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King Zahir Shah
Mohammad Zāhir Shāh (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. Ruling for 40 years, Zahir Shah was the longest-serving ruler of Afghanistan since the foundation of the Durrani Empire in the 18th century. He expanded Afghanistan's diplomatic relations with many countries, including with both sides of the Cold War. In the 1950s, Zahir Shah began modernizing the country, culminating in the creation of a new constitution and a constitutional monarchy system. Demonstrating nonpartisanism, his long reign was marked by peace in the country which was lost afterwards with the onset of the Afghan conflict. In 1973, while Zahir Shah was undergoing medical treatment in Italy, his regime was overthrown in a coup d'état by his cousin and former prime minister, Mohammad Daoud Khan, who established a single-party republic, ending more than 225 years of continuous monarchical government. He remaine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Shah
Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Persianate societies, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Khanate of Bukhara and the Emirate of Bukhara, the Mughal Empire, the Bengal Sultanate, and various Afghan dynasties, as well as among Gurkhas. With regard to Iranian history, in particular, each ruling monarch was not seen simply as the head of the concurrent dynasty and state, but as the successor to a long line of royalty beginning with the original Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great. To this end, he was more emphatically known as the Shāhanshāh ( ), meaning " King of Kings" since the Achaemenid dynasty. A roughly equivalent title is Pādishāh (; ), which was most widespread during the Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent. Etymology The word descends from Old Persian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
