Main article: Name of Afghanistan
The name Afghānistān, Persian: افغانستان [avɣɒnestɒn],[21] means the "Land of Afghans", originating from the word Afghan.
Origin of the name
Main article: Afghan (name)
The first part of the name "Afghan" designates the Pashtun people since ancient times, the founders and the largest ethnic group of the country.[22] This name is mentioned in the form of "Abgan" in the 3rd century CE[23] and as "Avagana" in the 6th century CE.
The Encyclopædia Iranica states:
From a more limited, ethnological point of view, "Afghān" is the term by which the Persian-speakers of Afghanistan (and the non-Paštō-speaking ethnic groups generally) designate the Paštūn. The equation [of] Afghan [and] Paštūn has been propagated all the more, both in and beyond Afghanistan, because the Paštūn tribal confederation is by far the most important in the country, numerically and politically. The term "Afghān" has probably designated the Paštūn since ancient times. Under the form Avagānā, this ethnic group is first mentioned by the Indian astronomer Varāha Mihira in the beginning of the 6th century CE in his Brihat-samhita.[22]
A people called "Afghans" are mentioned several times in a 10th century geography book, Hudud al-'alam. Al-Biruni referred to them in the 11th century as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of the Indus River, which would be the Sulaiman Mountains.[24] Ibn Battuta, a famous Moroccan travelling scholar visiting the region in 1333, writes:
We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans.[25]
Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah (Ferishta) explains extensively about Afghans in the 16th century. For example, he writes:
The men of Kábul and Khilj also went home; and whenever they were ques­tioned about the Musulmáns of the Kohistán (the mountains), and how matters stood there, they said, "Don't call it Kohistán, but Afghánistán; for there is nothing there but Afgháns and dis­turbances." Thus it is clear that for this reason the people of the country call their home in their own language Afghánistán, and themselves Afgháns.[26]


Afghan soldiers of the Durrani Empire. The name "Afghaunistan" is printed on this 1847 Lithograph by James Rattray.
By the 17th century AD, it seems that some Pashtuns themselves were using the term as an ethnonym - a fact that is supported by traditional Pashto literature, for example, in the writings of the 17th-century Pashto poet Khushal Khan Khattak:
Pull out your sword and slay any one, that says Pashtun and Afghan are not one! Arabs know this and so do Romans: Afghans are Pashtuns, Pashtuns are Afghans![27]
The last part of the name, -stān is a Persian suffix for "place", prominent in many languages of the region. The name "Afghanistan" is described by the 16th century Mughal Emperor Babur in his memoirs as well as by later Mughal scholar Firishta, referring to territories south of Kabul that were inhabited by Pashtuns (called "Afghans" by them).[28] Until the 19th century the name Afghanistan was used for the traditional Pashtun territory, between the Hindu Kush mountains and the Indus River, while the kingdom as a whole was known as the Kingdom of Kabul, as mentioned by the British statesman and historian Mountstuart Elphinstone.[29] In 1857, in his review of J.W. Kaye's The Afghan War, Friedrich Engels describes "Afghanistan" as:
[...] an extensive country of Asia [...] between Persia and the Indies, and in the other direction between the Hindu Kush and the Indian Ocean. It formerly included the Persian provinces of Khorassan and Kohistan, together with Herat, Beluchistan, Cashmere, and Sinde, and a considerable part of the Punjab [...] Its principal cities are Kabul, the capital, Ghuznee, Peshawer, and Kandahar.[30]
Other parts of the country were at certain periods recognized as independent kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of Balkh in the early 18th centuries.[31] With the expansion and centralization of the country, Afghan authorities adopted the name "Afghanistan" to the entire kingdom, after its English translation had already appeared in various treaties between the British Raj and Qajarid Persia, referring to the lands subject to the Pashtun Barakzai dynasty of Kabul.[32] It became the official internationally recognized name in 1919 after the Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed to regain full independence over its foreign policy from the British,[33] and was confirmed as such in the nation's 1923 constitution.[34]
Geography

