Are pathans Muslims or Jews?

[pshyre]

In my trip to peshawar & across Afghan border, I've met so many pathans who claim they are the lost tribes of Israel. If you are Jew then why do you follow Islam? And if you are Muslim, why are saying you have Jewish ancestry? Are you mixed? Is it only Afridis? Btw, I am neither. I don't know anything, this only what I heard. what happened?

btw, I would love to learn Pashto, I am fascinated by pakhtunwali. Beautiful language and culture. So please lend me a few useful Pashto words.

[Badlun]

If you are a real Pashto and Pashtuns lover then please avoid using the term Pathan for Pashtun because it is a derogatory word which means robber or child kidnapper. This was a hate word given by Hindus to Pashtuns when they used to invade India in the past. Our ethnic/cultural name is Pashtun while Afghan is a synonym of Pashtun but also has a political meaning as every citizen of Afghanistan is also called Afghan.

For Pashto learning please consult the Pashto language section on this site.

It is a myth that Pashtuns are a lost tribe of Jews. Pashtuns are Aryans ethnically or they are just Pashtuns, an ethnicity apart. Pashtuns were not Muslims always as Islam is just 1400 years old while Pashtuns have thousands years of history and they might have practiced different religions including Judaism or Hinduism or Zoroastrianism or Buddhism or just practiced Pashtunwali as their code of life.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

Badlun how come the consensus of modern scholarship doesn't affirm your claim that Pashtuns have a history that is thousands of years old?

[Badlun]

Badlun how come the consensus of modern scholarship doesn't affirm your claim that Pashtuns have a history that is thousands of years old?

We have discussed this in detail in other threads but just simple coincidence can never happen that thousands or millions of Pashtuns were born on the same day when Islam was born. This is a proved fact that Pashtuns precede Islam by one year or thousands of years. If your history does not talk of the unlettered Pashtuns that they do exist for thousands of years , does not mean Pashtuns are just few hundreds year old people.

You tell me how old are Pashtuns as a people?.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

We have discussed this in detail in other threads but just simple coincidence can never happen that thousands or millions of Pashtuns were born on the same day when Islam was born. This is a proved fact that Pashtuns precede Islam by one year or thousands of years. If your history does not talk of the unlettered Pashtuns that they do exist for thousands of years , does not mean Pashtuns are just few hundreds year old people.

You tell me how old are Pashtuns as a people?.

Yes I remember and I also remember showing is a faulty argument because we know that If you take a Population of just 10 and give them 1000 years they can become several million by the end if your breeding rate is 1-2 offspring per person. You must have ran away and avoided this part of the debate because it was Uncomfortable for you to confront.

So your argument does not match basic logic or Mathematics. It's not just Pashtuns themselves that lack records THE rest of the world surrounding Pashtuns lack records about Pashtuns. Even Words that "sound" like they might refer to Pashtuns like "Pactuye" or "Ashvaka" Have been shown to have nothing to do with Pashtuns

It seems from the evidence that we have that Pashtuns are between 1000-1500 years old because it was during this period we start seeing evidence of Pashtuns being directly mentioned. So why do you jeep perpetuating something that does not have any meaningful evidence?

[Badlun]

There is no true written history of the Pashtun in their own land. Pashtun are traditionally pastoral nomads (herders who move frequently to find grazing land)

Read more: http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Afgha...#ixzz3gSUpVqGx

Their Pashto language and the practice of Pashtunwali, a pre-Islamic code of conduct, culture and honor typically characterize the Pashtuns


History and origins
The Pashtuns have an ancient history, much still unresearched. From the second millennium B.C.E. to the present, Pashtun regions have seen invasions and migrations including Aryan tribes (Iranian peoples, Indo-Aryans), Medes, Persians, Mauryas, Scythians, Kushans, Hephthalites, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols. Many conflicting theories exist about the origins of the Pashtun people, some modern and others archaic, both among historians and the Pashtuns themselves.

