The head of Shuja’s household was Mullah Shakur Ishaqzai—“a short, fat person,” wrote Harlan, “[whose] rotundity … was adequately finished by the huge turban characteristic of his class, encased in voluminous outline by a profusion of long thick hair which fell upon his shoulders in heavy sable silvered curls.” The curls were there for a purpose: to hide the absence of his ears, which had been removed at Shuja’s orders as a punishment for an earlier failure of courage on the field of battle.
