Abdul Zahir (Afghan Prime Minister)

Sharifi Abdul Zahir
Prime Minister of Afghanistan
In office 9 June 1971 – 12 December 1972
Monarch	Mohammad Zahir Shah
Preceded by	Mohammad Nur Ahmad Etemadi
Succeeded by	Mohammad Musa Shafiq
Personal details
Born	3 May 1910 Laghman, Afghanistan
Died	21 October 1982 Kabul, Afghanistan
Political party	Independent

Abdul Zahir (3 May 1910 — 21 October 1982) was Prime Minister of Afghanistan in the early 1970s, during the reign of King Zahir Shah. An ethnic Pashtun, he was born in the Laghman Province of Afghanistan. He attended secondary school in Kabul and university in the United States, earning an MD from Columbia University and a Master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. Zahir became a medical doctor and returned to Afghanistan to practice medicine, but eventually entered politics. His political positions included terms as Minister of Health, President of the Parliament, and Ambassador to Italy and Pakistan. Most prominently, he served as Prime Minister of Afghanistan from June 1971 to December 1972. A few months after he resigned from that post, King Zahir Shah was overthrown and Abdul Zahir had to retire from politics.

Zahir was married to Quraisha and had four children. His son Ahmad Zahir was a popular musician who died in a car accident in 1979. His daughter Zahira Zahir is a hairdresser in Washington, DC. His eldest son, Asif Zahir (1932—2000) was also politically active during his lifetime as Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development in 1980s and he remained ambassador in Kuwait (1989—1992) and Italy (1992—1993). He resigned from his post and lived in Peshawar, Pakistan, where he started a campaign for peace in Afghanistan by setting up a political group called the Afghan National Movement (ANM).

External links

• Zahira's School - My Story

Political offices
Preceded by Mohammad Nur Ahmad Etemadi	Prime Minister of Afghanistan 1971 – 1972	Succeeded by Mohammad Musa Shafiq