Afghanistan

by Louis Dupree

Overview

The ancient land and the modern nation of Afghanistan are the subject of Louis Dupree's book. Both in the text and in over a hundred illustrations, he identifies the major patterns of Afghan history, society, and culture as they have developed from the Stone Age to the present.

Originally published in 1973.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691643434
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #818
Pages:	804
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.80(d)

Read an Excerpt

Afghanistan

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By Louis Dupree

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1980 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-03006-7

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CHAPTER 1

Geographic Zones

The diverse geographic zones of Afghanistan are discussed from the point of view of total ecology, emphasizing lines of human contact and communication in reference to zones of accessibility and relative inaccessibility. Therefore, Map 2-A should be examined in conjunction with Maps 3, 4, 6, and 9, to understand better the criteria used to delimit the zones.

The Danish geographer Humlum (1959) divided Afghanistan into ten natural provinces: East, South, Central, West, Northwest, North, Nuristan, Badakhshan, Wakhan, Monsoonal Afghanistan (Map 2-B). Those who wish to savor Humlum's fine work and detailed descriptions of the geographic areas are invited to consult his volume, and recommended to read Michel's review (1960), in which he primarily disagrees with the inclusion of Jalalabad in Monsoonal Afghanistan. Michel feels that Jalalabad, with less than eight inches of rainfall, almost dry summers, and infrequent frosts, should, on the Köppen-Trewartha system, be called "subtropical steppe, dry summer" (Michel, 1960, 359–60).

Climate varies considerably, both diurnally and annually. Generally, however, Afghanistan has hot, dry summers and cold winters with heavy snowfalls in the mountains. In November, the snow line begins to creep down the mountains, and stops at about 6,000 feet (1,830 meters) above sea level. Average annual precipitation registers less than 13 inches (21 centimeters). Extremes vary from about two inches (3.2 centimeters) in the southwestern deserts to 13 inches (21 centimeters-plus) in the eastern part of Afghanistan. Maximum precipitation, about 36 inches (58 centimeters) annually, occurs in the Salang Pass area. As can be seen from Chart 1, the wettest months occur regionally at different times during the year, a phenomenon related to location, elevation, and exposure. Much of the rain falls during the winter months (December to February). In the Kabul Valley, however, summer Indian monsoons occasionally push rains into the area. Precipitation increases with elevation, and most water resources of Afghanistan result from the melt waters flowing out of the Hindu Kush.

From November to March, snow blankets the mountains. Peaks over 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) are permanently snow-covered, and several sizable glaciers still exist in northeastern Afghanistan. When snow begins to melt in March, the rivers begin to rise. Seasonal fluctuations occur simultaneously because the rivers get their waters from the same geographic source. Most rivers have maximum flow in the spring and minimum in summer, autumn, and winter. The major exception, the Wakhan Corridor, has maximum melt in late August, and daily fluctuations are spectacular. Small, fordable streams in early morning become torrents in the late afternoon, as water from snow melted by the midday heat flows down to the high valley plains of the Wakhan.

In many instances, minimum precipitation means drying up, or reduction of a river to a series of isolated pools in the stream bed. At times, premature warm weather or sudden rainstorms cause flash floods which catch and destroy whole semi-nomadic or nomadic camps as they pause seasonally in arroyos. Such a flash flood caught Alexander the Great during his invasion of the Afghan area (Burn, 1962, 164).

The Eleven Geographic Zones

The first six zones (the Wakhan Corridor–Pamir Knot, Badakhshan, Central Mountains, Eastern Mountains, Northern Mountains and Foothills, Southern Mountains and Foothills) relate to the Hindu Kush mountain system, young rugged ranges (like the Rocky Mountains) with sharp peaks, deep valleys, and many almost impenetrable barriers. The remaining five zones (Turkestan Plains, Herat–Farah Lowlands, Sistan Basin–Hilmand Valley, Western Stony Deserts, Southwestern Sandy Deserts) embrace the deserts and plains which surround the mountains in the north, west, and southwest (see Map 2).

The Wakhan Corridor and the Pamir Knot: This unique area belongs geographically to the greater Pamir Mountain system. The Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission of 1895–96 politically forced this zone on Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, so that at no point would British India and Tsarist Russia touch.

