Afghan (ethnonym)

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The ethnonym Afghan (Dari Persian/Pashto: افغان) has been used historically to refer to the Pashtuns.^[1] Since the second half of the twentieth century, the term "Afghan" evolved into a demonym for all residents of Afghanistan, including those outside of the Pashtun ethnicity.^[1][2]

The earliest mention of the name Afghan (Abgân) is by Shapur I of the Sassanid Empire during the 3rd century CE.^[3] In the 4th century, the word "Afghans/Afghana" (αβγανανο) was used in reference to a particular people as mentioned in the Bactrian documents.^[4][5]

"To Ormuzd Bunukan, from Bredag Watanan ... greetings and homage from ... the sotang (?) of Parpaz (under) the glorious Yabghu of Hephthal, the chief of the Afghans, the judge of Tukharistan and Gharchistan. Moreove, a letter [has come hither] from you, so I have heard how [you have] written to me concerning my health. I arrived in good health (and) afterwards (?) I heard that a message was sent thither to you (saying ) thus : ... look after the farming but the order was given to you thus. You should hand over the grain and then request it from the citizens store: I will not order, so ... I myself order and in respect of winter sends men thither to you then look after the farming. To Ormuzd Bunukan, Greetings."

— Bactrian documents, 4th century

"because [you] (pl.), the clan of the Afghans, said thus to me: ... And you should not have denied (?) the men of Rob^[6] [that] the Afghans took (away) the horses."

— Bactrian documents, 4th century, Sims-Williams 2007b, pp. 90-91.

"[To...]-bid the Afghan... Moreover, they are in [War]nu (?) because of the Afghans, so [you should] impose a penalty on Nat Kharagan ... ... Lord of Warnu with ... ... ...the Afghan... ..."

— Bactrian documents, 4th century, Sims-Williams 2007b, pp. 90-91.

The name of the Aśvakan or Assakan has been preserved in that of the modern Pashtun, with the name Afghan being derived from Asvakan.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]}

The term "Afghan" is later recorded in the 6th century CE in the form of "Avagāṇa" [अवगाण]^[15] by the Indian astronomer Varāha Mihira in his Brihat-samhita.^[16][17]

"It would be unfavourable to the people of Chola, the Afghans (Avagāṇa), the white Huns and the Chinese."^[17]

— Varāha Mihira, 6th century CE, chapt. 11, verse 61.

The word Afghan also appeared in the 982 Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, where a reference is made to the village of Saul, which was estimated to be located near Gardez, in the Paktia province of Afghanistan.^[18]

"Saul, a pleasant village on a mountain. In it live Afghans."^[18]

Hudud al-'Alam also speaks of a king in Ninhar (Nangarhar), who had Muslim, Afghan and Hindu wives.^[19]

"Ninhar, a place of which the king makes a show of Islam, and has many wives, (namely) over thirty Muslim, Afghan, and Hindu (wives). The rest of the people are idolaters. In (Ninhar) there are three large idols."

In the 11th century, Afghans are mentioned in al-Biruni's Tarikh-ul Hind ("History of the Indus"), which describes groups of rebellious Afghans in the tribal lands west of the Indus River in what is now known as Pakistan.^[18][20]

Al-Utbi, the Ghaznavid chronicler. In

n his Tarikh-i Yamini records that many Afghans and Khiljis (possibly the modern Ghilji) living between Laghman and Peshawar enlisted in the army of Sabuktigin after Jayapala was defeated.

"The Afghans and Khiljis who resided among the mountains having taken the oath of allegiance to Subooktugeen, many of them were enlisted in his army, after which he returned in triumph to Ghizny."^[21]

Al-Utbi further states that Afghans and Ghiljis made up a part of Mahmud Ghaznavi's army and were sent on his expedition to Tokharistan, while on another occasion Mahmud Ghaznavi attacked and punished a group of opposing Afghans, as also corroborated by Abulfazl Beyhaqi.^[22] It is recorded that Afghans were also enrolled in the Ghurid Kingdom (1148–1215).^[23] By the beginning of the Khilji dynasty in 1290, Afghans have been well known in northern India.