Ancient references

The Greek historian Herodotus first mentioned a people called Pactyans, living on the eastern frontier of the Persian Satrapy Arachosia as early as the 1st millennium B.C.E.. [17] In addition, the Rig-Veda mentions a tribe called the Pakthas (in the region of Pakhat) inhabiting eastern Afghanistan, and some have speculated that they may have been early ancestors of the Pashtuns.[18] Other ancient peoples linked to the Pashtuns includes the Bactrians who spoke a related Middle Iranian language.

Pashtuns, historically referred to as ethnic Afghans, the terms Pashtun and Afghan having been synonymous until the advent of modern Afghanistan and the division of the Pashtuns by the Durand Line, a border drawn by the British in the late nineteenth century. According to V. Minorsky, W.K. Frazier Tyler, M.C. Gillet and several other scholars, "The word Afghan first appears in history in the Hudud-al-Alam in 982 C.E." [19] The Pashtuns used the term, referring to a common legendary ancestor known as Afghana.

Some historians believe that the Pashtuns emerged from the area around Kandahar and the Sulaiman Mountains, and began expanding millennia ago. In that geographic location they would have often been in close contact with the ancient Persians and Maurya Empire,[20] and may have been Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews or probably others prior to the arrival of Muslim Arabs in the seventh century.[21][22][23][24]

Anthropology and linguistics

The Pashtuns have a mixed origin, their language classified as an Eastern Iranian tongue, itself a sub-branch of the Indo-Iranian branch of the greater Indo-European family of languages, and thus the Pashtuns have been classified as an Iranian people,[25][26] possibly as partial modern-day descendants of the Scythians, an ancient Iranian group.[27] According to academic Yu. V. Gankovsky, the Pashtuns began as a "union of largely East-Iranian tribes which became the initial ethnic stratum of the Pashtun ethnogenesis, dates from the middle of the first millennium C.E. and is connected with the dissolution of the Epthalite (White Huns) confederacy."[28] Early precursors to the Pashtuns had been Old Iranian tribes that spread throughout the eastern Iranian Plateau.[29][30]

The Pashto-speaking Pashtuns refer to themselves as Pashtuns or Pukhtuns depending upon whether they speaker the southern dialect or northern dialect respectively. Those Pashtuns compose the core of ethnic Pashtuns found in western Pakistan and southern-eastern Afghanistan. Many Pashtuns have intermingled with the varied invaders, neighboring groups, and migrants (as have the other Iranian peoples). In terms of phenotype, the Pashtuns overall constitute a predominantly Mediterranean people,[31] with light hair and eye colors common, especially among remote mountain tribes.

Oral traditions


Pashtun chiefs and a British Political Officer posed at Jamrud fort at the mouth of the Khyber Pass in 1878.
Some anthropologists lend credence to the mythical oral traditions of the Pashtun tribes themselves. For example, according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites traces to Maghzan-e-Afghani who compiled a history for Khan-e-Jehan Lodhi in the reign of Mughal Emperor Jehangir in the seventeenth century C.E. Another book that corresponds with Pashtun historical records, Taaqati-Nasiri, states that in the seventh century a people called the Bani Israel settled in Ghor, southeast of Herat, Afghanistan, and then migrated south and east. Those Bani Israel references stand in line with the commonly held view by Pashtuns that when the twelve tribes of Israel dispersed, the tribe of Joseph, among other Hebrew tribes, settled in the region.[32] Hence the tribal name 'Yusef Zai' in Pashto translates to the 'sons of Joseph'. Iranian historian Ferishta told a similar story.[33]

Maghzan-e-Afghani's Bani-Israel theory has been questioned due to its major historical and linguistic inconsistencies, especially the main one that Assyria exiled the Ten Lost Tribes, yet Maghzan-e-Afghani refers to the ruler of Persia permitting them to go east to Afghanistan.[34] That inconsistency can be explained by Persia acquired the lands of the Assyrian Empire when it conquered Babylonia, which had conquered Assyria decades earlier. Yet no ancient author mentioned such a transfer of Israelites further east, nor do ancient extra-Biblical texts exist that refer to the Ten Lost Tribes at all. Yet, that oral tradition has widespread credence among the Pashtuns. Legends abound over the centuries telling of the descend from the Ten Lost Tribes after groups converted to Christianity and Islam. The Rig Veda believed to have been composed before 1200 B.C.E., mentions the Pashtuns as living in the area of Afghanistan.[35]No ancient author before the conversion of the Pashtuns to Islam mentions any Israelite or Jewish connection.[36]

