Kafiristan
Kafiristan
کافرستان | |
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Historical region of Afghanistan & Pakistan | |
![]() The Kafiristan region, located in the southern range of Hindu Kush | |
![]() Map showing present-day Nuristan Province of Afghanistan | |
Country | ![]() |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Kafiristan.gif/250px-Kafiristan.gif)
Kāfiristān, or Kāfirstān (
Kafiristan took its name from the enduring kafir (non-Muslim) Nuristani inhabitants who once followed a distinct form of ancient Hinduism mixed with locally developed accretions; they were thus known to the surrounding predominantly Sunni Muslim population as Kafirs, meaning "disbelievers" or "infidels".[1] They are closely related to the Kalash people, an independent people with a distinctive culture, language and religion.
The area extending from modern Nooristan to Kashmir was known as "Peristan", a vast area containing a host of "Kafir" cultures and Indo-European languages that became Islamized over a long period of time, which eventually led them to become Muslim on the orders of
Etymology
Kafiristan or Kafirstan is normally taken to mean "land [-stan] of the kafirs" in the Persian language, where the name کافر kafir is derived from the Arabic كافر kāfir, literally meaning a person who refuses to accept a principle of any nature and figuratively as a person refusing to accept Islam as his faith; it is commonly translated into English as a "non-believer". However, the influence from district names in Kafiristan of Katwar or Kator and the ethnic name Kati has also been suggested.[3] Kafiristan was inhabited by people who followed a form of Paganism before their conversion to Islam in 1895–1896.[1]
History of Kafiristan
Ancient history
History of Afghanistan | |
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Timeline | |
410–557 | |
Nezak Huns | 484–711 |
Ancient
Medieval history
The area extending from modern Nooristan to Kashmir was known as "Peristan", a vast area containing a host of "Kafir" cultures and Indo-European languages that became Islamized over a long period. Earlier, it was surrounded by Buddhist states and societies which temporarily extended literacy and state rule to the region. The journey to the region was perilous according to reports of Chinese pilgrims Faxian and Song Yun. The decline of Buddhism resulted in the region becoming heavily isolated. The Islamization of the nearby Badakhshan began in the 8th century and Peristan was surrounded by Muslim states in the 16th century. The Kalash people of lower Chitral are the last surviving heirs of the area.[11]
Another crusade against idolatry was at length resolved on; and Mahmud led the seventh one against Nardain, the then boundary of India, or the eastern part of the Hindu Kush; separating, as
Siah-Posh, or black-vested, by the Muslims of later times. In Nardain there was a temple, which the army of Ghazni destroyed; and brought from thence a stone covered with certain inscriptions, which were according to the Hindus, of great antiquity.[12]
Early modern and later history
The first European recorded as having visited Kafiristan was the
American adventurer Colonel
In 1883, William Watts McNair, a British surveyor on leave, explored the area disguised as a hakim. He reported on the journey later that year to the Royal Geographical Society.
George Scott Robertson, medical officer during the Second Anglo-Afghan War and later British political officer in the princely state of Chitral, was given permission to explore the country of the Kafirs in 1890–91. He was the last outsider to visit the area and observe these people's polytheistic culture before their conversion to Islam. Robertson's 1896 account was entitled The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Though some sub-groups such as the Kom paid tribute to Chitral, the majority of Kafiristan was left on the Afghan side of the frontier in 1893, when large areas of tribal lands between Afghanistan and British India were divided into zones of control by the Durand Line.
The territory between Afghanistan and
Abdur Rahman Khan's forces invaded Kafiristan in the winter of 1895–96 and captured it in 40 days according to his autobiography. Columns invaded it from the west through Panjshir to Kullum, the strongest fort of the region. The columns from the north came through Badakhshan and from the east through Asmar. A small column also came from south-west through Laghman. The Kafirs were resettled in Laghman while the region was settled by veteran soldiers and other Afghans.[17] The Kafirs were converted and some also converted to avoid the jizya.[16]
A few years after Robertson's visit, in 1895–96, Abdur Rahman Khan invaded and converted the Kafirs to Islam as a symbolic climax to his campaigns to bring the country under a centralised Afghan government. He had similarly subjugated the Hazara people in 1892–93. In 1896 Abdur Rahman Khan, who had thus conquered the region for Islam,[18] renamed the people the Nuristani ("Enlightened Ones" in Persian) and the land as Nuristan ("Land of the Enlightened").
Kafiristan was full of steep and wooded valleys. It was famous for its precise wood carving, especially of cedar-wood pillars, carved doors, furniture (including "
Those in the Kabul Museum were badly damaged under the Taliban but have since been restored.[20]A few hundred
In early 1991, the Republic of Afghanistan government recognized the de facto autonomy of Nuristan and created a new province of that name from districts of Kunar Province and Laghman Province.[21]
Appearances in culture
- Kafiristan is the setting of most of Rudyard Kipling's famous 1888 novella "The Man Who Would Be King". It was adapted into the 1975 film of the same name.
- English Nuristan and their attempt at the then-unprecedented feat of scaling the Mir Samirmountain.
