Afsharid dynasty
The Afsharid dynasty were members of an Iranian dynasty that originated from the Turkic Afshar tribe in Iran's north-eastern province of Khorasan, ruling Persia in the mid-eighteenth century. The dynasty was founded in 1736 by the brilliant military commander Nader Shah, who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty and proclaimed himself Shah of Iran. During Nader's reign, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire. At its height it controlled modern-day Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan Republic, parts of the North Caucasus, Bahrain, Turkmenistan and Pakistan, parts of Iraq and Oman. After his death, most of his empire was divided between the Zands, Durranis and the Caucasian khanates, while Afsharid rule was confined to a small local state in Khorasan; the Afsharid dynasty was overthrown by Mohammad Khan Qajar in 1796, who would establish a new native Iranian empire and restore Iranian suzerainty over several of the aforementioned regions. The dynasty was named after the Turcoman Afshar tribe from Khorasan in north-east Iran, to which Nader belonged.
The Afshars had migrated from Turkestan to Azerbaijan in the 13th century. In the early 17th century, Shah Abbas the Great moved many Afshars from Azerbaijan to Khorasan to defend the north-eastern borders of his state against the Uzbeks, after which the Afshars became native to those regions. Nader belonged to the Qereqlu branch of the Afshars. Nader Shah was born into a humble semi-nomadic family from the Afshar tribe of Khorasan, where he became a local warlord, his path to power began when the Ghilzai Mir Mahmud Hotaki overthrew the weakened and disintegrated Safavid shah Sultan Husayn in 1722. At the same time and Russian forces seized Iranian land. Russia took swaths of Iran's Caucasian territories in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, as well as mainland northern Iran, by the Russo-Persian War, while the neighbouring Ottomans invaded from the west. By the 1724 Treaty of Constantinople, they agreed to divide the conquered areas between themselves. On the other side of the theatre, Nader joined forces with Sultan Husayn's son Tahmasp II and led the resistance against the Ghilzai Afghans, driving their leader Ashraf Khan out of the capital in 1729 and establishing Tahmasp on the throne.
Nader fought to regain the lands lost to the Ottomans and Russians and to restore Iranian hegemony in Iran. While he was away in the east fighting the Ghilzais, Tahmasp allowed the Ottomans to retake territory in the west. Nader, had Tahmasp deposed in favour of his baby son Abbas III in 1732. Four years after he had recaptured most of the lost Persian lands, Nader felt confident enough to have himself proclaimed shah in his own right at a ceremony on the Moghan Plain. Nader subsequently made the Russians cede the taken territories taken in 1722–23 through the Treaty of Resht of 1732 and the Treaty of Ganja of 1735. Back in control of the integral northern territories, with a new Russo-Iranian alliance against the common Ottoman enemy, he continued the Ottoman–Persian War; the Ottoman armies were expelled from western Iran and the rest of the Caucasus, the resultant 1736 Treaty of Constantinople forced the Ottomans to confirm Iranian suzerainty over the Caucasus and recognised Nader as the new Iranian shah.
Copied content from Nader Shah article. He thus became a figure of national importance; when Nader discovered that Fath Ali Khan was corresponding with Malek Mahmud and revealed this to the shah, Tahmasp executed him and made Nader the chief of his army instead. Nader subsequently took on the title Tahmasp Qoli. In late 1726, Nader recaptured Mashhad. Nader chose not to march directly on Isfahan. First, in May 1729, he defeated the Abdali Afghans near Herat. Many of the Abdali Afghans subsequently joined his army; the new shah of the Ghilzai Afghans, decided to move against Nader but in September 1729, Nader defeated him at the Battle of Damghan and again decisively in November at Murchakhort, banishing the Afghans from Persian soil forever. Ashraf fled and Nader entered Isfahan, handing it over to Tahmasp in December and plundering the city to pay his army. Tahmasp made Nader governor over many eastern provinces, including his native Khorasan, married him to his sister. Nader pursued and defeated Ashraf, murdered by his own followers.
