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Ethnicity of the Pushtūns / Pakhūns

Abstract

The Pushtūns or Pakhtūns occupy vast tracts of land in Pakistān and Afghānistān but their ethnic origin still lies in obscurity this has given rise to pseculatio, very often wild, based merely on emotions rather than reason. The most prominent among the speculators was the highly venerated the Maulānā, ‘Abd al-Qādir, former director of the Pushto Academy, University of Peshāwar, who set forth his views in 1967 in the preface to the Urdu translation of Sir Olaf Caroe’s book, The Pathans. It is a lengthy preface spreading over 44 pages, in which the Maulānā, besides telling us how this world came into existence, throws ample light on what, in his view, was the origin of the Pushtūns and their language, Pushto. The oldest part of the world where human race and civilized life appeared first of all, the Maulānā informs us, was Central Asia. In the remotest past, he says, when much of the present world was still under water, Central Asia had all the elements – earth, water, sunshine – the combined effect of which created an environment congenial for the development of human life. God therefore selected this tract of land for the birth of human beings (Banī Ādam). It was in this cradle, he further remarks, that the earliest humans received their training in art and culture and then spread around in the world in search of livelihood which mainly comprised hunting. Some of the hunting groups, the Maulānā says, wandered too far away to be able to return to the homeland and settled in distant lands losing all contacts with the original stock. There they developed their languages in obedience to the climatic conditions of those lands. Those who came back to Bākhtar (Bactria), an important place in Central Asia, and stayed on spoke Pushto which was the mother tongue and spoken all over central Asia. The people who spoke this language consequently came to be known as Pushtūns whose pi

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