An enquiry into the ethnology of the peoples now composing the population of Afghanistan is an important task for understanding the true meaning of Afghanistan and who the Afghans really are. So the identification of numerous existing tribes of Afghanistan as the modern representatives of Greeks who ruled the ancient nations of Ariana (modern Afghanistan) enables us to distinguish between the old possessors and the later settlers as well as between the remains of subsequent dynastic invaders and the stragglers of transitory plunderers. The study describes various divisions of the country as mentioned by the ancient Greek and Roman writers, and by the later Muhammadan authors. Previously known as Khorasan, the name Afghanistan is of modern date as its territorial designation having originated with its Persian conquest by Nadir Shah. He called the southern portion as Baluchistan after the predominant tribe there, and the northern portion as Northern Afghanistan. But in the middle of the eighteenth century, Ahmed Shah Abdali on making himself master of Nadir Shah’s conquests in this region described the entire country as Afghanistan. Afghans have been described time to time in oriental history as turbulent people, mostly nomadic and pastoral, of warlike and predatory instincts, and endowed with military and administrative capabilities of no mean order. They attained the climax of their glory in the Ghori dynasty of Ghazni, when Shahabuddin Ghori conquered India. The author has based this book mostly on his personal inquiry and observations amongst the people of Afghanistan during many years’ of his residence on the frontiers of Afghanistan and occasional journey in its interior. This study shows that the Indians predominated in the population of eastern Afghanistan down to the first quarter of the 11 century, after which Islam’s supremacy blurred their existence.
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