Amanullah Khan
King and Emir of Afghanistan (1892-1960)
Ghazi Amanullah Khan Barakzai (1 June 1892 – 26 April 1960) was Emir of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1926, and then King of Afghanistan from 1926 until his abdication in 1929. After the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War in August 1919, Afghanistan was able to relinquish its protected state status to proclaim independence and pursue an independent foreign policy free from the influence of the United Kingdom.
Amanullah's rule was marked by dramatic political and social change, including attempts to modernize Afghanistan along Western lines. He did not fully succeed in achieving this objective due to an uprising by Habibullah Kalakani and his followers. On 14 January 1929, Amanullah abdicated and fled to neighbouring British India as the Afghan Civil War began to escalate. From British India, he went to Europe, where after 30 years in exile, he died in Zürich, Switzerland, on 26 April 1960. His body was brought to Afghanistan and buried in Jalalabad near his father Habibullah Khan's tomb.
Early years
Amanullah Khan was born on 1 June 1892, in Paghman near Kabul, Afghanistan to a Pashtun family. He was the favoured and the third son of the Emir Habibullah Khan from his second wife. Amanullah was installed as the governor of Kabul, and was in control of the army and the treasury.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Amanullah Khan” as king and Emir of Afghanistan (1892-1960). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as king and Emir of Afghanistan (1892-1960). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q153620. VIAF identifies the subject as 68813503. The Library of Congress control number is nr94030730. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1892, 1960, 1919 and 1926.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Amanullah Khan”, its source revision and the description used here.
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Amanullah Khan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.