THE BUILDER APRIL 1929

Freemasonry in Afghanistan

By BRO. N. W. J. HAYDON, Associate Editor, Canada

MANY readers of THE BUILDER will have read with appreciation that
remarkable story of Bro. Rudyard Kipling entitled The Man Who Would
Be King and have perhaps wondered how much of it was drawn from his
own experience, e.g., meeting with the two wandering brethren,
Peachey Carnehad and Daniel Dravot, and how much was built thereon
from tribal legends to show their tragic end and the heroic loyalty
of "Billy Fish."

Recently, while indexing a series of volumes of Ars Quatuor
Coronatorum, the Transactions of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati, I came
across the following account in Volume xxii, pages 223-4, and,
struck by its coincidence with the background of Bro. Kipling's
story, sent him a copy and asked for his opinion. Bro. Kipling was
good enough to reply that he had frequently heard of this legend
and had talked with Afghans about traces of Masonic ritual in their
country. He does not have sufficient information to come to any
definite opinion, but believes it is generally accepted that there
is evidence of Masonic influence in that country.

The following is the transcript from A. Q. C.:

FREEMASONRY AMONG THE AFGHANS

As a support to the theory that the Pathan tribes of the frontier
are descended from some portion of the lost ten tribes of Israel,
it has been urged that in appearance and characteristics they are
typically Semitic. This is very true, and the rapacity and greed of
the Cabuli money-lenders, who have drifted southward to prey on
less warlike and more simple creditors, is notorious throughout
India and Burma. Bloodthirsty, and intensely cruel, yet possessed
of an independence and frankness of manner which hides treachery
and duplicity, very Ishmaelites in their dealings with others, the
Pathan tribesmen often seem to have been modelled on the strictest
form of Old Testament morals though their standard of morality is
low and their practices are incredibly bestial.

It is said that a casual romance of King David's period of
wandering resulted in the birth of one Afghana, who later became
captain of King Solomon's Archer Guard, and a personage of high
standing, filling among other notable offices one of trust in the
building of the Temple. On Solomon's death the jealousy of Rehoboam
caused him to fly for his life, accompanied by the faithful of his
archers, and his wives and family. After a period spent in
mercenary service, drifting ever eastward, he at last crossed the
mountains and entered the service of the ruler of the trans-
Himalayan tracts. Here on the death by accident or design of his
master, Afghana became chief and, extending his dominions towards
India, created for his sons, Isa (Isaac) and Yussuf (Joseph),
satrapies on the frontier. To this day, the Isazai (people or sons
of Isaac) and the Yusufzai (people of Joseph) are powerful tribes,
many being enlisted in our Indian army.

The legend states that he called his land after his own name the
land of Afghana, i. e., Afghanistan, and his capital and personally
directed province Kabul. In I Kings ix, 13, we find that King
Solomon gave to Hiram, King of Tyre, ten cities of Benjamin as a
reward "And they are called Kabul unto this day." This is the
legend and it is noteworthy that, some years back, an Afghan Sirdar
demanded admission to a lodge in India, proved himself and was
admitted. To the interpreter who was put at his service, he
expressed surprise at the accuracy of the working and wondered how
Masonry had spread to England. He seemed to consider the
proceedings somewhat tame, a fact those who know trans-frontier
tribesmen will not wonder at, for unless all blood-feuds are
provisionally laid aside and the tribesmen disarm before meeting,
it is difficult to understand how a Pathan lodge could meet at all,
at all events how they ever part without open bloodshed, or
frequent ambushes later on. The Sirdar was uncommunicative and
would say practically nothing as to Tribal Masonry, but if they
have a Grand Master we may well wonder who he is. Is he the Sultan
of Turkey, who claims the powers of Sulieman and the Kalifat of the
Mussulman world, or is he the Amir? If the latter, was the ceremony
of initiation of the present Amir while visiting India a piece of
characteristic Afghan bluff at which the potentate was laughing up
his sleeve, or behind his apron? We know that it caused offense to
his subjects. Was this the reason?

It is interesting that when the Pelly Expedition, of which my
father, Commander Dawes, late Indian Navy (a member of Lodge 355,
S. C.), was second in command, visited El Rindh, the capital of
Central Arabia, the Emir Fazl ben Saoud responded to a Masonic grip
and, later, not only warned them of danger but facilitated their
escape. He was blind and losing his authority, and the Expedition
were practically prisoners so investigation was hopeless. Fazl ben
Saoud had been in Alexandria in his youth and may have been
initiated there, but it is possible that there may be something in
the tradition that the ancient Sheba was in Arabia and that the old
legend of Solomon's son by Sheba's queen may have a basis of truth.
All this would point, if true, to the existence of a Masonry far
older and possibly more accurate in its workings than our own, and
I should be very much interested to know if any authentic writings
exist bearing on the Subject.

This communication was from Bro. A. J. Dawes of Peace and Harmony
Lodge, No. 834, under the Grand Lodge of Scotland. At the June
meeting of Quatuor Coronati Lodge the same year, Bro., the Rev. W.
K. Firminger, of Calcutta, presented a photograph of the
Certificate from the Grand Lodge of England issued to Habibullah
Khan, Amir of Afghanistan, dated Oct. 11, 1907. The Amir received
the three degrees on Feb. 7, 1907, in Concordia Lodge, No. 3102,
Calcuttas by special dispensation of the Grand Master.

