PDRA - Medal of Ghazi Muhammad Ayub Khan

[Ed_Haynes]

Another where I know nothing beyond the name.

Medal of Ghazi Muhammad Ayub Khan

[Dave Danner]

Muhammad Ayub Khan was Emir of Herat in 1880 or so. He led Afghan forces against the British at the Battle of Maiwand. The reverse inscription in Dari says Madal-e Dawlati Ghazi Muhammad Ayub Khan Fatih-e Maiwand, or "State Medal of Ghazi Muhammad Ayub Khan, Victor of Maiwand".

[Dave Danner]

Oh, I would guess the tower on the obverse is the Minar-e Maiwand, or minaret of Maiwand, the monument to the battle which was in Kabul (no idea if it still stands, though I doubt it).

[Guest Rick Research]

Might this then be a centennial jubilee medal?

[Dave Danner]

Might this then be a centennial jubilee medal?

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Probably not. I would surmise that the Afghan Communist government took a page from the Soviet playbook of 1942-43. Then, the USSR shifted the focus from appeals to communist solidarity to appeals to Russian patriotism, emphasizing the struggles against the Teutonic Knights, the Tatars and Napoleon. So you had various Eisenstein films and the establishment of Orders like Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov and Kutuzov in 1942, Bogdan Khmelnitsky in 1943 and Nakhimov and Ushakov in 1944.

I would guess that the PDRA established these various medals as merit medals in various fields, and named after figures from Afghan history, especially the 19th-century struggles against the British.