In 1738, Nader Shah destroyed the last Hotaki seat of power, at Kandahar. He built a new city nearby, which he named "Naderabad". Copied content from Nader Shah article. At the same time, the Abdali Afghans rebelled and besieged Mashhad, forcing Nader to suspend his campaign and save his brother, Ebrahim, it took Nader fourteen months to crush this uprising. Relations between Nader and the Shah had declined as the latter grew alarmed by his general's military successes. While Nader was absent in the east, Tahmasp tried to assert himself by launching a campaign to recapture Yerevan, he ended up losing all of Nader's recent gains to the Ottomans, signed a treaty ceding Georgia and Armenia in exchange for Tabriz. Nader, saw that the moment had come to depose Tahmasp, he denounced the treaty. In Isfahan, Nader got Tahmasp drunk showed him to the courtiers asking if a man in
Saffarid dynasty
The Saffarid dynasty was a Muslim Persian dynasty from Sistan that ruled over parts of eastern Iran, with its capital at Zaranj. Khorasan and Sistan from 861 to 1003. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emerge after the Arab Islamic invasions, its founder was Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, born in 840 in a small town called Karnin, located east of Zaranj and west of Bost, in what is now Afghanistan - a native of Sistan and a local ayyār, who worked as a coppersmith before becoming a warlord, he seized control of the Sistan region and began conquering most of Iran and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Pakistan and Uzbekistan. The Saffarids used their capital Zaranj as a base for an aggressive expansion westward, they first invaded the areas south of the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and overthrew the Persian Tahirid dynasty, annexing Khorasan in 873. By the time of Ya'qub's death, he had conquered the Kabul Valley, Tocharistan, Kerman, Fars and nearly reached Baghdad but suffered a defeat by the Abbasids.
The Saffarid empire did not last long after Ya'qub's death. His brother and successor, Amr bin Laith, was defeated at the Battle of Balkh against Ismail Samani in 900. Amr bin Laith was forced to surrender most of his territories to the new rulers; the Saffarids were subsequently confined to their heartland of Sistan, with their role reduced to that of vassals of the Samanids and their successors. The dynasty began with Ya ` a coppersmith who moved to the city of Zaranj, he left work to become an Ayyar and got the power to act as an independent ruler. From his capital Zaranj he moved east into al-Rukhkhadj and Zamindawar followed by Zunbil and Kabul by 865, he invaded Bamyan, Balkh and Ghor. In the name of Islam, he conquered these territories which were ruled by Buddhist tribal chiefs, he took vast amounts of plunder and slaves from this campaign. Nancy Dupree in her book An Historical Guide to Afghanistan describes Yaqub's conquests as such: Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam came out of the west to defeat the Sasanians in 642 and they marched with confidence to the east.
On the western periphery of the Afghan area the princes of Herat and Sistan gave way to rule by Arab governors but in the east, in the mountains, cities submitted only to rise in revolt and the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies passed. The harshness and avariciousness of Arab rule produced such unrest, that once the waning power of the Caliphate became apparent, native rulers once again established themselves independent. Among these Saffarids of Sistan shone in the Afghan area; the fanatic founder of this dynasty, the coppersmith’s apprentice Yaqub ibn Layth Saffari, came forth from his capital at Zaranj in 870 and marched through Bost, Ghazni, Bamyan and Herat, conquering in the name of Islam. The Tahirid city of Herat was captured in 870 and his campaign in the Badghis region led to the capture of Kharidjites which formed the Djash al-Shurat contingent in his army. Ya'qub turned his focus to the west and began attacks on Khorasan, Khuzestan and Fars; the Saffarids seized Khuzestan and parts of southern Iraq, in 876 came close to overthrowing the Abbasids, whose army was able to turn them back only within a few days' march from Baghdad.
These incursions, forced the Abbasid caliphate to recognize Ya'qub as governor of Sistan and Kerman, Saffarids were offered key posts in Baghdad. In 901, Amr Saffari was defeated at the battle of Balkh by the Samanids, which reduced the Saffarid dynasty to a minor tributary in Sistan. In 1002, Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Sistan, dethroned Khalaf I and ended the Saffarid dynasty; the Saffarids gave great care to the Persian culture. Under their rule, the eastern Islamic world witnessed the emergence of prominent Persian poets such as Fayrouz Mashriqi, Abu Salik al-Jirjani, Muhammad bin Wasif al-Sistani, a court poet. In the 9th century, the Saffarids gave impetus to a renaissance of New Persian literature and culture. Following Ya'qub's conquest of Herat, some poets chose to celebrate his victory in Arabic, whereupon Ya'qub requested his secretary, Muhammad bin Wasif al-Sistani, to compose those verses in Persian. From silver mines in the Panjshir Valley, the Saffarids were able to mint silver coins.
