اليوم: الجمعة 24 مارس 2023 , الساعة: 3:09 م
From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Many empires and kingdoms have also risen to power in Afghanistan such as the Greco-Bactrians Indo-Scythians Kushans Kidarites Hephthalites Alkhons Nezaks Zunbils Turk Shahis Hindu Shahis Lawiks Saffarids Samanids Ghaznavids Ghurids Khwarazmians Khaljis Kartids Lodis Surs Mughals and finally the Hotak and Durrani dynasties which marked the political origins of the modern state. Throughout millennia several cities within the modern day Afghanistan served as capitals of various empires namely Bactra (Balkh) Alexandria on the Oxus (Ai-Khanoum) Kapisi Sigal Kabul Kunduz Zaranj Firozkoh Herat Ghazna (Ghazni) Binban (Bamyan) and Kandahar.
The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and often fought. It has been home to various peoples through the ages among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points the land has been incorporated within vast regional empires among them the Achaemenid Empire the Macedonian Empire the Maurya Empire and the Islamic Empire. For its success in resisting foreign occupation during the 19th and 20th centuries Afghanistan has been called the "graveyard of empires" though it is unknown who coined the phrase.
Prehistory and antiquity
Excavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50 000 years ago and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites.
Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east west and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic Mesolithic Neolithic Bronze and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) was a center of the Helmand culture. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan making the ancient civilization today part of Pakistan Afghanistan and India. In more detail it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well.
After 2000 BCE successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia Western Asia and toward Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region at the time was referred to as Ariana.
Zoroastrianism and Hellenic era
The religion Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BCE as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia Aria and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered.
Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from them and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE.
Hindu and Buddhist era
The Silk Road appeared during the first century BCE and Afghanistan flourished with trade with routes to China India Persia and north to the cities of Bukhara Samarkand and Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan. Goods and ideas were exchanged at this center point such as Chinese silk Persian silver and Roman gold while the region of present Afghanistan was mining and trading lapis lazuli stones mainly from the Badakhshan region.
During the first century BCE the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire centered in Afghanistan became great patrons of Buddhist culture making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE though the Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who in turn were replaced by the Hephthalites. They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty before the Saffarids conquered the area in 870 this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi. Much of the northeastern and southern areas of the country remained dominated by Buddhist culture.
Medieval history
Islamic conquest
Arab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. Before Islam was introduced people of the region were mostly Buddhists and Zoroastrians but there were also Surya and Nana worshipers Jews and others. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century.
By the 11th century Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region with the exception of Kafiristan. Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi. The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by the Ghurids whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam. The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215.
Mongols and Babur
In 1219 AD Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khwarazmian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan. The destruction caused by the Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur (aka Tamerlane) who established the Timurid Empire in 1370. Under the rule of Shah Rukh the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth.
In the early 16th century Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty. Between the 16th and 18th century the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara Iranian Safavids and Indian Mughals ruled parts of the territory. During the Medieval Period the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan (Herat and Balkh) are now located in Afghanistan while the regions of Kandahar Zabulistan Ghazni Kabulistan and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. However up to the 19th century the term Khorasan was commonly used among natives to describe their country; Sir George Elphinstone wrote with amazement that the country known to outsiders as "Afghanistan" was referred to by its own inhabitants as "Khorasan" and that the first Afghan official whom he met at the border welcomed him to Khorasan.
Modern history
Hotak and Durrani dynasties
In 1709 Mirwais Hotak a local Ghilzai tribal leader successfully rebelled against the Safavids. He defeated Gurgin Khan and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died of natural causes in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz who was soon killed by Mirwais' son Mahmud for treason. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan.
In 1738 Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar the last Hotak stronghold from Shah Hussain Hotak at which point the incarcerated 16-year-old Ahmad Shah Durrani was freed and made the commander of an Afghan regiment. Soon after the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India. By 1747 the Afghans chose Durrani as their head of state. Durrani and his Afghan army conquered much of present-day Afghanistan Pakistan the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran and Delhi in India. He defeated the Indian Maratha Empire and one of his biggest victories was the 1761 Battle of Panipat.
In October 1772 Durrani died of natural causes and was buried at a site now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar. He was succeeded by his son Timur Shah who transferred the capital of his kingdom from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776 with Peshawar becoming the winter capital. After Timur's death in 1793 the Durrani throne passed down to his son Zaman Shah followed by Mahmud Shah Shuja Shah and others.
Barakzai dynasty and British wars
By the early 19th century the Afghan empire was under threat from the Persians in the west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Fateh Khan leader of the Barakzai tribe had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. After his death they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period Afghanistan had many temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1823. Punjab and Kashmir were lost to Ranjit Singh who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 1823 and captured the city of Peshawar at the Battle of Nowshera. In 1837 during the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud Fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa thus ending the Afghan-Sikh Wars. By this time the British were advancing from the east and the first major conflict during "The Great Game" was initiated.