Main article: Geography of Afghanistan


Topography
A landlocked and mountainous country, with plains in the north and southwest, Afghanistan is variously described as being located within South Asia,[35][36] Central Asia[37][38] and sometimes Western Asia (or the Middle East).[39] It lies between latitudes 29° and 39° N, and longitudes 60° and 75° E. Afghanistan's highest point is Nowshak, at 7,485 m (24,557 ft) above sea level. The climate varies by region and tends to change quite rapidly. Large parts of the country are dry, and fresh water supplies are limited. The endorheic Sistan Basin is one of the driest regions in the world.[40]
The nation has a continental climate with very harsh winters in the central highlands, the glaciated northeast (around Nuristan) and the Wakhan Corridor, where the average temperature in January is below −15 °C (5.0 °F), and hot summers in the low-lying areas of Sistan Basin of the southwest, the Jalalabad basin of the east, and the Turkistan plains along the Amu River of the north, where temperatures average over 35 °C (95 °F) in July. The country is frequently subject to minor earthquakes, mainly in the northeast of Hindu Kush mountain areas. Some 125 villages were damaged and 4,000 people killed by the May 31, 1998, earthquake.
At 249,984 sq mi (647,456 km2), Afghanistan is the world's 41st largest country (after Burma). It shares borders with Pakistan in the East, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far east. The country does not face any water shortage because it receives huge amounts of snow during winter. Once that melts, the water runs into rivers, lakes, and streams, but most of its national water flows to neighboring states. The state needs around $2 billion to rehabilitate its irrigation systems so that the water is properly used.[41]
The nation's natural resources include gold, silver, copper, zinc, and iron ore in the Southeast; precious and semi-precious stones (such as lapis, emerald, and azure) in the Northeast; and potentially significant petroleum and natural gas reserves in the North. The country also has uranium, coal, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, and salt.[42][43][44][45] It was revealed in 2010 that the country has about $1–3 trillion in untapped mineral deposits.[46][47]
History

Main article: History of Afghanistan
History of Afghanistan

See also
Ariana · Khorasan
Timeline
Pre-Islamic period [show]
Islamic conquest [show]
Modern history [show]
Book · Category · Portal

Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the area were among the earliest in the world.[9][48][49] An important site of early historical activity, Afghanistan is a country at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and often fought. The region has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them Ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. In certain stages, the land was conquered and incorporated within large empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire; the Macedonian Empire; the Indian Maurya Empire; the Muslim Arab Empire; the Sassanid Empire, and a number of others. Many kingdoms have also risen to power in what is now Afghanistan, such as the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Hephthalites, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Kartids, Timurids, Mughals, and finally the Hotaki and Durrani dynasties that marked the political beginning of the modern state of Afghanistan.
Pre-Islamic period
Main article: Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan


Arachosia, Aria and Bactria were the ancient satraps of the Persian Achaemenid Empire that made up most of what is now Afghanistan during 500 BC. Some of the inhabitants of Arachosia were known as Pactyans, whose name possibly survives in today's Pakhtuns / Pashtuns.
Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with the neighboring regions to the east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found in Afghanistan.[50] Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BC, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization.[49] After 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia moved south into the area of modern Afghanistan, among them were Indo-European-speaking (Indo-Iranians).[48] These tribes later migrated further south to India, west to what is now Iran, and towards Europe via north of the Caspian.[51] Many of these settlers were Indo-Iranians (speakers of Indo-Iranian languages), the area was called Ariana.[48][52][53]
The ancient Zoroastrianism religion is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 to 800 BCE, as its founder Zoroaster is thought to have lived and died in Balkh.[54][55][56] Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenid Persian Empire overthrew the Medes and incorporated the region (known as Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria in Ancient Greek) within its boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of King Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries he had conquered.[57]


Buddhas of Bamyan. Buddhism was introduced during the Maurya Empire (322 BC–185 BC).
In addition, Hinduism in Afghanistan- has existed for almost as long as Hinduism itself, as Greater Persia overlapped with Greater India in the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains.[58] Zoroastrians and Hindus kings were allies.[59] The religion was widespread in the region until the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.[60]
Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived to the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier at the Battle of Gaugamela.[54] Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the area until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Indian Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty.


5th century "image of the Hindu deity, Ganesha, consecrated by the Shahi King Khingala." found at Gardez, Afghanistan
Alexander took these away from the Aryans and established settlements of his own, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), upon terms of intermarriage and of receiving in exchange 500 elephants.[61]
—Strabo, 64 BC–24 AD
The Mauryans brought Buddhism from India and controlled southern Afghanistan until about 185 BCE when they were overthrown.[62] Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest of the region by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from the Greco-Bactrians and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The Indo-Greeks were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians by the end of the 2nd century BCE.
During the 1st century, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region, but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid to late 1st century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in modern Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture. The Kushans were defeated by the Sassanids in the 3rd century. Although various rulers calling themselves Kushanshas (generally known as Indo-Sassanids) continued to rule at least parts of the region, they were probably more or less subject to the Sassanids.[63] The late Kushans were followed by the Kidarite Huns[64] who, in turn, were replaced by the short-lived but powerful Hephthalites, as rulers of the region in the first half of the 5th century.[65] The Hephthalites were defeated by the Sasanian king Khosrau I in CE 557, who re-established Sassanid power in Persia. However, in the 6th century CE, the successors of Kushans and Hepthalites established a small dynasty in Kabulistan called Kabul Shahi.
Islamic conquests and Mongol invasion
Main articles: Islamic conquest of Afghanistan and Mongol invasion of Central Asia


Names of territories during the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan in 750 CE.


