The history of Afghanistan summarized

Afghanistan, a nation of 37 million people, has one of the fastest growing populations on the planet and will soon be more populous than either Canada or Poland. It is bordered by Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China, and Pakistan. Afghanistan is located at the strategic crossroads as connected Iranian, Central, and East Asian civilizations to India. It is one of the most mountainous countries in the world. However, it is also home to a vast network of rivers and fertile valleys, carved out by the massive snow melt flowing from the Hindu Kush and other mountain ranges which envelop the country. More than 4,000 years ago, the farmers of this region began to urbanize. Little is known about these first ancient city-states other than that those in the north, in the land that became known as Bactria, were culturally connected to Central Asian peoples, while those in the southeast were heavily influenced by the Indus Valley civilization, with some of the cities there likely being founded by colonists from the south. However, until more archaeological work is done, Afghanistan's ancient past will remain largely mysterious. Even Kabul, the current capital of Afghanistan, is likely to have been near-continuously inhabited for more than 3,500 years, with the exact origin and people who built it unknown. Sometime during the 7th century BC, the Medes, a northern Iranian people, were the first to conquer and unite this land under their rule, which lasted approximately a little over a century. They were overthrown by the closely related Aghmanid Persians, who divided the empire up into satrapies, or provinces. By the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great, Persian people, language, culture, and religion were prevalent in what is now Afghanistan, with sizable Buddhist and Greek minorities who the Persians had resettled from their western provinces in the preceding centuries. Alexander faced some of the most formidable resistance of his conquests in Bactria, which is likely the primary reason he married the Bactrian princess Roxana, with whom he had a son, also named Alexander, which secured the allegiance of much of the Bactrian nobility and people, and access to India through the strategically important Khyber Pass. Alexander also founded several Greek colonies in the region that later became important political, commercial, and military centers. The Macedonian generals Seleucus and his descendants ruled over much of the eastern portion of Alexander's empire in the years following his death at the age of 32. Control over Bactria and the Indus River Valley was tenuous at best. Before 300 BC, much of this territory had been lost to the Indian Mauryan Empire of Chandragupta. In the peace that followed the war between the two empires, Chandragupta married Seleucus's daughter and gifted his father-in-law 500 trained war elephants, which he used to great effect in his wars in the west. Not long after, the Greek cities of Bactria overthrew Seleucid rule, establishing a wealthy kingdom that controlled much of the land trade to and from China and India. They were able to withstand a major Seleucid invasion and a nearly three-year-long siege of their capital city of Balkh, causing the exhausted Seleucids to sue for peace. Over the next two decades, the Seleucid Empire was also greatly weakened by the rise of another one of their former vassals, the Arsacid Parthians. In the southeast, the Mauryan Empire collapsed. The Greco-Bactrians were then able to effectively fill much of the power vacuum left by these two empires, but their success was halted by internal division. As much of the army was in India, expanding Greco-Bactrian territory, the king was overthrown by a usurper, splitting the empire into two kingdoms, which both experienced several decades of relative stability and prosperity, and the flourishing of a culture that was a unique amalgamation of Greek, Iranian, Indian, and other Central Asian cultures. After the Greco-Bactrians suffered a series of severe military defeats by the Parthians, they were overrun by successive waves of nomadic invaders. The most powerful of these tribal confederations were the Uzi and the Saka, or Scythians, who established control over the lower Indus Valley. The Uzi settled in Bactria and largely assimilated with the local people over time. After the waves of nomadic invasions calmed down to some extent, the Parthians then conquered much of the east, up until the Indus River. The Parthian Arsacid dynasty was very hands-off in their style of governance, and were content as long as taxes were paid and men supplied to the army when needed. And as they became increasingly focused on halting Roman expansion into Mesopotamia, the Parthian noble family that defeated the Scythians and had seized control over the Indus River seceded from the empire, establishing the Surin Kingdom, or more commonly called the Indo-Parthian Kingdom. And although they ceased to pay taxes, and their king claimed equal