In 1838 the British marched into Afghanistan and arrested Dost Mohammad sent him into exile in India and replaced him with the previous ruler Shah Shuja. Following an uprising the 1842 retreat from Kabul of British-Indian forces and the annihilation of Elphinstone's army and the Battle of Kabul that led to its recapture the British placed Dost Mohammad Khan back into power and withdrew their military forces from Afghanistan. In 1878 the Second Anglo-Afghan War was fought over perceived Russian influence Abdur Rahman Khan replaced Ayub Khan and Britain gained control of Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879. In 1893 Mortimer Durand made Amir Abdur Rahman Khan sign a controversial agreement in which the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line. This was a standard divide and rule policy of the British and would lead to strained relations especially with the later new state of Pakistan. Shia-dominated Hazarajat and pagan Kafiristan remained politically independent until being conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 1891–1896. He was known as the "Iron Amir" for his features and his ruthless methods against tribes. The Iron Amir viewed railway and telegraph lines coming from the Russian and British empires as "trojan horses" and therefore prevented railway development in Afghanistan. He died in 1901 replaced by his son Habibullah Khan.
During World War I when Afghanistan was neutral Habibullah Khan was met by officials of the Central Powers in the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition to declare full independence from the United Kingdom join them and attack British India as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy. Their efforts to bring Afghanistan into the Central Powers failed but it caused discontent among the population for keeping neutrality against the British. Habibullah was assassinated during a hunting trip in 1919 and Amanullah Khan eventually assumed power. A staunch supporter of the 1915–1916 expeditions Amanullah Khan evoked the Third Anglo-Afghan War entering British India via the Khyber Pass.
After the end Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919 King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community particularly with the Soviet Union and the Weimar Republic of Germany. Following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey he introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in 1923. Khan's wife Queen Soraya Tarzi was a figure during this period.
Some of the reforms that were put in place such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of several co-educational schools quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders and this led to the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929). Faced with the overwhelming armed opposition Amanullah Khan abdicated in January 1929 and soon after Kabul fell to Saqqawist forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah Amanullah's cousin in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in October 1929 and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq a fifteen-year-old Hazara student who was an Amanullah loyalist.
Mohammed Zahir Shah Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. The tribal revolts of 1944–1947 saw Zahir Shah's reign being challenged by Zadran Safi Mangal and Wazir tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran Salemai and Mirzali Khan among others many of whom were Amanullah loyalists. Close relations with the Muslim states Turkey the Kingdom of Iraq and Iran/Persia were also pursued while further international relations were sought by joining the League of Nations in 1934. The 1930s saw the development of roads infrastructure the founding of a national bank and increased education. Road links in the north played a large part in a growing cotton and textile industry. The country built close relationships with the Axis powers with Germany having the largest share in Afghan development at the time along with Italy and Japan.
Contemporary history
Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles Shah Mahmud Khan became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan the king's cousin and brother-in-law and a Pashtun nationalist who sought the creation of a Pashtunistan leading to highly tense relations with Pakistan. During his ten years at the post until 1963 Daoud Khan pressed for social modernization reforms and sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. Afterward the 1964 constitution was formed and the first non-royal Prime Minister was sworn in.
King Zahir Shah like his father Nadir Shah had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization creating nationalist feeling and improving relations with the United Kingdom. However Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War thereafter. However it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways airports and other vital infrastructure in the post-period. On a per capita basis Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. Afghanistan had therefore good relations with both Cold War enemies. In 1973 while the King was in Italy Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan abolishing the monarchy.
Democratic Republic regime and Soviet war
In April 1978 the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan in what is called the Saur Revolution. The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party general secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki. This would trigger a series of events that would dramatically turn Afghanistan from a poor and secluded (albeit peaceful) country to a hotbed of international terrorism. The PDPA initiated various social symbolic and land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition while also brutally oppressing political dissidents. This caused unrest and quickly expanded into a state of civil war by 1979 waged by guerrilla mujahideen (and smaller Maoist guerillas) against regime forces countrywide. It quickly turned into a proxy war as the Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers the United States supported them through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA regime. Meanwhile there was increasingly hostile friction between the competing factions of the PDPA – the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham.
