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² Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, 377.

³ In addition certain physical defects were considered debilitating. For example, in Afghan politics losers were often blinded instead of killed because this rendered them ineligible to rule and removed them from the game.

⁴ Except for Mongol Empire's Chinggis Khan, who, not understanding the ritual nature of such challenges, had the populations of rebellious cities exterminated so that there would be no cities to rebel in the future.

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¹¹ Lockhart, Laurence, Nadir Shah: A Critical Study Based Mainly upon Contemporary Sources (London, 1938)Google Scholar.

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¹⁵ see Noelle, Christine, State and Tribe in 19^th Century Afghanistan (London, 1997), 53–55Google Scholar for a good comparison of these views).

¹⁶ Yapp, “The Revolutions of 1841–42 in Afghanistan,” 381.

¹⁷ Hanifi, Inter-regional Trade, 261; Noelle, State and Tribe, 250.

¹⁸ A jezail was a locally produced Afghan musket. Kipling, Rudyard, The Works of Rudyard Kipling (Roslyn, NY, n.d.)Google Scholar

¹⁹ Robson, Brian, The Road to Kabul: the Second Afghan War, 1878–1881 (Staplehurst, UK, 2003)Google Scholar; Heathcote, T. A., The Afghan Wars, 1839–1919. (London, 1980)Google Scholar.

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²⁸ Giustozzi, Antonio, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan, 1978–1992 (London, 2000).Google Scholar

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³⁰ Rubin, Barnett, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (New Haven, 1995).Google Scholar

³¹ ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, 120.

³² Rashid, Ahmad, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, 2001)Google Scholar; Goodson, Larry, Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics and the Rise of the Taliban (Seattle, 2001)Google Scholar; Coll, Steve, Ghost Wars (New York, 2004)Google Scholar.

³³ The closest analogy of this pre-modern process is found today during hostile takeovers by multi-national corporations. As factory workers and paper pushers continue their usual patterns of work, rival teams of mercenary lawyers waving proxy votes engage in furious battle to gain control of the target corporation's assets. Upon victory the winning side purges losing corporate board members and executives, and installs its own. Nothing changes on the factory floor during this process, and workers ordinarily are not expected to take part in the struggle or ratify its outcome despite the fact that they have as much or more to lose or gain from the new owners' policies than other players.