Abdul Hai Habibi

Abdul Hai Habibi was born in the year 1910 and died on the 9^th May 1984. He was a popular historian from Afghanistan for most part of his life and also he is a member of the National Assembly of the country under the leadership of King Zahir Shah. He is a Pashtun nationalist from Kandahar in Afghanistan, Habibi started as a young teacher that made his way up and turned into a writer, a student, politician and the dean of the faculty of literature at the University of Kabul. He has authored more than a hundred books, though he is more popular for editing Pata Khazana, which is an old manuscript that is written with Pashtun language, which he claimed to have discovered in the year 1944; the manuscript was not seen as a genuine one by the academic community if the country.

source of picture: www.alamahabibi.com

Biography

Habibi was born in the city of Kandahar in the year 1910. He was born into a Pashtun family of students. Habibi was the great grandson of Allamah Habibullah, who was a distinguished student called ‘Kandahari intellectual’ and wrote several book. Habibi’s father died at an early age and he grew up studying in the mosque of his city. In the year 1920, he got an admission into the primary school that is in Shalimar. Being so good in his studies, Habibi got his diploma at the age of 15 and started serving as a teacher in the primary schools in Kandahar. In the year 1927, he was chosen to become the deputy editor of the Tulo Afghan weekly paper in his city and after three years, he became the editor of the newspaper.

In the year 1950, he was made to go into exile and he lived in Peshawar in Pakistan, due to his opposition to the Prime Minister Shah Mahmud Khan. While Habibi was staying in exile, he published a journal that is named Azad Afghanistan. He was left to make a return to his country in the year 1961 to become a professor in the faculty of literature in the University of Kabul. In the year 1966, he was made the president of the Afghanistan Historical Society and he printed a good number of book of the history of the country.

Habibi died on the 9^th May 1984 in Kabul at the time of the Soviet War that took place in Afghanistan. He was 74 years old at the time he died.

Summary of Official Positions

• Teacher in the primary schools of Kandahar, 1925 - 1927.
• Deputy editor of Tuloo-e Afghan newspaper, 1927 - 1931.
• Editor of Tuloo-e Afghan, 1931 to 1940.
• President of Pashto Academy (Pashto Tolana) in Kabul, 1940 - 1941 (at the same time he served as the Deputy President of the Department of Publications).
• Advisor to the Education Ministry in Kabul, 1941 to 1944.
• Chairman of the first College of Letters of Kabul University, and president of the Pashto Academy and professor of history of Pashto literature, 1944 - 1946.
• President of the Education Department of Kandahar, 1946 - 1947.
• Commercial attaché in Quetta, Balochistan, 1947.
• Elected representative of Kandahar province during the 7th session of the National Assembly of Afghanistan (Afghan Parliament), 1948 - 1951.
• Received the rank of professor from Kabul University in 1965.
• President of Afghan Historical Society, 1966 - 1971.
• Advisor on cultural affairs to Prime Minister Mohammad Musa Shafiq, 1972 - 1973.
• Professor of literature and history, Kabul University, 1970 - 1977.
• Advisor to the Ministry of Information and Culture, 1978 - 1982.