In September 1979 PDPA General Secretary Taraki was assassinated in an internal coup orchestrated by fellow Khalq member then-Prime minister Hafizullah Amin who assumed the new general secretary of the People's Democratic Party. The situation in the country deteriorated under Amin and thousands of people went missing. Displeased with Amin's government the Soviet Army invaded the country in December 1979 heading for Kabul and killing Amin just 3 days later. A Soviet-organized regime led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions (Parcham and Khalq) filled the vacuum. Soviet troops in more substantial numbers were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal marking the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War. The United States and Pakistan along with smaller actors like Saudi Arabia and China continued supporting the rebels delivering billions of dollars in cash and weapons including two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Lasting nine years the war caused the deaths of between 562 000 and 2 million Afghans and displaced about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan mainly to Pakistan and Iran. Heavy air bombardment destroyed many countryside villages millions of landmines were planted and some cities such as Herat and Kandahar were also damaged from bombardment. Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province functioned as an organisational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance with the province's influential Deobandi ulama playing a major supporting role in promoting the 'jihad'. After the Soviet withdrawal the civil war ensued until the communist regime under People's Democratic Party leader Mohammad Najibullah collapsed in 1992.
Post-Cold War conflict and Taliban regime
Another civil war broke out after the creation of a dysfunctional coalition government between leaders of various mujahideen factions. Amid a state of anarchy and factional infighting various mujahideen factions committed widespread rape murder and extortion while Kabul was heavily bombarded and partially destroyed by the fighting. Several failed reconciliations and alliances occurred between different leaders. The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as a movement and militia of students (talib) from Islamic madrassas (schools) in Pakistan who soon had military support from Pakistan. Taking control of Kandahar city that year they conquered more territories until finally driving out the government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996 where they established an emirate that gained international recognition from only three countries. The Taliban were condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law which resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans especially women. During their rule the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians denied UN food supplies to starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes.
After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum formed the Northern Alliance later joined by others to resist the Taliban. Dostum's forces were defeated by the Taliban during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif (1997–98); Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. By 2000 the Northern Alliance only controlled 10% of territory cornered in the north-east. On 9 September 2001 Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir Valley. Around 400 000 Afghans died in internal conflicts between 1990 and 2001.
In October 2001 the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power after they refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden the prime suspect of the September 11 attacks who was a "guest" of the Taliban and was operating his al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans supported the American invasion of their country. During the initial invasion US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps and later working with the Northern Alliance the Taliban regime came to an end.
Post-2001
In December 2001 after the Taliban government was overthrown the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security. By this time after two decades of war as well as an acute famine at the time Afghanistan had one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the world the lowest life expectancy much of the population were hungry and infrastructure was in ruins. Many foreign donors started providing aid and assistance to rebuild the war-torn country.
Taliban forces meanwhile began regrouping inside Pakistan while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help the rebuilding process. The Taliban began an insurgency to regain control of Afghanistan. Over the next decade ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world because of a lack of foreign investment government corruption and the Taliban insurgency. Meanwhile Karzai attempted to unite the peoples of the country and the Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures adopting a constitution in 2004 with the name Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Attempts were made often with the support of foreign donor countries to improve the country's economy healthcare education transport and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces. Following 2002 nearly five million Afghans were repatriated. The number of NATO troops present in Afghanistan peaked at 140 000 in 2011 dropping to about 16 000 in 2018.
In September 2014 Ashraf Ghani became president after the 2014 presidential election where for the first time in Afghanistan's history power was democratically transferred. On 28 December 2014 NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. The NATO-led Operation Resolute Support was formed the same day as a successor to ISAF. Thousands of NATO troops remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces and continue their fight against the Taliban. It was estimated in 2015 that "about 147 000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan war since 2001. More than 38 000 of those killed have been civilians". A report titled Body Count concluded that 106 000–170 000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict.
The root name "Afghān" is according to some scholars derived from the name of the Aśvakan or Assakan ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush region. Aśvakan literally means "horsemen" "horse breeders" or "cavalrymen" (from aśva or aspa the Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"). Historically the ethnonym Afghān was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns. The Arabic and Persian form of the name Afġān was first attested in the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam. The last part of the name "-stan" is a Persian suffix for "place of". Therefore "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans" or "land of the Pashtuns" in a historical sense. According to the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam:
The name Afghanistan (Afghānistān land of the Afghans/Pashtuns afāghina sing. afghān) can be traced to the early eighth/fourteenth century when it designated the easternmost part of the Kartid realm. This name was later used for certain regions in the Ṣafavid and Mughal empires that were inhabited by Afghans. While based on a state-supporting elite of Abdālī/Durrānī Afghans the Sadūzāʾī Durrānī polity that came into being in 1160/1747 was not called Afghanistan in its own day. The name became a state designation only during the colonial intervention of the nineteenth century.
The modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that the word "Afghan" shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan.
The population of Afghanistan was estimated at 32.9 million as of 2019 by the Afghanistan Statistics and Information Authority whereas the UN estimates over 38.0 million. About 23.9% of them are urbanite 71.4% live in rural areas and the remaining 4.7% are nomadic. An additional 3 million or so Afghans are temporarily housed in neighboring Pakistan and Iran most of whom were born and raised in those two countries. As of 2013 Afghanistan was the largest refugee-producing country in the world a title held for 32 years.
