So, in response to replies to the ‘question’ asked last month about who the gentleman pictured here with Richard Evans Schultes is – no, this isn’t Schultes’ guide Abdul Rahman.
Taking the notes at the Harvard Archives to imply that it is Abdul Rahman is a misreading:
‘Notes state guide for expedition was Abdul Rahman. Person in photo is Afghan, therefore must be Schultes’ guide.’
The assumptions underpinning that chain of reasoning would benefit from being subjected to further investigation themselves.
My identification of the gent in the photo as one of the Tokhi Brothers – Nasrullah Tokhi – is entirely in line with the known facts of Schultes’ expedition to Afghanistan and the whereabouts of the three Tokhi Brothers at that time.
More importantly, this identification was proactively provided to me – i.e, unasked for – on two occasions in independent chains of correspondence with two senior members of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and their family, once on April 6th 2020 and once on Dec 5th 2022.
The Brotherhood began working with Nasrullah – their original contact in Kandahar – in 1967 and both of my sources made several trips to Afghanistan in person, both knew Nasrullah personally, and one was there at the original meeting in Kandahar in ’67.
The first time one of them saw this photo he was still in prison at Terminal Island in California and seeing Nasrullah there with Schultes he was ‘blown away’.