Khyber Pakhtun

 

seaman of Karyanda, to explore the course of the river. Darius Hystaspes subsequently subdued the races dwelling west of the Indus and north of Kabul.^[3]
Gandhara, the modern District of Peshawar, was incorporated in a Persian satrapy, and the Assakenoi, with the tribes farther north on the Indus, formed a special satrapy, that of the Indians. Both satrapies sent troops for Xerxes' invasion of Greece (480 BC).
In the spring of 327 BC Alexander the Great crossed the Indian Caucasus (Hindu Kush) and advanced to Nicaea, where Omphis, king of Taxila and other chiefs joined him. Thence Alexander dispatched part of his force through the valley of the Kabul river, while he himself advanced into Bajaur and Swat with his light troops.^[3]

Craterus was ordered to fortify and repeople Arigaion, probably in Bajaur, which its inhabitants had burnt and deserted. Having defeated the Aspasians, from whom he took 40,000 prisoners and 230,000 oxen, Alexander crossed the Gouraios (Panjkora) and entered the territory of the Assakenoi and laid siege to Massaga, which he took by storm. Ora and Bazira (possibly Bazar) soon fell. The people of Bazira fled to the rock Aornos, but Alexander made Embolima (possibly Amb) his basis, and thence attacked the rock, which was captured after a desperate resistance. Meanwhile, Peukelaotis (in Hashtnagar, 17 miles (27 km) north-west of Peshawar) had submitted, and Nicanor, a Macedonian, was appointed satrap of the country west of the Indus.^[4]

Alexander then crossed that river at Ohind or, according to some writers, lower down near Attock. Nicanor was succeeded as satrap by Philippus, who was, however, assassinated by his Greek mercenaries soon after Alexander left India, and Eudamos and Taxiles were then entrusted with the country west of the Indus. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. Porus obtained possession of the Lower Indus valley, but was treacherously murdered by Eudamos in 317. Eudamos then left India; and with his departure the Macedonian power collapsed, and Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, made himself master of the province. His grandson Asoka made Buddhism the dominant religion in Gandhara and in Pakhli, the modern Hazara, as the rock-inscriptions at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra show.^[4]

After Asoka's death the Mauryan empire fell to pieces, just as in the west the Seleucid power was waning. The Greek princes of Bactria seized the opportunity for declaring their independence, and Demetrius conquered part of Northern India (c. 190 B. C.). His absence led to a revolt by Eucratides, who seized on Bactria proper and finally defeated Demetrius in his eastern possessions. Eucratides was, however, murdered (c. 156 B.C.), and the country became subject to a number of petty rulers, of whom little is known but the names laboriously gathered from their coins. The Bactrian dynasty was attacked from the west by the Parthians and from the north (about 139 B.C.) by the Sakas, a Central Asian tribe. Local Greek rulers still exercised a feeble and precarious power along the borderland, but the last vestige of Greek dominion was extinguished by the Yueh-chi.^[4]

This race of nomads had driven the Sakas before them from the highlands of Central Asia, and were themselves forced southwards by the Hiung-nu. One section, known as the Kushan, took the lead, and its chief Kadphises I seized vast territories extending south to the Kabul valley. His son Kadphises II conquered North-Western India, which he governed through his generals. His immediate successors were the kings Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vasushka or Vasudeva, of ^[4] whom the first reigned over a territory which extended as far east as Benares and as far south as Malwa, comprising also Bactria and the Kabul valley.^[5]
Their dates are still a matter of dispute, but it is beyond question that they reigned early in the Christian era. To this period may be ascribed the fine statues and bas-reliefs found in Gandhara (Peshawar) and Udyana (Buner). Under Huvishka's successor, Vasushka, the dominions of the Kushan kings shrank to the Indus valley and the modern Afghanistan; and their dynasty was supplanted by Ki-to-lo, the chief of a Yueh-chi tribe which had remained in Bactria, but was forced to move to the south of the Hindu Kush by the invasion of the Yuan Yuan. The subjects of Ki-to-lo's successors who ruled in the valley of Peshawar are known to the Chinese annalists as the Little Yueh-chi. Their rule, however, did not endure, for they were subdued by the Ephthalites (Ye-ta-i-li-to or Ye-tha), who established a vast empire from Chinese Turkistan to Persia, including the Kabul valley. Known to the Byzantines as the White Huns, they waged war against the Sassanid dynasty of Persia.^[5]

Ancient history[edit]

