Hamid Karzai has traveled far in recent months. Before Sept. 11 he was well known and well regarded among Afghans in exile – no mean status, to be sure, but limited in scope. By the night of Jan. 29 he’d jumped to household name on network news and was seated on the right hand of Laura Bush as her husband assessed the State of the Union. Presidential assessment: Despite adversity, “never been stronger.” Then he introduced Karzai as “the distinguished interim leader of a liberated Afghanistan.” Absolutely correct … at least with regard to Karzai and Afghanistan.

Literally as well as figuratively, Hamid Karzai has been on the move, traveling by foot, horse, helicopter, and now chartered plane from mountain foxholes in Afghanistan to corridors of power on three continents. This column, as it follows his route, wishes him well. No one, given the situation six months ago, could have dreamed that he’d lead Afghanistan. No one, given what’s happened since, is nearly as qualified to lead now. Even so – and especially since he’s back in Afghanistan – Karzai still has a long, hard road ahead.

First a bit of context. Muslims are great travelers, in large part because of specific Islamic encouragement. No other world religion puts such importance on geography and geographical movement. Pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj), one of Islam’s Five Pillars, has been bringing the Faithful across enormous distances for 14 centuries. Now accomplished by jumbo jet, it used to take years and was – still is for many – the crowning experience of a Muslim lifetime. Likewise the obligation to leave areas fallen under God less rule. The Prophet’s own experience of emigration (hijra) was a precedent. Afghan refugees from Soviet atheism who styled themselves muhajerin. Finally, as the Prophet said, “Seek knowledge, even unto China.” The word talib (pl. taliban) was used until quite recently – until, in fact, the rise of nation states with national boundaries which impede informal travel – to describe Muslims (males) who spent part or all of their lives going from region to region in search of learning.

As a result of these faith-based travel imperatives, the entire territory of medieval Islam – stretching from (what is now) Senegal on the westernmost tip of Africa to Indonesia and beyond – had a homogenous core of belief and practice. Cultures differed in their specifics, but centuries ago the great Muslim geographers were able to range far and wide under a single set of basic institutions. (Ibn Battuta, born in 14th century Tangiers, traveled 73,000 miles over 24 years: the champion wayfarer of pre-internal combustion engine transportation.) These geo-historical memories run deep. Here’s why so many Muslims today A) think of their world as one unit and B) care about what happens in all parts of it. Here’s why, for instance, Muslims in the southern Philippines know and care about Palestine.

Hamid Karzai’s recent travel began shortly after Sept. 11 when he went – or was “inserted” – into his ancestral segment of Pashtun southern Afghanistan. Lacking a southern analogue for its northern alliance surrogate force, the Pentagon came to realize that Pashtun folks needed different strokes: family and money in addition to bombs and special forces (see “One Country, Two Worlds” Nov. 18, 2001). Karzai had the family, a substantial if not dominant lineage of tribal leaders. He also had (and has) the courage.

The United States had the rest … but even so things got scary. When the Taliban tumbled early to Karzai’s location, some unexpected and now unmentionable travel was quickly chopper-expedited. Later this escape was admitted (foolishly) by Donald Rumsfeld and denied (wisely) by Hamid Karzai. Why was it foolish for a cabinet member to tell the truth? Key question.

Key answer: Because Karzai’s biggest problem is, was, and will be legitimacy. By what right does he (or anyone) claim to rule over unruly Afghanistan? By our say-so? Exactly the reverse is true.

At the best of times (the four-decade reign [not really a rule] of Zahir Shah) legitimacy still lurked as the background problem. Does Hamid Karzai and his Interim Authority have the right to rule or even reign? I hope it plays that way in the Pashtun homeland, but my hopes – and those of the Bush administration – will not necessarily prevail in downtown Kandahar or, worse, suburban Khost. In fact, the notion that Karzai is beholding to any outside power does not go down at all with Afghans. What will Afghans accept from outside via their current leader … or any other leader? Support, certainly. Dependence, not publicly. Control, never at all.

Hence the second episode of hush-up. With Taliban control of Kandahar collapsing two months ago, Karzai spoke by sat-phone with the BBC’s Lyse Doucette. Time and date: 0030 (Afghan time) Friday, December 8. Message: That amnesty would be granted to Mullah Omar if he surrendered. (Such is the immemorial custom among Pashtuns for whom enmity, especially when associated with superficial ideology, is to be reconciled rather than punished. Reasoning: Everyone has relatives, and life must go on without more than the usual quota of family vendettas.) But then the next morning – 1130 (again Afghan time) Saturday, Dec. 9 – Karzai told Doucette that the “deadline” had passed and that there would be no amnesty … and that, no, he had not been in contact with

the Americans.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m for Karzai – big-time – and not at all for Mullah Omar. The issue here, however, is transparency of American involvement and control. At 0300 there was no talk of deadline, less still of its limits; by 1130 it had passed … mostly during the hours of darkness when, presumably, both Karzai and Omar were asleep. Conclusion: the new Afghan leader was being led, indeed ordered, by America.

Once, OK. Twice, risky. Keep doing it – keep bombing the wrong places or, past a certain point, keep bombing at all – and we’re going to lose our brave Afghan leader. He, in the process, could lose his life. Afghanistan could lose its best chance in 24 years. And America could lose what it’s gained … and be confronted once again with a terrorist protectorate in (what’s left of) Afghanistan.

With Kandahar nominally under control, Hamid Karzai came to Kabul, and thence embarked on a quest for old-fashioned legitimacy – as distinct from new-fangled support. This need led him on three pilgrimages. First, he visited the grave and national-shrine-in-the-making of Ahmad Shah Masood, fallen hero of northern Afghanistan where Karzai is an ethnic stranger. Second, he visited his distant relative Zahir Shah in Rome and received the royal blessing of a mild man who, almost alone among prominent Afghans, never much cared to be king. Third he visited Saudi Arabia, met with its king and crown prince, and –

most important – worshipped

at Islam’s holy of holies in Mecca.

This sequence, it seems to me, was marvelously stage-managed. Consider the bases he touched and, hopefully, secured: regionalism, royalty and religion. These, far more than Western support, can give Hamid Karzai traditional legitimacy where he’ll need it most – at home.

Only thereafter did Karzai travel to Japan (reasonably successful international conference on reconstruction), America (inadvertent fashion statements, photo-ops with too many American flags, and important gatherings with the Afghan diaspora), and Britain (talk with the ever-impressive Tony Blair and perhaps reminiscences of three Anglo-Afghan Wars). Now this 21st century Ibn Battuta is home again.

Home represents an even longer road whose successful travel requires exquisite balance on everyone’s part. The tightrope trick for Karzai: to keep sufficiently close to America and other powers so that necessary assistance will flow … without his seeming a stooge. He needs great skill.

America must walk the reciprocal high wire: Providing that assistance and – much trickier – completing unfinished military business … without stooge-ing Karzai. We need to exercise correspondingly great restraint.

I used to know Hamid and liked what I knew. He’s up to it. What about us?

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world.