Zahir Foundation for the Arts
Honoring Ahmad Zahir's Legacy — Founded by His Daughter Shabnam Zahir Humphrey
Shabnam Zahir Humphrey, Founder
Shabnam Zahir was born on June 14, 1979 — the same day her father, Ahmad Zahir, Afghanistan's most beloved musician, died under mysterious circumstances. She was one year old when she and her mother Fakhria fled Afghanistan as refugees, eventually settling in Alexandria, Virginia, where Shabnam was raised.
Growing up in Alexandria, Shabnam witnessed firsthand the exploitation of her father's musical legacy — watching others profit from his work while while her mother, Fakhria was working two jobs in the early 80s just to get by. That experience became the foundation of a lifelong mission: to protect Afghan artists' rights, preserve Afghanistan's cultural heritage, and ensure that Ahmad Zahir's legacy is honored by those who rightfully carry it.
Shabnam holds a Bachelor's degree in English with a minor in Sociology and is currently pursuing her Master's degree at Wake Forest University. She brings more than a decade of professional experience in graphic design, creative writing, digital media, and photography to her work, advocate, and ZFFTA's leader.
In 2014 Shabnam initiated a multi-year advocacy campaign for international copyright protection for Afghan artists. Working in close collaboration with the Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, she and her team engaged the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington D.C. to address a critical gap in international law: Afghan artists had no copyright treaty protections with the United States or any other nation. On June 2, 2018, their efforts culminated in a historic achievement — Afghanistan officially joined the Berne Convention, the international treaty protecting literary and artistic works in over 180 countries worldwide. For the first time in history, Afghan musicians, writers, and creators gained the same legal protections afforded to artists around the world.
As the Director of ZAHIR — the first documentary film ever made about Ahmad Zahir — Shabnam is showing her father's story on a global front. The film features Executive Producer Tom Freston, former CEO of Viacom and co-founder of MTV, and is fiscally sponsored by Film Independent. ZAHIR explores Ahmad Zahir's extraordinary life, his role as a cultural icon of Afghanistan's Golden Era, the circumstances surrounding his death, and his enduring global legacy.
As Founder of the Zahir Foundation for the Arts, Shabnam continues her grandfather's and father's pursuit of freedom, unity, and creativity — working to empower Afghan artists, preserve Afghanistan's cultural heritage, and ensure that the next generation of Afghan creators inherits a world where their work is protected and their voices are heard.
Omar Sultan, Officer
Omar Sultan is one of Afghanistan's most distinguished cultural statesmen and a lifelong champion of Afghan heritage preservation. Raised in Kabul during the 1960s and 70s — the same golden era that produced Ahmad Zahir's revolutionary music — Sultan went on to study archaeology in Greece before dedicating his career to rebuilding Afghanistan's cultural institutions.
He served as Deputy Minister of Culture of Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai from 2005 to 2011, where he led landmark efforts to reconstruct the country's cultural heritage sector following decades of civil war and Taliban destruction. During his tenure he secured funding from UNESCO and the Greek government to rebuild the National Museum of Afghanistan — whose collections had been reduced by 70 to 80 percent through looting and destruction — and spearheaded the development of a network of 11 provincial museums across cities including Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar, Herat, and Bamiyan.
Sultan's personal slogan during his time in office captured his unbreakable spirit: "Taliban, you can break it. But as long as I live, I will rebuild it."
A former bandmate and close personal friend of Ahmad Zahir, Sultan brings irreplaceable firsthand knowledge of Afghanistan's Golden Era and its cultural legacy to the ZFFTA board. He has spoken powerfully about the role of culture in uniting Afghanistan's diverse tribes and ethnicities — and the urgent necessity of protecting Afghan oral heritage, folklore, and the arts from erasure.
"When I was young, in Afghanistan, cultural heritage united us. The people in Afghanistan come from different tribes and different ethnicities, but when it came to culture, everybody was united." Ezel
Today, Sultan serves as Afghanistan's Ambassador to Greece, continuing his decades-long mission to bridge Afghan culture with the international community and ensure that Afghanistan's artistic and historical heritage is preserved for future generations.
Negine Khpalwak, Officer
Negine Khpalwak was born in 1997 in Kunar province, northeastern Afghanistan — a region where girls don't go to school and many aren't allowed to learn music privately. Against every odd, she became a trailblazer whose story has inspired the world.
When she revealed her ambitions to study music, her uncles threatened to kill her, believing she would shame the family. They also threatened her father — but he moved with Negine to Kabul so she could study at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). The move led to them being disowned by the family. Negine's response to those threats has never wavered: "I will never accept defeat. I will continue to play music." Uscourts
At ANIM, her talent flourished. She played piano, participated as a singer in ANIM's choir, and played sarod — a stringed Hindustani instrument — for three years before switching to piano. As the first female sarod player in the Afghan Youth Orchestra, Negine toured the United States in 2012 and performed at Carnegie Hall — one of the world's most prestigious concert stages.
She went on to become the lead conductor of Zohra — the first all-female orchestra in Afghan history, performing both Western and Afghan musical instruments. In February 2017, Zohra performed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — bringing Afghanistan's musical voice to the world's most prominent global stage, at the very moment the Taliban's shadow was beginning to fall again over her homeland.
