Afghanistan's last king reigned 40 years without signing a political death warrant
Mohammad Zahir Shah took the throne at 19 after his father was assassinated, and held it for almost four decades, longer than any Afghan ruler since the Durrani Empire began in the 18th century. In all that time he never approved a single execution for political reasons, and he repeatedly commuted death sentences handed to criminals.
Born in Kabul in 1914 into the Musahiban branch of the Mohammadzai Pashtuns, he was the son of Mohammad Nadir Shah, army chief under King Amanullah, who took power in 1929. The boy studied at Kabul schools where lessons were taught in English and French, then followed his father to France, attending the Pasteur Institute and the University of Montpellier. Back home he helped his family reimpose order during a lawless period and served as deputy war minister and minister of education.
Crowned on 8 November 1933, he left real power for his first twenty years to two uncles who served in turn as prime minister. Afghanistan joined the League of Nations and won formal US recognition in 1934. Despite trade deals with Germany, Italy and Japan in the late 1930s, the country stayed neutral through the Second World War. Afterwards the king hired foreign advisers, oversaw the founding of Afghanistan's first modern university and courted both superpowers, making Afghanistan one of the rare nations to receive aid from Washington and Moscow alike. In 1969 he told an interviewer he wanted neither capitalism nor socialism, nor to serve Russia or China.
His signature reform came in 1964, when a new constitution he pushed for created an elected parliament and guaranteed civil and political rights, women's rights and universal suffrage, turning the country into a constitutional monarchy. Factional infighting, however, stalled a number of his other planned reforms, and a wave of tribal revolts had shaken the country between 1944 and 1947.
In 1973, while he was receiving medical treatment in Italy, his cousin and former prime minister Mohammad Daoud Khan seized power and declared a one-party republic, ending more than 225 years of monarchy. Zahir Shah lived in exile near Rome until 2002, then returned home and carried the title Father of the Nation until his death in 2007.
Source: Mohammad Zahir Shah
