Proper noun

Afghanistan

1. A landlocked country in Central Asia. Official name: Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Capital: Kabul. Official languages: Persian (Dari), Pashto.

Related terms

Afghan, Afghani

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in South-Central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East. It is bordered by Iran in the west, Pakistan in the south and east, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.

The geographic entity now known as Afghanistan has a very long history, and has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and migration. It is an important geostrategic location, connecting East and West Asia or the Middle East. The land has been a target of various invaders, as well as a source from which local powers invaded neighboring regions to form their own empires. Ahmad Shah Durrani created the Durrani Empire in 1747, which is considered the beginning of modern Afghanistan. Its capital was shifted later from Kandahar to Kabul and most of its territories ceded to neighboring empires. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in "The Great Game" played between the British Empire and Russian Empire. On August 19, 1919, following the third Anglo-Afghan war, the country regained independence from the United Kingdom over its foreign affairs.

Since the late 1970s Afghanistan has experienced a continuous state of civil war punctuated by foreign occupations in the forms of the 1979 Soviet invasion and the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government. In late 2001 the United Nations Security Council authorized the creation of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) composed of NATO troops. The country is being rebuilt by international support, while dealing with a strong insurgency.

Origin of the name

The first part of the name, "Afghan", appears in early scriptures and Ahmed Shah Durrani used the Afghan identity to unite the country. The ruling entity during the Durrani Empire were Pashtuns who were stretched from what is today Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Due to majority being Pashtuns, the misconception that Afghans are only Pashtun has sometimes been propagated by neighboring countries, perhaps even at times to distort the history of Afghans. While it is true that all Pashtuns are Afghans because the region was encompassed by them during the Durrani Empire, the term Afghan refers to Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Pashtun, Balochs and many other ethnic groups of Afghanistan. many used it as an alternative name for the Pashtuns who are the founders and the largest ethnic group of the country. Thus, every Pashtun is an Afghan by default of Abdali's empire But every Afghan is not a Pashtun. The term Afghan has been used as a name for the regions inhabitants since at least the Islamic period and onwards. In this regard the Encyclopædia Iranica states:

From a more limited, ethnological point of view, "Afghān" is the term by which the Persian-speakers of Afghanistan (and the non-Paštō-speaking ethnic groups generally) designate the Paštūn. The equation [of] Afghan [and] Paštūn has been propagated all the more, both in and beyond Afghanistan, because the Paštūn tribal confederation is by far the most important in the country, numerically and politically. The term "Afghān" has probably designated the Paštūn since ancient times. Under the form Avagānā, this ethnic group is first mentioned by the Indian astronomer Varāha Mihira in the beginning of the 6th century CE in his Brihat-samhita.

According to W. K. Frazier Tyler, M. C. Gillet and several other scholars, the word "Afghan" first appears in the 982 AD Hudud-al-Alam, where a reference is made to an Afghan village.

Saul, a pleasant village on a mountain. In it live Afghans.

Al-Biruni referred to Afghans as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of the Indus River, which would be the Sulaiman Mountains. A Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battuta, visiting Kabul in 1333 writes:

We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans.

This information is supported by traditional Pashto literature, for example, in the writings of the 17th-century Pashto poet Khushal Khan Khattak:

Pull out your sword and slay any one, that says Pashtun and Afghan are not one! Arabs know this and so do Romans: Afghans are Pashtuns, Pashtuns are Afghans!

The last part of the name, -stān is an ancient Indo-Iranian suffix for "place", prominent in the regional languages. The name Afghānistān may come from the Sanskrit word Upaganasthan meaning 'land of the allied tribes'.

The term "Afghanistan," meaning the "Land of Afghans," was mentioned by the 16th century Mughal Emperor Babur in his memoirs, referring to the territories south of Kabul that were inhabited by Afghans. Until the 19th century the name was only used for the traditional lands of the Pashtuns, while the kingdom as a whole was known as the Kingdom of Kabul, as mentioned by the British statesman and historian Mountstuart Elphinstone. Other parts of the country were at certain periods recognized as independent kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of Balkh in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. With the expansion and centralization of the country, Afghan authorities adopted and extended the name "Afghanistan" to the entire kingdom, after its English translation had already appeared in various treaties between the British Raj and Qajarid Persia, referring to the lands subject to the Pashtun Barakzai Dynasty of Kabul. "Afghanistan" as the name for the entire kingdom was mentioned in 1857 by Friedrich Engels. It became the official name when the country was recognized by the world community in 1919, after regaining full independence over its foreign affairs from the British, and was confirmed as such in the nation's 1923 constitution.

See also:

• Society: Issues: Human Rights and Liberties: Regional: Asia: Afghanistan (11)

• Eyewitness Accounts of Taliban Massacre in Yakaolang
  rawa.org
  Describes a massacre of around 300 people in Yakaolang, in January, 2001 by the Taliban, with photos and links. Documented by the Revolutionary Association of Women if Afghanistan.
• Taliban
  hazara.net
  Documents actions of genocide by the Taliban in Afghanistan, its declarations authorizing such, plus mass executions, destruction of historical relects and other acts.