Hazara
, the ancient dwellers of Afghanistan famous for constructing the
Buddhas of Bamiyan; or Hazaras as people of Turkic origin. Proponents of the Mongol view hold that many of the Mongol soldiers and their families settled in the area and remained there after the
Mongol Empire dissolved in the 13th century, converting to
Islam and adopting local customs (
cultural diffusion).
However, the main Mongolian mixing theory is contested on the basis of historical events surrounding Genghis Khan's invasion of what today constitutes central Afghanistan. The invading Mongol armies encountered fierce resistance from the locals around
Bamiyan, who had Asian features like the invading Mongols. This suggests that people with Mongolian features inhabited central Afghanistan, possibly of
Uyghur Turkic origin, long before Genghis Khan's invasion and probably arrived there in much earlier waves of migration out of
Central Asia.
Historical records also mention that in a particularly bloody battle around
Bamiyan, Genghis Khan's grandson
Motochin was killed. He ordered Bamiyan burnt to the ground in retribution, renaming it
Ma-Obaliq ("Uninhabitable Abode").
After the fall of the
Il-Khan empire in
Persia, the
Safavid Shah Abbas drove out the Mongols from Persia to
Khorasan (present-day Afghanistan). Some sources say he drove out the
Uzbeks but the distinction is unclear. Around 1550, the first mention of Hazaras are made by the court historians of
Shah Abbas, as well as in the
Baburnama distinguishing Hazaras from the
Chughtai Uzbeks. This is when the national identity of Hazaras apparently began.
The
Global Gene Project reported over a quarter of their sample Hazara males have the
Y chromosome of Genghis Khan. [
1][
2]
The
Hazaragi language is a unique
dialect of the
Persian language, with some
Mongolian and
Turkish vocabulary. Hazaragi is categorized in the Indo-European language family, and 16% to 20% of Afghans speak it. Many of the urban Hazaras in the larger cities of
Kabul and
Mazar-i-Sharif speak
Dari, while Hazaras from the
Dai Kundi and
Dai Zangi regions have the many admixture of the
Mongolian in their language. Hazaras in
Pakistan date back to around
1890, and use more
Urdu and
English words.
Hazaras are predominantly
Shiite Muslims, although there are significant populations of
Sunni and
Ismaili Hazaras in north and northwestern
Afghanistan. Often Sunni Hazaras can blur the lines with the
Tajiks and
Pashtuns.
|
Dr. Sima Samar, Former Vice President, Current Chairperson of Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, United Nations' special envoy to Darfur Sudan, and an ethnic Hazara. |
Since the early
1990s, most Hazaras support the
Hizb-e-Wahdat political party. The most influential member, prior to his capture and execution by the
Taliban, was
Abdul Ali Mazari. His
death made him the symbolic leader of many of the Hazara people.
Besides the major populations of Hazaras in
Quetta,
Pakistan and
Iran, there are signifiant communities in
Australia,
New Zealand,
Canada, the
US, the
UK and particularly the Northern European countries such as
Sweden and
Denmark. Many Hazara youth have migrated in particular to Australia, legally through education or work visas, or as refugees without visas. The most notorious case was the
MV Tampa incident [
3] in which a shipload of refugees, mostly Hazaras, were rescued by the Norwegian freighter
MV Tampa and subsequently sent to
Nauru, where many refugee claims were rejected by Australia, and to New Zealand, where all claims but one were approved. Refugees in Quetta have set up a
remittance economy which has led to the opening of foreign money exchange places to handle the currency coming in.
A recent anthropological book,
War and migration : social networks and economic strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan by Alessandro Monsutti argues that migration is in fact the traditional way of life of the Hazara people, referring to the seasonal and historical migrations which have never ceased and do not seem to be dictated only by emergency situations such as war.
*
History of Afghanistan*
Demographics of Afghanistan*
About the Hazara people*
Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in Pakistan (American Journal of Human Genetics, 2002)*
Where west meets east: the complex mtDNA landscape of the southwest and Central Asian corridor (Oxford Ancestors)*
Genghis Khan a Prolific Lover, DNA Data Implies (National Geographic, 2003)*
Australia ships out Afghan refugees (BBC)*
War and migration : social networks and economic strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan / Alessandro Monsutti ; translated by Patrick Camiller.