The oral tradition may be a myth which grew out of a political and cultural struggle between Pashtuns and the Mughals, explaining the historical backdrop for the creation of the myth, the inconsistencies of the mythology, and the linguistic research that refutes any Semitic origins.[34]

Other Pashtun tribes claim descent from Arabs, including some even claiming to be descendants of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad (popularly referred to as sayyids). Some groups from Peshawar and Kandahar (such as the Afridis , Khattaks and Sadozais) also claim to be descended from Alexander the Great's Greeks.[37]

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pashtun_people

[Badlun]

Yes I remember and I also remember showing is a faulty argument because we know that If you take a Population of just 10 and give them 1000 years they can become several million by the end if your breeding rate is 1-2 offspring per person. You must have ran away and avoided this part of the debate because it was Uncomfortable for you to confront.

So your argument does not match basic logic or Mathematics. It's not just Pashtuns themselves that lack records THE rest of the world surrounding Pashtuns lack records about Pashtuns. Even Words that "sound" like they might refer to Pashtuns like "Pactuye" or "Ashvaka" Have been shown to have nothing to do with Pashtuns

It seems from the evidence that we have that Pashtuns are between 1000-1500 years old because it was during this period we start seeing evidence of Pashtuns being directly mentioned. So why do you jeep perpetuating something that does not have any meaningful evidence?

Directly mentioned does not mean they did not exist before. Many tribes in Africa and Amazonian region may not be mentioned even today but it does not mean they never existed.

[Brown Skinned Savage]

Directly mentioned does not mean they did not exist before. Many tribes in Africa and Amazonian region may not be mentioned even today but it does not mean they never existed.

But why wouldn't they have been directly mentioned before by surrounding cultures if they existed. This is the logical inconsistency of your belief. Why would the historians or chroniclers just start talking about Pashtuns out of nowhere around the 8th-11th century but ignored them for thousands of years before that?

All we know from ancient history is that there were tribes in the region now inhabited by Pashtuns. MAYBE they were the Ancestors of modern Pashtuns. but just as AFricans are Ancestors of Modern Humans, but NOT all modern humans are considered Africanss. The same, ancestor of Pashtuns does not necessarily mean they were Pashtuns.

Even in all the Copy Pasted text, This information would suggest that Pashtuns just came out of Other Pre-existing Ethnic groups and that Pashtun ethnogenesis js very recent

This is why your belief is very flawed and .....almost like a dogma than based in Logic or Knowledge.

Is it better to believe in myths to make ourselves feel better or be proud of the truth even if it is not as glorious as we want it to be?

[HalloIsBack]

If you are a real Pashto and Pashtuns lover then please avoid using the term Pathan for Pashtun because it is a derogatory word which means robber or child kidnapper. This was a hate word given by Hindus to Pashtuns when they used to invade India in the past. Our ethnic/cultural name is Pashtun while Afghan is a synonym of Pashtun but also has a political meaning as every citizen of Afghanistan is also called Afghan.

For Pashto learning please consult the Pashto language section on this site.

It is a myth that Pashtuns are a lost tribe of Jews. Pashtuns are Aryans ethnically or they are just Pashtuns, an ethnicity apart. Pashtuns were not Muslims always as Islam is just 1400 years old while Pashtuns have thousands years of history and they might have practiced different religions including Judaism or Hinduism or Zoroastrianism or Buddhism or just practiced Pashtunwali as their code of life.

linguistic not ethnical
please distinguish!

[torkham]

IF the criterion to affirm age of Pashtuns is historiographic and and literary references, then what name would you give the Pashtuns prior to those references? Do you think Pashtuns may have formed through abiogenesis?

[Brown Skinned Savage]

I think Pashtuns formed the way other ethnic groups formed ....different ore-existing cultures forming alliances and intermarrying and forging new languages, customs and voila Pashtuns.