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The Demographics of Afghanistan are ethnically and linguistically mixed. This reflects its location astride historic trade and invasion routes leading from Central Asia into South Asia and Southwest Asia. Afghanistan can be considered a country of minorities as there is no group serving as a majority. Rather, Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group followed by Tajiks as the second largest group, then Hazaras, Uzbeks tied for third, followed by the Aimak, Turkmen, Baluch, Nuristani and other small groups. Pashto and Persian (Dari) the two official languages of the country. Persian is spoken by at least half of the population and serves as a lingua franca for most. Pashto is spoken widely in the south, east and south west. Uzbek and Turkmen are spoken in the north. Smaller groups throughout the country also speak more than 70 other languages and numerous dialects.
The term Afghan, though (historically) synonymous with Pashtun, is promoted as a national identity.[3] It is, however, hard to combine the varying groups. Often the Pashtun are referred to as Afghans while other groups hold to their ethnic name (e.g., Tajiks are known as Tajiks, Turkmens are known as Turkmens, etc.). The citizens of Afghanistan are in many ways somewhat distinct from the notion of ethnic Afghans as a result of this understanding. In order to solve the problem, in recent years, the term Afghanistani[4] (meaning of or from Afghanistan and analogous to Uzbekistani[5], Pakistani[6], or Tajikistani[7]) has been suggested for the citizens of Afghanistan in contrast to (ethnic) Afghans who would be the Pashtuns. The idea is supported by some politicians in Afghanistan, such as Latif Pedram.
99% of Afghanistan's population adheres to Islam. An estimated 80% of the population is Sunni, following the Hanafi school of jurisprudence; 19% is predominantly Shi'a. Despite attempts during the years of communist rule to secularize Afghan society, Islamic practices pervade all aspects of life. In fact, Islam served as the principal basis for expressing opposition to communist rule and the Soviet invasion. Likewise, Islamic religious tradition and codes, together with traditional practices, provide the principal means of controlling personal conduct and settling legal disputes. Excluding urban populations in the principal cities, most Afghans are divided into tribal and other kinship-based groups, which follow traditional customs and religious practices.
Afghans as a whole draw their modern national identity from the founding of the Durrani Empire in the mid 18th century. From 1747 until 1823 Ahmed Shah Durrani born in Multan, Punjab in modern day Pakistan, his sons and grandsons held the monarchy in direct session. They were the first Pashtun rulers of Afghanistan, from the Sadozai line of the Abdali (known as the Durrani since Ahmad Shah's reign) group of clans. It was under the leadership of Ahmad Shah that the nation of Afghanistan began to take shape following centuries of fragmentation and exploitation. However each ethnic group has its own unique history which makes up the entire Afghan history.
There requires some realization that Afghan nationalism can be synonymous with that of Pashtun nationalism and as a result cannot be conflated into an Afghan national identity as the country is a multiethnic entity. This is further complicated by the fact that there are now more Pashtuns (ethnic Afghans) located in Pakistan than in Afghanistan itself which has resulted in the increased usage of the term Afghanistani to denote the inhabitants of the modern state of Afghanistan and its diverse population. Thus, there have been a variety of groups who have lived in what is today Afghanistan, but were not ethnic Afghans such as the aforementioned Tajiks as well as Uzbeks and Hazaras etc. who are currently divided as to what constitutes a national Afghan identity. Because Afghan history is fraught with regional cleavages any notion of an Afghan nation-state is largely absent until the 18th century and the rise of the Durrani Empire. For this reason, important figures from the past such as Avicenna and Rumi, who were of ethnic Persian (Tajik) identity, are often not identified as ethnic Afghans or even as Afghan people, at least according to academics, while they are generally included within the context of the collective history of the modern nation-state in the geographic sense.[8]
The Pashtuns (also known as Pakhtun or Pathan), are people that today reside mainly in southern and eastern Afghanistan and are also located in western Pakistan. Considerable pockets also exist throughout other parts of Afghanistan as Pashtuns have in recent times migrated, or have been forcefully displaced, to northern and western regions.[9] Smaller groups of Pashtuns are also found in Iran. There are many conflicting theories, some contemporary, some ancient, about the origins of the Pashtun people, both among historians and the Pashtun themselves. According to the writer W.K. Frazier Tyler writing in his book Afghanistan, "The word Afghan… first appears in history in the Hudud-al-Alam, a work by an unknown Arab geographer who wrote in 982 AD." Al-Biruni referred to Afghans as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of India, which would be the Sulaiman Mountains.[9] According to other sources, these tribes are the lost Jewish tribes that never returned and were converted to islam during the Arab Empire. Thus it is believed that the Pashtuns emerged from the area around the Sulaiman Mountains, and expanded from there.[10] The Afghan identity began to develop as Pashtun identity under the rule of Ahmad Shah Durrani who united the Pashtun (Afghan) chiefdoms in the middle of 18th century. Another boost took place under the rule of Abdur Rahman Khan who with British support further centralized the government. Until the advent of the modern "Afghan" state in the 20th century, the word Afghan had been synonymous with Pashtun.
