The Ghiljī also spelled Khilji, Khalji, or Ghilzai or Ghilzay (غرزی), are one of the largest Pashtun tribes. Their traditional homeland is Ghazni and Qalati Ghilji in Afghanistan but they have also settled in other regions throughout the Afghanistan-Pakistan Pashtun belt. The modern nomadic Kochi people are predominantly made up of Ghilji tribes. The Ghilji make up around 20–25% of Afghanistan's total population.
Ghilji chieftains in Kabul (c. 1880)
Shah Hussain Hotak (1725–1738), the last ruler of the Hotak dynasty
Mohammad Najibullah, of the Ghilji tribe, was President of Afghanistan from 1987 to 1992
Ashraf Ghani, of the Ghilji tribe, was President of Afghanistan from 2014 to 2021
Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan, southern and eastern Afghanistan, and some isolated pockets of far eastern Iran near the Afghan border. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani.
Parts of the day in Pashto