The Cloak of Muhammad () is a relic located in the Kirka Sharif in

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a List of cities in Afghanistan, city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. It is a

cloak A cloak is a type of loose garment worn over clothing, mostly but not always as outerwear for outdoor wear, serving the same purpose as an overcoat, protecting the wearer from the weather. It may form part of a uniform. Cloaks have been and a ...

believed to have been worn by the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...

during the

Night Journey The Israʾ and Miʿraj ( ar, الإسراء والمعراج, ') are the two parts of a Night Journey that, according to Islam, the Islamic prophet Muhammad (570–632) took during a single night around the year 621 (1 BH – 0 BH). With ...

in 621 AD. The cloak itself is locked away inside the mosque and is rarely seen. It has been guarded by the same family for over 250 years. Its guardians have traditionally only shown the cloak to recognized leaders of Afghanistan, although in times of great crisis such as natural disasters, it has been publicly displayed as a means of reassurance. The

Tomb of Ahmad Shah Durrani The Tomb of Ahmad Shah Durrani is located in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It is the most important historical monument in Kandahar. Ahmad Shah Durrani, fondly known as Ahmad Shah Baba, Father of Afghanistan, ruled an empire from Kandahar from 1747-17 ...

is located adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak.

History

The cloak was given to

Amir Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cerem ...

Ahmad Shah Durrani Ahmad Shāh Durrānī ( ps, احمد شاه دراني; prs, احمد شاه درانی), also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī (), was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is regarded as the founder of the modern Afghanistan. In July 1747, Ahm ...

(regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan) by Amir

Murad Beg Mir Mohammad Murad Beg (1780-1840s) was ''Khan'' of Kunduz (modern Afghanistan) in the 19th century. Earlier in the 19th century, he defeated Mir Yar Beg to take control of Badakhshan, and extended his rule north of the Oxus river The Amu Dary ...

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

(in modern Uzbekistan) in 1768 in order to solidify a treaty between the two leaders. An alternate account states that when Ahmad Shah had traveled to Bukhara, he saw the cloak of

. He then decided to take the artifact with him to Kandahar, and asked whether he could "borrow" the cloak from its keepers. They, worrying that he might try to remove it from Bukhara, told him it could not be taken from the city. Ahmad Shah then is said to have pointed to a heavy

stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), wh ...

of stone firmly planted in the ground, saying that he would never take the cloak far from the stone. The keepers, gratified at his answer, handed him the cloak. Ahmad Shah then took the cloak, ordered the stone slab to be dug up, and carried them both back with him to Kandahar, where the stone now stands near his ''

mazar Mazar of Al-Mazar may refer to: *Mazar (mausoleum); often but not always Muslim mausoleum or shrine. Places *Mazar (toponymy), a component of Arabic toponyms literally meaning shrine, grave, tomb, etc. *Mazar, Afghanistan, a village in Balkh Pro ...

'' (tomb). In 1996, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Taliban, removed the cloak from the shrine and held it in front of a large crowd of his followers. This symbolic act is commonly considered a key point in the rise of the Taliban, and in the rise of Omar himself, associating Omar with both

Ahmed Shah Durrani Ahmad Shāh Durrānī ( ps, احمد شاه دراني; prs, احمد شاه درانی), also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī (), was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is regarded as the founder of the modern Afghanistan. In July 1747, Ahma ...

and the Islamic prophet

. Upon Omar's holding of the cloak, the crowd began to shout "''

Amir al-Mu'minin Amir al-Mu'minin ( ar, أَمِير ٱلْمُؤْمِنِين, amīr al-muʾminīn) is an Arabic title designating the supreme leader of an Islamic community. It is usually translated as "Commander of the Faithful", though sometimes also as "Prin ...

''" (Commander of the Faithful), a title that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of

al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

, occasionally used to refer to Omar. In a ''New York Times'' piece from late 2001, the then-keeper of the Shrine, Qari Shawali, confirmed that in 1996, he allowed Omar to view the cloak and remove it from the shrine. Shawali added that only two persons had looked at the cloak in his lifetime before Omar. The first person was

Mohammed Zahir Shah Mohammed Zahir Shah (Pashto/Dari: , 15 October 1914 – 23 July 2007) was the last king of Afghanistan, reigning from 8 November 1933 until he was deposed on 17 July 1973. Serving for 40 years, Zahir was the longest-serving ruler of Afghanistan ...

, the last

King of Afghanistan This article lists the heads of state of Afghanistan since the foundation of the first modern Afghan state, the Hotak Empire, in 1709. History The Hotak Empire was formed after a successful uprising led by Mirwais Hotak and other Afghan triba ...

, who twice opened the chest in which the cloak was kept but proceeded no further. The second person was Pir Ahmed Gailani, a political leader and one of Zahir's relatives. In 2012,

Waheed Muzhda Waheed Muzdha (1953 – 20 November 2019) was a senior Afghan political analyst, writer and a peace activist. He was also a poet and wrote several anti-Soviet poetry during the Soviet Afghan war. He was widely cited by various international newsp ...

, an Afghan political analyst and one-time high-ranking official in the Taliban foreign ministry, corroborated that Omar held the cloak but denied a claim that he donned the cloak: "From what I know, from sources close to Omar, and from a chat with the keeper of the shrine here the cloak is kept Omar did not wear the cloak. With great respect, he held the cloak in front of the religious leaders gathered for allegiance." In June 2018, the cloak was last seen in public when Afghan President

Ashraf Ghani Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan politician, academic, and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was overthrown by the Taliban. Born in ...

opened the box of the cloak, and with attendees prayed for peace during a three-day Eid ceasefire in Afghanistan (from 15 to 17 June 2018).

References

{{Cite news , last=Kevin Sieff , date=2012-12-29 , title=A fight for Afghanistan's most famous artifact , work=

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

, url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-fight-for-afghanistans-most-famous-artifact/2012/12/29/ab2dc394-51cb-11e2-835b-02f92c0daa43_story_1.html , access-date=2012-12-30 , archive-date=2017-10-16 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016175340/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-fight-for-afghanistans-most-famous-artifact/2012/12/29/ab2dc394-51cb-11e2-835b-02f92c0daa43_story_1.html , url-status=live

External links

A Pashto language documentary about Kherqa Sharifa
(

Hewad TV {{Infobox Network , network_name = Hewad Media Group, Hewad TV, network_logo = , country = {{AFG , network_type = Satellite Television Network, available = Afghanistan, slogan = , owner = Qayoum Khan Karzaii , Tel = , key_people = , la ...

, Jan. 29, 2019). Relics Possessions of Muhammad Robes and cloaks History of Kandahar Individual garments