Zabulistan (Persian زابلستان), also spelled Zabolestan, is a historical region in the border area of today's Iran and Afghanistan.
[edit] History of Zabulistan
Kushano-Hephthalite Kingdoms in 565 CE, after destruction of the Hephthalite Khanate by Persian and Turkish forces.
Babur records in his Babur-Nama that Ghazni is also known as Zabulistan[1] The name possibly covered a larger area in the past, as evident by the existence of a province in Afghanistan called Zabul at the foot of the Hindukush, (along the border with Pakistan). According to Persian mythology, Zabulistan was the country of Iranic hero Rostam. In Shahnameh, Zabulistan and Sistan are used interchangeably.
In ancient times, Zabulistan was part of the region known as Arachosia. Northern parts of the region were under control of the Medes Empire before 550 BCE, after which the province fell to the Achaemenid Persians. Alexander the Great conquered Zabul during his conquest of Persia in the 320s BCE. The region later became part of the Seleucid Empire, which traded it to the Mauryan Empire in 305 BCE as part of an alliance. The Sunga Dynasty overthrew the Mauryans in 185 BC, but shortly afterwards lost Zabul to the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. Zabul became part of the break-away Indo-Greek Kingdom in the mid 2nd century BCE.
Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BCE, but lost the region to the Parthians and Indo-Parthians in the early 1st century CE. The Kushan Empire soon expelled the Indo-Parthians and ruled Zabul until around 230 CE, when the Kushans were defeated by the Persian Sassanid Empire and were replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Kushanshas or Indo-Sassanids. In 420 CE the Kushanshas were driven out of Afghanistan by the Chionites, who established the Kidarite Kingdom. The Kidarites were replaced in the 460s CE by the Hephthalites, who were defeated in 565 CE by a coalition of Persian and Turkish armies. Zabul became part of the surviving Shahi Kingdoms of Kapisa, then Kabul, before coming under attack from the Moslem Arabs.
[edit] Buddhist and Hindu Shahi
Around 870 CE the Buddhist Shahi Dynasty was replaced by the Hindu-Shahi dynasty, which fell to the Ghaznavids in the early 11th century CE.
[edit] Zunbils
| “ |
In southern and eastern Afghanistan, the regions of Zamindawar (Zamin I Datbar or land of the justice giver, the classical Archosia) and Zabulistan or Zabul (Jabala, Kapisha, Kia pi shi) and Kabul, the Arabs were effectively opposed for more than two centuries, from 643 to 870 AD, by the indigenous rulers the Zunbils and the related Kabul-Shahs of the dynasty which became known as the Buddhist-Shahi. With Makran and Baluchistan and much of Sindh this area can be reckoned to belong to the cultural and political frontier zone between India and Persia. It is clear however that in the seventh to the ninth centuries the Zunbils and their kinsmen the Kabulshahs ruled over a predominantly Indian rather than a Persian realm. The Arab geographers, in effect commonly speak of that king of "Al Hind" ...(who) bore the title of Zunbil.[2] |
” |
| “ |
One of the most important aspects of early Saffarid policy of significance for the spread of Islam in Afghanistan and on the borders long after their empire had collapsed, was that of expansion into eastern Afghanistan. The early Arab governors of Sistan had at times penetrated as far as Ghazna and Kabul, but these had been little more than slave and plunder raids. There was fierce resistance from the local rulers of these regions, above all from the line of Zunbils who ruled in Zamindavar and Zabulistan.[3] |
” |
[edit] Introduction of Islam
Arabs had been repelled at Sindh in 660, but they invaded Kabul and Zabulistan during the Caliphate of Muawiyah (661-680). In 683 Kabul revolted and defeated the Muslim army, but two years later Zabul's army was routed by the Arabs.[4]
| “ |
We are told that it was only in 870 AD that Zabulistan was finally conquered by one Yakub who was the virtual ruler of the neighbouring Iranian province of Siestan. The king was killed and his subjects were made Muslims.[5] |
” |
| “ |
One of the most important aspects of the early Saffarid policy of significance for the spread of Islam in Afghanistan and on the borders of India long after their empire had collapsed, was that of expansion into eastern Afghanistan. The early Arab governors of Sistan had at times penetrated as far as Ghazana and Kabul, but these had been little more than slave and plunder raids. There was a fierce resistance from the local rulers of these regions, above all from the line of Zunbils who ruled in Zamindavar and Zabulistan and who were probably epigoni of the southern Hepthalite or Chionite kingdom of Zabul; on more than one occasion, these Zunbils inflicted sharp defeats on the Muslims. The Zunbils were linked with the Kabul-Shahs of the Shahi dynasty; the whole river valley was at this time culturally and religiously an outpost of the Indian world, as of course it had been in the earlier centuries during the heyday of the Buddhist Gandhara civilization.[6] |
” |
[edit] Sakawand a pilgrimage centre
Various scholars have recorded the importance of Sakawand as a major centre of Pagan pilgrimage.
| “ |
It is related that, Amru Lais conferred the governorship of Zabulistan on Fardghan and sent him there at the head of four thousand horses. There was a large place of worship of the God Zhun in the country, which was called Sakawand, and people used to come on pilgrimage to the Idols of that place. When Fardaghan arrived in Zabulistan he led his army against it, took the temples broke the idols in pieces, and overthrew the idolators. Some of the plunder he distributed among the troops, the rest he sent to Amru Lais.[7] |
” |
| “ |
Fardaghan, the governor of Zabulistan region around Ghazni under Amr ibn Layth, plundered Sakawand, a place of pilgrimage to God Zhun, which was within the kingdom of the Shahis.[8] |
” |
| “ |
The activities of the Saffarid brothers on the Indian frontier attracted special attention in the Caliphate thanks to the care they took to send exotic presents from the plunder to the Abbasid court. Yaqub, for instance, at one time sent fifty gold and silver idols from Kabul to the caliph Al-Mutamid who dispatched them to Mecca. Another set of Idols lavishly decorated with jewels and silver, sent by himAmr in 896 from Sakawand (a place in the Logar valley between Ghazna and Kabul which the sources describe as a pilgrimage centre dedicated to God Zhun), caused a sensation in Baghdad on account of their strangeness.[9] |
” |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Babur-Nama Translated from the original Turki Text of Zahirud'd-din Muhammad BABUR padshah Ghazi by Annette Susannah Beveridge Vol1 and 11 Published by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers ,Page 217
- ^ Al-Hind: Early medieval India and the expansion of Islam, 7th-11th centuries By André Wink Edition: illustrated Published by BRILL, 2002 Page 112 to 114 ISBN 0391041738, 9780391041738
- ^ The Cambridge history of Iran By William Bayne Fisher, Richard Nelson Frye Page 110
- ^ http://www.narasimhan.com/SK/Culture/culture_history/culture_hist_gupta2.htm
- ^ Medieval India Part 1 by Satish Chandra Page 17
- ^ The Cambridge History of Iran By Richard Nelson Frye, William Bayne Fisher, John Andrew Boyle Edition: reissue, illustrated Published by Cambridge University Press, 1975 Page 111 ISBN 0521200938, 9780521200936
- ^ Jamiu-l-Hikayat of Muhammad Uffi Page 175 frim The History of India told by its own Historians H M Eliot and Dowson Volume 2
- ^ The History and Culture of the Indian People: The age of imperial Kanauj By Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bhāratīya Itihāsa Samiti Published by G. Allen & Unwin, 1969 Page 113
- ^ Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World By André Wink Edition: illustrated Published by BRILL, 2002 Page 124
