Muslim conquests of Afghanistan

Minaret of Jam built by the Ghurid dynasty

The Muslim conquests of Afghanistan began during the Muslim conquest of Persia as the Arab Muslims migrated eastwards to Khorasan, Sistan and Transoxiana. Fifteen years after the battle of Nahāvand in 642 AD, they controlled all Sasanian domains except in Afghanistan.[1] Fuller Islamization was not achieved until the period between 10th and 12th centuries under Ghaznavid and Ghurid dynasties who patronized Muslim religious institutions.[2]

Khorasan and Sistan, where Zoroastrianism was well-established, were conquered.[3] The Arabs had begun to move towards the lands east of Persia in the 7th century.[4] The Muslim frontier in modern Afghanistan had become stabilized after the first century of the Lunar Hijri calendar as the relative importance of the Afghan areas diminished.[5] From historical evidence, it appears Tokharistan (Bactria) was the only area conquered by Arabs where Buddhism heavily flourished.[6] Balkh's final conquest was undertaken by Qutayba ibn Muslim in 705.[7]

The eastern regions of Afghanistan were at times considered politically as parts of India.[8][9] Buddhism and Hinduism held sway over the region until the Muslim conquest.[10] Kabul and Zabulistan which housed Buddhism and other Indian religions, offered stiff resistance to the early Muslim advance.[3] Nevertheless, the Arab Umayyads regularly claimed nominal overlordship over the Zunbils and Kabul Shahis [11]

The expeditions of Caliph Al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833 AD) were the last by the Arabs on Kabul and Zabul.[12] The king of Kabul was captured by him and converted to Islam.[13] The last Zunbil was killed by Ya'qub bin al-Layth along with his former overlord Salih b. al-Nadr in 865.[14] Meanwhile, the Hindu Shahi of Kabul were defeated under Mahmud of Ghazni.[15] Indian soldiers were a part of the Ghaznavid army[16] and the 14th-century Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta described the Hindu Kush as meaning "slayer of Indians", because large numbers of slaves brought from India died from its treacherous weather.[17]

The geographer Ya'qubi states that the rulers of Bamiyan, called the Sher, converted in the late 8th century. Ya'qub is recorded as having plundered its pagan idols in 870 while a much later historian Shabankara'i claims that Alp-Tegin obtained conversion of its ruler in 962.[18] No permanent Arab control was established in Ghur[19] and it became Islamised after Ghaznavid raids.[20] By the time of Bahram-Shah, Ghur was converted and politically united.[21]

The Pashtun habitat during their conquest by Mahmud was located in the Sulaiman Mountains in the south of Afghanistan.[22] Prior to Pashtun migration to the Kabul River valley, Tajiks formed the dominant population of Kabul, Nangarhar, Logar Valley and Laghman in east Afghanistan.[23] The Pashtuns later began migrating westward from Sulaiman Mountains in the south, and displaced or subjugated the indigenous populations such as Tajiks, Hazaras, the Farsiwanis, Nuristanis and Pashayi people before or during 16th and 17th centuries.[24]

Before their conversion, the Nuristanis or Kafir people of Kafiristan practiced a form of ancient Hinduism infused with locally developed accretions.[25] The region from Nuristan to Kashmir was host to a vast number of "Kafir" cultures.[26] They remained politically independent until being conquered and converted under Afghan Amir Abdul Rahman Khan in 1895–1896.[27]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hind was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Nile Green (2017). Afghanistan's Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 9780520294134.
  3. ^ a b Nile Green (2017). Afghanistan's Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban. Cambridge University Press. pp. 44, 46–47. ISBN 9780520294134.
  4. ^ Historic Cities of the Islamic World, ed. C.E. Bosworth, (Brill, 2007), 153.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference André was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Musk was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gibb32 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Mehta, Jaswant Lal (1979). Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India. Sterling Publishers. p. 31. ISBN 9788120706170. Modern Afghanistan was part of ancient India; the Afghans belonged to the pale of Indo-Aryan civilisation. In the eighty century, the country was known by two regional names—Kabul land Zabul. The northern part, called Kabul (or Kabulistan) was governed by a Buddhist dynasty. Its capital and the river on the banks of which it was situated, also bore the same name. Lalliya, a Brahmin minister of the last Buddhist ruler Lagaturman, deposed his master and laid the foundation of the Hindushahi dynasty in c. 865.
  9. ^ Chandra, Satish (2006). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals. Har-Anand Publications. p. 41. ISBN 9788124110669. Although Afghanistan was considered an integral part of India in antiquity, and was often called "Little India" even in medieval times, politically it had not been a part of India after the downfall of the Kushan empire, followed by the defeat of the Hindu Shahis by Mahmud Ghazni.
  10. ^ Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (1951). The History and Culture of the Indian People: The Age of Imperial Unity. G. Allen & Unwin. p. 635.
  11. ^ Lee, Jonathan L.; Sims Williams, Nicholas (2003). "Bactrian Inscription from Yakawlang sheds new light on history of Buddhism in Afghanistan". Silk Road Art and Archaeology. 9: 167.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Majumdar1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Ahmad Hasan Dani, B.A. Litvinsky (January 1996). History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The crossroads of civilizations, A.D. 250 to 750. UNESCO. p. 470. ISBN 9789231032110.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bayne was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference Afghanistan Page 15 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fadl was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ransom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference monasteries was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference Variorum was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Satish2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference Habib was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ninhar was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Harlan 1939:127
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference DostMuhammad was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ Cite error: The named reference nuristan.info was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference academia was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference Pellat was invoked but never defined (see the help page).