Kafiristan کافرستان | |
|---|---|
Historical region of Afghanistan & Pakistan | |
 The Kafiristan region, located in the southern range ofHindu Kush | |
 Map showing present-dayNuristan Province ofAfghanistan | |
| Country |  Afghanistan |
Kāfiristān, orKāfirstān (Pashto:کاپیرستان;Dari:کافرستان;lit. 'Land ofInfidels'), is ahistorical region that covered present-dayNuristan Province inAfghanistan and its surroundings. This historic region lies on, and mainly comprises, the basins of the riversAlingar,Pech (Kamah),Landai Sin andKunar, and the intervening mountain ranges. It is bounded by the main range of theHindu Kush on the north,Pakistan'sChitral District to the east, theKunar Valley in the south and theAlishang River in the west.
Kafiristan took its name from the enduringkafir (non-Muslim)Nuristani inhabitants who once practised what authors consider as a form ofanimism and ancestor worship[a] with elements of Indo-Iranian (Vedic- orHindu-like) religion;[b] they were thus known to the surrounding predominantlySunni Muslim population asKafirs, meaning "disbelievers" or "infidels".[1] They are closely related to theKalash people, an independent people with a distinctive culture, language and religion, who reside in theChitral District of theKhyber-Pakhtunkhwa province ofPakistan.
The area extending from modern Nuristan 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 ofEmirAbdur Rahman Khan who conquered the territory in 1895–96. The region was earlier surrounded by Buddhist states that temporarily brought literacy and state rule to the mountains; the decline of Buddhism heavily isolated the region. It was surrounded by Muslim states in the 16th century.[2]
Kafiristan orKafirstan is normally taken to mean "land [-stan] of thekafirs" in thePersian language, where the nameکافرkafir is derived fromكافرkāfir, 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 nameKati has also been suggested.[3] Kafiristan was inhabited by people who followed a form of Paganism before their conversion toIslam in 1895–1896.[1]
AncientKapiśajanapada, located south-east of theHindukush, included and is related to Kafiristan.[4] TheChinesepilgrimXuanzang who visited Kapisa in 644 AD calls itKai-pi-shi(h) (迦畢試;standard Chinese:Jiābìshì <Middle ChineseZS: *kɨɑ-piɪt̚-ɕɨH). Xuanzang describesKai-pi-shi[5] as a flourishing kingdom ruled by aBuddhistkshatriya king holding sway over ten neighbouring states, includingLampaka,Nagarahara,Gandhara andBannu. Until the 9th century AD, Kapiśi remained the second capital of theShahi dynasty ofKabul. Kapiśa was known for goats and their skin.[6]Xuanzang talks ofShen breed of horses from Kapiśa (Kai-pi-shi). There is also a reference to Chineseemperor Taizong being presented with an excellent breed of horses in 637 AD by an envoy from Chi-pin (Kapisa).[7] Further evidence from Xuanzang shows that Kai-pi-shi produced a variety of cereals, many kinds of fruits, and a scented root calledyu-kin, probably of the grasskhus, or vetiver. The people used woollen and fur clothes; also gold,[8][9] silver and copper coins. Objects of merchandise from all parts were found here.[10]
The area extending from modern Nuristan 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 byBuddhist 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 pilgrimsFaxian andSong Yun. The decline of Buddhism resulted in the region becoming heavily isolated. The Islamization of the nearbyBadakhshan began in the 8th century and Peristan was surrounded by Muslim states in the 16th century. TheKalash people of lowerChitral are the last surviving heirs of the area.[11]
Another jihad 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, asFerishta says, the countries of Hindustan andTurkistan and remarkable for its excellent fruit. The country into which the army ofGhazni marched appears to have been the same as that now called Kafirstan, where the inhabitants were and still are, idolaters and are named theSiah-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]
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Kafiristan" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The first European recorded as having visited Kafiristan was thePortugueseJesuitmissionaryBento de Góis,SJ. By his account, he visited a city named "Capherstam"[13] in 1602, during the course of a journey fromLahore toChina.[14]
American adventurer ColonelAlexander Gardner claimed to have visited Kafiristan twice, in 1826 and 1828.[14] On the first occasion,Dost Mohammad, theamir ofKabul, killed members of Gardner's delegation in Afghanistan and forced him to flee from Kabul toYarkand through west Kafiristan.[14] On his second visit, Gardner briefly sojourned in northern Kafiristan and theKunar Valley while returning from Yarkand.[14]
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 theRoyal Geographical Society.
George Scott Robertson,medical officer during theSecond Anglo-Afghan War and later British political officer in theprincely state ofChitral, 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 toIslam. Robertson's 1896 account was entitledThe Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Though some sub-groups such as theKom 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 theDurand Line.
The territory between Afghanistan andBritish India wasdemarcated between 1894 and 1896. Part of the frontier lying between Nawa Kotal in the outskirts ofMohmand country andBashgal Valley on the outskirts of Kafiristan was demarcated by 1895 in an agreement reached on 9 April 1895.[15]EmirAbdur Rahman Khan wanted to force every community and tribal confederation to accept his single interpretation of Islam due to it being the only uniting factor. After the subjugation ofHazaras, Kafiristan was the last remaining autonomous part.[16]
Abdur Rahman Khan's forcesinvaded 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 throughBadakhshan and from the east throughAsmar. A small column also came from south-west throughLaghman. 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 thejizya.[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 theHazara people in 1892–93. In 1896 Abdur Rahman Khan, who had thus conquered the region for Islam,[18] renamed the people theNuristani ("Enlightened Ones" inPersian) and the land asNuristan ("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 "horn chairs") and statuary. Some of these pillars survive, as they were reused in mosques, but temples, shrines, and centers of local cults, with their wooden effigies and multitudes of ancestor figures were torched and burnt to the ground. Only a small fraction brought back to Kabul as spoils of this Islamic victory over infidels. These consisted of various wooden effigies of ancestral heroes and pre-Islamic commemorative chairs. Of the more than thirty wooden figures brought to Kabul in 1896 or shortly thereafter, fourteen went to theKabul Museum and four to theMusée Guimet and theMusée de l'Homme located inParis.[19]Those in the Kabul Museum were badly damaged under theTaliban but have since been restored.[20] Their last cultural and religious activities just before their forced conversion were however recorded by the Westerners.[21]
A few hundredKati Kafirs, known as the "Red Kafirs" of the Bashgal Valley, fled across the border into Chitral but, uprooted from their homeland, they converted by the 1930s. They settled near the frontier in the valleys ofRumbur,Bumburet andUrtsun, which were then inhabited by theKalash tribe or the Black Kafirs. Only this group in the five valleys ofBirir, Bumburet, Rumbur, Jineret and Urtsun escaped conversion, because they were located east of the Durand Line in theprincely state ofChitral. However, by the 1940s the southern valleys of Urtsun and Jingeret had been converted. After a decline in population caused by forced conversion in the 1970s, this region of Kafiristan in Pakistan, known as Kalasha Desh, has recently shown an increase in its population.
In early 1991, theRepublic of Afghanistan government recognized thede facto autonomy of Nuristan and created a new province of that name from districts ofKunar Province andLaghman Province.[22]
 | This sectionmay containirrelevant references topopular culture. Please helpimprove it by removing such content and addingcitations toreliable,independent sources.(January 2025) |
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)