page_title: Ethnic groups in Afghanistan
section_title: Pashtun
hierarchical_section_title: Ethnic groups in Afghanistan / Ethnic groups / Pashtun
caption_attribution_description: Participants in the Afghanistan Independence Day celebration held at the Ministry of National Defense in Kabul, Aug. 19, pay their respects during the playing of the Afghan national anthem. Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, commander of NATO and International Security Assistance Force troops in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker attended the ceremony. During the celebration, President Karzai placed a floral wreath at the base of the marble independence memorial near his palace. Afghan Independence Day is celebrated in Afghanistan on Aug. 19 to commemorate the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919. The treaty granted independence from Britain; although Afghanistan was never officially a part of the British Empire. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Michael O'Connor) (Released)
context_page_description: Afghanistan is a multiethnic and mostly-tribal society. The population of the country is divided into the following ethnolinguistic groups: Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aymāq, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Arab, Brahui, Pamiri, Kyrgyz and few others. The Afghan National Anthem and the Afghan Constitution mention a total of 14 ethnic groups.
context_section_description: The Pashtuns (ethnic Afghans) make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, comprising between 38% and 42% of the country's population. Their main territory, sometimes called Pashtunistan, is between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in neighboring Pakistan, where they are the second largest ethnic group. After the rise of the Hotaki dynasty in 1709 and the Durrani Empire in 1747, Pashtuns expanded by forming communities north of the Hindu Kush and elsewhere in Afghanistan.
  There are conflicting theories about the origin of the Pashtun people, both among historians and the Pashtun themselves. A variety of ancient groups with eponyms similar to Pukhtun have been hypothesized as possible ancestors of modern Pashtuns. The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a people called Pactyans, living in the Achaemenid's Arachosia Satrap as early as the 1st millennium BC. Since the 3rd century AD and onward they are mostly referred to by the ethnonym "Afghan", a name believed to be given to them by neighboring Persian people. Some believe that ethnic Afghan is an adaptation of the Prakrit ethnonym Avagana, attested in the 6th century CE. It was used to refer to a common legendary ancestor known as "Afghana", propagated to be grandson of King Saul of Israel.
  According to scholars such as V. Minorsky and others, the name Afghan appears in the 982 CE Hudud-al-Alam geography book. Al-Biruni referred to a group of Afghans in the 11th century as various tribes living on the western frontier mountains of Ancient India and Persia, which would be the area between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in what is now Pakistan. According to other sources, some Pashtuns may be the Lost tribes of Israel who converted to Islam during the Arab Empire. Since the 13th century, some Pashtun tribes conquered areas outside their traditional Pashtun homeland by pushing deeper into South Asia, often forming kingdoms such as the Delhi Sultanate.
  The modern Afghan national identity developed in the mid 18th century under the rule of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who united all the tribes and formed the last Afghan empire. Pashtuns are the traditional rulers of Afghanistan since the rise of the Hotaki dynasty in 1709 or more specifically when the Durrani Empire was created in 1747. They practice Sunni Islam and follow the Hanafi school of thought. The Karzai administration, which is led by Hamid Karzai, is dominated by Pashtun ministers.
  Some notable Pashtuns of Afghanistan include: Hamid Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Nazo Tokhi, Wazir Akbar Khan, Malalai of Maiwand, Abdul Ahad Momand, Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan Girl, Hedayat Amin Arsala, Abdul Rahim Wardak, Sher Mohammad Karimi, Abdul Salam Azimi, Zalmai Rassoul, Omar Zakhilwal, Ghulam Farooq Wardak, Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, Daud Shah Saba, Mohammad Gulab Mangal, Gul Agha Sherzai, Asadullah Khalid, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, Mohammed Omar, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Ahmad Zahir, Nashenas, Ubaidullah Jan, Naghma, Farhad Darya,  Suhaila Seddiqi, Shukria Barakzai, Fauzia Gailani, the Hotakis, Durranis, Nashers, and Karzais.
caption: Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the 2011 Afghan Independence Day in Kabul.
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