Many writers indiscriminately lump the Wakhan Corridor and the Pamir Mountains together and fail to distinguish between the sub-zones. In reality, the Corridor is one geographic entity and the Pamir Mountains another, although the Wakhan leads directly into the Pamir. I have been reminded (Michel, 1968) that "Pamir" actually refers to the high and relatively flat valleys between the mountain ranges, where the Kirghiz graze their flocks.

Two relatively wide valleys exist in Wakhan: one at Ishkashim (two miles across, three miles long); another at Qala Panja (less than a mile in all directions).

"Pamir Knot," although scientifically unacceptable to many, aptly describes the fist-like ranges which pivot off the Karakorum, Kunlum, and Himalayan mountains, shifting the trend from roughly southeast–northwest to northeast–southwest through Afghanistan. According to Humlum (1959, 17) 82.9 percent of the Wakhan–Pamir area is above 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), and 17.1 percent between 6,000 and 10,000 feet (1,800 to 3,000 meters). Perpetual snow covers all the Pamir above 16,500 feet (5,000 meters) above sea level. Many glaciers nestle at the higher elevations. Blue-green glacial lakes, such as Sar-i-Kol, shimmer. Passes thread through the high mountains at between 11,500 and 14,800 feet (3,500 to 4,500 meters), often 1,700 to 3,000 feet (500 to 1,000 meters) higher than the valley bottoms (Humlum, 1959, 112).

Mountain climbing in the Hindu Kush has increased considerably during the past few years. Several recent expeditions have climbed many peaks in the mountains south of the valley of the Ab-i-Panja (border with the U.S.S.R.), which later becomes the Amu Darya. In 1965, for example, at least twenty major foreign expeditions, including groups from West Germany, Japan, Poland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Italy, climbed mountains in the Afghan Hindu Kush.

Travel in the Pamir, which begins east of Qala Panja, is difficult, even with the hardy yak used by the Kirghiz nomads. In the sparsely populated Wakhan along the Ab-i-Panja, the people use the Bactrian (two-humped) camel and the horse. An unpaved, natural road follows the high, alpine valley of the Ab-i-Panja from the entrance of the Wakhan to Qala Panja. Trucks occasionally travel between Ishkashim and Qala Panja, and a Land Rover can breeze along the road at fifty kilometers an hour.

Often, however, the river narrows to less than one hundred yards and the ubiquitous Soviet watch towers stretch to cast shadows on Afghan soil, which accounts for the Afghan reluctance to permit foreign visitors to hunt in the home of the Ovis polii (Marco Polo sheep). Incidentally, even Russians have difficulty visiting the Pamir, because of the Afghan–Chinese border.

Several seasonally closed passes lead from Wakhan to Hunza and Chitral in Pakistan: Baroghil Pass; Dorah An (called Kach in Pakistan) Pass. The Kilik (or Wakhjir) Dawan leads from Kashmir into Chinese Sinkiang and on to Tiwa and Urumchi, following former important trade and communication routes traveled by Marco Polo and earlier a flanking force of Genghis Khan, among others. In August, 1969, the Pakistanis, in cooperation with the People's Republic of China, reopened an old route between Chinese Sinkiang and Gilgit, which can be utilized only seasonally, however.

Badakhshan: Geographically, Badakhshan stretches from the entrance of the Wakhan to Kotal-i-Anjuman in the south and west, with the Amu Darya as boundary to the north. The Ab-i-Panja flows to the north near Ishkashim (entrance to the Wakhan) and cuts a large salient out of Central Asia as it patiently makes a parabolic swing to the west and south, thus avoiding the northeast mountains of Badakhshan.

High elevations over 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) constitute 27.5 percent of the terrain; 6,000 to 10,000 feet (1,800 to 3,000 meters), 36.2 percent; 2,000 to 6,000 feet (600 to 1,800 meters), 32 percent; 1,000 to 2,000 feet (300 to 600 meters), 42 percent, as one approaches the Turkestan Plains (Humlum, 1959, 17).

The sharp, rugged Koh-i-Khwaja Mohammad range in northern Badakhshan has been cut in many places by the Kokcha River 30 to 80 feet (9 to 25 meters) into the rock of the valley floor. The steep mountain slopes are covered with rockfall and talus. In the river valleys, up to three series of stream-laid gravel terraces occur, often cut several times by recurrent, spring melt-water floods.