Then came August 2021. When the Taliban retook Afghanistan, Zohra fell silent. Negine fled. She now lives in Alexandria, Virginia, where she continues studying conducting and piano and performs with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra.
In November 2022, in her first major artistic statement since fleeing Afghanistan, Negine conducted powerful arrangements of Ahmad Zahir's music with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra — a landmark performance that brought her full circle to the cultural icon who has inspired her since the beginning. She has spoken movingly about Ahmad Zahir's music as a lifelong source of inspiration and her deep commitment to continuing his legacy and preserving Afghan arts for future generations.
As a ZFFTA Officer, Negine brings not only extraordinary musical talent but the lived experience of what it costs — and what it means — to be an Afghan woman who refuses to be silenced. Her presence on the ZFFTA board embodies the foundation's core mission: that art is survival, that culture is resistance, and that Ahmad Zahir's voice must never be forgotten.
Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, Officer
Dr. Sarmast is an Afghan-Australian ethnomusicologist. He is the founder and director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). He is widely recognized as one of the most courageous and consequential figures in the preservation of Afghan musical heritage — a man who rebuilt his nation's musical soul from the ground up, and nearly paid for it with his life.
The son of Ustad Salim Sarmast, a celebrated Afghan musician, composer, and conductor, Dr. Sarmast grew up immersed in Afghanistan's rich musical traditions. He left Afghanistan in the 1990s during the civil war, earned a Master's degree in musicology from the Moscow State Conservatory, and was granted asylum in Australia in 1994. In 2005 he became the first Afghan ever to earn a Ph.D. in music, receiving his doctorate from Monash University.
Driven by a profound commitment to his homeland, Dr. Sarmast returned to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban with a singular mission: to restore the musical traditions that had been systematically suppressed and nearly erased. Under the invitation of the Afghan Ministry of Education, he developed the Revival of Afghan Music (ROAM) framework and on June 20, 2010, formally opened ANIM in Kabul — a groundbreaking institution offering both Afghan and Western music education in a co-educational environment, at a time when boys and girls studying together was virtually unheard of in Afghanistan. Half of ANIM's students are orphans and street children, each receiving a monthly stipend to allow them to focus on their studies.
Under Dr. Sarmast's leadership ANIM produced some of Afghanistan's most celebrated young musicians — including Negine Khpalwak, Afghanistan's first female conductor, who serves alongside him on the ZFFTA board. In 2013 ANIM's Afghan Youth Orchestra toured the United States, performing at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. In 2017 Zohra — ANIM's all-female orchestra — performed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, bringing Afghanistan's musical voice to the world stage.
In 2018 Dr. Sarmast and ANIM were awarded the Polar Music Prize — one of the world's most prestigious music honors — in recognition of how ANIM has used the power of music to transform young people's lives and preserve Afghan cultural heritage in the face of extraordinary adversity.
Beyond his institutional work, Dr. Sarmast dedicates himself to annotating Afghan music in Western notation — preserving a largely oral musical tradition for future generations — and envisions expanding ANIM's reach through music schools in Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, and Herat, and ultimately establishing a full Symphony Orchestra of Afghanistan.
As a ZFFTA board member, Dr. Sarmast brings unparalleled scholarly expertise, institutional leadership, and an unbreakable personal commitment to the foundation's mission of preserving Afghan cultural heritage and protecting the artists who carry it forward.
Omaid Sharifi, Officer
Omaid Sharifi is a patron of the arts, curator and President at ArtLords, Wartists and Rebel Art Cafe. ArtLords is a grassroots movement of artists and volunteers motivated by the desire to pave the way for social transformation and behavioral change through employing the soft power of art and culture as a non-intrusive approach.
Mr. Sharifi is a Millennium Leadership Fellow with Atlantic Council, Asia Society 21 and American Foreign Relations Council/Rumsfeld Fellow. Mr. Sharifi is Winner of Best Animation for Peace and Tolerance Award from MiSK-UNDP Youth Forum, Anti-Corruption Excellence Award Winner from Ban Ki-Moon and Emir of Qatar and Afghanistan’s Social Media Award Winner for encouraging offline action and European Union Innovation Award for Fighting Corruption in 2017, 2016 and 2015 respectively. He co-founded the famous “I See You” campaign against corruption, Hamdeli (Empathy) Network for bringing joy to Afghan citizens and Sela Foundation in Afghanistan. Mr. Sharifi is U.S. State Department International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) alumni.
Mr. Sharifi started as a kid selling cookies and cigarettes in the streets of Kabul when he was only 12, he was part of the small team and aide to President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani at Transition Coordination Commission and a Program Manager for Tawanmandi – a multi-million-dollar challenge fund for strengthening civil society in Afghanistan.
Mejgan Massoumi, Officer
Dr. Massoumi received her Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. She is currently a Teaching Fellow in the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education (COLLEGE) Program, also at Stanford University. Her work incorporates questions regarding technology and citizenship, transnationalism and the fluidity of identity, gender and performance, and critical approaches to global history, postcolonial studies, and sensory history. In addition, she is also working on her first monograph tentatively titled The Sounds of Kabul: Radio & the Politics of Popular Culture in Modern Afghanistan, 1960-79.
