RACE AND ETHNICITY IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

from http://punjabi.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1176

[first published at the original "Islamic Danger" on October 4, 2007]

[If you want insight into happenings on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in the "tribal areas" of Waziristan, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in India-Pakistan relations, you will find reading this post and more views in the forum itself (punjabi.net link right above) worthwhile.]

This comes from a forum. Although I have not checked the speaker's facts, they ring true and can be related to current events and those described in
ISLAM IN THE PUNJAB (of India) THE MOSLEM MUGHALS (TURKIC/MONGOLS)
IN THE PUNJAB)

. . . phindko and saraiki are languages not ethnic groups or a race of people. there are pakhtuns who speak hindko and saraiki and punjabis also. hindko and saraiki are punjabi dialects of pakistan but have a lot of pashto and farsi words. how many times am i going to tell u that i am not an afghan or pakhtun but a mughal (sunni mughal) kaum from dera ismail khan. there are jats rajputs pakhtun, qureshi, mughals, bolochis, afghan refugees etc all living in dera ismail khan. the afghan pakhtuns are friendly with their brothers of nwfp and the tribal areas who are also pakhtuns. and are related and families living on both sides of the durrand line. it's only the tajiks and uzbeks and hazaras who hate pakhtuns and pakistanis. and anyway tajiks and uzbeks all these people are not afghans anyway because their are decendents of turks mongols and are not the sons of afghana the pakhtuns are the true afghans the sons of afghana. i'm a mughal that means that i am a decendent of the mughals who were a mix of turk/persian/afghan - pakhtun and since we invaded pakistan/india there is a good chance i also have rajput concubine maternal genes. but my blood is pure from hindu man. but never the less my family/clan and kaum are always mistaken as pakhtuns and don't look like indians u can easily tell the afghan and central asian ancestory. the mughal and pakhtuns (waziris) were known to take hindu (rajput) women away. sahar u are an indian, there are afghan refugees tajiks uzbeks living in dera ismail khan and many have become settled opened shops and do business carpets jewellery etc. and regarding pakhtuns whether from pakistan or afghanistan they have nothing against the pakistan people. i should know because we live with these people and have had disputes tribal warfare with these people and also have done business with them. most of the construction work and truck haulage in our area of pakistan is done by us mughal/pakhtuns and we regularly see afghan refugees and do business with them. regarding indian origin yes the punjabis and sindhis do have indian blood but mughal, awans, qureshi, abbasi, sheikhs, ghoris, etc are not of the indian stock but the decendants of the muslim invaders. i know u being an indian that u want to associate with your former rulers and masters. i will say one thing my forefathers timur lang and babar remember the mound of skulls in dehli. i hope that helps. and there is no region called afghania in pakistan it is known as FATA or NWFP but we call it pakhtoonkhwa or pakhtunistan. and it is pakhtun not pathan by u indians and british least call these lion people by the correct name.

http://punjabi.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1176

There's more back-and-forth about this subject at the forum website given immediately above . Insults fly, and insight is given into inter-ethnic-racial relations in the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Hindu/Indian sphere.

. . AND . . .

A NOTE ABOUT THE PASHTUNS:


Ironically the Pashton/Pathan/Pashto people mentioned by the mughal-descended speaker above have preponderous evidence of being descendants of two or more of the ten "Lost Tribes" of Ancient Israel. Although today Pashtuns are thoroughly Islamicised, and because of that not to be trusted to be friendly towards today's Israelis and Jews, like all peoples that have fallen victim to Islam, there is evidence to point to the veracity of the widely-held belief of Pashtun origins.


Here is a good place to get started looking at this phenomenon. Although the Pashtuns are not the only people of (supposedly) Jewish origins that have been Islamicised to such a degree that their koranic Jew-hatred equals or exceeds that of the Islamic Arabs--the Jewish Berber tribes of North Africa come to mind--the Pashtuns apparently can be distinguished that they (like the Christian descendants of Spanish Jews) keep some Judaic traditions--whether aware of their origins or not.


"I love Israel, for my forefathers were most probably Israelites"

…Says Pashtun-historian from India Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi


By Alexander Maistrovoy

http://middleeastfacts.com/guests/maistrovoy_09jul07a.php


40 years ago, in triumphant nation of Israel of 1967, in the Jewish community of India occurred an extraordinary event: the President of India Dr. Zakir Hussain made a highly surprising visit to the Ohel David Synagogue of Pune, Maharashtra, which was celebrating its centenary. The significance of the event and the title of the guest were incommensurable and caused a lot of surprise. Why?

Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi has his own explanation. Dr. Zakir Hussain, one of the most famous sons of India, honored with the India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, was a member of a Pathan/Pakhtun/Pashtun tribe – the Afridi. And the Afridi tribe is identified with the lost tribe of Ephraim, one of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

Navras Jaat Aafreedi is an Indian citizen, a representative of the Afridi tribe too, and an historian. He isn’t 30 yet but he has Ph.D. on Medieval & Modern Indian History, and his research topic was: "The Indian Jewry and the Self-Professed ‘Lost Tribes of Israel’ in India". His book of the same title is the third serious major work ever by a Gentile (non-Jew) on this subject. Now he is doing his Post-Doctoral Research at Tel Aviv University.

Navras began his research of the connection between Afridi Pathans/Pakhtuns from Malihabad in Lucknow district (state Uttar Pradesh) and the Ephraim tribe. Pakhtuns settled here in the mid XVIII century and they are about 1200 today. It is a drop in the ocean compared to about 45 million Pashtuns of the world. Pathans/Pakhtuns/Pashtuns mainly live in the highlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan and are divided into 60 tribes and 400 clans.

* * *
Afridi tribe is one of the largest (about three million) and very martial. They controlled the famous Khyber and the Kohat passes, collected tribute from caravans and became famous for their fearlessness and selflessness in the battles with everyone who tried to conquer Afghanistan: from Mughal troops in the XVI and XVII centuries to Britons in the XIX and Russians in the XX century.

For hundreds of years Afridis have called themselves Bani Israel (Pushto for the Hebrew B'nei Yisrael meaning Children of Israel) and believe that they originated from the Ephraim tribe. Lately, the hatred of Jews in the Islamic world made the young generation of Pashtuns give up their beliefs. But Navras quotes a number of Jewish immigrants from Afghanistan who testify to the prevalence of many Jewish rituals and customs among the Afridi Pathans, e.g., the lighting of candles on Shabbat, keeping long side locks, wearing shawls resembling the tallith, circumcision on the eighth day after birth, and Levirate.

He refers to great Jewish writers like Saadia Ga’on and Moses Ibn Ezra, who mention Afghanistan and the Pathan territories in Pakistan as the home of Jews descended from the lost tribes, and to a number of medieval Arabic and Farsi texts. In the XIX century some British travelers and officers, like Sir Alexander Brunes and J.P.Ferrier, wrote about the Israelite origin of Afghan tribes.

. . . Continued at

http://middleeastfacts.com/guests/maistrovoy_09jul07a.php

There's a lot more there, if this intrigues you, as it does me. lw.

More links to this can be found at:

http://www.hujra.net/index.php?topic=4771.0;wap2

AND more yet from

GOOGLE Search for Pashtun Afridis Ephraim

should you be research-minded.