The current population growth rate is 2.37% one of the highest in the world outside of Africa. This population is expected to reach 82 million by 2050 if current population trends continue. The population of Afghanistan increased steadily until the 1980s when civil war caused millions to flee to other countries such as Pakistan. Millions have since returned and the war conditions has meant a high fertility rate compared to global and regional trends. Afghanistan's healthcare has recovered since the turn of the century causing falls in infant mortality and increases in life expectancy. This (along with other factors such as returning refugees) caused rapid population growth in the 2000s that has only recently started to slow down.
Ethnic groups
Afghanistan's population is divided into several ethnolinguistic groups. The ethnicities are represented on the table on the right. The percentages given are estimates only as accurate and current statistical data on ethnicity are not available. Generally the four major ethnic groups are the Pashtuns Tajiks Hazaras and Uzbeks. A further 10 other ethnic groups are recognized and each are represented in the Afghan National Anthem.
Languages
Dari and Pashto are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. Dari which is a variety of and mutually intelligible with Persian (and very often called 'Farsi' by some Afghans like in Iran) functions as the lingua franca in Kabul as well as in much of the northern and northwestern parts of the country. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns although many of them are also fluent in Dari while some non-Pashtuns are fluent in Pashto. Despite the Pashtuns having been dominant in Afghan politics for centuries Dari remained the preferred language for government and bureaucracy.
There are a number of smaller regional languages including Uzbek Turkmen Balochi Pashayi and Nuristani.
When it comes to foreign languages among the populace many are able to speak or understand Hindustani (Urdu-Hindi) partly due to returning Afghan refugees from Pakistan and the popularity of Bollywood films respectively. English is also understood by some of the population and has been gaining popularity as of the 2000s. Some Afghans retain some ability of Russian which was taught to public schools during the 1980s.
Religion
An estimated 99.7% of the Afghan population is Muslim and most are thought to adhere to the Sunni Hanafi school. According to Pew Research Center as much as 90% are of the Sunni denomination 7% Shia and 3% non-denominational. The CIA Factbook variously estimates up to 89.7% Sunni or up to 15% Shia. Dr Michael Izady estimated 70% of the population to be followers of Sunni Islam 25% Imami Shia Islam 4.5% Ismaili Shia Islam and 0.5% other religions.
Thousands of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are also found in certain major cities (namely Kabul Jalalabad Ghazni Kandahar) accompanied by gurdwaras and mandirs. There was a small Jewish community in Afghanistan who had emigrated to Israel and the United States by the end of the twentieth century; at least one Jew Zablon Simintov remains who is the caretaker of the only remaining synagogue. Afghan Christians who number 500–8 000 practice their faith secretly due to intense societal opposition and there are no public churches.
Urbanisation
As estimated by the CIA World Factbook 26% of the population was urbanized as of 2020. This is one of the lowest figures in the world; in Asia it is only higher than Cambodia Nepal and Sri Lanka. Urbanization has increased rapidly particularly in the capital Kabul due to returning refugees from Pakistan and Iran after 2001 internally displaced people and rural migrants. Urbanization in Afghanistan has been noted to be different than traditional urbanization in that it's centered on a few cities rather than evenly spread out nationwide.
The only city with over a million residents is its capital Kabul located in the east of the country. The other large cities are located generally in the "ring" around the Central Highlands namely Kandahar in the south Herat in the west Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz in the north and Jalalabad in the east.
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عزيزي زائر دليل الهاتف و بدالة أرقام الإمارات تم إعداد وإختيار هذا الموضوع Afghanistan فإن كان لديك ملاحظة او توجيه يمكنك مراسلتنا من خلال الخيارات الموجودة بالموضوع.. وكذلك يمكنك زيارة القسم en, وهنا نبذه عنها en وتصفح المواضيع المتنوعه... آخر تحديث للمعلومات بتاريخ اليوم 18/03/2023
Afghanistan
آخر تحديث منذ 6 يوم و 12 ساعة
6 مشاهدة
From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
History
Main article: History of Afghanistan |
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Related historical names of the region |
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Many empires and kingdoms have also risen to power in Afghanistan such as the Greco-Bactrians Indo-Scythians Kushans Kidarites Hephthalites Alkhons Nezaks Zunbils Turk Shahis Hindu Shahis Lawiks Saffarids Samanids Ghaznavids Ghurids Khwarazmians Khaljis Kartids Lodis Surs Mughals and finally the Hotak and Durrani dynasties which marked the political origins of the modern state. Throughout millennia several cities within the modern day Afghanistan served as capitals of various empires namely Bactra (Balkh) Alexandria on the Oxus (Ai-Khanoum) Kapisi Sigal Kabul Kunduz Zaranj Firozkoh Herat Ghazna (Ghazni) Binban (Bamyan) and Kandahar.