There is, as has been stated, another side to this question and I
offer the following transcription from Tales of Travel, by the
Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, pages 72-74, in which he describes a
visit of two weeks that he paid to the court of the Amir of
Afghanistan, being the only unofficial Englishman to receive that
privilege. I do not know whether the late Lord Curzon was a Brother
of our Order but, in view of the verdict of his careful judgment,
it would certainly appear that we must look elsewhere for the
source of any Masonic resemblances that may be found in their
ceremonial usages.

One of the subjects that interested the Amir most was his claim, on
behalf of himself and of his people, to a descent from the lost
Tribes of Israel. I had heard of this theory, and I had noted the
distinct resemblances of many Afghan features to the Semitie type.
But when I interrogated him about it he unhesitatingly proclaimed
his acceptance of the legend. He declared that the Afghans took
their name from Afghana, who was Commander-in-chief to King
Solomon- some were descended from him, and others from Jeremiah the
son of Saul. This is the conventional account given in the best-
known Pushtu history, called Tazkirat-ul-Muluk, which was composed
in the time of the early Duranis, who probably invented the legend.

On another occasion the Amir's eldest son, Habibulla, whose
ethnology was a little hazy, told me that the Afghans were Jews,
who had been conquered by Babu-Nassan (i. e., Nebuehadnezzar) in
the time of Yezdigird, and deported to Persia where they lived a
long time. Later on they migrated to Afghanistan, where they
settled in the region of the Sulieman ( Solomon ) Mountains, to
which, in reference to their origin, they gave that name.

As a matter of fact the Hebrew descent of the Afghans has been the
subject of prolonged dispute, great authorities having argued on
either side. The champions of the theory point to the marked Jewish
features of so many Afghans, to the great number of Jewish
Christian names (e. g., Ibrahim=Abraham Ayub = Job, Ismail =
Ishmael, Ishak = Isaac, Yahia = John, Yakub = Jacob, Yusuf =
Joseph, Isa = Jesus, Daoud = David, and many others), to the fact
that the Feast of the Passover is still observed by the Pathan
border tribe of the Yusufzai; and to the occurrence of the name
Kabul in the Old Testament (e. g., 1 Kings ix, 13) where Solomon,
having given King Hiram twenty cities of Galilee in return for the
timber and gold presented to him for the Temple, Hiram went out to
see them and was very much disgusted, "calling them the land of
Kabul (i. e., dirty or disgusting) unto this day."

I believe that this reasoning is quite fallacious, the biblical
names employed by the Afghans being all in their Arabic form i.e.,
post-Mahommedan in origin and the Hebrew word Kabui in the Old
Testament having no connection, except in spelling with the Afghan
Kabul. The theory of a Semitic origin is now generally discredited,
but there is nothing inherently improbable in the belief that some
of the Afghan tribes may have entered the country from Persia (of
which language they speak a patois) and may have come at an earlier
date into Persia from Syria or Assyria, the land of the Captivity.
There I will leave the matter, to which I have alluded here only in
order to record the opinions of the Amir.

For further data on this subject, I am indebted to W. Bro. Wm
England, of Rotorua, New Zealand, in whose lodge is a brother who
went to Afghanistan during the war in connection with the Secret
Service in India.

In a pamphlet entitled "Ancient, no Doubt," Bro. England refers to
this visit, which he had from the brother concerned, direct, and an
accompanying letter describes it as a "thrilling incident," and a
"weird experience" which he is awaiting permission to publish in
full.

In this pamphlet he says:

The Afghans are not builders, nor possess edifices of such
intricate structure as to dub them architects. Yet you all know how
Bro. McDonald, of this very lodge, owes his life to the fact that
an old chief acknowledged the sign of G. and D. when our brother
stood, bound at the stake, awaiting torture and death.

Are we to suppose that Freemasons have gone into the homes of the
Afzhans and acted as missionaries in spreading the tenets of our
Order among these fierce people? It would have taken ages to insure
that anyone of them would give the sign its full value, as was done
in the ease I have submitted, especially when it had been given by
an alien and a supposed spy.

Bro. England also refers to a statement by John Yarker (in "Arcane
Schools," page 183) that amongst the Moslems is the oldest secret
society in the world, and, further, quotes from a letter sent him
by Bro. Willard, of California, who said that he

. . . had heard an address by Rev. Stone, a U. S. Army Chaplain, in
which he recalled a visit to a Mohammedan Lodge near Cairo. The
members could not, at first, believe he was a Mason because he was
a Christian.

In W. Bro. B. H. Springett's Secret Sects of Syria and the Lebanon
there is much evidence to connect the source of the Afghan people
with the inhabitants of Palestine and archaeology appears to have
proved that all the country between the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean and western limits of India were comprised within the
Babylonian Empire. In his Who Was Hirarez Abiff? W. Bro. J. S. M.
Ward shows many ceremonial links that carry weight where
documentary and inscriptional evidence is non-existent.


While no reasonable member will suggest that the two, simple
degrees inherited from Operative Masons, so much elaborated in our
present ceremonials, have any connection with a fraternity of
undoubted antiquity, yet the hypothesis of Bro. J.S.M. Ward unites
a mass of evidence from most diverse sources, in both space and
time, and gives our Third Degree, curtailed as it is, a place in
human effort that nothing else can hope to occupy. While,
therefore, there may be no counterpart in these countries to our
ceremonies born of operative usage, it does seem that the
mysterious Third Degree, whose time and point of juncture with us
is still to be discovered, is the real tie that binds us to a vast
antiquity and a world-wide fraternity.

