Afghan (ethnonym)

Bactrian document in the Greek script from the 4th century mentioning the word Afghan (αβγανανο): "From Ormuzd Bunukan to Bredag Watanan, the chief of the Afghans"

The earliest mention of the name Afghan (Abgân) is by Shapur I of the Sassanid Empire during the 3rd century CE.[3] In the 4th century, the word "Afghans/Afghana" (αβγανανο) as a reference to a particular people is mentioned in the Bactrian documents found in Northern Afghanistan.[4][5]

"To Ormuzd Bunukan ,from Bredag Watanan ... greetings and homage from ... ) , the ( sotang ( ? ) of Parpaz ( under ) [ the glorious ) yabghu of Hephthal , the chief of the Afghans , ' the judge of Tukharistan and Gharchistan . Moreover , ' a letter [ has come hither ] from you , so I have heard how [ you have ] written ' ' to me concerning ] my health . I arrived in good health , ( and ) ( afterwards ( ? ) ' ' I heard that a message ] was sent thither to you ( saying ) thus : ... look after the farming but the order was given to you thus. You should hand over the grain and then request it from the citizens store: I will not order, so.....I Myself order And I in Respect of winter sends men thither to you then look after the farming, To Ormuzd Bunukan, Greetings"

— the Bactrian documents, 4th century

"because [you] (pl.), the clan of the Afghans, said thus to me:...And you should not have denied? the men of Rob[6] [that] the Afghans took (away) the horses"

— the Bactrian documents, 4th century, Sims-Williams 2007b, pp. 90-91

"[To ...]-bid the Afghan... Moreover, they are in [War]nu(?) because of the Afghans, so [you should] impose a penalty on Nat Kharagan ... ...lord of Warnu with ... ... ...the Afghan... ... "

— the Bactrian documents, 4th century, Sims-Williams 2007b, pp. 90-91

The term "Afghan" is later recorded in the 6th century CE in the form of "Avagāṇa" [अवगाण][7] by the Indian astronomer Varāha Mihira in his Brihat-samhita.[8][9]

"It would be unfavourable to the people of Chola, the Afghans (Avagāṇa), the white Huns and the Chinese."[9]

— Varāha Mihira, 6th century CE, chapt. 11, verse 61

The word Afghan also appeared in the 982 Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, where a reference is made to the village of Saul, which was probably located near Gardez, in the Paktia province of Afghanistan.[10]

"Saul, a pleasant village on a mountain. In it live Afghans".[10]

Hudud ul-'alam also speaks of a king in Ninhar (Nangarhar), who had Muslim, Afghan and Hindu wives.[11]

"Ninhar, a place of which the king makes a show of Islam, and has many wives, (namely) over thirty Muslim, Afghan, and Hindu (wives). The rest of the people are idolaters. In (Ninhar) there are three large idols".

In the 11th century, Afghans are mentioned in Al-Biruni's Tarikh-ul Hind ("History of the Indus"), which describes groups of rebellious Afghans in the tribal lands west of the Indus River in what is today Pakistan.[10][12]

Al-Utbi, the Ghaznavid chronicler, in his Tarikh-i Yamini records that many Afghans and Khiljis (possibly the modern Ghilji) enlisted in the army of Sabuktigin after Jayapala was defeated.

"The Afghans and Khiljis who resided among the mountains having taken the oath of allegiance to Subooktugeen, many of them were enlisted in his army, after which he returned in triumph to Ghizny."[13]

Al-Utbi further states that Afghans and Ghiljis made up a part of Mahmud Ghaznavi's army and were sent on his expedition to Tocharistan, while on another occasion Mahmud Ghaznavi attacked and punished a group of opposing Afghans, as also corroborated by Abulfazl Beyhaqi.[14] It is recorded that Afghans were also enrolled in the Ghurid Kingdom (1148–1215).[15] By the beginning of the Khilji dynasty in 1290, Afghans have been well known in northern India.

Ibn Battuta, a famous Moroccan traveler, visiting Afghanistan following the era of the Khilji dynasty in 1333 writes.

"We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by Afghans. They hold mountains and defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. Their principal mountain is called Kuh Sulayman. It is told that the prophet Sulayman [Solomon] ascended this mountain and having looked out over India, which was then covered with darkness, returned without entering it."[16]

— Ibn Battuta, 1333

A 19th century Lithography collection showing two Afghan Durrani soldiers.

