Brief History of The Hazaras (online-audio-converter.com)

The Hazaras, an ethnic group in Afghanistan, have faced persecution and land confiscation for centuries. The word "Afghanistan" is controversial as it was imposed on non-Pashtun groups. The Hazaras have a rich history as the descendants of the Kushanian Empire. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban was an attempt to erase Hazara history. Hazaristan was once a connecting point between different civilizations. The Hazaras were weakened by the expansion of Pashtuns from India in the 18th century. They were subjugated by various Afghan rulers and continue to face oppression under the Taliban. Amir Abdul Rahman Khan brutally attacked the Hazaras in the 1890s, resulting in a genocide and the loss of ancestral lands. The Hazaras, a nation with rich history and civilization, and yet one of the most persecuted nations on the face of the earth. The persecution of Hazaras, the land confiscation, and the genocide spanning at least over two centuries. The Hazaras are one of the several ethnic groups inhabiting a vast geographical land today known as Afghanistan, or historically was known as the autonomous region of Hazaristan. The word Afghanistan today is very controversial amongst the non-Pashtun ethnic groups. The word Afghanistan literally means the land of Afghan Pashtuns. However, non-Pashtun ethnic groups think it is an imposed name, an identity forcefully imposed on them against their will at the beginning of the eighteenth century by the Afghans ruling in it. In other words, the word Afghanistan, or Afghan, deliberately imposed, it is a tribal name, a tribal Pashtun ethnic name imposed on non-Pashtun ethnic groups. The geographical land today known as Afghanistan was formerly known as Khurasan, Zabulistan, Ghazristan, Takharistan, Khushanshah, Bakhtiyar, or Bakhtar. According to Greek historians, such as Quantus Carthus, Arian, Herodotus, and Pliny, after the defeat of the Persian king Darius, Alexander the Great came into first resistance of the Hazaras. In the region of the Hindu Kush and Herkania, in north of Iran today, known as Mazindan. The Hazaras of today, according to the mentioned historians, were historically known as the Dai or the Dahis. Today the Hazaras have preserved the sub-tribal name such as Dai Zangi, Dai Kundi, Dai Kuzi, Dai Mirdat, Dai Marda, Dai Mirtasha, Dai Chupan, Dai Dehkhan, etc. It goes on to make the 22th sub-tribe of the Hazaras. In the year 122 B.C., the remnants, or the descendants of the Dahis known as Togharian, overthrown the Greek Bacteria kingdom. Therefore, they have established their own kingdom, which later became the Kushanian Empire, and that is spanned over at least three centuries. The territory on which they ruled was Togharistan, Balkh, Zabul, Sakavan, which today known as It was this, the Togharian dynasty, which later became known as the Kushanian Empire, The Togharians established the kingdom of Bamiyan, where once the two giant Buddhas known as Salsal and Shahmama stood, carved into the cliff-mountains of Bamiyan, or also, historically, these giant Buddhas are known as Surkhbud and Khengbud. Surkhbud literally means the golden buddha, and Khengbud is known as the gray buddha. The two giant buddhas, one of the world's rare historical and archaeological cultural heritage sites, was deliberately destructed by the decree of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, in 2001. It was to uproot and wipe out the historical parts of the Hazara history and ancestry from the face of the earth. Historically, Bamiyan was a city which was a pivotal connecting point between four different civilizations, the Chinese from the east, the Turk from the north, which the Hazara ancestry belongs to, the Hindus from the south, and the Persians from the west. Throughout the history, the Hazaras have protected this valuable archaeological cultural heritage site. Before the arrival of Islam and the Arab invasions, the Hazara ancestors, or the Kushan Empire, was defeated by the Sassanid Empire in 3rd century A.D., who ruled the region for at least 40 to 50 years, but later, overthrown by the Khidrites, Barhat again, the remnant of the Kushan Empire, re-established the Kushanshah, which later became the kingdom of Zabulistan, or known as the Turkish Shahi Zabulistan, who ruled the region until the 9th century A.D. In 7th century A.D., when the Chinese Buddhist monk Huan Tehsing visited Bamiyan, he stated that the inhabitants of Bamiyan were resembled to the Togharian, or Takharian, which I previously mentioned, who are the ancestors of the Kushanian Empire. Alexander Burns, in his journey to Bukhara in 1830s, and Henry Walter Bellow, on his book on the races of Afghanistan in 1880s, quoted from the Hazaras themselves, they were claiming that we are the Hazaras, or the descendants of Togharian, in other words, the Turks of Togharistan. From the historical recordings, and the Sanskrit, we know the language of the rulers of the Hazara ancestors were Bactrian language, which were spoken by the Greek Bacterian. The Sanskrit of the Baglan province, Tangisapidak in Yakavlan district of Bamiyan province, in Jagtu, Nahor, and Jaghuri districts of Ghazni province, in Orazgan, all these Sanskrit are in Bactrian language. So, we know clearly, before the spread of today's Farsi, the language of the Hazara ancestors and the rulers were Bactrian language. The branch of the Hazaras, known as Dahima the Hazaras, or known in ancient times by the Greek historian, as I previously mentioned, and referred to as Amerdian, or Dahi-Amerdian, were settled in Tajistan, who later established the Ghorid dynasty, Ghorian, or Ghorid dynasty, ruling today Afghanistan and India from 8th to 12th century A.D. After the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 A.D., the Muslims started to expand. They engaged in battles with the Roman and the Sassanid Persian Empire in two different fronts. The Sassanids were defeated by the Arabs in 651 A.D. At this period, the Ghorid has its own kingdom, under the Sultan Muhammad Khanag. Sultan Muhammad Khanag, who is the father of the Malik Shansa, or known as the Shantabaniyya, or the grandfather of the Amir Pahlav Ghorid, was born in Daya Bajiristan, the land of Hazaristan, which was confiscated by Amir Abdul Rahman Khan in 1890 and 1893. Throughout the history, the Hazara ancestors had reached history