An inhospitable but beautifully sculptured region, Badakhshan consists mainly of metamorphic and plutonic rocks, dissected by V-shaped valleys, which funnel most life into narrow trails.

Several of the open valleys surrounded by mountains and watered by streams, but mainly by springs, appear to have been glacial lakes during the Late Pleistocene. One such series of valleys lie west of Kishm, just north of the great mountain, Takht-i-Sulaiman (Throne of Solomon).

Several significant lakes exist in Badakhshan, the subject of many learned papers by British explorers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thousands of nomads gather at the largest, Lake Shewa, in the summer, and return to the Turkestan Plains (near Chahar Darra, west of Kunduz) or eastern Afghanistan (Laghman), in the winter. Most Laghman nomads, however, go to the Central Mountains in the summer.

Central Mountains: The Central Mountains (mainly the Central and Western Hazarajat) extend roughly from Shibar Kotal through the Koh-i-Baba range. A series of passes leads across this great range, crossed by many conquerors, including Alexander, Genghis Khan, Babur, and Tamerlane. The two major passes are Shibar and Salang. No motorable road went through the Hindu Kush until the reign of King Mohammad Nadir Shah (1929–33), when the Afghans completed a long-time dream by building a road which traveled circuitously via Shibar Pass through the Hindu Kush. The road followed the Ghorband and Surkh Ab river valleys for most of its course. But a major engineering miracle occurred in the late 1960s when, with Soviet financial and technical assistance, the Afghans constructed a tunnel through the heart of the Hindu Kush, just south of the summit of Salang Pass at an altitude of 11,100 feet (3,363 meters) above sea level.

West of Shibar Pass, the Koh-i-Baba mountains, backbone of Afghanistan and a rugged, barren elevated tableland, contain sources of several of the country's more important river systems: the Kabul, Hilmand-Arghandab, and Hari Rud (see Map 4).

The highest peaks in the Central Mountains vary between 14,000 and 17,000 feet (4,270 and 5,180 meters), with the summit of the Koh-i-Baba range at Shah Foladi, about twenty miles from Ak Sarat Pass. Slopes on the north are gentler than those to the south.

Talus covers the lower mountain slopes of the Hindu Kush, and the river valleys are choked with boulders and gravels laid down in winter and moved along with great rapidity by spring snow melt. The few wide valleys are usually inhabited and cultivated or, if at high altitudes, used as summer grazing lands for livestock. These high altitude summer pasture lands are usually called yilaq.

Eastern Mountains: The Eastern Mountains (as well as the others in Afghanistan) were presumably subjected to the same orogenic movements which uplifted the Himalayas proper (probably during the Middle Tertiary and later, or between 15 to 40 millions of years ago), folding and distorting the original sedimentary deposits, laid down in the Tethys Sea and extensive Middle Eastern Mesozoic (70 to 225 millions of years ago) marine basins.

At times, the uplifted mountainous areas were subjected to intensive glacial and fluvial erosion during the Pleistocene (Ice Age), which began about a million or a million and a half years ago. In addition, repeated tectonic stress during the mountain building movements created great fault systems. Most valleys (such as Ghorband, Kabul, Panjsher) are marked by fault lines created chiefly by Alpidi (Tertiary) movements. Although many valleys are narrow, some wider intermontane basins do permit agriculture. Frequent earthquakes, about fifty shakes of varying intensity per year, still occur.

To call the mountain systems of Afghanistan tortured is not trite, but concise.

Four major valleys dominate the human geographic patterns of the Eastern Mountains.

Kabul (an area of high level basins, with altitudes varying from 5,000 to 12,000 feet — 1,500 to 3,600 meters — filled with probable Neogene and Pleistocene sediments) is surrounded by mountains of old rugged crystalline and metamorphic Palaeozoic rocks. The Paghman Range sits northwest of Kabul, with the Safed Koh to the southeast and the Kohi-Baba rising in the west. The Kabul River flows through Tang-i-Gharu, one of the more spectacular gorges in Afghanistan, to Jalalabad.

