People In 2014 the population of Afghanistan was estimated to be 31,822,848 However exact data for the number of people living in the country have long been unavailable because there has not been a nationwide census official population count since 1979 Even the 1979 census was unreliable because of conflict in parts of the country A new census is under way backed by the United Nations UN The people of Afghanistan come from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and speak many different languages The majority of Afghans belong to one of two Indo-European ethnic groups the Pashtuns and the Tajiks The Pashtuns make up between 36 and 42 percent of the population and live mainly in the south and east The Tajiks account for between 27 and 33 percent of the population and are found mainly in the northern provinces of Afghanistan The next-largest ethnic group the Hazaras are about 9 percent of the population They live in 8 Hazara women in the town of Bamian are caught by a strong gust of wind The women run a bakery that provides rations of bread to elementary school children The central region of Afghanistan where many Hazaras live is known as Hazarajat the central mountainous regions of the country In the north are two Turkic groups the Uzbeks and the Turkmen who account for roughly 9 CASE STUDY THE PASHTUNS The Pashtuns make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and since the founding of the country in 1747 see page 11 they have traditionally held the balance of power Every ruler of Afghanistan from 1747 until 1978 was a Pashtun However the Pashtuns are themselves divided into tribal groups with strong loyalties within the groups Pashtun behavior is governed by an ancient set of laws called Pashtunwali the way of the Pashtuns which stresses family honor and vengeance for insults and also personal bravery and generous hospitality
INTRODUCTION and 3 percent of the population respectively Other minority groups in Afghanistan include the Aimak the Baloch the Nuristani and the Pashai Languages Both Pashto and Dari are the official languages of Afghanistan Pashto is the language of the Pashtuns and it is spoken by approximately 35 percent of the people Dari is a form of the Persian language often known as Afghan Persian or Afghan Farsi It is used for business and government matters and is spoken by roughly 50 percent of the population There are as many as 30 other languages spoken in the country including two Turkic languages Uzbek and Turkmen Many people speak two or more languages Religion The dominant religion in Afghanistan is Islam 99 percent of the population is Muslim The majority about 80 percent belong to the Sunni branch of Islam while a minority of about 19 percent mostly the Hazara community are Shia Muslims There are some groups of Hindus and Sikhs the members of the small Jewish community have left the country The Islamic religion plays an important part in the life of most Afghans and mullahs religious leaders hold positions of some power in many communities A Pashtun boy sits on a hill south of Kabul It is estimated that there are roughly 60 Pashtun tribes organized into four larger groups 9
CHAPTER 2 History Afghanistan has been described by one historian as the hub of the ancient world Its geographical location at the crossroads of central west and south Asia has played a major part in shaping its history because settlers travelers and armies have all passed through The earliest settlements in the region have been dated back to between 3000 and 2000 BCE on the Plateau of Iran Between 2000 and 1500 BCE Aryan peoples migrated into the region Some of them settled with their flocks of sheep and goats on the northern plains while others established settlements in the region that is modern-day Kabul Ancient empires During the reign of the Persian king Darius the Great ruled 522 486 BCE large parts of Afghanistan came under the control of the Persian Empire However Persian rule was constantly challenged by local peoples and in 330 BCE the Macedonian king Alexander the Great defeated the Persians Alexander encountered somewhat more resistance as he tried to subdue the fierce peoples of Afghanistan After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE his vast empire was divided up and much of Afghanistan came under the control of one of Alexander’s generals Seleucus He established the Seleucid state in the north but lost territories in the south 10 to the Indian Mauryan Empire In 250 BCE the Greek ruler of Bactria a region in northern Afghanistan declared independence from Seleucid rule Greek influence in this area was to last until the arrival of the Parthians and the Kushans and the Tajiks of northern Afghanistan trace part of their ancestry back to the Greco Bactrians Muslims and Mongols In 625 CE armies from the Arabian Peninsula arrived in the region carrying with them news of a new religion Islam The Muslims conquered the Persian Sassanians who held power at that time but the Afghan peoples were not so easily subdued or converted to the new faith It was not until the tenth century that the first Islamic empire the Ghaznavid dynasty with its base at Ghazni near Kabul was established in the region The arrival in 1219 of the Mongols led by their ruler Genghis Khan was catastrophic for the population of the region The Mongols slaughtered thousands of people destroyed cities including Herat and Ghazni and turned fertile land into desert by wrecking irrigation systems The Mongol empire fell apart after Genghis Khan’s death in 1227 was revived in the fourteenth century by Timur and was finally defeated by the Mughals in 1526
Afghanistan emerges As part of the vast Mughal empire Afghanistan was constantly being invaded and fought over by the Mughals the Safavids to the west and the Uzbeks to the north In the eighteenth century the Afghans Pashtuns rose against the Persian Safavids In 1747 a Pashtun called Ahmad sought to unite the Afghan peoples against further invasion Ahmad was elected shah king and throughout his reign 1747 72 he fought to create a kingdom that eventually covered much the same territory as modern-day Afghanistan This oval portrait shows Ahmad Shah Durrani c 1722 1772 wearing a green fur trimmed coat and holding an ax Ahmad Shah had 23 sons but on his death failed to say which one should succeed him Over the following years the princes plotted against each other while Ahmad’s Afghan empire fell apart HISTORY FOCUS PEARL OF PEARLS Ahmad Shah came from the Abdali tribe of the Pashtuns When he was elected king he adopted the title Durrani pearl of pearls From that time on the Abdali tribe were known as the Durrani 11
