Abdul Hai Habibi

Abdul-Hai Habibi (Pashto: عبدالحى حبيبي, Persian: عبدالحی حبیبی, romanized: Abd 'ul-Ḥay Ḥabībī) (1910 – 9 May 1984) was a prominent Afghan historian for much of his lifetime as well as a member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan (Afghan Parliament) during the reign of King Zahir Shah. A Pashtun nationalist, born to a Hazara enslaved mother, and a Pashtun father, from Kakar tribe of Kandahar, Afghanistan, he began as a young teacher who made his way up to become a writer, scholar, politician and Dean of Faculty of Literature at Kabul University. He is the author of over 100 books but is best known for editing Pata Khazana, an old Pashto language manuscript that he claimed to have discovered in 1944; but the academic community does not unanimously agree upon its genuineness.