Yale University Press NEW HAVEN & 9 780300"089028 - Sito Mistero

8 ~ TALIBANof diverse and exotic ethnic groups who live in its high, snow-boundvalleys.In the southern foothills of the Hindu Kush lies Kabul; the adjoining 1valleys are the most agriculturally productive region in the country. West-1em and southern Afghanistan marks the eastern end of the Iranian plateau- flat, bare and arid with few towns and a sparse population. Much Iof this region is just called 'registan' or desert by local Afghans. The!exception is the oasis town of Herat, which has been a centre of civiliza-ltion for more than 3,000 years.North of the Hindu Kush the bare Central Asian steppe begins its long Isweep, which stretches thousands of miles north into Siberia. With itslextremes of climate and terrain the north's Turkic peoples are some of Ithe toughest in the world and make the fiercest of fighters. In easternlAfghanistan lie smaller mountain ranges including the Suleman rangewhich straddle the border with Pakistan and are populated on both sidesby the Pashtun tribes. Passes through these mountains such as the famousKhyber Pass have for centuries given conquerors access to the fertileIndian plains.Only 10-12 per cent of Afghanistan's terrain is cultivable and mostfarms, some hanging from mountain slopes, demand extraordinaryamounts of labour to keep them productive. Until the 1970s nomadism -Ithe grazing of goats and the fat-tailed Afghan sheep - was a major sourceof livelihood and the Kochi nomads travelled thousands of miles everyyear in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan in search of good pasture.Although the war against the Soviets destroyed Kochi culture and liveli-ihood in the 1980s, animal herding is still vital in sustaining impoverishedfarmers. Yesterday's Afghan nomads are today's traders and truck-drivers,who are a crucial support base and revenue generator for the Taliban byrunning trucks along the smuggling routes across Afghanistan.Roads and routes have been at the centre of Afghanistan since the 1dawn of history. The landlocked territory was the crossroads of Asia andthe meeting place and battleground for two great waves of civilization*the more urbane Persian empires to the west and the Turkic nomadicempires to the north in Central Asia. As a result Afghanistan ialimmensely rich in archaeological remains.For these two ancient civilizations, which ebbed in greatness and con-1quest according to the momentum of history, control over Afghanistanwas vital for their survival. At other times Afghanistan served as a bufferkeeping these two empires apart, while at other times it served as a COMridor through which their armies marched north to south or west to eastwhen they desired to invade India. This was a land where the first ancientreligions of Zoroastrianism, Manichaeanism and Buddhism flourished.Balkh, the ruins of which are still visible a few miles from Mazar-e-Sharif>INTRODUCTION: AFGHANISTAN'S HOLY WARRIORS ~ 9is according to UNESCO one of the oldest cities in the world and it wasa thriving centre of Buddhist, Persian and Turkic arts and architecture.It was through Afghanistan that pilgrims and traders working theancient Silk Route carried Buddhism to China and Japan. Conquerorsswept through the region like shooting stars. In 329 BC the MacedonianGreeks under Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan and CentralAsia and went on to invade India. The Greeks left behind a new, vibrantBuddhist-Greek kingdom and civilization in the Hindu Kush mountains -the only known historical fusion between European and Asian cultures.By 654 AD Arab armies had swept through Afghanistan to arrive atthe Oxus river on the border with Central Asia. They brought with themtheir new religion of Islam, which preached equality and justice andquickly penetrated the entire region. Under the Persian Saminid dynastywhich lasted from 874 to 999 AD, Afghanistan was part of a new Persianrenaissance in arts and letters. The Ghaznavid dynasty ruled from 977 to1186 and captured north west India Punjab and parts of eastern Iran.In 1219 Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes swept through Afghanistandestroying cities such as Balkh and Herat and piling up mounds ofdead bodies. Yet the Mongols contributed too, by leaving behind themodern day Hazaras - who were the result of inter-marriage between theMongols and local tribes.In the next century Taimur, or Tamerlane as he is called in the West,a descendent of Genghis Khan, created a vast new empire across Russiaand Persia which he ruled from his capital in Samarkand in modern-dayUzbekistan. Taimur captured Herat in 1381 and his son Shah Rukhmoved the capital of the Timurid empire to Herat in 1405. The Timurids,a Turkic people brought the Turkic nomadic culture of Central Asiawithin the orbit of Persian civilization, establishing in Herat one of themost cultured and refined cities in the world. This fusion of Central Asianand Persian culture was a major legacy for the future of Afghanistan. Acentury later the emperor Babur, a descendent of Taimur, visited Heratand wrote, 'the whole habitable world had not such a town as Herat'. 4For the next 300 years the eastern Afghan tribes periodically invadedIndia, conquering Delhi and creating vast Indo-Afghan empires. TheAfghan Lodhi dynasty ruled Delhi from 1451 to 1526. In 1500 Taimur'sdescendent Babur was driven out of his home in the Ferghana valley inUzbekistan. He went on to conquer first Kabul in 1504 and then Delhi.He established the Mogul dynasty which was to rule India until the arrivalof the British. At the same time Persian power declined in the west andHerat was conquered by the Uzbek Shaybani Khans. By the sixteenthcentury western Afghanistan again reverted to Persian rule under theSafavid dynasty.This series of invasions resulted in a complex ethnic, cultural and reli-