A 16th-century Muslim historian writing about the history of Muslim rule in the subcontinent states:

"He [Khalid bin Abdullah son of Khalid bin Walid] retired, therefore, with his family, and a number of Arab retainers, into the Sulaiman Mountains, situated between Multan and Peshawar, where he took up his residence, and gave his daughter in marriage to one of the Afghan chiefs, who had become a proselyte to Mahomedism. From this marriage many children were born, among whom were two sons famous in history. The one Lodhi, the other Sur; who each, subsequently, became head of the tribes which to this day bear their name. I have read in the Mutla-ul-Anwar, a work written by a respectable author, and which I procured at Burhanpur, a town of Khandesh in the Deccan, that the Afghans are Copts of the race of the Pharaohs; and that when the prophet Moses got the better of that infidel who was overwhelmed in the Red Sea, many of the Copts became converts to the Jewish faith; but others, stubborn and self-willed, refusing to embrace the true faith, leaving their country, came to India, and eventually settled in the Sulimany mountains, where they bore the name of Afghans."[17]

— Ferishta, 1560-1620

The coined term of Afghanistan came into place in 1855, officially recognized by the British during the reign of Dost Mohammad Khan.[18]

Some scholars suggest that the word "Afghan" is derived from the words awajan/apajan in Avestan and ava-Han/apa-Han in Sanskrit, which means "killing, striking, throwing and resisting, or defending." Under the Sasanians, and possibly the Parthian Empire, the word was used to refer to men of a certain Persian sect.[19] However, others such as Ibrahim Khan have contended that the word Afghan comes from Bactrian.[20]

The etymological view supported by numerous scholars is that the name Afghan evidently derives from Sanskrit Aśvakan, or the Assakenoi of Arrian, which was the name used for ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush.[21] Aśvakan means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or "cavalrymen" (from aśva or aspa, the Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse").[22] This view was propounded by scholars like Christian Lassen,[23] J. W. McCrindle,[24] M. V. de Saint Martin,[25] and É. Reclus,[26][27][28][29][30][31]

The Indian epic Mahabharata speaks about Kambojas among the finest horsemen,[32] and ancient Pali texts describe their lands as the land of horses.[33][34][35] Kambojas spoke Avestan language and followed Zoroastrianism.[36][37] Some scholars believe Zoroastrianism originated in the land of Kambojas.[38]

There are a number of other hypotheses suggested for the name historically, all of them obsolete.

• The "Maḫzan-e Afġān" by Nimat Allah al-Harawi, written in 1612 at the Mughal court, traces the name Afghan to an eponymous ancestor, an Afghana, identified as a grandson of Saul. Afghana was supposedly a son of Irmia (Jeremia), who was in turn a son of Saul (Talut). Afghana was orphaned at a young age, and brought up by David. When Solomon became king, Afghana was promoted as the commander-in-chief of the army. Neither Afghana nor Jeremia son of Saul figure in the Hebrew Bible. Some four centuries after Afghana, in the 6th century BCE, Bakhtunnasar, or Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babil, attacked the Kingdom of Judah and exiled the descendants of Afghana, some of whom went to the mountains of Ghor in present-day Afghanistan and some to the neighborhood of Mecca in Arabia. Until the time of Muhammad, the deported Children of Israel of the east continually increased in number in the countries around Ghor which included Kabul, Kandahar and Ghazni and made wars with the infidels around them. Khalid bin Walid is said to belong to the tribe of descendants of Afghana in the neighborhood of Mecca, although actually he was from the tribe of Quraysh. After conversion to Islam, Khalid invited his kinsmen, the Children of Israel of Ghor, to Islam. A deputation led by Qais proceeded to Medina to meet Muhammad and embraced Islam. Muhammad lavished blessings on them, and gave the name Abdur Rashid to Qais, who returned to Ghor successfully to propagate Islam. Qais had three sons, Sarban, Bettan and Ghourghusht, who are progenitors of the various Pashtun tribes.[43]
• Samuel G. Benjamin (1887) derived the name Afghan from a term for 'wailing', which the Persians are said to have contemptuously used for their plaintive eastern neighbors.[44]
• H. W. Bellew, in his 1891 An Inquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, believes that the name Afghan comes from Alban which derives from the Latin term albus, meaning "white", or "mountain", as mountains are often white-capped with snow (cf. Alps); used by Armenians as Alvan or Alwan, which refers to mountaineers, and in the case of transliterated Armenian characters, would be pronounced as Aghvan or Aghwan. To the Persians, this would further be altered to Aoghan, Avghan, and Afghan as a reference to the eastern highlanders or "mountaineers".
• Michanovsky suggests the name Afghan derives from Sanskrit Avagana, which in turn derives from the ancient Sumerian word for Badakhshan - Ab-bar-Gan, or "high country".[45][46]
• Scholars such as Yu Gankovsky have attempted to link "Afghan" to an Uzbek word "Avagan" said to mean "original".[47]

• List of country name etymologies
• Name of Afghanistan

• Biases and Controversies around the word "Afghan" – Nasimfekrat.com
• Fikrat, Mohammad Asef; Umar, Suheyl (2008). "Afghan". In Madelung, Wilferd; Daftary, Farhad (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica Online. Brill Online. ISSN 1875-9831.
• Kieffer, Ch. M. (1983). "Afghan". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume I/5: Adat–Afghanistan. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 481. ISBN 978-0-71009-094-2.