- German author Herbert Kranz chose Kafiristan as the setting of his 1953 adventure novel In den Klauen des Ungenannten: Abenteuer in den Schluchten des Hindukusch.
- The Journey to Kafiristan is a German film by Donatello Dubini and Fosco Dubini recounting an overland journey by Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Ella Maillartfrom Geneva to Kabul.
- Umberto Eco mentions Kafiristan (as "Kefiristan") in "How to Travel with a Salmon",[22] where a bellboy spoke a dialect that was last heard in Kafiristan at the time of Alexander the Great.
- Nile, an American death metal band, wrote the song "Kafir" for their album Those Whom the Gods Detest which was inspired by Kafiristan.[23]
- In the novels based on Doom written by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver, and were published between June 1995 and January 1996, there is country called Kefiristan
- Kafiristan is the setting of the Madeleine Brent novel Stormswift
- Was cited in Season 5 Episode 4 of the hit show Hot in Cleveland as the destination where Victoria's husband, Emmett, is hiding away.
See also
- Nuristan Province
- Chiliss, an ancient people
- Kalash people
- Chitral Kalasha language
- Kho people
- Khowar language
- Nuristanis
- Nuristani languages
- Pashayi people
- Pashayi languages
- Shina people
- Shina language
References
- ^ a b Richard F. Strand (31 December 2005). "Richard Strand's Nuristân Site: Peoples and Languages of Nuristan". nuristan.info.
- ^ Alberto M. Cacopardo (2016). "Fence of Peristan – The Islamization of the "Kafirs" and Their Domestication". Archivio per l'Antropologia e la Etnologia. Società Italiana di Antropologia e Etnologia: 69, 77.
- C. E. Bosworth; E. Van Donzel; Bernard Lewis; Charles Pellat (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume IV. Brill. p. 409.
- ^ Ethnology of Ancient Bhārata, 1970, p. 112, Dr R. C. Jain; Ethnic Settlements in Ancient India: (a Study on the Puranic Lists of the Peoples of Bharatavarsa, 1955, p. 133, Dr S. B. Chaudhuri; The Cultural Heritage of India, 1936, p. 151, Sri Ramakrishna Centenary Committee; Geography of the Mahabharata, 1986, p 198, Bhagwan Singh Suryavanshi.
- ^ Su-kao-seng-chaun, Chapter 2, (no. 1493); Kai-yuan-lu, chapter 7; Publications, 1904, p 122-123, published by Oriental Translation Fund (Editors Dr T. W. Rhys Davis, S. W. Bushel, London, Royal Asiatic Society).
- ^ Geography of the Mahabharata, 1986, p. 183, B. S.Suryavanshi.
- ^ See:: T'se-fu-yuan-kuei, p 5024; Wen hisen t'ung-k'ao, 337: 45a; Diplomacy and Trade in the Chinese World, 589–1276, 2005, p. 345, Hans Bielenstein
- ^ Corpus II. 1, xxiv; Cambridge History of India, Vol i\I, p 587.
- ^ Ancient references like Mahabharata, Ramayana, etc profusely attest that the Kambojas produced and made use of woollen, fur and skin clothes and shawls, all embroidered with gold. Ancient Kambojas were noted for their horses, gold, woollen blankets, furry clothing, etc (Foundations of Indian Culture, 1990, p. 20, Dr Govind Chandra Pande – Spiritualism (Philosophy); Hindu World, Volume I, 1968, p. 520, Benjamin Walker etc.
- ^ Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, 1906, p. 54 & fn, By Samuel Beal.
- ^ Alberto M. Cacopardo (2016). "Fence of Peristan - The Islamization of the "Kafirs" and Their Domestication". Archivio per l'Antropologia e la Etnologia. Società Italiana di Antropologia e Etnologia: 69, 77.
- ^ K̲h̲ān̲, ʻAlī Muḥammad (1835). The Political and Statistical History of Gujarát. Translated by Bird, James. London: Richard Bentley. p. 29.
- ^ Pieter Vander Aa. "De Land-Reyse, door Benedictus Goes, van Lahor gedaan, door Tartaryen na China". Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps.
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(help) - ^ ISBN 978-0-330-46267-9.
- ISBN 9781107662094.
- ^ ISBN 9780520294134.
- ISBN 9781317845874.
- ^ Tanner, Stephen. Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002. p. 64
- ^ Edelberg, Lennart. "Statues de bois rapporte‚ es du Kafiristan aà Kabul apreàs la conquête de cette province par l'Emir Abdul Rahman en 1895/96," Arts Asiatiques 7, 1960, pp. 243–286
- ^ "R20405 KAkir sculpture from Nuristan destroyed by the talibans then restored". reportages-pictures.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
- ISBN 9780190229276.
- ^ Eco, Umberto (February 22, 2016). "How to Travel with a Salmon". The Paris Review. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
- ^ "Those Whom the Gods Detest Liner Notes". Scribd. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
- Greg, Mortenson. Stones into Schools. Penguin Books, 2009; p. 259
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. .
- Map of Kafiristan 1881. Contributors Royal Geographical Society (Great Britain)