status to the Parthian Great King, the two states appear to have been allies and deeply involved in each other's politics. In the north, the Greco-Bactrian people and Uzi tribes formed the Kushan Kingdom, and became an empire at the expense of the Parthians, and then expanded deep into Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The Kushans worshipped Greek as well as Hindu gods, but gradually over time, Buddhism became more prevalent, and was widely promoted within the empire's borders, and even without, with Buddhist merchants and missionaries traveling to Han China, which many believe were the first to introduce Buddhism to China. The Kushan Empire was the crossroads of the world, manufactured goods from as far away as China, Rome, and Aksumite Ethiopia would have been common sites in the great cities of the Kushan Empire. In the west, the Parthians succumbed to internal infighting which allowed the Sassanid Persians to overthrow them, viewing themselves as the re-establishment of the ancient Achaemenid Persian Empire that Alexander had toppled. The reinvigorated Persians successfully campaigned to the north, south, east, and west, quickly overrunning the Kushan Empire, and established the Kushanshahs as vassal kings of a greatly diminished territory, and were gradually stripped of their military and administrative power. During the intermediate period of Sassanian decline, the nomadic Kidarites and then Hephthalites gained control over the eastern portion of the empire, and like the Uzi before them, they largely adopted much of the local culture before being reconquered by the Sassanians. It was during Sassanian rule that the first recorded instance of the term Afghan was made in reference to the people inhabiting the mountainous eastern provinces of the empire, and is likely derived from the Pashtun ethnic group which is the largest in Afghanistan. By the time of this region's conquest by the Arab Caliphates, Buddhism and the Persian Zoroastrian faith were the dominant religions in the land that proved difficult to control. Whenever a large Arab army left, the locals would rebel and revert to their ancient customs and self-rule. In the east, Kabul managed to remain an independent wealthy city-state, controlling trade through the Khyber Pass to India, ruled over by Buddhists and Hindus. It was not until the late 9th century that the Safarid Dynasty, founded by a Persian coppersmith born in southwestern Afghanistan, successfully rebelled against the Abbasid Caliphate and firmly established local rule, that Afghans began to convert to Islam, which the dynasty widely promoted. The Safarids were overthrown by the Samanid Empire, whose rulers claimed descent from the Sasanian Persians, and extensively promoted Persian culture and Islam throughout the empire. They made the mistake of utilizing Turkic slave soldiers, which in time overthrew them and established the Ghaznavid dynasty. Based out of the city of Ghazna in eastern Afghanistan, they continued the policies of promoting Islam and Persian culture, particularly among the nomadic Turkic tribes that were settled within the empire. The Ghaznavids were greatly weakened by conflict with the Seljuk-Turk Empire, which allowed for their overthrow by the native Ghurid dynasty, which had recently converted from Buddhism to Islam and were possibly of Pashtun descent. During the reign of Sultan Giyath-al-Din Muhammad, the Ghurid Sultanate became a major world power, stretching from the Iranian plateau to Bengal in the east. However, after Giyath-al-Din's death, the empire fell into infighting and was rapidly conquered by both the Delhi Sultanate in India and the Empire of Khwarazm, both of Turkic Mamluk origin, only 15 years after their conquest of the Ghurid Sultanate. Khwarazm was overrun by the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, who frequently massacred the populations of cities that did not immediately surrender. The Mongol Empire split into several successor states not long after their conquest of the region. The Ilkhanate, as the name implies, fell ill and was ravaged by the plague, wiping out much of the Mongol royal family and army. And as the Ilkhanate fragmented into many small states, the Tajik vassal princes of Herat established a sizable kingdom for a short time. All of these small states were conquered by the Turko-Mongol warlord Tamerlane, who inflicted even greater slaughter and destruction throughout the Near East than the Mongols had done a few generations before. Timur frequently used Afghanistan as his base of operations, and his descendants moved the capital from Samarkand to Herat. The century following Timur's death began with peace and prosperity and ended with internal strife and civil war, with its territory being lost to the Uzbeks in the north, the Safavid Persians in the west, and in the southeast the emergent Mongol Empire, which would go on to conquer most of India, claiming descent from Timur and Genghis Khan. Throughout the 17th century, Afghanistan became a largely autonomous