The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and often fought. It has been home to various peoples through the ages among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points the land has been incorporated within vast regional empires among them the Achaemenid Empire the Macedonian Empire the Maurya Empire and the Islamic Empire. For its success in resisting foreign occupation during the 19th and 20th centuries Afghanistan has been called the "graveyard of empires" though it is unknown who coined the phrase.
Prehistory and antiquity
Main article: Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan |
Excavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50 000 years ago and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites.
Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east west and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic Mesolithic Neolithic Bronze and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) was a center of the Helmand culture. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan making the ancient civilization today part of Pakistan Afghanistan and India. In more detail it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well.
After 2000 BCE successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia Western Asia and toward Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region at the time was referred to as Ariana.
Zoroastrianism and Hellenic era
The religion Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BCE as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh. Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia Aria and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered.
Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from them and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE.
Hindu and Buddhist era
The Silk Road appeared during the first century BCE and Afghanistan flourished with trade with routes to China India Persia and north to the cities of Bukhara Samarkand and Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan. Goods and ideas were exchanged at this center point such as Chinese silk Persian silver and Roman gold while the region of present Afghanistan was mining and trading lapis lazuli stones mainly from the Badakhshan region.
During the first century BCE the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire centered in Afghanistan became great patrons of Buddhist culture making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE though the Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who in turn were replaced by the Hephthalites. They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty before the Saffarids conquered the area in 870 this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi. Much of the northeastern and southern areas of the country remained dominated by Buddhist culture.
Medieval history
Main articles: Islamic conquest of Afghanistan and Mongol invasion of Central Asia |
Islamic conquest
Arab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. Before Islam was introduced people of the region were mostly Buddhists and Zoroastrians but there were also Surya and Nana worshipers Jews and others. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century.
By the 11th century Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region with the exception of Kafiristan. Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi. The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by the Ghurids whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam. The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215.
Mongols and Babur
In 1219 AD Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khwarazmian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan. The destruction caused by the Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur (aka Tamerlane) who established the Timurid Empire in 1370. Under the rule of Shah Rukh the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth.
In the early 16th century Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty. Between the 16th and 18th century the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara Iranian Safavids and Indian Mughals ruled parts of the territory. During the Medieval Period the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan (Herat and Balkh) are now located in Afghanistan while the regions of Kandahar Zabulistan Ghazni Kabulistan and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. However up to the 19th century the term Khorasan was commonly used among natives to describe their country; Sir George Elphinstone wrote with amazement that the country known to outsiders as "Afghanistan" was referred to by its own inhabitants as "Khorasan" and that the first Afghan official whom he met at the border welcomed him to Khorasan.
Modern history
Hotak and Durrani dynasties
Main articles: Hotak dynasty and Durrani Empire |
In 1709 Mirwais Hotak a local Ghilzai tribal leader successfully rebelled against the Safavids. He defeated Gurgin Khan and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died of natural causes in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz who was soon killed by Mirwais' son Mahmud for treason. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan.
In 1738 Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar the last Hotak stronghold from Shah Hussain Hotak at which point the incarcerated 16-year-old Ahmad Shah Durrani was freed and made the commander of an Afghan regiment. Soon after the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India. By 1747 the Afghans chose Durrani as their head of state. Durrani and his Afghan army conquered much of present-day Afghanistan Pakistan the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran and Delhi in India. He defeated the Indian Maratha Empire and one of his biggest victories was the 1761 Battle of Panipat.
In October 1772 Durrani died of natural causes and was buried at a site now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar. He was succeeded by his son Timur Shah who transferred the capital of his kingdom from Kandahar to Kabul in 1776 with Peshawar becoming the winter capital. After Timur's death in 1793 the Durrani throne passed down to his son Zaman Shah followed by Mahmud Shah Shuja Shah and others.
Barakzai dynasty and British wars
Further information: European influence in Afghanistan Anglo-Afghan Wars Durand Line and Afghan Civil War (1928–1929) |
By the early 19th century the Afghan empire was under threat from the Persians in the west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Fateh Khan leader of the Barakzai tribe had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. After his death they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period Afghanistan had many temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1823. Punjab and Kashmir were lost to Ranjit Singh who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 1823 and captured the city of Peshawar at the Battle of Nowshera. In 1837 during the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud Fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa thus ending the Afghan-Sikh Wars. By this time the British were advancing from the east and the first major conflict during "The Great Game" was initiated.
