Music and the State

The Pashtun Abdali tribesmen who established Afghanistan as a state in 1747 came from the southern part of the territory, and the southern city of Kandahar was the original capital of the new country. In 1776, Timur Shah moved the capital to Kabul, previously a mountain resort much favored by the Mughal emperors and burial place of Babur, the first Mughal ruler. In due course, the court of Kabul’s amirs became an important center of musical patronage, especially of art-music...