Who are Pashtuns?

Pashtuns are the people who speak the Pashto language. Pashtuns are also called “Pathans”.

Large population of Pashtuns lives in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their language is Pashtu and about 90% of Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims.

I am involved in the land of a leonine and brave people, where every foot of the ground is like a well of steel, confronting my soldier. You have brought only one son into the world, but everyone in this land can be called an Alexander.                                                                    [Alexander the Great]                   

Where They Live

The most population of Pashtuns lives in their Traditional Homeland located in an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and west of the Indus River in Pakistan, which includes Khyber Pukhtunkhwa.

The Green area in the map shows the area of Pakistan and Afghanistan where Pashtuns live in.

“Pathans are the bravest people ever born on the earth; these people cannot be defeated by force”                                                                                                                            [Russian General in 1987]

Population

 The following is the list of Population of Pashtuns of different countries:

Pakistan:           32,804,913 (2018)

Afghanistan:     14,675,151 (2018)

Iran:                   110,000 (1993)

India:                   3,200,000

Russia:                9,800 (2002)

United States   : 138,554 (2010)

Language

The Pashtuns speak Pashtu, an Indo-European language, belonging to the Iranian sub-group of the Indo-Iranian language branch, within eastern Iranian and Southeastern Iranian. Pashtu writing uses the Perso-Arabic script, dividing into 2 main dialects, the northern "Pukhtu" and the southern "Pashto."

Religion   

Islam was introduced to the Pashtun in the eighth century. About 96% of the Pashtuns are Muslims. Pashtuns, predominantly Sunni Muslims who follow the Hanafite branch of Sunni Islam. A small minority of Ithna Asharia Shia Pashtuns largely concentrate in Afghanistan

Pashtunwali Code

Pashtunwali means “Traditional lifestyle of Pashtun people” or “The way of Pashtuns” or “The Code of Life”

It is considered the responsibility of every Pathan to live life with Pashtunwali.

The following are the principles of Pashtunwali:

• ·         Hospitality
• ·         Justice
• ·         Courage
• ·         Loyalty
• ·         Honoring Women  

                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Jirga

A Jirga (occasionally jarga or jargah) may be a traditional assembly of leaders that create decisions by agreement and consistent with the teachings of Pashtunwali. It predates modern-day written or fixed-laws and is conducted to settle disputes among the Pashtun people however to a lesser extent among alternative near groups that are influenced by Pashtuns (historically called Afghans). Its primary purpose has been to prevent social group war. Most jirgas are conducted in Afghanistan however also among the Pashtun tribes in neighboring Pakistan, particularly in Federally Administered tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). In 2017, the Pakistani government was going to integrate jirgas into the formal justice system.

“With love you could persuade a Pathan to go to Hell, But by force you couldn’t take him even to the Heaven”                        

Pashtun History

Israel is to fund a rare genetic study to work out whether or not there's a link between the Twelve Tribes of Israel of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and northern West Pakistan.

Historical and anecdotal proof powerfully suggests an association, however, definitive scientific proof has ne'er been found. Some leading Israeli anthropologists believe that, of all the various teams within the world who claim an association to the ten Tribes of Israel, the Pashtuns, or Pathans, have the foremost compelling case. Paradoxically it's from the Pashtuns that the ultra-conservative Moslem Taliban movement in Afghanistan emerged. Pashtuns themselves generally speak their Israelite association, however, shows few signs of sympathy with, or any want to migrate to, the modern Israeli state.

Now an Indian investigator has collected blood samples from members of the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns who these days live in Malihabad, close to Lucknow, in northern Republic of India. Shahnaz Ali, from the National Institute of Immunohematology in Mumbai, is to pay many months finding out her findings at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. A previous genetic study within the same space didn't give proof.

“If Pathans agreed to join hands with each other, who the women born will have courage to face them”

                                               [ Khushhal Khan Khattak ]         

The Pashtun Today

 Most Pashtuns these days are Sunni Muslims, though a little minority are Shi'a. As a result, some aspects of Pashtunwali appears to derive from Muslim law that was introduced long after the code initial developed. as an example, one necessary conception in Pashtunwali is that the worship of one God, Allah.

After the Partition of India in 1947, some Pashtuns called for the creation of Pashtunistan, incised from the Pashtun-dominated areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.