PDRA - Medal Dawlati Malali Qaharaman M'akrah Miwa

[Ed_Haynes]

Medal Dawlati Malali Qaharaman M'akrah Miwanad

Or maybe something close to that. I have no clue what the Dari is trying to say here, or even if I have read it correctly.

The obverse has a "moving" scene of a kneeling male kissing the hand of a standing female, perhaps a clue to the significance of the medal?

[Dave Danner]

Medal Dawlati Malali Qaharaman M'akrah Miwanad

Or maybe something close to that. I have no clue what the Dari is trying to say here, or even if I have read it correctly.

The obverse has a "moving" scene of a kneeling male kissing the hand of a standing female, perhaps a clue to the significance of the medal?

←

"madal-e dawlati maulawi ...." or "State Medal of Maulawi What's-His-Name". There seem to have been a series of medals like this in your IEPE entry which are named for various figures from Afghan history. Maulawis, for those who don't know, are local religious leaders (and there are probably as many different ways of spelling maulawi as there are maulawis).

[Ed_Haynes]

So right, Dave. I asked lots of friends in and around Jalalabad in 2002, showed them lists of names, and most had no clue who these folks were, though most nodded gravely and observed that they must have been important.

[Taz]

This is the Malalai Medal, from the 1980s made of brass. The Medal depicts a woman giving water to an Afghan soldier in traditional dress. On the Reverse is inscribed "Governmental Medal of Malalai".

The medal is named in honour of one of Afghanistan's greatest heroines. According to the legend, she ran onto the battlefield at Maiwand in 1880 (during the Second Afghan War) and rallied the Afghan forces to defeat the British.

Poems of the victory at Maiwand have passed into Pashtuns and Afghan folklore. As Afghan legend would have it, the battle created an unlikely hero in the shape of an Afghan woman called Malalai, who on seeing the Afghan forces falter, used her veil as a standard and encouraged the men by shouting out

Young love if you do not fall in the battle of Maiwind;

By God someone is saving you as a token of shame;

A cast iron statue of a lion (Maiwand Lion) was built by George Blackall Simonds in Reading and unveiled in 1886 to commemorate those who died in battle. A monument was built in the 1950s on the Maiwand Square in Kabul in commemoration of the battle by an Afghan architect Is-matulla Saraj.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Taz