buffer zone between the powerful Safavid and Mongol empires. In 1709, the Pashtun Hotak dynasty successfully rebelled and established a short-lived empire by conquering a great deal of Iranian territory. The Safavid empire was overthrown by the soldier of fortune Nader Shah. He was the son of a common herdsman and one of the most brilliant military strategists ever to have lived. He reconquered Afghanistan and defeated Ottoman and Mughal armies, but his reign was brought short when he was assassinated at the age of 48. One of his cavalry commanders, Ahmad Shah Durrani, was a Pashtun and returned to his homeland, where a Pashtun tribal confederation selected him as their leader. He used his military experience to great effect, conquering those cities that did not join his cause in Afghanistan. And during his long 25-year reign, he successfully campaigned in India three times against the Marathas and Mughals, and even sacked their capital city of Delhi in 1757. The Durrani empire is considered the foundation of the modern state of Afghanistan and Ahmad Shah Durrani as the father of the nation. The empire declined after they were defeated by the Sikhs and driven out of the Indian subcontinent. However, the greatest factor influencing their decline may have been economic, as trade was cut off to China due to poor diplomatic relations, and the traffic along the ancient land trade routes connecting India, Iran and Central Asia all but disappeared. This was due to the expansion of the Russian empire into Central Asia and the dominance of the British East India Company over maritime trade, leaving Afghanistan in a more isolated state than it had been in over 2,000 years. But also a more unified one, with the majority of the country practicing the same religion, Sunni Islam, and the concept of regardless of tribal or ethnic affiliation. The Durrani were overthrown by Dost Mohammad Khan, who established the Emirate of Afghanistan. The British, who had largely gained control over India and its revenue, feared that the Russians would take Afghanistan and use it as a staging ground to take India from them. So to preempt the Russians, they invaded instead and reinstalled the deposed Durrani king on the throne, who was widely disliked. After encountering minimal resistance to their conquest and occupation of the country, the British withdrew most of their troops back to India. The remaining British occupying force was then ambushed and was almost completely slaughtered as they attempted to retreat from the country, in a event that shocked Great Britain and the Western world. The Afghans then reinstated Dost Mohammad Khan on the throne of the country. Nearly four decades after the first invasion, the British invaded again. A peace was concluded after both sides suffered heavy casualties. Afghanistan became a British protectorate, with the Afghans maintaining complete self-rule and the British handling their foreign affairs, which they didn't do too much of anyways. Namely, no cadoodling with the Ruskies. Forty years later, in a third Anglo-Afghan war, 120,000 Afghans invaded India. After a few brief clashes with the British, a treaty was made where Afghanistan would be internationally recognized as a fully independent state. A few years later, in 1926, the country was reformed into the Kingdom of Afghanistan and began the process of modernization and increased contacts with the outside world. In 1973, the monarchy was overthrown in a bloodless coup d'état by the king's cousin, Mohammad Dawood Khan, who became the president of a single-party republic, who further sought to modernize the country and received aid from the Soviet Union and the United States, who both tried to curry influence over the country. In 1978, Dawood and many of his family members were assassinated during a communist coup d'état, establishing the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. This Soviet-backed government pushed wide-ranging reforms that sought to modernize and abolish most traditional and religious societal structures. This caused widespread insurrection and Soviet involvement in a long war of attrition that nearly lasted 10 years and caused millions of refugees to leave the A few years after the Soviet Union withdrew their forces, the Islamic State of Afghanistan overthrew the government and took over the cities, which was largely overthrown by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996, which established a totalitarian rule. They were removed from power five years later by U.S. coalition forces and the Northern Alliance and established the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in 2004. Let me know in the comments of what you believe the future holds for Afghanistan. Also, let me know in the comments of what you found most interesting about Afghan history. This has been Epimetheus. Remember to subscribe and hit the bell icon to get notifications whenever I make new content like this. And a big thanks to my patrons over on Patreon, who help make content like this possible.