Akram Uddin referees a kurash practice match at the Kunduz Central Club.
After we left Qal-e-Zal and returned to Kunduz, Matin, Dost, and I talked about why so much foreign coverage of Afghanistan focused only on the war. While undeniably the most important ongoing story, that myopic vision created a one-dimensional picture of the nation, which was so much more than the sum of its war stories. Matin agreed and made a phone call to longtime friend, and within the hour we were driving to a large, renovated warehouse on the edge of Kunduz City.
The space was Spartan and clean, filled only with a wall-to-wall beige wrestling mat with a red bull’s-eye in the center and a single red circle surrounding it. On the mat, twenty-four young athletes, most dressed in a grubby gi tied with a colored belt that signified the need to improvise rather than the skill level achieved by its wearer, were already training, using the only equipment available—their own bodies.
They took turns carrying each other on their shoulders, jumping over and crawling under each other, and most impressively, lining up as many as four colleagues in a row and launching themselves like flying squirrels over their backs. It was both exciting and exhausting to watch. It was also encouraging to see this many young men of military age not pointing guns at each other, but cooperating in training for perhaps the one thing on which most Afghans, whether Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, or Pashtun, could agree: kurash. Even the Taliban liked kurash.
According to the sport’s Asian confederation, it originated in what is now Uzbekistan in about 1500 BCE. Kurash could be considered mixed martial arts, as it combines elements of both upright wrestling and judo. Since opponents cannot grapple below the waist or wrestle on the ground, kurash moves at a very fast pace. The goal is to put your opponent on the mat. When a competitor’s knee touches the floor, the action is stopped and they begin again from a standing position.
Kurash is so popular that even amateur matches can draw thousands of spectators (male only—women not allowed), who will often bet on the outcomes. In Kunduz, it was local money, not an NGO, that had paid to transform this building into a gymnasium.
Matin and Dost introduce me to Muhammad Anwar, the director of the Kunduz Central Club, which runs recreation centers all across Kunduz and has two thousand members. Dost and Anwar embraced warmly.
“He used to be my coach,” Dost told me in English and then interpreted for Anwar, who nodded and replied in Dari.
“Dost Muhammad was very good at kurash at one time, but now he is too old,” he said. This made us all laugh.
With his long beard, traditional white skullcap, or kufi, and shalwar kameez, Anwar looked more like an imam rather than an athletic director. But the jobs may not have been so different: he considered the boys’ spiritual well-being part of his responsibilities.
“It keeps them from doing bad things,” said Anwar. “They come here and they make their bodies healthy, and it helps keep them away from drugs and other troubles.”
It’s also a chance to briefly escape the dangers and everyday problems of living in a nation that has been at war for decades.
Akram Uddin, a twenty-nine-year-old tree trunk of a man wearing a blue gi tied with a black belt, told me he’d started training at this club thirteen years ago, when he was sixteen. He got so good that by the time he was twenty-two he was invited to compete in a tournament in Macau; it was a chance to show both his countrymen and the world that Afghanistan was not defined only by war. There were lights and crowds and music and a magnificent ring. Uddin entered it, carrying the hopes of so many Afghans. Although he lost, he was not defeated, and emerged inspired.
“When I saw how hard all of the other athletes trained, how good they were and what it looked like when their flags were raised up when they got their medals, I said to myself, I will do that for Afghanistan.”
And so he did. Uddin went home and trained hard enough to compete in twenty different countries throughout Asia and Europe. A few years ago he went on to become a top champion in the Asia Confederation.
Kurash had reportedly been considered as a sport for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, but it didn’t make the shortlist and most likely never will—even Greco-Roman wrestling, long an Olympic staple, is on shaky ground (it was dropped from the Tokyo Games but re-added after an outcry).
Still, Akram Uddin would have been thirty-six by then, way past his prime for an athlete in a combat sport. He insists he could’ve been ready, but he’ll have to settle for making Afghanistan proud on slightly smaller stages.
The other club members practice their moves, gracefully shifting their weight, using the physics of energy, gravity, and motion to throw each other down to the mat. Akram Uddin refereed a few practice matches between heavy, medium, and lightweight fighters. Each showed an intensity and skill level rivaling that of any mixed martial arts club in the world. The warrior spirit, I knew, was not in short supply in Afghanistan. Fortunately, when these young men fight each other, no one ends up dead.
I climbed on top of one of the hand-over-hand bars bolted to the ceiling and took a group photograph of the participants arranged on the outer red circle of the mat surrounding Anwar, who stood on the bull’s-eye. They were sweaty and proud, happy to be recognized, even momentarily, for something—anything—other than their war.
Our northern journey completed, we left them and got on the road to Kabul.