The Persian-speaking Tajiks are closely related to the Persians of Iran and are amongst the oldest inhabitants of the region. They can trace their roots back to the original Eastern Iranian peoples that settled Central Asia in ancient times, such as the Bactrians, Sogdians, Scythians and Parthians, as well as ancient Persians who fled to Central Asia during the Arab Islamic expansion. The Tajiks also comprise the majority population of Tajikistan and are found in large numbers in Uzbekistan and Iran as well as parts of western Pakistan and the Xinjiang province of western China.
Sub-groups of the Tajiks include the Farsiwan and the Qizilbash. The major difference between them is that they are generally of the Shia sect while other Tajiks are of the Sunni sect.
Despite being the indigenous peoples responsible for carrying on civilized society through the centuries, since the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, Tajiks have never ruled from first hand the region that is today Afghanistan — with the exception of the Kartids, the Ganjshakariyyas of Kabulistan and the short 10-month rule of Habibullah Kalakani in 1929.[11]
In modern Afghanistan, Tajiks have been mainly known for being bureaucrats, educators, doctors, teachers, professors, artisans and especially successful merchants and entrepreneurs.[11]Some were also ministers.
The Hazaras are a Persianized Eurasian people who reside mainly in the Hazarajat region. The Hazara seem to have Mongolian origins with some admixture from surrounding indigenous groups. Linguistically the Hazara speak a dialect of Persian and sometimes their variant is interspersed with more Mongolian words. It is commonly believed by many Afghans that the Hazara are descendants of Genghis Khan's army, which marched into the area during the 12th century. Proponents of this view hold that many of the Mongol soldiers and their family members settled in the area and remained there after the Mongol empire dissolved in the 13th century, converting to Islam and adopting local customs. Unlike most Afghans the Hazara are Shia, which has often set them apart from their neighbors. There are sizeable Hazara communities in Pakistan particularly in Quetta as well as in Iran.
The Uzbeks are the main Turkic people of Afghanistan and are found mainly in the northern regions of the country. Most likely the Uzbeks migrated with a wave of Turkic invaders and intermingled with local Iranian tribes over time to become the ethnic group they are today. By the 1500s the Uzbeks had settled throughout Central Asia and reached Afghanistan following the conquests of Muhammad Shaybani. Most Uzbeks are Sunni Muslim and are closely related to the Turkmen who also can be found in Afghanistan. The Uzbeks of Afghanistan are usually bilingual, fluent in both Persian and Uzbek. Physically, the Uzbek are generally Mongoloid.[2]
The Turkmen are the smaller Turkic group who can also be found in neighboring Turkmenistan, Iran particularly around Mashad and Pakistan. Largely Sunni Muslim, their origins are very similar to that of the Uzbeks. Unlike, the Uzbeks, however, the Turkmen are traditionally a nomadic people (though they were forced to abandon this way of life in Turkmenistan itself under Soviet rule). Physically, they are aquiline Mongoloid.[2]
The Baluch are another Iranian ethnic group that numbers around 200,000 in Afghanistan. The main Baloch areas located in Balochistan province in Pakistan and Sistan and Baluchistan province of Iran. Many also live in southern Afghanistan. They are most likely an offshoot of the Kurds and reached Afghanistan sometime between 1000 and 1300 BCE. Mainly pastoral and desert dwellers, the Baluch are also Sunni Muslim.
The Nuristani are an Indo-Iranian people, representing a fourth independent branch of the Aryan peoples (Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, and Dardic), who live in isolated regions of northeastern Afghanistan as well as across the border in the district of Chitral in Pakistan. They speak a variety of Nuristani languages. Better known historically as the Kafirs of what was once known as Kafiristan (land of pagans), they were forcibly converted to Islam during the rule of Amir Abdur Rahman and their country was renamed "Nuristan", meaning "Land of Light" (as in the light of Islam). A small unconquered portion of Kafiristan inhabited by the Kalash tribe who still practice their pre-Islamic religion still exists across the border in highlands of Chitral, northwestern Pakistan. Many Nuristanis believe that they are the descendants of Alexander the Great's ancient Greeks, but there is a lack of genetic evidence for this and they are more than likely an isolated pocket of early Aryan invaders. Physically, the Nuristani are of the Mediterranean sub-stock with about one-third recessive blondism.[2] They are largely Sunni Muslims.
Smaller groups include the Pashai, Aimak, Kyrgyz, Brahui, and Arabs.
There are a variety of languages in Afghanistan of which the largest and official ones are Persian (Dari) and Pashto. Other significant languages include the Turkmen and the Uzbek languages.
About 99% of Afghanistan's population is Muslim with the majority as Sunni Muslims. Approximately 15% are Shiites. Before Islam's arrival, the region was predominantly Zoroastrian and Buddhist. Recent media attention to the arrest of a Christian convert indicates that there is a very small community of Christians living inside and outside Afghanistan
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Based on official census numbers from the 1960s to the 1980s, as well as information found in mainly scholarly sources, the Encyclopædia Iranica[2] gives the following list: |
An approximate distribution of ethnic groups based on the CIA World Factbook[1] is as following:
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An approximate distribution of languages based on the CIA World Factbook[1] is as following:
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