Abdul Bari Jahani

Jahani was born in Ahmad Shahyee area of Kandahar city, in southern Afghanistan. Jahani often recalls his old good days of childhood in Kandahar where he spent most of his teenage years and talks about how Kandahar was once a melting pot and a common home for all ideologies and beliefs. In his Raazo-Niyaaz book Jahani talks about how he grew up playing in Kandahar as a kid and how peaceful Kandahar was during his high school time.

Jahani is from the Ludin tribe, a sub-tribe of Ghilzai, one of the two main tribes of Pashtuns. He considers the ethnic diversity of Afghanistan, with its various tribes and ethnic groups, as constituting the country's strength, and thinks that Afghans have shown throughout the history of their country that they are united and one hand. Their unity is better portrayed when they face an outside threat as a nation or when their country is celebrating a national victory.

Jahani completed his primary, secondary and high school in Mirwais Nika high school of Kandahar city--- a well -known public school in the south. Kandahar University was not yet built when Jahani finished his high school. Upon completing his high school at Mirwais Nika, Jahani only had two options for his higher education. He could either move to Kabul to study what he wanted to study which was history and literature or move to Nangarhar province—home to the second Afghan university at the time in the country. He chose the former one because unlike Kabul University where students had the option to pursue various majors, Nangarhar University only offered education in the field of medicine.

Jahani graduated from Kabul University in 1972 with a BA in Pashto literature and history. Upon his graduation from Kabul University, Jahani joined the Pashto Tolana which is a very prestigious literature body in Afghanistan whose members have been prominent Afghan philosophers, historians, poets and writers. Getting into Pashto Tolana is the equivalent of getting into Harvard Law Review if someone was pursuing legal education in the U.S. Pashto Tolana approves the entrance of new terminologies into Pashto language and is tasked to develop Pashto language to be richer in terms of new vocabulary. Jahani had tremendous contribution to the development of Pashto language while at Pashto Tolana

Jahani has just been given parliamentary vote of approval to serve as a minister in the cabinet of Afghan unity government 2015 for the ministry of information and culture.

Besides being a member of the Pashto Tolana (Pashto Society), Jahani served as the Managing-Editor of a well-known Afghan magazine, Kabul Magazine. Under his leadership, Kabul Magazine witnessed considerable increase in its readership. In his capacity as the Managing Editor of the Magazine, Jahani oversaw the flow of hundreds of informative and educative social, economic and political articles aimed at keeping the Afghan public aware of the state of affairs of their country. Subsequently, Jahani served in the Afghan Ministry of Education (MoE) for two years before he was forced to leave the country during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Jahani's mission from the very beginning was to inspire Afghan society to walk towards knowledge and education and for that noble goal he join the Afghan government's education sector.

Communists and leftists feared voices of prominent figures like Jahani and began a government planned campaign against influential and intellectual figures. Jahani migrated to Pakistan as a refugee and after two years of living as a refugee there, Jahani was offered a job with Voice of America in Washington D.C.[1] Jahani accepted the offer and joined the Voice of America's Pashto service in 1983 as an International broadcaster. He has contributed extensively to Pashto language programing of the Radio. Jahani hosted political talk shows, news hour shows and poetry shows at the Voice of America. His poetry show of late 11PM called “Da Ashnayaano Adabi dera” had listeners in the entire South Asian region and the Middle East. His poetry show had listeners from different age groups including youths and elders. One of his most famous poem which had a huge demand and continues to have, was the story of “three cows and one wolf” that was written in the language of poetry. The moral of the poem is unity. Like most of his other poetry, in his “three cow one wolf” poem Jahani speaks to his audiences in a plain, natural and understandable language. He warns them of what is at stake if Afghans remain divided and what could be achieved if Afghans leave behind their differences and get united behind a common goal of building a prosperous, stable and peaceful Afghanistan.

Jahani continued to use his able mind and pen and VOA provided him the platform to convey his message of enlightenment to various parts of Afghanistan. With Jahani's contribution and dedication to excellence and his prominence and popularity amongst Afghans, VOA's Pashto service ratings and listeners have soared. Jahani's career as a journalist with the Voice of America has earned him several recognitions and medals from the leadership of the Voice of America. He retired from the Voice of America in 2010, but never ceased to end his advocacy for Afghan unity, Afghan education and Afghan prosperity. He regularly gets offers to speak at various Afghan events held in Afghanistan, Middle East, Europe and the United States and regularly gets interview request by various Afghan TV and Radio stations in Afghanistan and around the world. Not only that Jahani's articles about social, political and economic situation of Afghanistan are well received by various public and private print and online media outlets in Afghanistan and around the world. Jahani regularly visits Afghanistan and speak at various events including seminars discussing Pashto literature and education.

Jahani is criticized by some for basing some of his poetry on an epic theme which according to critics invites people to war and violence, but his proponents not only defend his epic poetry and his efforts to depict Afghan history in the language of poems, but also claim that Jahani's poetry invites Afghans to unity, solidarity, peace, education and progress. His recent poem that sparked a national debate amongst scholars about what role intellectuals could play in conflict resolution efforts was about a suicide bomber and his mother in which he depicted good through the role of a desperate mother and bad through the role of a brainwashed son who wanted to carry out a suicide attack for a quest to earn heaven and salvation. Some critics viewed the poem as recognition of suicide attacks as a legitimate and glorifying act while others viewed the poem as informative and educative for those people who fall victims of terrorists and extremists.[3] The poem lets mother mercy and humanity win over the hatred, violence and evil of the to-be suicide bomber son. The poem is written in a dialogue form between a mother and a son. The poem is set to music by Afghan singer Bashir Maidani with the title "Nasihat" available on YouTube[4] and Maidani's 2011 album Afsoz;[5] the song is very popular amongst Pashtoons in the world because of Jahani's excellent poetry.

Jahani's poems have been picked by well-known Afghan singers such as Dr. Fetrat Nashnas, Farhaad Darya, Waheed Qasemi, Waheed Saberi, Bashir Maidani and other Afghan singers.

• ""د ځانمرګي کرغېړن عمل په شعر رسوا کوم" (Interview with Abdul Bari Jahani)". BBC Pashto (in Pashto). Virginia. August 16, 2012. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
• Jahanionline.com
• Tribal Analysis Center
• Azad Pashtun