page_title: Muslim conquests of Afghanistan
section_title: Arab conquests
hierarchical_section_title: Muslim conquests of Afghanistan / Arab conquests
caption_attribution_description: Map showing Ancient Persia in light yellowish and the the land called Sind (most of today's Afghanistan and part of Pakistan) in pinkish. A number of ancient references are made to the names shown in this map. Ibn Batutta writes in 1333 AD: [1] "We travelled from there to Naysabur, one of the four capitals of Khurasan.... We travelled thence to Parwan, where I met the amir Buruntayh. He treated me well and wrote to his representatives at Ghazna enjoining them to show me honour. We went on to the village of Charkh [Charikar], it being now summer, and from there to the town of Ghazna. This is the town of the famous warrior-sultan Mahmud ibn Sabuktagin, one of the greatest of rulers, who made frequent raids into India and captured cities and fortresses there. His grave is in this city and is surmounted by a hospice. The greater part of the town is in ruins and nothing but a fraction of it remains, though it was once a large city. It has an exceedingly cold climate, and the inhabitants move from it in the cold season to Qandahar, a large and prosperous town three nights journey from Ghazna, but I did not visit it. 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. They hold mountains and defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. Their principle mountain is called Kuh Sulayman... From Kabul we rode to Karmash, which is a fortress belonging to the Afghans... On reaching Sind I followed this practice and bought horses, camels, white slaves and other goods from the merchants. I had already bought from an Iraqi merchant in Ghazna about thirty horses and a camel with a load of arrows, for this is one of the things presented to the sultan. This merchant went off to Khurasan and on returning to India received his money from me. After crossing the river of Sind called Panj Ab, our way led through a forrest of reeds, in which I saw a rhinoceros for the first time. After two days' march we reached Janani, a large and fine town on the bank of the river Sind. Its people are a people called the Samira, whose ancestors established themselves there on the conquest of Sind in the time of al-Hajjaj [712 A.D.]"
context_page_description: The Muslim conquests of Afghanistan began during the Muslim conquest of Persia as the Arab Muslims migrated eastwards to Khorasan, Sistan and Transoxiana. 15 years after the Battle of Nahāvand, they controlled all Sasanian domains except southern and eastern Afghanistan. Fuller Islamization wasn't achieved until the period between 10th and 12th centuries under Ghaznavid and Ghurid dynasty's rule who patronized Muslim religious institutions.
  Khorasan and Sistan, where Zoroastrianism was well-established, were conquered, but Qandahar remained unconquered. The Arabs had begun to move towards the lands east of Persia and in 652 they captured the city of Herat, establishing an Arab governor there. The Muslim frontier in modern Afghanistan had become stabilized after the first century of Hijri calendar as the relative importance of the Afghan areas diminished. From historical evidence, it appears Tokharistan was the only area heavily colonized by Arabs where Buddhism flourished. Balkh's final conquest was undertaken by Qutayba ibn Muslim in 705. Hui'Chao, who visited around 726, mentions that the Arabs ruled it and all the inhabitants were Buddhists.
context_section_description: During the Muslim conquest of Persia, the Arabs were drawn eastwards from the Iraqi plains to central and eastern Persia, then to Media, into Khorasan, Sistan and Transoxania. 15 years after the Battle of Nahāvand, the Arabs controlled all Sasanian domain except the parts of Afghanistan and Makran. Nancy Dupree states that advancing Arabs carrying the religion of Islam easily took over Herat and Sistan, but the other areas often revolted and converted back to their old faiths whenever the Arab armies withdrew. The harshness of the Arab rule caused the native dynasties to revolt after the Arab power weakened like the Saffarids founded by the zealous Yaqub who conquered many cities of the region.
  Mediaeval Islamic scholars divided modern-day Afghanistan into two regions - the provinces of Khorasan and Sistan. Khorasan was the eastern satrapy of Sasanian Empire, containing Balkh and Herat. Sistan included a number of Afghan cities and regions including Ghazna, Zarang, Bost, Qandahar (also called al-Rukhkhaj or Zamindawar), Kabul, Kabulistan and Zabulistan.
  Before Muslim rule, the regions of Balkh (Bactria or Tokharistan), Herat and Sistan were under Sasanian rule. Further south in Balkh region, in Bamiyan, indication of Sasanian authority diminishes, with a local dynasty seeming ruling from the late antiquity, probably Hepthalites subject to the Yabgu of Western Turks. While Herat was controlled by Sasanians, its hinterlands were controlled by northern Hepthalites who continued to rule the Ghurid mountains and river valleys well into the Islamic era. Sistan was under Arabs but Qandahar remained out of Arab rule. Kabul and Zabulistan, housed Indic religions with the Zunbils and Kabul Shahis offering stiff resistance to Muslim rule for two centuries until Saffarid and Ghaznavid conquests.
  In Afghanistan, the frontier of the Islamic conquest had become more or less stationary by the end of the first century of Hijri calendar. One reason was the relative importance of Sistan and Baluchistan had begun to diminish by the time of Mu'awiyah I, when the conquests of Bactria and Transoxania were undertaken. In addition, the conquest in the eastern direction were extended to Makran and Sind, with Muslim colonies becoming established there in 711–12.
caption: Names of territories during the Caliphate
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