In 1838 the British marched into Afghanistan and arrested Dost Mohammad sent him into exile in India and replaced him with the previous ruler Shah Shuja. Following an uprising the 1842 retreat from Kabul of British-Indian forces and the annihilation of Elphinstone's army and the Battle of Kabul that led to its recapture the British placed Dost Mohammad Khan back into power and withdrew their military forces from Afghanistan. In 1878 the Second Anglo-Afghan War was fought over perceived Russian influence Abdur Rahman Khan replaced Ayub Khan and Britain gained control of Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879. In 1893 Mortimer Durand made Amir Abdur Rahman Khan sign a controversial agreement in which the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line. This was a standard divide and rule policy of the British and would lead to strained relations especially with the later new state of Pakistan. Shia-dominated Hazarajat and pagan Kafiristan remained politically independent until being conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 1891–1896. He was known as the "Iron Amir" for his features and his ruthless methods against tribes. The Iron Amir viewed railway and telegraph lines coming from the Russian and British empires as "trojan horses" and therefore prevented railway development in Afghanistan. He died in 1901 replaced by his son Habibullah Khan.
During World War I when Afghanistan was neutral Habibullah Khan was met by officials of the Central Powers in the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition to declare full independence from the United Kingdom join them and attack British India as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy. Their efforts to bring Afghanistan into the Central Powers failed but it caused discontent among the population for keeping neutrality against the British. Habibullah was assassinated during a hunting trip in 1919 and Amanullah Khan eventually assumed power. A staunch supporter of the 1915–1916 expeditions Amanullah Khan evoked the Third Anglo-Afghan War entering British India via the Khyber Pass.
After the end Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919 King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community particularly with the Soviet Union and the Weimar Republic of Germany. Following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey he introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in 1923. Khan's wife Queen Soraya Tarzi was a figure during this period.
Some of the reforms that were put in place such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of several co-educational schools quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders and this led to the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929). Faced with the overwhelming armed opposition Amanullah Khan abdicated in January 1929 and soon after Kabul fell to Saqqawist forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah Amanullah's cousin in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in October 1929 and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq a fifteen-year-old Hazara student who was an Amanullah loyalist.
Mohammed Zahir Shah Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. The tribal revolts of 1944–1947 saw Zahir Shah's reign being challenged by Zadran Safi Mangal and Wazir tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran Salemai and Mirzali Khan among others many of whom were Amanullah loyalists. Close relations with the Muslim states Turkey the Kingdom of Iraq and Iran/Persia were also pursued while further international relations were sought by joining the League of Nations in 1934. The 1930s saw the development of roads infrastructure the founding of a national bank and increased education. Road links in the north played a large part in a growing cotton and textile industry. The country built close relationships with the Axis powers with Germany having the largest share in Afghan development at the time along with Italy and Japan.
Contemporary history
Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles Shah Mahmud Khan became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan the king's cousin and brother-in-law and a Pashtun nationalist who sought the creation of a Pashtunistan leading to highly tense relations with Pakistan. During his ten years at the post until 1963 Daoud Khan pressed for social modernization reforms and sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. Afterward the 1964 constitution was formed and the first non-royal Prime Minister was sworn in.
King Zahir Shah like his father Nadir Shah had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization creating nationalist feeling and improving relations with the United Kingdom. However Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War thereafter. However it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways airports and other vital infrastructure in the post-period. On a per capita basis Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. Afghanistan had therefore good relations with both Cold War enemies. In 1973 while the King was in Italy Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan abolishing the monarchy.
Democratic Republic regime and Soviet war
Main articles: Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Soviet–Afghan War and Afghan Civil War (1989–92) |
Further information: History of Afghanistan (1978–92) |
In April 1978 the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan in what is called the Saur Revolution. The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party general secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki. This would trigger a series of events that would dramatically turn Afghanistan from a poor and secluded (albeit peaceful) country to a hotbed of international terrorism. The PDPA initiated various social symbolic and land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition while also brutally oppressing political dissidents. This caused unrest and quickly expanded into a state of civil war by 1979 waged by guerrilla mujahideen (and smaller Maoist guerillas) against regime forces countrywide. It quickly turned into a proxy war as the Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers the United States supported them through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA regime. Meanwhile there was increasingly hostile friction between the competing factions of the PDPA – the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham.
In September 1979 PDPA General Secretary Taraki was assassinated in an internal coup orchestrated by fellow Khalq member then-Prime minister Hafizullah Amin who assumed the new general secretary of the People's Democratic Party. The situation in the country deteriorated under Amin and thousands of people went missing. Displeased with Amin's government the Soviet Army invaded the country in December 1979 heading for Kabul and killing Amin just 3 days later. A Soviet-organized regime led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions (Parcham and Khalq) filled the vacuum. Soviet troops in more substantial numbers were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal marking the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War. The United States and Pakistan along with smaller actors like Saudi Arabia and China continued supporting the rebels delivering billions of dollars in cash and weapons including two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Lasting nine years the war caused the deaths of between 562 000 and 2 million Afghans and displaced about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan mainly to Pakistan and Iran. Heavy air bombardment destroyed many countryside villages millions of landmines were planted and some cities such as Herat and Kandahar were also damaged from bombardment. Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province functioned as an organisational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance with the province's influential Deobandi ulama playing a major supporting role in promoting the 'jihad'. After the Soviet withdrawal the civil war ensued until the communist regime under People's Democratic Party leader Mohammad Najibullah collapsed in 1992.
