Zahir shah/ king mohammad zahir shah

Muhammad Zahir Shah born , last in the year dynasty of Pashtun monarchs to rule Afghanistan, emerged in the fall of as a symbol of unity for his country as its hard-line Taliban rulers were dislodged from power. In December Zahir Shah gave his blessing to Hamid Karzai , a fellow Pashtun selected as an interim leader for the troubled country. Educated in both his native country and France, he was thrust suddenly into power at the age of 19, only hours after his father was assassinated.

On November 8, , he replaced his father on the throne of the Durani dynasty, first established in by Ahmad Shah. For nearly three-quarters of his years on the throne, however, he was the country's ruler in little more than name, as two of his uncles—Muhammad Hashim and Shah Mahmud Ghazi— effectively ran the government. The elder of the two, Muhammad Hashim, had been prime minister under King Nadir Shah , and he remained in that post until , when he was succeeded by his younger brother, Shah Mahmud.

Mohammad Zahir Shah was the king of Afghanistan from to , who provided an era of stable government to his country.

In the years immediately following the assassination of Nadir Shah, Hashim, who was described by insiders as a statesman of high personal integrity and impressive administrative ability, focused on two main objectives: building up the nation's army and developing Afghanistan's economy. To accomplish these goals, Hashim needed to attract foreign aid , but he desperately wanted to avoid any political entanglements with either Great Britain or the Soviet Union.

Instead he turned to Germany, which had both an interest in the Afghan project and the technical expertise needed to get the job done. Limited amounts of foreign aid were also accepted from Italy and Japan.

Mohammad Zahir Shah (15 October – 23 July ) was the.

As a result of Hashim's powers of persuasion, Germany by the beginning of the s had become Afghanistan's principal foreign partner. As the winds ushering in World War II began to blow across Afghanistan, King Zahir Shah on August 17, , issued a declaration of his country's neutrality in the conflict. This proved easier said than done, however.

The presence in Afghanistan of large numbers of nondiplomatic German personnel was more than Britain and the Soviet Union could tolerate. The Allies demanded that the Afghan government eject all nondiplomatic personnel from the Axis countries. Although it bristled at the Allies' demand, in the end Afghanistan complied, having already seen British and Soviet forces invade neighboring Iran when that country ignored a similar demand.

Although Afghanistan did cave on the issue of expelling nondiplomatic Axis personnel, a loya jirga, or grand assembly called by the king, upheld Zahir Shah's policy of neutrality.