Muslim conquests of Afghanistan

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The Muslim conquests of Afghanistan began during the Muslim conquest of Persia as the Arab Muslims migrated eastwards to Khorasan, Sistan and Transoxiana. Fifteen years after the battle of Nahāvand in 642 AD, they controlled all Sasanian domains except in Afghanistan.^[1] Fuller Islamization was not achieved until the period between 10th and 12th centuries under Ghaznavid and Ghurid dynasties who patronized Muslim religious institutions.^[2]

Khorasan and Sistan, where Zoroastrianism was well-established, were conquered.^[3] The Arabs had begun to move towards the lands east of Persia in the 7th century.^[4] The Muslim frontier in modern Afghanistan had become stabilized after the first century of the Lunar Hijri calendar as the relative importance of the Afghan areas diminished.^[5] From historical evidence, it appears Tokharistan (Bactria) was the only area conquered by Arabs where Buddhism heavily flourished.^[6] Balkh's final conquest was undertaken by Qutayba ibn Muslim in 705.^[7]

The eastern regions of Afghanistan were at times considered politically as parts of India.^[8][9] Buddhism and Hinduism held sway over the region until the Muslim conquest.^[10] Kabul and Zabulistan which housed Buddhism and other Indian religions, offered stiff resistance to the early Muslim advance.^[3] Nevertheless, the Arab Umayyads regularly claimed nominal overlordship over the Zunbils and Kabul Shahis ^[11]

The expeditions of Caliph Al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833 AD) were the last by the Arabs on Kabul and Zabul.^[12] The king of Kabul was captured by him and converted to Islam.^[13] The last Zunbil was killed by Ya'qub bin al-Layth along with his former overlord Salih b. al-Nadr in 865.^[14] Meanwhile, the Hindu Shahi of Kabul were defeated under Mahmud of Ghazni.^[15] Indian soldiers were a part of the Ghaznavid army^[16] and the 14th-century Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta described the Hindu Kush as meaning "slayer of Indians", because large numbers of slaves brought from India died from its treacherous weather.^[17]

The geographer Ya'qubi states that the rulers of Bamiyan, called the Sher, converted in the late 8th century. Ya'qub is recorded as having plundered its pagan idols in 870 while a much later historian Shabankara'i claims that Alp-Tegin obtained conversion of its ruler in 962.^[18] No permanent Arab control was established in Ghur^[19] and it became Islamised after Ghaznavid raids.^[20] By the time of Bahram-Shah, Ghur was converted and politically united.^[21]

The Pashtun habitat during their conquest by Mahmud was located in the Sulaiman Mountains in the south of Afghanistan.^[22] Prior to Pashtun migration to the Kabul River valley, Tajiks formed the dominant population of Kabul, Nangarhar, Logar Valley and Laghman in east Afghanistan.^[23] The Pashtuns later began migrating westward from Sulaiman Mountains in the south, and displaced or subjugated the indigenous populations such as Tajiks, Hazaras, the Farsiwanis, Nuristanis and Pashayi people before or during 16th and 17th centuries.^[24]

Before their conversion, the Nuristanis or Kafir people of Kafiristan practiced a form of ancient Hinduism infused with locally developed accretions.^[25] The region from Nuristan to Kashmir was host to a vast number of "Kafir" cultures.^[26] They remained politically independent until being conquered and converted under Afghan Amir Abdul Rahman Khan in 1895–1896.^[27]