In 1933, after the assassination of Nadir Khan, Mohammed Zahir Shah became king.

Mohammad Zahir Shah in 1963

Mohammad Zahir Shah, Nadir Khan's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973.

Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah.

In 1946, another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected.

From 1963 until 1973, Zahir Shah took a more active role.

In 1964, King Zahir Shah promulgated a liberal constitution providing for a bicameral legislature to which the king appointed one-third of the deputies.

Amid charges of corruption and malfeasance against the royal family and poor economic conditions created by the severe 1971 – 72 drought, former Prime Minister Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a non-violent coup on July 17, 1973, while Zahir Shah was receiving treatment for eye problems and therapy for lumbago in Italy.

* 1973 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.

King Nader Khan was assassinated in 1933 and the throne was left to his 19-year-old son, Zahir Shah, who became the long lasting King of Afghanistan.

When Zahir Shah took power in 1933 Kabul had the only 6 miles of rail in the country, few internal telegraph or phone lines and few roads.

In July 1973, Zahir Shah was ousted in a nonviolent coup and Kabul became the capital of a republic under Mohammed Daoud Khan, the new President.

Conversely, some of the people of Kabul who lived under King Zahir Shah describe the period before the April 1978 Saur Revolution as a sort of golden age.

** Mausoleum of Zahir Shah and Nadir Shah

From Amanullah until the reign of Mohammed Zahir Shah ( 1933 – 1973 ) and Mohammed Daoud Khan ( 1973 – 1978 ) the Jirga was recognized as a common meeting of regional Pashtun leaders.

* 1941 — Called by Mohammed Zahir Shah to approve neutrality in World War II.

* September 1964 — A meeting of 452 called by Mohammed Zahir Shah to approve a new constitution.

** The first was based in Rome around Mohammed Zahir Shah, and it reflected the interests of moderate Pashtuns from Afghanistan.

After the exile of King Zahir Shah in 1973, President Daud Khan forged stronger ties with the Soviets by signing two highly controversial military aid packages for his nation in 1973 and 1975.

Mohammed Zahir Shah ( 15 October 1914 – 23 July 2007 ) was the last King ( Padishah ) of Afghanistan, reigning for four decades, from 1933 until he was ousted by a coup in 1973.

Zahir Shah was an ethnic Pashtun who was born on 15 October 1914, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Zahir Shah served in the government positions of deputy war minister and minister of education.

It was modernized during King Amanullah Khan's rule in the early 20th century, and upgraded during King Zahir Shah's forty year rule.

The military of Afghanistan was reconstructed and improved during King Zahir Shah's reign, which reached a strength of 70, 000 in 1933.

Zahir Shah was fluent in Pashto, Persian, and French.

Zahir Khan was proclaimed King ( Shah ) on 8 November 1933 at the age of 19, after the assassination of his father Mohammed Nadir Shah.

Zahir Shah was able to govern on his own in 1963 and despite the factionalism and political infighting a new constitution was introduced in 1964 which turned Afghanistan into a modern democratic state by introducing free elections, a parliament, civil rights, women's rights and universal suffrage.

In 1973, while Mohammed Zahir Shah was in Italy undergoing eye surgery as well as therapy for lumbago, his cousin and former Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan staged a coup d ' état and established a republican government.

In 1983 during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Zahir Shah was cautiously involved in plans to head a government in exile.

In April 2002, while the country was no longer under Taliban rule, Zahir Shah returned to Afghanistan to open the Loya Jirga, which met in June 2002.

Zahir Shah himself let it be known that he would accept whatever responsibility was placed on him by the Loya Jirga.

However he was obliged to publicly step aside at the behest of the United States as many of delegates to the Loya Jirga were prepared to vote for Zahir Shah and block the US-backed Hamid Karzai.

On 3 February 2004, Zahir was flown from Kabul to New Delhi, India, for medical treatment after complaining of an intestinal problem.

In January 2007, Zahir was reported to be seriously ill and bedridden.

His parents originated from Laghman Province of Afghanistan, and the family moved to Mazar-i-Sharif when his father was a government official under the monarchy of Mohammed Zahir Shah.

His uncle, Habibullah Karzai, served as representative of Afghanistan at the UN and is said to have accompanied King Zahir Shah in the early 1960s to the United States for a special meeting with U. S. President John F. Kennedy.

Following the end of the Second World War, Zahir Shah recognised the need for the modernisation of Afghanistan and recruited a number of foreign advisers to assist with the process.

Zahir Shah lived in exile in Italy for twenty-nine years in a modest four-bedroom villa in the affluent community of Olgiata on Via Cassia, north of the city of Rome where he spent his time playing golf and chess, as well as tending to his garden.

In a surprise move, the government restores the citizenship of Zahir Shah, who has been living in virtual banishment in Italy for 18 years.

Zahir Shah is under pressure from the Western countries ( including the United States ) not to respond to Najibullah's call for National Reconciliation because if Zahir Shah returns to Afghanistan and joins the government, most of the traditionalist mujahideen would quit fighting against the government and would probably join the government.

He died during an exchange of fire in the city of Herat between supporters of Zahir Nayebzada, a commander for the central government, and Ismail Khan.

Borges plays himself in the story as a man who, after paying for a drink, gets the Zahir in his change.

He goes to a faraway neighborhood in Buenos Aires, while he carefully avoids looking at the street names and numbers, and manages to get rid of the Zahir by paying for another drink in an anonymous bar.

The Zahir professionally was on the scene of Afghan Music for only 10 years at the most ; however, Zahir managed to record more than 30 albums.

There are many mixed views from critics for why he was killed, but according to his son Rishad Zahir, Zahir " was assassinated by the order of a communist general named Daud Taroon, who used one of Zahir's best friends as an accomplice to carry out his orders ".

Zahir " George " Khan is a Pakistani Muslim who has lived in England since 1937 and has been married to Ella, a British Roman Catholic of Irish descent, for 25 years, and has seven children with her: Nazir, Abdul, Tariq, Saleem, Maneer, Meenah and Sajid.

It supported Hamid Karzai in the 2004 presidential election despite its previous support for the former King Zahir Shah.

" Hamid Karzai, who sat next to Zahir Shah at the press conference called Zahir Shah the " father of the nation " and thanked him for the " confidence His Majesty has put in me.