The territory was divided between the Safavid dynasty of Persia and the Mughal Empire of India.
From the fourth to nineteenth centuries much of today's Afghanistan was known as Khorasan.[66][67] Two of the four main capitals of Khorasan (i.e. Balkh, Merv, Nishapur and Herat) are now located in modern Afghanistan, while Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul formed the frontier region between Khorasan and Hindustan.[68] The land inhabited by the Afghan tribes (i.e. ancestors of modern Pashtuns) was called Afghanistan, which loosely covered the area between the Hindu Kush and the Indus River, but principally around the Sulaiman Mountains.[25][26]
Arab Muslims brought the religion of Islam to the western area of what is now Afghanistan during the 7th century and began spreading eastward from Khorasan and Sistan, some accepting it while others revolted.[69] Prior to the introduction of Islam, Afghanistan was mostly Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Hindu, with unknown population of Jews and others. The Kabul Shahi rulers lost their capital, Kabul, in around 870 AD after it was conquered by the Saffarids of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence into the Hindu Kush area from Bukhara in the north. Afghanistan at that stage still had non-Muslims who lived side by side with Muslims.
"Kábul has a castle celebrated for its strength, accessible only by one road. In it there are Musulmáns, and it has a town, in which are infidels from Hind."[70]
—Istahkrí, 921
By the 11th century the Ghaznavids had finally made all of the remaining non-Muslim areas become fully Islamized, with the exception of the Kafiristan region. Afghanistan at that point became the center of many important empires such as the Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids,[71][72] Ghaznavids, Ghurids, and Timurids.
The region was overrun in 1219 by Genghis Khan and his Mongol barbarians, who devastated much of the land. His troops are said to have annihilated the ancient Khorasan cities of Herat and Balkh.[73] The destruction caused by the Mongols depopulated major cities and caused much of the locals to revert to an agrarian rural society.[74] Their rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khiljis controlled the eastern Afghan tribal areas, until the invasion of Timur who established the Timurid dynasty.[75] The periods of the Ghaznavids,[76] Ghurids, and Timurids are considered some of the most brilliant eras of Afghanistan's history as they produced fine Islamic architectural monuments[48] as well as numerous scientific and literary works.
Babur, a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, arrived from Central Asia and captured Kabul from the Arghun Dynasty, and from there he began to seize control of the eastern Afghan territories. He remained in Kabul until 1526 when he and his army invaded Delhi in India to replace the Afghan Lodi dynasty with the Mughals. From the 16th century to the early 18th century, the region of Afghanistan was contended by 3 major powers: The Khanate of Bukhara ruled the north, Safavids the west and the remaining larger area was ruled by Delhi Sultanate of India.
Afghan nation-state
Hotaki dynasty and the Durrani Empire
Main articles: Hotaki dynasty and Durrani Empire


Mirwais Hotak revolted against the Safavid rule and declared the Kandahar region an independent Afghan kingdom in 1709, which was later expanded by his son Mahmud to include Persia.
Mirwais Hotak, an influential Afghan tribal leader of the Ghilzai tribe, gathered supporters and successfully rebelled against the Persian Safavids in the early 18th century. He overthrew and killed Gurgin Khan, the Georgian governor of Kandahar, and made the Afghan region independent from Persian rule. By 1713, Mirwais had decisively defeated two larger Persian-Georgian armies, one was led by Khusraw Khán (nephew of Gurgin) and the other by Rustam Khán. The armies were sent by Soltan Hosein, the Shah in Isfahan (now Iran), to re-take control of the Kandahar region. Mirwais died of a natural cause in 1715 and his brother Abdul Aziz took over until he was killed by his nephew Mahmud. In 1722, Mahmud led an Afghan army to the Persian capital of Isfahan, sacked the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia.[77] The Persians were unhappy with the Afghan rulers, and after the massacre of thousands of Shia religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family, the Hotaki dynasty was eventually ousted from Persia after the Battle of Damghan.[78]