The second major valley, Kohistan–Panjsher, includes the wide basin of Koh Daman and Charikar and leads to the steepsided valleys of Nijrao and Tagao, where farmers practice terraced agriculture. This region consists mainly of faulted, dissected limestone, with some intrusive epliolites bordered by gneisses and igneous rocks in the east.

The Panjsher Valley serves as a major north-south route used by nomads summering in Badakhshan and wintering in the Laghman–Jalalabad area. Until 1961, many of these groups crossed the border into Pakistan to winter in the Peshawar Valley and points south.

The third major valley, Ghorband, lies in an east-west trend from Charikar to Shibar Pass. Here the sedimentary basin is flatter and with higher terraces than the Panjsher. Farther west, near Bulola, limestone, and near Bamiyan, sandstone and conglomerate, cliffs are encountered, but farther east, the formations become increasingly undifferentiated metamorphics.

Nuristan (formerly called Kafiristan), a region of wild, narrow mountain valleys, accessible only by foot trails except on the periphery where new roads have been constructed, consists of five major north-south valleys (from east to west: Bashgal-Landai Sin-Kunar River complex; Waigal; Pech-Parun-Kantiwa; Alingar-Kulam; Darra-yi-Nur), and about thirty east–west lateral valleys leading into the major valleys. Nuristan is a complex country of gneisses, dioritic and granitic pegmatites, undifferentiated metamorphics, some Mesozoic limestone beds, slates, and recent deposits in the valleys. The five major north–south valleys (Bashgal, Waigal, Pech, Alingar, Alishang) support streams which swell the Kunar River as it flows southwesterly until it joins the Kabul River. Many passes lead into Nuristan from all directions.

In addition, Kotal-i-Unai, a relatively easy pass, leads from Kabul into the eastern Hazarajat. Several passes lead from Paktya into the Kurram Valley of Pakistan, through Parachinar to Thal.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Afghanistan by Louis Dupree. Copyright © 1980 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. v
• Lists Of Illustrations, Maps, Charts, And Diagrams, pg. vii
• Introduction, pg. xvii
• Acknowledgments, pg. xxi
• Introduction, pg. 1
• 1. Geographic- Zones, pg. 3
• 2. Water, pg. 33
• 3. Areas Drastically Affected By Man, pg. 43
• 4. Domesticated Animals, pg. 47
• 5. Fauna, pg. 51
• Introduction, pg. 55
• 6. Ethnic Groups, pg. 57
• 7. Language, pg. 66
• 8. Religious Non-Literacy In A Literate Culture, pg. 95
• 9. Folklore And Folk Music, pg. 112
• 10. Settlement Patterns, pg. 132
• 11. Life Cycle, pg. 181
• 12. The Inward-Looking Society, pg. 248
• Introduction, pg. 253
• 13. The Prehistoric Sequence, pg. 255
• 14. East And West Meet And Mingle, pg. 272
• 15. Invasions And Commerce, pg. 296
• 16. Islam Spreads Its Banner, pg. 312
• 17. The Age Of European Imperialism, pg. 343
• Introduction, pg. 415
• 18. Amir Abdur Rahman Khan: 1880-1901, pg. 417
• 19. Habibullah: 1901-1919, pg. 430
• 20. King Amanullah: 1919-1929, pg. 441
• 21. King Mohammad Nadir Shah: 1929-1933, pg. 458
• 22. The Avuncular Period: 1933-1953, pg. 477
• 23. The Decade Of Daoud: 1953-1963, pg. 499
• 24. The Constitutional Period Begins: 1963-?, pg. 559
• 25. Problems And Prospects, pg. 659
• A. Domesticated Plants In Afghanistan, pg. 669
• B. Fauna In Afghanistan, pg. 670
• C. Medicinal Plants In Afghanistan, pg. 672
• D. Calendars Used In Afghanistan, pg. 674
• E. Folk Music And Instruments (With Illustrations), pg. 677
• F. Mémoires De La Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan, pg. 689
• G. Afghan Cabinets: 1963-71, pg. 690
• H. AUFS Reports On Afghanistan By Louis Dupree: 1959-71, pg. 695
• Bibliography, pg. 697
• Index, pg. 723
• Epilogue (1973), pg. 753
• Epilogue To The Second Printing (1978), pg. 761
• Epilogue (1980), pg. 769