Vol. 14

Shab-e Hijraan (Night of Separation) was released posthumously after Ahmad Zahir was assassinated near the Salang Pass on June 14, 1979 -- the day of his 33rd birthday. The title translates as Night of Separation, and the recording now stands as an inadvertent farewell, its themes of parting, exile, and irreversible loss acquiring a biographical dimension that no listener can ignore. It is among the most emotionally devastating documents in the whole of Afghan popular music, a final testament from a voice silenced at the height of its powers.