Iranian Intermezzo Nasrid dynasty Mihrabanids Samanids Ghaznavids List of kings of Persia List of Sunni Muslim dynasties Encyclopædia Iranica Saffarids
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire or Mogul Empire was an empire in the Indian subcontinent, founded in 1526. It was established and ruled by the Timurid dynasty, with Turco-Mongol Chagatai roots from Central Asia, claiming direct descent from both Genghis Khan and Timur, with significant Indian Rajput and Persian ancestry through marriage alliances; the dynasty was Indo-Persian in culture, combining Persianate culture with local Indian cultural influences visible in its court culture and administrative customs. The beginning of the empire is conventionally dated to the victory by its founder Babur over Ibrahim Lodi, the last ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, in the First Battle of Panipat. During the reign of Humayun, the successor of Babur, the empire was interrupted by the Sur Empire established by Sher Shah Suri; the "classic period" of the Mughal Empire began with the ascension of Akbar to the throne. Some Rajput kingdoms continued to pose a significant threat to the Mughal dominance of northwestern India, but most of them were subdued by Akbar.
All Mughal emperors were Muslims. The Mughal Empire did not try to intervene in native societies during most of its existence, rather co-opting and pacifying them through concilliatory administrative practices and a syncretic, inclusive ruling elite, leading to more systematic and uniform rule. Traditional and newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, the Pashtuns, the Hindu Jats and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience. Internal dissatisfaction arose due to the weakness of the empire's administrative and economic systems, leading to its break-up and declarations of independence of its former provinces by the Nawab of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh, the Nizam of Hyderabad and other small states. In 1739, the Mughals were crushingly defeated in the Battle of Karnal by the forces of Nader Shah, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty in Persia, Delhi was sacked and looted, drastically accelerating their decline.
By the mid-18th century, the Marathas had routed Mughal armies and won over several Mughal provinces from the Punjab to Bengal. During the following century Mughal power had become limited, the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II, had authority over only the city of Shahjahanabad. Bahadur issued a firman supporting the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Consequent to the rebellion's defeat he was tried by the British East India Company for treason and exiled to Rangoon; the last remnants of the empire were formally taken over by the British, the British Parliament passed the Government of India Act 1858 to enable the Crown formally to displace the rights of the East India Company and assume direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj. At its height, the Mughal Empire stretched from Kabul, Afghanistan in the west to Arakan, Myanmar in the east, from Kashmir in the north to the Deccan Plateau in the south, extending over nearly all of the Indian subcontinent, it was the third largest empire in the Indian subcontinent, spanning four million square kilometers at its zenith, 122% of the size of the modern Republic of India.
The maximum expansion was reached during the reign of Aurangzeb, who ruled over more than 150 million subjects, nearly 25% of the world's population at the time. The Mughal Empire ushered in a period of proto-industrialization, around the 17th century, Mughal India became the world's largest economic and manufacturing power, responsible for 25% of global industrial output until the 18th century; the Mughal Empire is considered "India's last golden age" and one of the three Islamic Gunpowder Empires. The reign of Shah Jahan represented the height of Mughal architecture, with famous monuments such as the Taj Mahal, Moti Masjid, Red Fort, Jama Masjid and Lahore Fort being constructed during his reign. Contemporaries referred to the empire founded by Babur as the Timurid empire, which reflected the heritage of his dynasty, this was the term preferred by the Mughals themselves; the Mughal designation for their own dynasty was Gurkani. The use of Mughal derived from the Arabic and Persian corruption of Mongol, it emphasised the Mongol origins of the Timurid dynasty.
The term remains disputed by Indologists. Similar terms had been used to refer to the empire, including "Mogul" and "Moghul". Babur's ancestors were distinguished from the classical Mongols insofar as they were oriented towards Persian rather than Turco-Mongol culture. Another name for the empire was Hindustan, documented in the Ain-i-Akbari, and, described as the closest to an official name for the empire. In the west, the term "Mughal" was used for the emperor, by extension, the empire as a whole; the Mughal Empire was founded by Babur, a Central Asian ruler, descended from the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur on his father's side and from Chagatai, the second son of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, on his mother's side. Ousted from his ancestral domains in C
Durrani Empire
The Durrani Empire called the Sadozai Kingdom, Afghan Empire, was founded and built by Ahmad Shah Durrani. At its maximum extent, the empire ruled over what are now the modern-day countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, as well as some parts of northeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan, northwestern India including the Kashmir region. After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, the region of Kandahar was claimed by Ahmad Shah Durrani. From there he began conquering Ghazni followed by Kabul. In 1749 the Mughal ruler had ceded sovereignty over what is now Pakistan and northwestern Punjab to the Afghans. Ahmad Shah set out westward to take possession of Herat, ruled by Shahrokh Shah, he next sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush and in short order all the different tribes began joining his cause. Ahmad Shah and his forces invaded India four times, taking control of the Kashmir and the Punjab region. Early in 1757, he sacked Delhi, but permitted the Mughal dynasty to remain in nominal control as long as the ruler acknowledged Ahmad Shah's suzerainty over the Punjab and Kashmir.
