Today in History – 27 February

Allowance for Amanullah Khan

In an entry he made in his famous Notebooks on February 27, 1930, İsmet İnönü wrote that upon the orders of President Atatürk, an allowance of 300 Pound Sterling and 2,000 Turkish Lira was allocated to Amanullah Khan, the Emir of Afghanistan, who was visiting Ankara at the time. At the time, one Pound Sterling was the equivalent of 10 Lira.

As a young nation, Turkey sighed her first international treaty on March 1, 1921 in Moscow with Afghanistan under the rule of Amanullah Khan. After the establishment of the Republic, Afghanistan regarded Turkey as a big brother and, inspired by Atatürk’s revolutions, Amanullah Khan embarked upon several reforms in his own country.

However, Amanullah Khan’s initiatives such as legislation reforms and granting political rights to women elicited considerable reaction from the mullahs. Following the uprising that broke out in November of 1928, Amanullah Khan was overthrown by a tribe leader and was forced to flee Afghanistan. Nearly ten months after his first visit to Turkey, Amanullah Khan returned to Ankara; Atatürk welcomed the overthrown king at the same place of the station, rode with him in his car, and hosted him at the Palace Hotel in Ankara. He also gave a banquet in his honor at the Çankaya Pavilion.

Eyewitnesses of that era recount that Atatürk had advised Amanullah Khan, whom he much cared for as a person, to proceed cautiously particularly with respect to women’s rights and had predicted his downfall.