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AFGHANISTAN vi. Paṣ̌tō A. Geographical distribution. B. Phonemic system. C. Phonetical development. D. Morphology. E. Vocabulary. F. Waṇecī. G. Position of Paṣ̌tō within Iranic. A. Geographical distribution, name, and dialects. (1) Paṣ̌tō (Pa/əҳt’o; for x̌ see below) is an Iranic language spoken in south and southeastern Afghanistan, by recent settlers…

AFGHANISTAN vii. Parāčī Geographical distribution. Parāčī is an Iranian language now spoken northeast of Kabul in the Šotol valley, north of Golbahār, and in the Ḡočūlān and Pačaḡān branches of the Neǰrao valley, northeast of Golbahār. The names of the Šotol villages have been given by Farhādī as Sang-e Laḵšān,…

AFGHANISTAN viii. Archeology The first careful reports on the antiquities of Afghanistan were provided by 19th-century travelers, including the horse dealer W. Moorcroft (with G. Trebeck, Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Punjab; in Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara; from 1819 to 1825,…

AFGHANISTAN x. Political History The year 1160/1747 marks the definitive appearance of an Afghan political entity independent of both the Safavid and Mughal empires. In 1121/1709 a Ḡilzay uprising, led by the Hōtakī tribal chief Mīr Ways, had freed all of southern Afghanistan from Safavid control, thus establishing the basis…

AFGHANISTAN xi. Administration The form and function of Afghanistan’s administrative organizations have reflected the changing balance of power between centripetal and centrifugal forces. The political history of the period under consideration does not reveal a steady tendency towards administrative centralization or the opposite. A division into subperiods can better describe…

AFGHANISTAN xii. Literature The constitution of 1343 Š./1964 names Paṣ̌tō and Darī as the official languages of Afghanistan. The revival of the ancient term darī was intended to signify that the Afghans consider their country the cradle of the language. Hence the word fārsī, the language of Fārs, is strictly…

AFGHANISTAN xiii. FORESTS AND FORESTRY Geographical extension and types of forests. The development of forests is limited in Afghanistan not only by the total quantity of rainfalls (a minimum of 250 mm a year is required for the growth of trees), but also by their seasonal distribution with respect to…

AFGHANISTAN xiv. AFGHAN REFUGEES IN IRAN Afghan refugees make up a population of up to 3 million people of various ethnicities, who have settled in Iran from the communist coup of 1978 in Afghanistan to the present. The number of Afghan refugees in Iran climbed steadily throughout the 1980s, and,…

ĀFĪ, ALLĀHYĀR KHAN, b. 1233/1817-18, d. 21 Ramażān 1278/22 March 1861, poet, son of Nawwāb Amīr-al-dawla, the founder of the state of Tonk. Allāhyār Khan seems not to have participated in government administration or military affairs after his education and marriage; he is never referred to in such capacities in…

AFIFI, RAḤIM (b. Shiraz ?/ d. Teheran 1375 Š./ 1996), scholar and author. He completed his primary education in Mašhad and his higher education in Tehran. He graduated from the University of Tehran with a doctorate in literature in 1338Š. / 1959 and joined the University of Mašhad as an…

AFLĀKĪ ʿĀREFĪ, ŠAMS-AL-DĪN, b. between ca. 685/1286 and 690/1291, author of texts on the virtues of Jalāl-al-dīn Rūmī and his disciples. The pen name Aflākī was apparently derived from his work as an astronomer (Ṯāqeb Dede, Safina III, p. 5), while the nesba ʿĀrefī was taken by him from his…

AFNĀN (“twigs” or “branches”), term used in the Bahaʾi faith (initially by Bahāʾallāh) to designate certain lines of descent in the maternal family of the Bāb. The Bāb married Ḵadīǰa Begom, his mother’s paternal cousin, and the Afnān are the siblings of his mother and his wife, together with all…

AFRĀ, Persian term for the maple tree (genus Acer), also embracing a few shrubs of the family Aceraceae. There are 150 species indigenous to the north temperate regions of the Old and New Worlds; eleven of them are represented in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Turkey, and the Caucasus region. The…

AFRAHĀṬ, name attested in Syriac (ʾfrhṭ) of a number of Iranian Christian churchmen. Cf. Middle Persian frahaxtan “educate, teach, instruct” and the New Persian name Farhād. 1. A bishop of Isfahan (ʾsfhn) who, with several other Iranian Christians, attended the synod of Dādīšōʿ in 424, where decisive steps were taken…

AFRAHĀṬ, YAʿQŪB, Persian bishop of the mid-4th century A.D., author in Syriac. (The younger form of the name, Farhād, is given in the 13th century by Bar Hebraeus.) Yaʿqūb Afrahāṭ was born between A.D. 260 and 275 and died shortly after 345. Famous as “the Persian sage” (ḥakkīma farsāyā), he…