After the death of Ahmad Shah in about 1772, his son Timur Shah became the next ruler of the Durrani dynasty who decided to make Kabul the new capital of the empire, used Peshawar as the winter capital. The Durrani Empire is considered the foundation of the modern state of Afghanistan, with Ahmad Shah Durrani being credited as "Father of the Nation". In 1709 Mir Wais Hotak, chief of the Ghilji tribe of Kandahar Province, gained independence from the Safavid Persians. From 1722 to 1725, his son Mahmud Hotak ruled large parts of Iran and declared himself as Shah of Persia. However, the Hotak dynasty came to a complete end in 1738 after being toppled and banished by the Afsharids who were led by Nader Shah Afshar of Persia; the year 1747 marks the definitive appearance of an Afghan political entity independent of both the Persian and Mughal empires. In October 1747 a loya jirga concluded near the city of Kandahar with Ahmad Shah Durrani being selected as the new leader of the Afghans, thus the Durrani dynasty was founded.
Despite being younger than the other contenders, Ahmad Shah had several overriding factors in his favor. He belonged to a respectable family of political background since his father served as Governor of Herat who died in a battle defending the Afghans. One of Ahmad Shah's first military actions was to capture Ghazni from the Ghiljis, wrest Kabul from the local ruler. In 1749, the Mughal ruler was induced to cede Sindh, the Punjab region and the important trans Indus River to Ahmad Shah in order to save his capital from Afghan attack. Having thus gained substantial territories to the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah turned westward to take possession of Herat, ruled by Nader Shah Afshar's grandson, Shahrukh Afshar. Ahmad Shah next sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush mountains. In short order, the powerful army brought under its control the Tajik, Uzbek and other tribes of northern Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah invaded the remnants of the Mughal Empire a third time, a fourth, consolidating control over the Kashmir and Punjab regions, with Lahore being governed by Afghans.
He sacked Delhi in 1757 but permitted the Mughal dynasty to remain in nominal control of the city as long as the ruler acknowledged Ahmad Shah's suzerainty over Punjab and Kashmir. Leaving his second son Timur Shah to safeguard his interests, Ahmad Shah left India to return to Afghanistan. Alarmed by the expansion of China's Qing Dynasty up to the eastern border of Kazakhstan, Ahmad Shah attempted to rally neighboring Muslim khanates and the Kazakhs to unite and attack China, ostensibly to liberate its western Muslim subjects. Ahmad Shah dispatched troops to Kokand. However, with his campaigns in India exhausting the state treasury, with his troops stretched thin throughout Central Asia, Ahmad Shah lacked sufficient resources to do anything except to send envoys to Beijing for unsuccessful talks; the Mughal power in northern India had been declining since the reign of Aurangzeb, who died in 1707. In 1751-52, Ahamdiya treaty was signed between the Marathas and Mughals, when Balaji Bajirao was the Peshwa.
Through this treaty, the Marathas controlled the whole of India from their capital at Pune and the Mughal rule was restricted only to Delhi. Marathas were now straining to expand their area of control towards the Northwest of India. Ahmad Shah withdrew with the booty he coveted. To counter the Afghans, Peshwa Balaji Bajirao sent Raghunathrao, he defeated the Rohillas and Afghan garrisons in Punjab and succeeded in ousting Timur Shah and his court from India and brought Lahore, Multan and other subahs on the Indian side of Attock under Maratha rule. Thus, upon his return to Kandahar in 1757, Ahmad was forced to return to India and face the formidable attacks of the Maratha Confederacy. Ahmad Shah declared a jihad against the Marathas, warriors from various Afghan tribes joined his army, including the Baloch people under the command of Khan of Kalat Mir Nasir I of Kalat. Suba Khan Tanoli was selected as army chief of all military forces. Early skirmishes were followed by victory for the Afghans against the much larger Maratha garrisons in Northwest India and by 1759 Ahmad Shah and his army had reached Lahore and were poised to confront the Marathas.
