Hazara in Afghanistan

01.09.2021

Who are Hazara in Afghanistan? Are they followers of Shia, Sunni or others religious faith? In which parts of Afghanistan they used to live? The relations between others Afghanistan and Hazara community. Taliban impact on them?

Asia subcontinent is now in a harsh and burning conditions due to flee of US military troops and their control over Afghanistan after two decades and also dramatic captured by rival millitant group, Taliban. They captured almost all the Afghanistan provincial territories except northern part of this country. Taliban still failed to capture this territory due to its surrounding demography.

But there is portion of Afghanistan, which is in central Afghanistan, the people of this territory are not supporters of Taliban. They are mostly Shias. Perhaps some of them were once Buddhists and due to invasion of Muslim invaders, they were being converted into Muslim. They’re “Hazara” community.

The Hazaraz are a Persian -speaking ethnic group native to, and primarily residing in, the mountainous region of Hazarajat, in central Afghanistan. There are about 38-40 lakh Hazaraz estimated to be living in Afghanistan. This makes them form about 10-12 percent of Afghanistan’s 3.8 crore population.

Hazaraz consider themselves the descendants of great medieval-age Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan who better known in India as Changez Khan and whose army overran China, Central Asia and Afghanistan in the 13th century. During their rule in the 1990 s, the Taliban had declared Hazaraz as non – Muslim (Kafirs) and ordered their massacre.

The Hazara were largely autonomous until the 1890s. They belong to Shia . Perhaps very few are Sunni. Their forceful and brutal integration into the nascent Afghan state by Abd al- Rahaman Khan’s predominately Pashtun armies showed the seeds of lasting enmity between the Shii Hazara and the Sunni Pashtuns on both religious and ethnic grounds. Since then the Hazara have faced significant marginalization, persecution, and displacement, perhaps most zealously by the Taliban in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Hazaraz are members of an Afghan ethnic minority group, whereas the Pashtuns are a united group of tribes composing the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan. Mostly Pashtuns are of Sunni Muslims. They do not have a distinct look like the Hazara, because they have middle Eastern features. This is the reason why Pashtun discriminate the Hazara community. Hazaraz look like Chinese people.

Hazaraz are the weakest and poorest race in Afghanistan. That’s why, they are easily subjected to be killed, insulted, and tortured by Pashtuns. This minority Shia Hazaras speak a dialect of Dari( Persian Dialect) called Hazaragi. Though there is little differences between Dari and Hazaragi. The main difference is its accents and Hazaragi’s greater array of Turkic and Mongolic loanwords.

Hence, they are known as Hazarajat. So the name of central Afghanistan is Hazaristan. Now many Hazara have pursued higher education and have become leaders. They enrolled in the army of previous Afghan government and many furnished top government positions. A number of ministers and governors were Hazara, including Sima Samar, Habiba Sarabi, Sarwar Danish, Stayed Hussein Anwari etc. Even a female from Hazara community, Azra Jafari became the first female Mayor in Afghanistan ( Daykundi Province).

Read more:

AFGHANISTAN: THE GRAVEYARD OF EMPEROR’S