Re: Ethnic divide creates ripples among Pakistani community
By the way, I found an article that claims that Pathans may be descendants of white Huns who were also the ancestors of the HINDU rajputs.. Just for those who like to trumpet their gene pools…
Its not relevent here, but if anyone to see the article…
The article also says that Pathans may have descended from the same central Asian tribes that were ancestors of the PUNJABI TRIBES… HAAA Put that in your pipe and smoke it Warrior…
ORIGIN AS TRACED BY MODERN SCHOLARS
They are of the view that there might have been some settlements of the Jews in the area in 800 B.C. or so; similarly, some remnants of the Aryans might have been left in the inaccessible mountains in days of yore; and that there did exist some Greek and Iranian colonies here and there. But from 1st century B.C. to 5th century A.D., during a span of 600 years, this area witnessed three immigrations from Central Asia of such gigantic magnitude — those of the Sakas, Kushans, Huns and Gujjars — that everything was swept before them, overwhelmed by them and submerged in them. In short, hardly any previous group whether Aryan, Jewish, Greek or Iranian could retain its identity.
Western scholars, therefore, maintain that an overwhelming majority of the Afghan/Pathan tribes are positively descended from the Sakas, Kushans, Huns and Gujjars. Some of the scholars point out the possibility of the word Abdali being another form of Epthalite by which name the White Huns (the ancestors of Rajputs) were known. Grierson finds a form of Paithan in use in the East Gangetic Valley to denote a Muslim Rajput. Bellew, one of the greatest authorities on Pathans, notes that several characteristics are common to both the Rajputs and Afghans and suggests that Sarban, one of the ancestors of the Afghans, was a corruption of the word Suryabans (solar race) from which many Rajputs claim descent (Bellew: Races of Afghanistan). The great Muslim historian Masudi writes that Qandahar was a separate kingdom with a non-Muslim ruler and states that ‘it is a country of Rajputs’. It would be pertinent to mention here that at the time of Masudi most of the Afghans were concentrated in Qandahar and adjacent areas and had not expanded to the north. Therefore, it is highly significant that Masudi should call Qandahar a Rajput country.
Since the modern state of Afghanistan and the N.W.F.P. province of Pakistan were the main regions through which Central Asian tribes passed and in which they settled down, it is impossible that these areas should have remained uncolonised and the blood of their inhabitants unsullied. Therefore, it can be safely concluded that the present day Afghans/Pathans are mostly, notwithstanding their claims, the descendants of Central Asian tribes of Sakas, Kushans, Huns and Gujjars. It need hardly be pointed out that from them are also descended the major tribes of the Kashmir, Punjab, Sind and Baluchistan.
Just as the present-day Greeks are Slavs and not of the same race as Alexander and Aristotle, so also is the case with the present day Afghans and Pathans. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the theory of the Jewish descent of Afghans is of later origin and may be traced back to Maghzan-e-Afghani compiled for Khan-e-Jehan Lodhi in the reign of Mughal Emperor Jehangir and does not seem to have been recorded before the end of the 16th century A.D. Prior to this period no other book mentions that Afghans are descended from Jewish tribes. The Jewish books also dont mention anywhere that Saul’s son Jeremia had a son named Afghan from whom Afghans claim descent.
Similarly, the story of Qais Abdur Rashid having gone from Afghanistan to Arabia to meet the Prophet and after returning to his country having converted the Afghans to Islam also does not stand the scrutiny of history. Muslim historians Ibn Haukal, Utbi and Alberuni are unanimous in the view that uptill the time of Mahmud Ghaznavi i.e. almost four hundred years after the death of the Prophet, most of the Afghans were still non-Muslims. Mahmud Ghaznavi ‘had to fight against the infidel Afghans in the Sulaiman mountains.’ Even 200 years later in the encounter between Mohammad Ghori and Prithviraj in 1192 A.D., according to Farishta, Hindu/Buddhist/Animist/Pagan/Shamanist/Zoroastrian Afghans were fighting on the side of the Rajput Chief. The fact that the Afghans should have joined the Rajput confederacy of Prithviraj may also indicate some sort of kinship between them.
On this subject the views of the Russian scholar Yu V. Gankovsky are also interesting. He says: "My opinion is that the formation of the union of largely East-Iranian tribes which became the initial ethnic stratum of the Pashtun ethnogenesis dates from the middle of the first millennium AD and is connected with the dissolution of the Epthalite (White Huns) confederacy. In the areas north of the Hindu Kush some of the tribes of this confederacy participated in the formation of the nationalities who inhabit Middle Asia today, and, among other tribes, in the formation of the Turkmen and Uzbek nationalities. This is attested, among other things, in the records of genonimy which indicate that among the Turkmen and Uzbeks (as well as among the Lokai) there occurs the ethnonym Abdal descending from the name of an Epthalite tribal union (Abdals, Abdel). South of the Hindu Kush, another part of the Epthalite tribes lost their privileged status as the military stronghold of the ruling dynasty and was ousted into the thinly peopled areas of the Sulaiman mountains, areas where there were not enough water supplies and grazing grounds. There they became a tribal union which formed the basis of the Pashtun ethnogenesis.
"Of the contribution of the Epthalites (White Huns) to the ethnogenesis of the Pashtuns we find evidence in the ethnonym of the largest of the Pashtun tribe unions, the Abdali (Durrani after 1747) associated with the ethnic name of the Epthalites – Abdal. The Siah-posh, the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush, called all Pashtuns by a general name of Abdal still at sing of the 19th century.
“It is not impossible that certain Kushan-Tokharian elements also took the formation of the Pashtun ethnic community. In this connection it is worthwhile to note the fact cited by G. Morgenstierne: among the Ormuri the Pashtuns are known under the ethnic names ‘kas’ i.e., Kushan. A number of Pakhtun tribes belong to the Ormuri group. They are Afridis, Orakzais, Khattaks, Khugiani, etc.”
This treatise of Prof. Gankovsky forcefully puts forward the view that Afghans-Pakhtuns are the descendants of Epthalite (White Huns) and Kushans.