Place Name
The Battle of Ali Masjid was the first clash between British and Afghan forces in the Second Afghan War. It was fought on November 21, 1878 at the narrowest point of the Khyber Pass, where a mosque named in memory of Ali, the cousin of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, is found. It is one of a number of roads that commemorate the 1878 – 1880 war fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan. The conflict ended after a series of military victories by the British against various Afghan forces. Musjid Road was at first to be called Ashdown Road, which English Heritage’s Survey of London suggests may have been “after John Ashdown, an earlier lessee hereabouts”. It is one of the roads developed by Alfred Heaver, as part of Falcon Park estate between 1879 and 1881 “whose street names mostly commemorate British feats of arms in the Second Afghan War of 1878 – 1880 and the Zulu War of 1879. An engagement at Ali Masjid or Musjid was the first of significance in the Afghan campaign whose later phases saw the Khyber Pass controlled, Kabul occupied, and final victory in September 1880 at Kandahar, when Falcon Park was in full spate.”