Since ancient times numerous groups have invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including the Persians, Greeks, Scythians, Kushans, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Mughals, and the British. Between 2000 and 1500 BC, the Aryans split off into an Iranian branch, represented by the Pushtuns who came to dominate most of the region, an Indo-Aryan branch represented by the Hindkowans who populated much of the region before the time of the Pashtuns and various Dardic peoples who came to populate much of the north. Earlier pre-Aryan inhabitants include the Shin or shinwaris and Burusho. The region is mentioned in the Mahabharatha epic as Gandhara Kingdom and lied in the outer fringes of Bharatvarsha. The Vale of Peshawar was home to the Kingdom of Gandhara probably from around the 6th century BC. It was known for its Hindu and Buddhist heritage. It was part of Nanda, Mauryan and Sunga empire before being overrun by foreigners. Ancient Peshawar then known as Purushupura became a capital of the Kushan Empire. The region was visited by such notable historical figures as Darius II, Hsuan Tsang, Fa Hsien, Marco Polo, and Mountstuart Elphinstone, among others. Following the Mauryan conquest of the region, Buddhism became a major faith, at least in urban centres, as attested by recent archaeological and hermeneutic evidence. Kanishka, a prominent Kushan ruler was one of the prominent Buddhist kings.

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The region of Gandhara has long been known as a major centre of Buddhist art and culture around the beginning of the Christian era. But until recently, the Buddhist literature of this region was almost entirely lost. Now, within the last decade, a large corpus of Gandharan manuscripts dating from as early as the 1st century A.D. has come to light and is being studied and published by scholars at the University of Washington. These scrolls, written on birch-bark in the Gandharan language and the Kharosthi script, are the oldest surviving Buddhist literature, which has hitherto been known to us only from later and modern Buddhist canons. They also institute a missing link between original South Asian Buddhism and the Buddhism of East Asia, which was exported primarily from Gandhara along the Silk Roads through Central Asia and thence to China.[6]

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Rural areas retained numerous Shamanistic faiths as evident with the Kalash and other groups. The roots of Pashtunwali or the traditional code of honor followed by the Pashtuns is also believed to have Pre-Islamic origins. Persian invasions left small pockets of Zoroastrians and, later, a ruling Hindu elite established itself during the later Shahi period.

The Shahi era[edit]

During the early 1st millennium, prior to the arrival of Muslims, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region was ruled by the Shahi kings. The early Shahis were Buddhist rulers and reigned over the area until 870 CE when they were overthrown and then later replaced.
When the Chinese monk Xuanzang visited the region early in the 7th century CE, the Kabul valley region was still ruled by affiliates of the Shahi kings, who is identified as the Shahi Khingal, and whose name has been found in an inscription found in Gardez.
While the early Shahis were Turko-Iranian and Kabulistani in origin referred as Kushano-Hepthalites, the later Shahi kings of Kabul and Gandhara were Hindu and had links to some ruling families in neighbouring Kashmir and the Punjab. The Hindu Shahis are believed to have been a ruling elite of a predominantly Buddhist, Hindu and Shamanistic population and were thus patrons of numerous faiths, and various artefacts and coins from their rule have been found that display their multicultural domain.
The last Shahi rulers were eventually wiped out by Mahmud of Ghazni in the early 11th century AD.

 

 

 

Arrival of Islam[edit]

Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Shamanism were the prominent in the region until Muslim Arabs and Turks conquered the area before the 2nd millennium CE^{[citation needed]}. Over the centuries some migrations took place by the local population consisting majorly of Hindus and Buddhists while the remaining converted to Islam. Local Pashtun and Dardic tribes converted to Islam, while retaining some local traditions (albeit altered by Islam) such as Pashtunwali or the Pashtun code of honor.

 

 

Maratha era[edit]

Main article: Maratha conquest of North-west India

In April–May 1758, the Marathas under Raghunathrao captured Punjab, Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa defeating Durrani forces. Peshawar was captured by Marathas on 8 May 1758 when Afghans under Timur Shah Durrani were defeated in the Battle of Peshawar. However the Maratha rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was short-lived as Durrani re-captured the province in 1759.

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Mughal Empire[edit]

In 1526 the Delhi Sultanate was absorbed by the emerging Mughal Empire and the Ilkhanate Empire of the Turks, coming from Great Timur Lang and his grandsons like Babur the Mughal Dynasty.
Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to the region and Islam flourished because of these Northern Afghan and Central Asian invaders.