pashtuns history

 PASHTUNS

Pashtuns are historically known as Afghans,  an Iranian ethnic group  from Central and South Asia. 

The mother tongue of the ethnic group is Pashto, which is the Iranian language. In addition, ethnic Pashtuns in Afghanistan speak Persian as a second language, however, a significant minority speaks Persian or Hindi Urdu as their first language.

 
The total number of Pashtuns is said to be around 63 million. However, the figures are controversial because there has been no official census in Afghanistan since 1979.
Pashtuns make up southern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan (sometimes called Pashtunistan), where the majority of the population lives. The Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan (especially in Karachi and Lahore) and the Rohil Khand area of ​​Uttar Pradesh in India (as well as major cities like Delhi and Mumbai). In the Arab states of the Persian Gulf (mainly in the United Arab Emirates), a recent dysphora has been formed as part of a larger project in South Asia.

 
Furthermore, Pashtuns are the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan,  making up 15 to 18% of the country's total population,  and are considered one of the nation's five largest ethnic groups. 
Pashtuns are the 26th largest ethnic group in the world, and the largest class lineage. There are an estimated 350-400 Pashtun tribes and clans. Prominent Pashtun personalities include Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Abdul Ghani Khan, Ahmad Shah Abdali, Mahmood Hotak, Allauddin Khilji, Ayub Khan, Bahlol Lodi, Daud Khan, Manzoor Pashtun, Khushal Khan, Madhubala, Ashraf Ghani, Imran Khan, Malalai, Mirwais Hotak, Pir. Roshan, Hafizullah Amin, Rehman Baba, Muhammad Najibullah, Salman Khan, Malala Yousafzai, Sher Shah Soori, Zakir Hussain  

                             

 IRAN                                                                        

Outside of South and Central Asia, Pashtuns are also found in small numbers in the eastern and northern parts of Iran. In Iran, Nadir Shah defeated Hussein Hotak, the last independent Ghilji ruler of Kandahar. To secure Durrani's control in southern Afghanistan, Nadir Shah deported Hussein Hotak and a large number of Ghilji Pashtuns to the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran. Once upon a time, the remnants of a large exiled community, though together, continue to claim the Pashtun race. In the early 18th century, over the course of a few years, the number of Durrani Pashtuns in Iranian Khorasan greatly increased. The area later became part of the Durrani Empire itself. The second Durrani king of Afghanistan, Timur Shah Durrani was born in Mashhad. In the east, Durrani's contemporary, Azad Khan Afghan, an ethnic Ghilji Pashtun who was Azerbaijan's second in-charge during the first Aftab regime, gained power in western Iran. And Azerbaijan for the short term. According to a sample survey in 1988, 75% of all Afghan refugees in the southern part of the Iranian province of Khorasan were Durrani Pashtuns.                                                              

INDIAN SUBCONTINENT          

The Pashtuns of the Indo-Pak subcontinent, outside the traditional homeland, are called Pathans (Indian word for Pashtun) by themselves and other ethnic groups of the subcontinent.
Historically, Pashtuns have settled east of the Indus River and in various cities before the British rule. These include Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Bombay (now called Mumbai), Delhi, Calcutta, Rohil Khand, Jaipur and Bangalore. The settlers are Pashtuns from present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan (British India before 1947). In some parts of India, he is sometimes called Kabuliwala.

There are Pashtun Diaspora communities in India. They also live in the states of Maharashtra in central India and West Bengal in eastern India, each with a Pashtun population of over one million. Both Bombay and Calcutta were the main destinations for Pashtun refugees from Afghanistan during the colonial period. Jaipur in Rajasthan and Bangalore in Karnataka also have a population of over 100,000. Both Bombay (now called Mumbai) and Calcutta have a Pashtun population of over one million, while Jaipur and Bangalore have an estimated population of around one million. The Pashtuns of Bangalore include Khan siblings Feroz, Sanjay and Akbar Khan, whose father settled in Bangalore from Ghazni.

Karachi is home to the largest Pashtun community outside the homeland (estimated at approximately 7 million) Anatole Lyon of Georgetown University in Qatar wrote in 2021 that due to the Pashtun city being settled, "Karachi (Kabul) , Not Kandahar or Peshawar) may be the largest Pashtun city in the world .

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

IN OTHER COUNTRIES      

Indian and Pakistani Pashtuns have used British / Commonwealth links in their respective countries, and modern communities have originated in the 1960s, mainly in Britain, Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries (and the United States). Some Pashtuns also live in the Middle East, such as in the Arabian Peninsula. For example, about 300,000 Pashtuns migrated to the Persian Gulf countries between 1976 and 1981, representing 35% of Pakistani immigrants.                                                                                                                                              

Due to the numerous wars in Afghanistan since the late 1970s, various waves of refugees (Afghan Pashtuns, but also a large number of Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Afghan Sikhs) have fled the country as refugees.

There are 1.3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and 1 million in Iran. Others have sought asylum in Britain, the United States and the European Union through Pakistan.                                                                                      

HISTORY  

Excavations at prehistoric sites show that early humans lived in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago. Since the second century BC, invasions and migrations have been observed in the region's now Pashtun-inhabited cities, including the ancient Indians, the ancient Iranians, the Medes, the Persians, and ancient Macedonia in ancient times, the Kushans, the Hephthalites. , Arab, Turkish, Mongol, and others. In recent times, people in the Western world have also explored this area.  The earliest forerunners of modern-day Pashtuns may be the old Iranian tribes  scattered across the eastern Iranian plateau.                             

"The Pashtuns began as a large-scale alliance of East Iranian tribes that became the earliest ethnic group of the Pashtun ethnic group, dating to the middle of the first century AH and associated with the dissolution of the Epthalite(White Hans) Confederation. Regarding the participation of the Epthalites (White Huns) in the ethnic race of the Pashtuns, we find evidence of the ethnic name of Abdali (Durrani after 1747), the largest union of the Pashtun tribe. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, all Pashtuns have been called Abdal.

 Gankowski, History of Afghanistan:  

 Gankovsky originally proposed ephthalite for the Pashtuns, but others draw a       different conclusion. The Ghilji tribe has been associated with the Khilj people. According to George Morgensterin, the Durrani tribe, known as the "Abdali" before the establishment of the Afghan Empire in 1747, may have been associated with hepathalitis. Possibly merged into different local populations.