Ibn Battuta, a famous Moroccan traveler, visiting Afghanistan following the era of the Khilji dynasty in 1333 writes.

"We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by Afghans. They hold mountains and defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. Their principal mountain is called Kuh Sulayman. It is told that the prophet Sulayman [Solomon] ascended this mountain and having looked out over India, which was then covered with darkness, returned without entering it."^[24]

— Ibn Battuta, 1333

A 16th-century Muslim historian writing about the history of Muslim rule in the subcontinent states:

"He [Khalid bin Abdullah son of Khalid bin Walid] retired, therefore, with his family, and a number of Arab retainers, into the Sulaiman Mountains, situated between Multan and Peshawar, where he took up his residence, and gave his daughter in marriage to one of the Afghan chiefs, who had become a proselyte to Mahomedism. From this marriage many children were born, among whom were two sons famous in history. The one Lodhi, the other Sur; who each, subsequently, became head of the tribes which to this day bear their name. I have read in the Mutla-ul-Anwar, a work written by a respectable author, and which I procured at Burhanpur, a town of Khandesh in the Deccan, that the Afghans are Copts of the race of the Pharaohs; and that when the prophet Moses got the better of that infidel who was overwhelmed in the Red Sea, many of the Copts became converts to the Jewish faith; but others, stubborn and self-willed, refusing to embrace the true faith, leaving their country, came to India, and eventually settled in the Sulimany mountains, where they bore the name of Afghans."^[25]

— Ferishta, 1560-1620

The coined term of Afghanistan came into place in 1855, officially recognized by the British during the reign of Dost Mohammad Khan.^[26]

Some scholars suggest that the word "Afghan" is derived from the words awajan/apajan in Avestan and ava-Han/apa-Han in Sanskrit, which means "killing, striking, throwing and resisting, or defending." Under the Sasanians, and possibly the Parthian Empire, the word was used to refer to men of a certain Persian sect.^[27]

Another view is that the name Afghan evidently derives from the word Aśvakan which means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or "cavalrymen" (from aśva or aspa, the Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"), or the Assakenoi of Arrian, which was the name used for ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush.^[28][29] This view was propounded by scholars like Christian Lassen,^[8] J. W. McCrindle,^[30] M. V. de Saint Martin,^[9] and É. Reclus,^{[10][11][12][13][14][31]}

The Indian epic Mahabharata speaks about Kambojas among the finest horsemen,^[32] and ancient Pali texts describe their lands as the land of horses.^[33][34][35] Kambojas spoke Avestan language and followed Zoroastrianism.^[36][37] Some scholars believe Zoroastrianism originated in the land of Kambojas.^[38]

The last part of the name -stān is a Persian suffix for "place of". The Pashto translation of stogna is prominent in many languages of Asia. The name Afghanistan is mentioned in writing by the 16th century Mughal ruler Babur and his descendants, referring to the territory between Khorasan, Kabulistan, and the Indus River, which was inhabited by tribes of Afghans.

"The road from Khorasān leads by way of Kandahār. It is a straight level road, and does not go through any hill-passes... In the country of Kābul there are many and various tribes. Its valleys and plains are inhabited by Tūrks, Aimāks, and Arabs. In the city and the greater part of the villages, the population consists of Tājiks*(Sarts). Many other of the villages and districts are occupied by Pashāis, Parāchis, Tājiks, Berekis, and Afghans... In the hill-country to the north-east lies Kaferistān, such as Kattor and Gebrek. To the south is Afghānistān."^[39]

— Babur, 1525

The name "Afghanistan" is also mentioned in the writings of the 16th-century historian Ferishta:

"The men of Kábul and Khilj also went home; and whenever they were questioned about the Musulmáns of the Kohistán (the mountains), and how matters stood there, they said, "Don't call it Kohistán, but Afghánistán; for there is nothing there but Afgháns and disturbances." Thus it is clear that for this reason the people of the country call their home in their own language Afghánistán, and themselves Afgháns. The people of India call them Patán; however the reason for this is not known. But it occurs to me, that when, under the rule of Muhammadan sovereigns, Musulmáns first came to the city of Patná, and dwelt there, the people of India (for that reason) called them Patáns—but God knows!"^[40]

