Pathans: Origin
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. |
Origin
The Afghans proper claim descent from Saul, the first Jewish King, and there is a formidable array of weighty authority in favour of their Semitic origin. The question of their descent is discussed and authorities quoted in Chapter VI of the Peshawar Settlement Report, and in Dr. Bellew Raccs of Afghanistan Mr. Thorburn quotes in support of their Jewish extraction, some peculiar customs obtaining among the tribes of purest blood, for instance the Passover-like practice of sacrificing an animal and smearing the doorway with its blood in order to avert calamity, the offering up of sacrifices, the stoning to death of blasphemers, the periodical distribution of land, and so forth ; and he
Dr. Bellow suggests that the original Afghans were the Solymi of Herodotus, and were Qureshi Arabs who lived in Syria and there became intermiugled with the .Jews, or who migrated to Ghor where the fugitive .Jews took refuge with them. This supposition would explain the name Sulemani which is often apphed to the Afghans, and their own assertion that Khalid ibu Wdlid the Qureshi was of the same stocik with themselves.
points out that most of the learned men who reject the tradition of Jewish descent have no personal acquaintauce with the Afghan people. The Afghan proper is said still to call himself indifferently Ban-i- Afghan or Ban-i-Israil to distinguish himself from the Pathan proper who is of Indian, and the Ghilzai who is probably of mixed Turkish and Persian extraction. Pashto, the common language of all three, is distinctly Aryan, being a branch of the old Persian stock. It is described in Chapter Y, sections 322-3 of this Report.
There is groat conflict of opinion concerning both the origin and constitu- tion of the Pathan nation. Not a few deny that there is any distinction whatever between the orginal Afghans and Pathan stocks, though these are for the most part officers of our frontier who are not brought into contact with the original Afghans. I have however been obliged to adopt some one theory of the constitution of the nation as a basis for ray classification of tribes ; and 1 have therefore adopted that of Dr. Bellew, who probably has a greater knowledge of the Afghans of Afghanistan as distinct from the Panjab frontier and especially of the old histories of the nation, than any other of the author ities who have treated of the matter. The constitution and early history of the nation according to Dr. Beilew's account are discussed in the paragraphs presently following. But whatever the origin of Afghans and Pathans proper may be, the nation to A which the two names are now apphed indifferently in Persian and Pashto respectively, occupying as it does the mountain country lying between the Persian empire on the west, the Indian on the east, the Mongol on the north, and the Biloch on the south, includes as at present con stituted many tribes of very diverse origin. They are without exception Mussalmans, and for the most part bigoted followers of the Sunni sect, hating and persecuting Shiahs, or as they call them Rafazis.
