part of the country, sharing a border with Pakistan, to the south. It is surrounded by Helmand in the west, Uruzga ...

. It is located 50 miles northwest of

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the ca ...

, on the main Kandahar–

Lashkargah Lashkargāh ( ps, لښکرګاه; fa, لشکرگاه), historically called Bost or Boost (), is a city in southwestern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand Province. It is located in Lashkargah District, where the Arghandab River merges int ...

road. The area is irrigated by the

Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority The Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA) based in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, originally named the Helmand Valley Authority (HVA) until its expansion in 1965,(pdf) The Helmand Valley Project in Afghanistan: A.I.D. Evaluation Special Study No. 18
C Clapp-Wicek & E Baldwin, U.S. Agency for International Development, published December 1983 Maiwand is the birthplace of the 13th-century Sufi saint

Lal Shahbaz Qalandar Hazrat Sayyid Usman Marwandi, (1177 - 19 February 1274) popularly known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (), was a Sufi saint and poet of present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. Lal Shahbaz Qalandar was born in Marwand, Sistan to a family from Baghdad ...

. The village is notable for the

Battle of Maiwand The Battle of Maiwand ( Dari: نبرد میوند, Pashto: د ميوند جگړه), fought on 27 July 1880, was one of the principal battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Under the leadership of Ayub Khan, the Afghan forces defeated a much s ...

, which took place on July 27, 1880, during the

Second Anglo-Afghan War The Second Anglo-Afghan War (Dari: جنگ دوم افغان و انگلیس, ps, د افغان-انګرېز دويمه جګړه) was a military conflict fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the l ...

Ayub Khan Ayub Khan is a compound masculine name; Ayub is the Arabic version of the name of the Biblical figure Job, while Khan or Khaan is taken from the title used first by the Mongol rulers and then, in particular, their Islamic and Persian-influenced ...

together with

Malalai Anaa Malalai of Maiwand ( ps, د ميوند ملالۍ), also known as Malala ( ps, links=no, ملاله), or Malalai Anna ( ps, links=no, ملالۍ انا, meaning ''Malalai the "Grandmother"'') is a national folk hero of Afghanistan who rallied ...

defeated a British brigade under General Burrows. The British commemorated the battle with the ''

Maiwand Lion The ''Maiwand Lion'' is a sculpture and war memorial in the Forbury Gardens, a public park in the town of Reading, Berkshire, Reading, in the England, English county of Berkshire. The statue was named after the Battle of Maiwand and was unveiled ...

'' sculpture at

Forbury Gardens Forbury Gardens is a public park in the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. The park is on the site of the outer court of Reading Abbey, which was in front of the Abbey Church. The site was formerly known as the Forbury, and one o ...

in England.

References

Populated places in Kandahar Province {{Kandahar-geo-stub