A journey to the sites bound up with the life of Khushal Khan Khattak — the national poet of the Afghans, Pashtuns and Pathans.
1I drove from Islamabad to Attock, leaving the motorway for the historic GT Road. The first stop was Attock Fort, at the confluence of the Indus and Kabul rivers.
2At the foot of the fort stands a building raised by Khushal’s son Bahram — known as Bahram ki Baradari. Bahram was a rebellious son who tried more than once to overthrow his father, and eventually schemed with the Mughal governor to force Khushal into exile in Afridi lands.
3Next I crossed to the far side of the Indus, at Khairabad, to see the meeting of the two famous rivers — the blue Indus and the muddy Kabul. The Indus is not as mighty now as it once was, held back by the Tarbela Dam upstream. From here there is a fine view of Attock Fort.
4A short drive from Khairabad lies the grave of the great poet. For generations the Khattak chiefs were charged with collecting the toll for crossing the Indus at Khairabad — the first of them, Khushal’s great-grandfather Akora Khattak, appointed by the Emperor Akbar.
5The mazar of Khushal Baba is in good condition and has been renovated.
Khushal made three requests of those loyal to him: to be buried where the dust of Mughal cavalry would never fall upon his grave; to have the site carefully concealed against desecration by the Mughals; and, should they ever capture the body of his treacherous son Bahram, to cut it in half and burn one half at the head of his grave and the other at his feet, as a symbol of revenge.
On the poet’s grave is the couplet:
“I have taken up arms for the honour of the Afghans;
I am the valiant of the age, Khushal Khattak.”
6As I spoke with the groundskeeper, he showed me a grave belonging to Khushal’s own daughter, Halima the Hafiza, a great poetess in her own right. Even the local leader Ajmal Khattak, he said, would offer Fateha at her grave after paying his respects at Khushal Khan’s.
7From the grave I drove on to Akora Khattak, the town named for Khushal’s great-grandfather. Khushal was the son of Shahbaz Khan Khattak, son of Yahya Khan Khattak, son of Akora Khattak. I found the grave of Akora Khattak, and the grave of Shahbaz Khattak near the mazar of Akhund Din Baba, though I could not find Yahya Khan’s.
8For the last leg I drove from Akora Khattak to the mazar of the revered saint Kaka Sahib — not only a contemporary of Khushal Khan, but one whose son married one of Khushal’s daughters.
9The mazar was well kept, with a steady flow of pilgrims coming in.
10I still managed to make it home to Peshawar before sunset.