Post-Cold War conflict and Taliban regime
See also: Afghan Civil War (1992–96) Afghan Civil War (1996–2001) Taliban and Northern Alliance |
Another civil war broke out after the creation of a dysfunctional coalition government between leaders of various mujahideen factions. Amid a state of anarchy and factional infighting various mujahideen factions committed widespread rape murder and extortion while Kabul was heavily bombarded and partially destroyed by the fighting. Several failed reconciliations and alliances occurred between different leaders. The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as a movement and militia of students (talib) from Islamic madrassas (schools) in Pakistan who soon had military support from Pakistan. Taking control of Kandahar city that year they conquered more territories until finally driving out the government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996 where they established an emirate that gained international recognition from only three countries. The Taliban were condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law which resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans especially women. During their rule the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians denied UN food supplies to starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes.
After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum formed the Northern Alliance later joined by others to resist the Taliban. Dostum's forces were defeated by the Taliban during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif (1997–98); Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. By 2000 the Northern Alliance only controlled 10% of territory cornered in the north-east. On 9 September 2001 Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir Valley. Around 400 000 Afghans died in internal conflicts between 1990 and 2001.
In October 2001 the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power after they refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden the prime suspect of the September 11 attacks who was a "guest" of the Taliban and was operating his al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans supported the American invasion of their country. During the initial invasion US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps and later working with the Northern Alliance the Taliban regime came to an end.
Post-2001
Further information: War in Afghanistan (2001–present) Taliban insurgency and Reconstruction in Afghanistan |
In December 2001 after the Taliban government was overthrown the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security. By this time after two decades of war as well as an acute famine at the time Afghanistan had one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the world the lowest life expectancy much of the population were hungry and infrastructure was in ruins. Many foreign donors started providing aid and assistance to rebuild the war-torn country.
Taliban forces meanwhile began regrouping inside Pakistan while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help the rebuilding process. The Taliban began an insurgency to regain control of Afghanistan. Over the next decade ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them. Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world because of a lack of foreign investment government corruption and the Taliban insurgency. Meanwhile Karzai attempted to unite the peoples of the country and the Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures adopting a constitution in 2004 with the name Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Attempts were made often with the support of foreign donor countries to improve the country's economy healthcare education transport and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces. Following 2002 nearly five million Afghans were repatriated. The number of NATO troops present in Afghanistan peaked at 140 000 in 2011 dropping to about 16 000 in 2018.
In September 2014 Ashraf Ghani became president after the 2014 presidential election where for the first time in Afghanistan's history power was democratically transferred. On 28 December 2014 NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. The NATO-led Operation Resolute Support was formed the same day as a successor to ISAF. Thousands of NATO troops remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces and continue their fight against the Taliban. It was estimated in 2015 that "about 147 000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan war since 2001. More than 38 000 of those killed have been civilians". A report titled Body Count concluded that 106 000–170 000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict.
Etymology
Main article: Name of Afghanistan |
The root name "Afghān" is according to some scholars derived from the name of the Aśvakan or Assakan ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush region. Aśvakan literally means "horsemen" "horse breeders" or "cavalrymen" (from aśva or aspa the Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"). Historically the ethnonym Afghān was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns. The Arabic and Persian form of the name Afġān was first attested in the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam. The last part of the name "-stan" is a Persian suffix for "place of". Therefore "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans" or "land of the Pashtuns" in a historical sense. According to the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam:
The name Afghanistan (Afghānistān land of the Afghans/Pashtuns afāghina sing. afghān) can be traced to the early eighth/fourteenth century when it designated the easternmost part of the Kartid realm. This name was later used for certain regions in the Ṣafavid and Mughal empires that were inhabited by Afghans. While based on a state-supporting elite of Abdālī/Durrānī Afghans the Sadūzāʾī Durrānī polity that came into being in 1160/1747 was not called Afghanistan in its own day. The name became a state designation only during the colonial intervention of the nineteenth century.
The modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that the word "Afghan" shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan.
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Afghanistan and Afghan diaspora |
The population of Afghanistan was estimated at 32.9 million as of 2019 by the Afghanistan Statistics and Information Authority whereas the UN estimates over 38.0 million. About 23.9% of them are urbanite 71.4% live in rural areas and the remaining 4.7% are nomadic. An additional 3 million or so Afghans are temporarily housed in neighboring Pakistan and Iran most of whom were born and raised in those two countries. As of 2013 Afghanistan was the largest refugee-producing country in the world a title held for 32 years.
