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Afghanistan has had a turbulent, troubled history. One factor is that the political entity of Afghanistan is an artificial creation. It is the geographic territory that emerged as a buffer state between the Russian and the British Empires. In effect, it was the interstice of the British and Russian Empires. As such there is little political coherence to Afghanistan. The ethnic groups at the borders of the Russian and British Empires were split so Afghanistan ended up with the Pushtuns and Baluchis who did not get incorporated in the British Empire and the Uzbeks, Turkomen and Tajiks who did not get incorporated in the Russian Empire. Added to these were the Persians and others who settled in the area of Afghanistan when it was part of the Persian Empire. A schematic depiction of the historical areas of some of the various ethnic groups is shown below.
These pieces of tribal groups did not have a culture and language in common. It was thus left for them to fight against each other for place and dominance. The Pushtuns (a.k.a Pathans) are the politically dominant ethnic group but there have of course been disputes among the Pashtuns.
When Alexander of Macedon marched his army through what is now Afghanistan in 329 BCE his mother sent him a message from Greece asking why it was taking him so long in that part of the world. Alexander wanted to reply in effect that it was because the people there would fight each other over a fistful of dust, but sent this message in a unique way. He sent four Afghans and pailfull of dirt to Greece so his mother could see for herself that Afghans would fight with each other over a fistful of dust.
The distribution of the ethnic groups is better understood in view of the geography of Afghanistan, wich is shown below.
Among the Pashtuns, who constitute about 40 percent of the population of Afghanistan, there are two major tribal confederations, the Durani and the Ghilzais.
Within the Durani group of tribes there are two main subgroups; the Ziraks and the Panjpass. The Ziraks subgroups consist of the following tribes:
Historically the members of the Mohammadzais lineage of the Barakzais tribe constituted a political elite among the Pashtuns. In the past the king had to come from this political elite.
Within the Ghilzais confederation of tribes there are two major groupings, the Turans and the Burans. The tribes of Hotake, Ahmadzais and Babis. are important members of the Ghilzais grouping.
Beside the major confederations of the Durani and the Ghilzais there are several other important important tribes. These include the Yasufzai, the Mohmands, the Afridis, and the Shinwaris. There are many smaller, unaffiliated tribes. The Waziris and the Mangals are two of these smaller, unaffiliated tribes.
The name Tajik is applied to peoples of disparate origins. The common element among the Tajiks is language. All speak Farsi, the language of Iran. The city dwellers are called the Farsiwan. Sometime ago the Afganistan government changed the name of Farsi to Dari in order to play down the culture links of the Afghan population to Iran.
The people of the Hazarajat, the mountainous region southwest of Kabul, have the most interesting background. The people are Turko-mongolian in origin, but they speak Dari and are Shiite muslims. There is another tribe called Hazaras among the Tajiks of the Herat area. These two Hazaras deny any relationship to the other. The basis for two group with nothing in common but their name seems to be related to the word hazara, which means thousand in Farsi. This was probably a thousand-man unit of the army and most likely different thousand-man units were sent into different areas to control the territory. The army personnel settled down and raised families and the local population referred to them as the Hazaras.
The people of the Hazarajat are Shiite muslim because the occupation of that mountainous territory came later than other areas and at a time after Iran had converted to Shi'ism.
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