Pashtun homelands in an Indo-Afghan hagiographical collection

Abstract

The article explores the ethnocultural aspects and ideological implications of a hagiographical collection from the Tārīkh-i Khānjahānī wa Makhzan-i Afghānī (1613), a book on the general history of the Pashtuns compiled in the Indo-Afghan diaspora. This article primarily focuses on the stories that either presumably originate from or directly relate in content to Pashtun tribal areas to the west of the Indus. Being foremost a supplement to the Tārīkh-i Khānjahānī’s genealogical section, the hagiographical anthology was included in this book to highlight and illustrate the idea of the Pashtuns’ continuous adherence to Islam throughout many centuries. However, its narratives suggest that Islamic traditions in the Pashtuns’ collective memory can be traced back as far as the turn of the thirteenth century. While the genealogies maintained the principle of patrilineal descent as the basic attribute of Pashtun identity, the hagiographies affirmed the profession of Islamic faith as another integral component of this identity and also brought to light its linguistic criterion. One of the article’s sections offers a survey of the cases where the Pashto language as well as Pashto lexemes and phrases are mentioned in the Persian text of the hagiographies. The article also attempts to locate the Tārīkh-i Khānjahānī’s hagiographical collection among similar works in Indo-Persian literature; it also considers such still-understudied issues as the emergence of spiritual lineages in Pashtun tribes and the entwining of folklore and conventional Islamic elements in the stories about Pashtun religious leaders.