The current population growth rate is 2.37% one of the highest in the world outside of Africa. This population is expected to reach 82 million by 2050 if current population trends continue. The population of Afghanistan increased steadily until the 1980s when civil war caused millions to flee to other countries such as Pakistan. Millions have since returned and the war conditions has meant a high fertility rate compared to global and regional trends. Afghanistan's healthcare has recovered since the turn of the century causing falls in infant mortality and increases in life expectancy. This (along with other factors such as returning refugees) caused rapid population growth in the 2000s that has only recently started to slow down.
Ethnic groups
Main article: Ethnic groups in Afghanistan |
Afghanistan's population is divided into several ethnolinguistic groups. The ethnicities are represented on the table on the right. The percentages given are estimates only as accurate and current statistical data on ethnicity are not available. Generally the four major ethnic groups are the Pashtuns Tajiks Hazaras and Uzbeks. A further 10 other ethnic groups are recognized and each are represented in the Afghan National Anthem.
Languages
Main article: Languages of Afghanistan |
Dari and Pashto are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. Dari which is a variety of and mutually intelligible with Persian (and very often called 'Farsi' by some Afghans like in Iran) functions as the lingua franca in Kabul as well as in much of the northern and northwestern parts of the country. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns although many of them are also fluent in Dari while some non-Pashtuns are fluent in Pashto. Despite the Pashtuns having been dominant in Afghan politics for centuries Dari remained the preferred language for government and bureaucracy.
There are a number of smaller regional languages including Uzbek Turkmen Balochi Pashayi and Nuristani.
When it comes to foreign languages among the populace many are able to speak or understand Hindustani (Urdu-Hindi) partly due to returning Afghan refugees from Pakistan and the popularity of Bollywood films respectively. English is also understood by some of the population and has been gaining popularity as of the 2000s. Some Afghans retain some ability of Russian which was taught to public schools during the 1980s.
Religion
Main article: Religion in Afghanistan |
An estimated 99.7% of the Afghan population is Muslim and most are thought to adhere to the Sunni Hanafi school. According to Pew Research Center as much as 90% are of the Sunni denomination 7% Shia and 3% non-denominational. The CIA Factbook variously estimates up to 89.7% Sunni or up to 15% Shia. Dr Michael Izady estimated 70% of the population to be followers of Sunni Islam 25% Imami Shia Islam 4.5% Ismaili Shia Islam and 0.5% other religions.
Thousands of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are also found in certain major cities (namely Kabul Jalalabad Ghazni Kandahar) accompanied by gurdwaras and mandirs. There was a small Jewish community in Afghanistan who had emigrated to Israel and the United States by the end of the twentieth century; at least one Jew Zablon Simintov remains who is the caretaker of the only remaining synagogue. Afghan Christians who number 500–8 000 practice their faith secretly due to intense societal opposition and there are no public churches.
Urbanisation
As estimated by the CIA World Factbook 26% of the population was urbanized as of 2020. This is one of the lowest figures in the world; in Asia it is only higher than Cambodia Nepal and Sri Lanka. Urbanization has increased rapidly particularly in the capital Kabul due to returning refugees from Pakistan and Iran after 2001 internally displaced people and rural migrants. Urbanization in Afghanistan has been noted to be different than traditional urbanization in that it's centered on a few cities rather than evenly spread out nationwide.
The only city with over a million residents is its capital Kabul located in the east of the country. The other large cities are located generally in the "ring" around the Central Highlands namely Kandahar in the south Herat in the west Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz in the north and Jalalabad in the east.
| Rank | Name | Province | Pop. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kabul Kandahar | 1 | Kabul | Kabul Province | 4 273 200 | Herat <img alt="" class="immediate ntmb" data-fh="1400" data-fw="1874" data-h="180" data-href="/wiki/File:Nowruz_in_northern_Afghanistan-2011.jpg" data-original="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Nowruz_in_northern_Afghanistan-2011.jpg/240px-Nowruz_in_northern_Afghanistan-2011.jpg" data-w="240" height="90" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Nowruz_in_northern_Afghanistan-2011.jpg/240px-Nowruz_in_northern_Afgha
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 التعليقات
لم يعلق احد حتى الآن .. كن اول من يعلق بالضغط هنا أقسام دليل الهاتف و بدالة أرقام الإمارات متنوعة en و عملت لخدمة الزائر ليسهل عليه تصفح الموقع بسلاسة وأخذ المعلومات تصفح هذا الموضوع Afghanistan ويمكنك مراسلتنا في حال الملاحظات او التعديل او الإضافة او طلب حذف الموضوع ...آخر تعديل اليوم 18/03/2023
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