New Delhi: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan landed in hot water last week for erroneously calling the Haqqani network, a terrorist organisation on the United Nations sanctions list, a tribe in Afghanistan.
“The Americans didn’t understand what the Haqqani network was. Haqqani is a tribe. It’s a Pashtun tribe, living in Afghanistan. Forty years ago, when the Afghan jihad took place, we had five million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, among them were a few of the Haqqanis,” Khan said in a CNN interview.
Social media users were quick to point out that there is no Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan by the name of Haqqani. The Haqqani Network, which is affiliated with the Afghan Taliban and responsible for several attacks including a 2017 bombing in Kabul, was founded by late warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani who belonged to the Zadran tribe.
Jalaluddin’s son Sirajuddin now serves as interior minister in the new Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, which means ‘students’ in Pashto, have primarily drawn their power from the dominant Pashtuns in Afghanistan. They first seized Kabul in 1996 from President Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik whom they was saw as anti-Pashtun and corrupt.
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Who are Pashtuns?
Pashtuns, also known as Pushtans, Paktuns or Pathans, are the predominant ethnic group in Afghanistan who comprise 40-50 per cent of the population. Smaller ethnic groups in the country among the 14 recognised include Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras.
There are also a large number of Pashtuns in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which shares a border with Afghanistan. They were separated from those in Afghanistan by the ‘Durand Line’, which divided the region between British India and Afghanistan in the late 19th century.
The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a growing civil rights group that began in Pakistan in 2014, has long criticised the Imran Khan government and military establishment for alleged human rights violations against the community.
Pashtuns are mostly Sunni Muslims. However, there are Shia Pashtuns in eastern Afghanistan, according to a 2002 intelligence report by the US Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA).
Pashtuns speak Pashto, which became the national language of Afghanistan in 1936.
‘Pashtunwali’, blood feuds and tribal council
Central to the Pashtun way of life is the ‘Pashtunwali’ code of honour that stresses personal autonomy. A key facet of this code is blood feuds or retaliatory killings that continue between families and tribes for generations.
“Not seeking blood retaliation personally is deemed a sign of moral weakness, even cowardice, not just of the individual who was wronged, but his whole kin group,” wrote US-based social anthropologist Thomas Barfield in a 2003 research paper titled Afghan Customary Law and Its Relationship to Formal Judicial Institutions.
Blood feuds cannot operate in societies with government control. Therefore, those living in marginal rural lands away from state control see themselves as “true Pashtuns”, who can uphold the strict standards of Pashtunwali, added Barfield.
Decisions are taken and disputes resolved only through consensus at a tribal council or ‘jirga’, and its participating members are usually the older respected men and religious figures of a village like mullahs. Women and children aren’t allowed, as pointed out by Country of Origin Information Center ‘Landinfo’, an independent body that works with the Norwegian immigration authorities.
Hospitality, defence of property, and protection of female relatives are other important principles for Pashtuns.
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Origins
As far as origin theories go, some say Pashtuns are descendants of Eastern Iranians while others speculate that they originated from ancient tribes of Israel.
Pashtuns believe they are descendants of a common ancestor, even though there is no consensus on what the name of this ancestor is. Some call him Qays Abdurrashid, others refer to him as Daru Nika or Baba Khaled, the legendary general in Prophet Muhammad’s army.
German ethnologist Bernt Glatzer, who published several works on nomadism in Afghanistan, explained the family tree under this common ancestor from which several tribes were believed to have emerged.
The common ancestor is said to have had four sons: Sarban, Bitan, Ghurghusht and Karran. Sarban had two sons: Sharjnun and Kharshbun; Bitan three sons, Isma’il, Ashbun, Kajin, and one daughter, Bibi Matu; Ghurghusht had three sons, Danay, Babay and Mando; and Karran had two sons, Koday and Kakay.
Important Pashtun rulers have included Ibrahim Lodhi of the Lodi Dynasty, which who ruled Afghanistan and northern India during the Delhi Sultanate period and was eventually defeated by Mughal emperor Babur.
Who are Durranis and Ghilzais?
There are countless tribes, sub-tribes and sub-units under the larger umbrella of Pashtuns. The two major tribes include the Durranis and the Ghilzais. The MCIA report offers a look at the subtribes below these two.
Under Durranis come Achakzai, Alizai, Barakzai, Mohammadzai and Popalzai. Under Ghilzais, come Ahmadzai, Kharruti, Hotaki, Wardak, Jaji and Jadran.
Mullah Baradar, deputy prime minister in the Taliban cabinet, and former Afghan president Hamid Karzai belong to the Popalzai tribe.
‘-zay’ or ‘-zai’ is a common suffix in names of larger tribal units and means “son of…”, while ‘-khel’ refers to smaller subunits, explained Glatzer. He added that tribes that end with ‘-zay’ are usually found in southern or western parts of Afghanistan. Most eastern tribes, such as the Afridi, Mohmand, Zadran, Shinwari and others, lack this suffix.
(Edited by Amit Upadhyaya)
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