— Ferishta, 1560-1620

Regarding the modern state of Afghanistan, the Encyclopædia of Islam explains:^[41]

"The country now known as Afghanistan has borne that name only since the middle of the 18th century, when the supremacy of the Afghan race became assured: previously various districts bore distinct apellations, however the country was not a definite political unit, and its component parts were not bound together by any identity of race or language. The earlier meaning of the word was simply "the land of the Afghans", a limited territory which did not include many parts of the present state but did comprise large districts now either independent or within the boundary of British India (Pakistan)."^[42]

There are a number of other hypotheses suggested for the name historically, all of them obsolete.

• The "Maḫzan-e Afġān" by Nimat Allah al-Harawi, written in 1612 at the Mughal court, traces the name Afghan to an eponymous ancestor, an Afghana, identified as a grandson of Saul. Afghana was supposedly a son of Irmia (Jeremia), who was in turn a son of Saul (Talut). Afghana was orphaned at a young age, and brought up by David. When Solomon became king, Afghana was promoted as the commander-in-chief of the army. Neither Afghana nor Jeremia son of Saul figure in the Hebrew Bible. Some four centuries after Afghana, in the 6th century BCE, Bakhtunnasar, or Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babil, attacked the Kingdom of Judah and exiled the descendants of Afghana, some of whom went to the mountains of Ghor in present-day Afghanistan and some to the neighborhood of Mecca in Arabia. Until the time of Muhammad, the deported Children of Israel of the east continually increased in number in the countries around Ghor which included Kabul, Kandahar and Ghazni and made wars with the infidels around them. Khalid bin Walid is said to belong to the tribe of descendants of Afghana in the neighborhood of Mecca, although actually he was from the tribe of Quraysh. After conversion to Islam, Khalid invited his kinsmen, the Children of Israel of Ghor, to Islam. A deputation led by Qais proceeded to Medina to meet Muhammad and embraced Islam. Muhammad lavished blessings on them, and gave the name Abdur Rashid to Qais, who returned to Ghor successfully to propagate Islam. Qais had three sons, Sarban, Bettan and Ghourghusht, who are progenitors of the various Pashtun tribes.^[43]
• Samuel G. Benjamin (1887) derived the name Afghan from a term for 'wailing', which the Persians are said to have contemptuously used for their plaintive eastern neighbors.^[44]
• H. W. Bellew, in his 1891 An Inquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, believes that the name Afghan comes from Alban which derives from the Latin term albus, meaning "white", or "mountain", as mountains are often white-capped with snow (cf. Alps); used by Armenians as Alvan or Alwan, which refers to mountaineers, and in the case of transliterated Armenian characters, would be pronounced as Aghvan or Aghwan. To the Persians, this would further be altered to Aoghan, Avghan, and Afghan as a reference to the eastern highlanders or "mountaineers".
• Michanovsky suggests the name Afghan derives from Sanskrit Avagana, which in turn derives from the ancient Sumerian word for Badakhshan - Ab-bar-Gan, or "high country".^[45][46]
• Scholars such as Yu Gankovsky have attempted to link "Afghan" to an Uzbek word "Avagan" said to mean "original".^[47]

• List of country name etymologies
• Name of Afghanistan

• Biases and Controversies around the word "Afghan" – Nasimfekrat.com
• Fikrat, Mohammad Asef; Umar, Suheyl (2008). "Afghan". In Madelung, Wilferd; Daftary, Farhad (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica Online. Brill Online. ISSN 1875-9831.
• Hanifi, M. Jamil (2023). ""Afghan" in Afghanistan: Idols in the Land of Idols". Afghanistan. 6 (2): 151–177. doi:10.3366/afg.2023.0112.
• Kieffer, Ch. M. (1983). "Afghan". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume I/5: Adat–Afghanistan. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 481. ISBN 978-0-71009-094-2.