page_title: Ghilji
section_title: Descent and origin
hierarchical_section_title: Ghilji / Descent and origin
caption_attribution_description: Kelaut-I-Ghiljie This lithograph is taken from plate 8 of 'Afghaunistan' by Lieutenant James Rattray. The fortress of Kalat-i-Ghilzai stood 81 miles from the Kandahar on the high road to Kabul. It held a British garrison under Captain Craigie of the 43rd Bengal Light Infantry, which was put under siege by the Ghilzais and cut off for six months from all other garrisons. Success in Kabul had given the Ghilzais so much confidence that their women waited in the ravines close by to share in the plunder. The garrison was finally relieved by a brigade from Kandahar in May 1842. Rattray was among the relieving troops, and wrote: "Far distant from any other station, exposed to sharp and piercing winds and visited by terrible sandstorms, surrounded as far as the eye could reach by bare precipices, tremendous defiles and ravines, heaped together in the most chaotic confusion, like the great breakers of a winter ocean suddenly frozen in belts of mountains, all smitten with the curse of barrenness."
context_page_description: The Ghiljī also spelled Khilji, Khalji, Ghilzai or Ghilzay, are one of the largest tribes of Pashtuns. Their traditional homeland stretches from Ghazni and Qalati Ghilji in Afghanistan eastwards into parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in Pakistan. They are also settled in other parts of Afghanistan. The modern nomadic Kochi people mostly belong to the Ghilji tribe.
  The Ghilji mostly speak the central dialect of Pashto with transitional features between the southern and northern varieties.
context_section_description: Ghiljis may have descended from the Khalaj people. According to historian C.E. Bosworth, it seems very likely that they Khalaj people of the Gazna formed the core of the Ghilji tribe. who are usually referred to as Turks. The Khalaj were sometimes mentioned alongside Pashtun tribes in the armies of several local dynasties, including the Ghaznavids (977–1186). Many of the Khalaj of the Ghazni and Qalati Ghilji region may have become assimilated into the local Pashto-speaking population and they likely formed the core of the Ghilji tribe. They intermarried with the local Pashtuns and adopted their manners, culture, customs, and practices. Minorsky noted: "In fact, there is absolutely nothing astonishing in a tribe of nomad habits changing its language. This happened with the Mongols settled among Turks and probably with some Turks living among Kurds."
caption: An 1848 lithograph showing Ghilji nomads in Afghanistan
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