Having earned previous degrees in Architecture (B.A.) and City Planning (M.C.P) from the University of California at Berkeley, the foundation of her scholarship is built upon a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective. Dr. Massoumi's study of the past is informed through the study of sounds broadcast in and beyond the built environment.
As a scholar and educator, and refugee and immigrant, she is committed to advancing a culture of equity and inclusion within academia through my activism and advocacy for diversity as well as my teaching and scholarship focused on the study of history through the experiences of marginalized peoples, places, and cultures.
Hilmand Dehsabzi, Project Manager + Archivist
Hilmand has been working diligently on archival material for the production. With a degree in architecture and solid experience in large scale Urban Development projects, Hilmand has the strong skills required to navigate the complex and fragmented archival landscape of pre-war Afghanistan. He is a first-generation Afghan Australian, based in Sydney and this is his debut in film production.
Yalda Sarwar, Officer
Yalda is an expert on issues of Afghanistan, Afghan politics, human rights, women's rights, poetry, humanitarian work, community organizing, and advocacy. She is an Afghan-Canadian journalist, poet, human rights advocate, and community organizer. She is currently working with young leaders on a campaign called Canadian Campaign for Afghan Peace. She wears multiple hats with this campaign; including that of a Media Spokesperson, and Committee Adviser Researcher. She also acts as a liaison with Afghans on the ground and internationally, as the Afghanistan crisis continue to cost Afghans, Afghan-Canadians, and the world.
She has been actively aware of the political and humanitarian conflicts around the world, including those in Canada and her homeland Afghanistan. She is a 2021 Daughters of the Vote delegate and has been involved politically in Canada. She has also written and appeared on national and international media speaking about Canada and Afghanistan. She has also tirelessly reported about both nations. Her media experience includes working with CBC News Toronto, and multiple News networks in Afghanistan.
Yalda's lived experience includes being born in Afghanistan, experiencing the Afghan war firsthand, and being active, in politics and in journalism, both in Canada and globally.
Sam French, Film + Media
An Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Sam spent five years living and working in Afghanistan, where he produced and directed documentaries for the UN, NGOs, aid organizations, and the media, including HBO, BBC, CNN, Channel 4 News and Al Jazeera. He wrote and directed the Academy Award nominated short film “Buzkashi Boys,” which was the first narrative film since 2001 to be filmed entirely on location in Afghanistan.
Sam is back in Los Angeles and is writing and developing both narrative and documentary feature film projects. Sam believes in the power of storytelling to connect people across different cultures, and that if we lift up our voices and share our stories we can change the world.
Dr. Thomas E. Gouttierre , Officer
Dr. Thomas E. Gouttierre was the longtime Dean of International Studies & Programs at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies, serving from 1974 until his retirement in 2015. He was born in Maumee, OH. He received a B.A. and an M.A. from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH. In 1987, Professor Gouttierre received the UNO Chancellor's Medal.
"Mr. Gouttierre is widely regarded as one of the leading experts on Afghanistan and U.S.-Afghan relations in the Western Hemisphere. Prior to assuming his present position in 1974, Mr. Gouttierre lived and worked for nearly 10 years in Afghanistan, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer, a Fulbright fellow, Executive Director of the Fulbright Foundation, and Head Coach of the Afghan National Basketball Team. He was also seconded by the U.S. State Department to serve as Senior Political Affairs Officer on the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission to Afghanistan in 1996 and 1997. Mr. Gouttierre speaks, reads, and writes Dari, Farsi, and Tajikistani Persian. His publications include numerous articles about Afghanistan society, culture, and politics. He co-authored the two-volume language textbook Dari for Foreigners and a bibliography of Persian works in English. He also writes original Dari poetry and serves as an internationally recognized authority on Central Asia’s cultures and conflicts, appearing in news articles and broadcasts worldwide.
"Mr. Gouttierre also has decades of experience with the languages and cultures of other Central Asian countries, and he has long been involved in an ongoing dialogue about U.S.-Russia relations. In his role as Dean of International Studies & Programs, he has traveled widely and worked with students and faculty from all over the world.
Leslie Knott, Officer
Leslie Knott is an Oscar and Emmy-nominated filmmaker who has worked in Afghanistan for over a decade. She was first introduced to Ahmad Zahir’s music while setting up a radio station for women in the northern village of Maimana. She is currently the executive producer for ZAHIR documentary. Her first feature documentary film, ‘Out of the Ashes’ (BBC Storyville), was executive produced by Sam Mendes and went on to win a Grierson Award. Leslie’s subsequent films can be seen on Netflix, Channel 4, BBC, PBS, CNN, ITV, NBC and at the Annenberg Space for Photography.
In 2013 Leslie was nominated for an Academy Award for “Buzkashi Boys” which was co-produced by the Afghan Film Project, a non-profit NGO that Leslie co-founded with Sam French in 2010 to help train Afghan filmmakers and foster Afghanistan’s film industry.