Habibullah

Khan Khan may refer to: *Khan (inn), from Persian, a caravanserai or resting-place for a travelling caravan *Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name *Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by ...

Tarzi ( ps, حبيب الله خان طرزي, born 1896) was an

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

diplomat and politician. Habibullah Khan Tarzi was considered to be a scion of the country's leading political family.Nile Green: ''Terrains of Exchange – Religious Economies of Global Islam'', Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015, p. 248.
/ref> He was the head of the Afghan Delegation to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

from 1923 to 1924. He served in that post to increase diplomatic/economic relations between

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

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 ...

. Tarzi would go on to play critical roles in the Afghan foreign affairs as the Temporary Representative to France from 1928 to 1929, and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

from 1933 to 1939. During that time, Sayyid Mushir Khan Tarzi, a relative of Habibullah Khan Tarzi, wrote an article about the

Islam in Japan The history of Islam in Japan is relatively brief in relation to the religion's longstanding presence in other nearby countries. Islam is one of the smallest minority faiths in Japan, representing around 0.15% of the total population as of 2020. T ...

.Nile Green: ''How Asia Found Herself – A Story of Intercultural Understanding'', New Haven (CT): Yale University Press 2023, p. 382fn100.
/ref> Habibullah Khan Tarzi became the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Afghanistan from 1932 to 1933. He took a few years off after his post in Japan, however, and stayed with his family. It was not until 1946, when he was named as a Temporary Representative to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, that Habibullah Khan Tarzi would return to international politics. After less than a year in

, he would present his credentials to President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

as Afghanistan's

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

to the

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. After developing a very friendly relationship with President Truman, Habibullah Khan Tarzi would stay at that post in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

from 1946 to 1953. Shortly after President

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

came to office, Habibullah Khan Tarzi left the United States and returned to

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

. Habibullah Khan Tarzi and his wife Shahira Begum Tarzi had four sons along with three daughters.

Literature

* Sayyid Mushir Khan Tarzi: ''Islam dar Japan'', in: Kabul magazine, vol. 10 (1936?), pp. 71–83.

Literature

References and footnotes

See also