and civilizations. The Hazaras were weakened when the Turkic-Mongol Empire in India started to decline, and that was the start of the Pathan-Afghan-Pashtuns expansion from India into Khurasan. They started to expand at the start of the 18th century. They have pushed the Hazaras into the mountainous regions of Hazaristan by subduing them and confiscating their ancestral motherlands. From the historical recordings, such as Tarih-e-Rafideen, History of India, House of Timur and Humayun, we can see the territory of Hazaras, or Hazarajat, Hazaristan, is vast. It includes most of the upper districts of Badakhshan province, from Bagh to Ghazni to Kabul to Kandahar and to Herat. As quoted by the western historians, such as Henry Walter Biller and George William Forrest in the Journal of the Bengal Society, he quotes the Hazaras, the native Hazaras, they live in the immense tract of land from Bagh to Kabul, then to Ghazni, then to Hilman, Kandahar, to Herat. In fact, they hold all of the country. The Subjugation of the Hazaras The subjugation of the Hazaras began under the Abdalis. During the Abdali dynasty, specifically under the Temusha Abdali, he started to confiscate the Hazara ancestral motherlands in the suburbs of Kandahar in Urezgan, in Terin district of Urezgan province. He planted illegal Pashtun settlers of Popolzai and Norzai tribes illegally on the Hazara ancestral motherlands. In the book Ayin-i-Akbari, which was written by Mubarak, Turk-Mongol administration in India in 16th century, we can see the territory of the Hazaras are still vast. It includes most of the Zabul province, Argandab river, and suburbs of Kandahar and Urezgan, which later has been confiscated by the Afghan ruling elites. The subjugation of the Hazaras started at the era of the Temusha Abdali, and it continued under the Dost Mahmud Khan, Shah Shuja, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, and to the era of the tyrant king Zahir Shah, and now under the Taliban militants rule. In the year 1890s, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan was installed by the British Raj, and received large amount of subsidies to create a buffer zone between the British India and Russian Hazara. He dispatched his troops in the upper Helmand in Urezgan province to collect tax from the Hazaras. During the tax collection, his troops started immense cruelty, rape, torture against the Hazara civilians. The Hazaras were left with no options but to defend themselves, and that has started the Hazaras to revolt against the troops of Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, and that revolt has spread across the autonomous region of Hazaristan. Amir Abdul Rahman Khan has dispatched more troops of ordinary Afghan civilians from the East, from the West, and from the North to crush the revolted Hazaras, which is started by Amir Abdul Rahman Khan's cruelty against the Hazaras. The Hazaras did manage to defend themselves and defeat the Amir Abdul Rahman Khan's troops in two occasions. For one, it was recorded and reported that Amir Abdul Rahman Khan has lost 1500 of his troops. Therefore, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan has dispatched more troops, and he declared a religious fitra, a decree, that the Hazaras are non-Muslims, they are kufr. Ordinary Pashtun civilians have volunteered to join Amir Abdul Rahman Khan's troops and army to crush the Hazaras. He stated that, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan has stated that, the Hazara heads will be mine, the territory and the lands occupied will be yours. Eventually, the Hazara revolt against the Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, with the help of ordinary Afghan civilians, has defeated the Hazaras in 25th of September, 1892. Therefore, today the Hazaras are marking this as Black Day or the Hazara Genocide Memorial Day. The result of the defeat of the Hazaras, this has resulted thousands of the Hazaras to be killed, uprooted from their ancestral lands, sold as slaves in different cities of Afghanistan as well as India. A vast territory of the Hazara lands are occupied, in Bajoristan, in Dala, in Kandahar, in Terin, Chora, Uruzgan province, that were given to Afghan Pashtun migrants, who helped Abdul Rahman Khan to defeat the Hazaras. To this day, these Pashtuns are living illegally on the Hazara ancestral motherland. From the era of Temur Shah Abdali to Shah Shuja, Dost Muhammad Khan, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan and then to Zahir Shah and now Taliban militants. It is recorded that over 46,000 kilometers of the Hazara ancestral land has been confiscated, that has been given illegally to Pashtun nobles, in Bajoristan, in Daychupan, Zabor, Kandahar, Uruzgan, in Logar, Katawas, in Logar, Ghazni, in Jalalabad, etc. In Siraj al-Tawariz, Volume 4, we can read, which has been recorded by Faiz Muhammad Qatibi Hazara and was established under Abdul Rahman Khan's son, Amir Habibullah Khan. It is stated that 400,000 of Hazara families uprooted, massacred or fled their ancestral lands of Hazaristan. The indiscriminate policy set by Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, a century long, it continues to this day under the Taliban militant. Today, the Hazaras are committed genocide against in Daikundi, in Ghor, in Saripur, their lands has been confiscated, especially in Daikundi, in Ghazni, in Ghor, in Saripur. In Warazgan province, where recently we heard that the last two years, over 14 Hazara civilians has been killed by the Taliban affiliated militants to force them to flee their homes and their ancestral lands and give away for the new Pashtun Afghan settlers. In the last three decades, we can see the Hazaras has been killed in numerous occasions across Afghanistan, in schools, in hospitals, in universities, across the region when the Hazaras were traveling, in wedding halls, sports centers, maternity wards, all different places, we can see all aspects of the Hazara lives has been come under the attack and genocidal attacks. This is the result of that indiscriminate policy and cruelty set by Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, now the descendants of that Afghan Pashtuns are following to subdue the Hazaras, to kill them indiscriminately wherever possible, to confiscate their lands and expand the Afghan Pashtun valley which started at the start of the 18th century. Translated by Kambiz Hosseini