Ahmad Shah Durrani was crowned as Emir of Afghanistan in October 1747, and within a few years he conquered the entire present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Punjab in India.
In 1738, Nader Shah and his Afsharid forces captured Kandahar from Shah Hussain Hotaki, at which point the incarcerated 16 year old Ahmad Shah Abdali was freed and made the commander of Nader Shah's four thousand Abdali Pashtuns.[79] From Kandahar they set out to conquer India, passing through Ghazni, Kabul, Lahore and ultimately plundering Delhi after the Battle of Karnal. Nader Shah and his forces abandoned Delhi but took with them huge treasure, which included the Koh-i-Noor and Darya-ye Noor diamonds. In June 1747, Nader Shah was assassinated by four of his Persian officers and his kingdom began to fall apart.[80][81] In October 1747, the Afghans gathered near Kandahar at a loya jirga ("grand assembly") to select their head of state from a group of men and Ahmad Shah Abdali was chosen. Regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan,[3][82][83] Ahmad Shah Durrani and his Afghan army conquered the entire present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Delhi in India.[30] He defeated the Sikhs of the Maratha Empire in the Punjab region nine times; one of the biggest battles was the 1761 Battle of Panipat. In October 1772, Ahmad Shah died of a natural cause and was buried at a site now adjacent to the Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah Durrani, who transferred the capital of Afghanistan from Kandahar to Kabul. After his death in 1793, the Durrani kingdom was passed down to his son Zaman Shah followed by Mahmud Shah, Shuja Shah and others.
After Afghan Vizier Fateh Khan was defeated by the Sikhs at the Battle of Attock, he fought off an attempt by Ali Shah, the ruler of Persia, to capture the Afghan province of Herat. He was joined by his brother, Dost Mohammad Khan, and rogue Sikh Sardar Jai Singh Attarwalia. Once they had captured the city, Fateh Khan attempted to remove the ruler Mahmud Shah Durrani – a relation of his superior – and rule in his stead. In the attempt to take the city from its Afghan ruler, Dost Mohammad Khan's men forcibly took jewels from a princess and Kamran Durrani, Mahmud Shah's son, used this as a pretext to remove Fateh Khan from power, and had him tortured and executed. While in power, however, Fateh Khan had installed 21 of his brothers in positions of power throughout the Afghan Empire. After his death, they rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period, Kabul had many temporary rulers until Fateh Khan's brother, Dost Mohammad Khan, captured Kabul in 1826.[84]
The Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, invaded in 1809 and eventually wrested from the Afghans a large part of their empire (present day Pakistan, but not including Sindh).[85] Hari Singh Nalwa, the Commander-in-Chief of the Sikh Empire along its Afghan frontier, invaded the Afghanistan as far as the city of Jalalabad.[86] In 1837, the Afghan Army descended through the Khyber Pass on Sikh forces at Jamrud. Hari Singh Nalwa's forces held off the Afghan offensive for over a week – the time it took reinforcements to reach Jamrud from Lahore.[87]
Barakzai dynasty and European influence
Further information: European influence in Afghanistan and Reforms of Amanullah Khan and civil war


First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42). William Brydon was the sole survivor of a group of 3,600 soldiers of the British 44th Regiment of Foot and 12,400 camp followers, who were attacked between Kabul and Jalalabad while heading to what is now Pakistan.


King Amanullah Khan at Berlin in February 1928. His 1927-28 European tour initiated an alliance between Afghanistan and Germany.


King Zahir Shah and wife with US President John F. Kennedy and sister Eunice in the United States
During the 19th century, following the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the ascension of the Barakzai dynasty, Afghanistan saw much of its territory and autonomy ceded to British India. Ethnic Pashtun territories were divided by the 1893 Durand Line, an action which would lead to strained relations between Afghanistan and British India (later the new state of Pakistan). The United Kingdom exercised a great deal of influence, and it was not until the reign of King Amanullah Khan in 1919 that Afghanistan re-gained independence over its foreign affairs after the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi.
King Amanullah moved to end his country's traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan War. He established diplomatic relations with major states and, following a 1927-28 tour of Europe and Turkey, introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's first constitution (declared through a Loya Jirga), which made elementary education compulsory.[88] Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional Muslim veil for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, Amanullah Khan was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to rebel forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Habibullah Kalakani in October 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernisation. In 1933, however, he was assassinated in a revenge killing by a Kabul student.
Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. In 1953, he was replaced by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports and other vital infrastructure. By the late 1960s, many Western travelers were using these as part of the hippie trail. In 1973, Zahir Shah's brother-in-law, Daoud Khan, launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan while Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit. Daoud Khan tried to implement some much needed reforms especially in the economic sector.
Saur revolution and Soviet war