Ahmad Shah Durrani was famous for winning wars much larger than his army. By 1760, the Maratha groups had coalesced into a big enough army under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau. Once again, Panip
Samanid Empire
The Samanid Empire known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid Emirate, or Samanids, was a Sunni Iranian empire, ruling from 819 to 999. The empire was centered in Transoxiana during its existence; the Samanid state was founded by four brothers. In 892, Isma'il ibn Ahmad united the Samanid state under one ruler, thus putting an end to the feudal system used by the Samanids, it was under him that the Samanids became independent of Abbasid authority. The Samanid Empire is part of the Iranian Intermezzo, which saw the creation of a Persianate culture and identity that brought Iranian speech and traditions into the fold of the Islamic world; this would lead to the formation of the Turko-Persian culture. The Samanids promoted the arts, giving rise to the advancement of science and literature, thus attracted scholars such as Rudaki and Avicenna. While under Samanid control, Bukhara was a rival to Baghdad in its glory. Scholars note that the Samanids revived Persian language and culture more than the Buyids and the Saffarids, while continuing to patronize Arabic for sciences as well as the religious studies.
They considered themselves to be descendants of the Sasanian Empire. In a famous edict, Samanid authorities declared that "here, in this region, the language is Persian, the kings of this realm are Persian kings." The eponymous ancestor of the Samanid dynasty was Saman Khuda, a Persian noble who belonged to a dehqan family, a class of land-owning magnates. The original home of the Samanids is unclear, for some Arabic and Persian texts claim that the name was derived from a village near Samarkand, while others assert it was a village near Balkh or Tirmidh; the latter is more probable since the earliest appearance of the Samanid family appears to be in Khorasan rather than Transoxiana. In some sources the Samanids claimed to be descended from the noble Mihran family of Bahram Chobin, whereas one author claimed that they belonged to the Turkish Oghuz tribe, although this is most unlikely. A Zoroastrian, Saman Khuda converted to Islam during the governorship of Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri in Khorasan, named his oldest son as Asad in the governor's honour.
In 819, the governor of Khorasan, Ghassan ibn Abbad, rewarded the four sons of Asad for their aid against the rebel Rafi ibn al-Layth. This marked the beginning of the Samanid dynasty. Ilyas died in 856, was succeeded by his son Ibrahim ibn Ilyas—the Tahirid governor of Khorasan, Muhammad ibn Tahir, thereafter appointed him as the commander of his army, sent him on an expedition against the Saffarid ruler Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar in Sistan, he was defeated at a battle near Pushang in 857, fled to Nishapur, where he was captured by Ya'qub al-Saffar and sent to Sistan as a hostage. The Tahirids thereafter assumed direct control over Herat. In 839/40, Nuh seized Isfijab from the nomadic pagan Turks living in the steppe, he thereafter had a wall constructed around the city to protect it from their attacks. He died in 841/2—his two brothers Yahya and Ahmad, were appointed as the joint rulers of the city by the Tahirid governor of Khorasan. After Yahya's death in 855, Ahmad took control over Châch, thus becoming the ruler of most of Transoxiana.
He died in 864/5. Meanwhile, the Tahirids authority had weakened after suffering several defeats by the Saffarid ruler Ya'qub al-Saffar, thus losing their grip over the Samanids, who became more or less independent. Nasr I used this opportunity to strengthen his authority by sending his brother Isma'il to Bukhara, in an unstable condition after suffering from raids by the Afrighid dynasty of Khwarazm; when Isma'il reached the city, he was warmly received by its inhabitants, who saw him as one who could restore order. Although the Bukhar Khudahs continued to autonomously rule in Bukhara for a few more years. After not so long, disagreement over where tax money should be distributed, started a conflict between the brothers. Isma'il was victorious in the dynastic struggle, took control of the Samanid state. However, Nasr had been the one, invested with Transoxiana, the Abbasid caliphs continued to recognize him as the rightful ruler; because of this, Isma'il continued to recognize his brother as well, but Nasr was powerless, a situation that would continue until his death in August 892.
A few months Ya'qub al-Saffar died and was succeeded by his brother Amr ibn al-Layth, who saw himself as the heir of the Tahirids, thus claiming Transoxiana and other parts of Iran for himself. He thereafter forced the Abbasid caliph to recognize him as the ruler of those territories, which they did. In the spring of 900, he was defeated and taken to captivity. Isma'il thereafter sent him Baghdad. Isma'il was thereafter recognized as the ruler of all of Transoxiana by the caliph. Furthermore, he received the investiture over Tabaristan and Isfahan, it was during this period that the Afrighid dynasty was forced into submission. Before his major victory against the Saffarids, he had made various expeditions in Transoxiana.
Indus Valley Civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, in mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Along with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilisations of the region comprising North Africa, West Asia and South Asia, of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area stretching from northeast Afghanistan, through much of Pakistan, into western- and northwestern India, it flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, along a system of perennial monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The civilisation's cities were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, new techniques in handicraft and metallurgy; the large cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, the civilisation itself during its florescence may have contained between one and five million individuals.
Gradual drying of the region's soil during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial spur for the urbanisation associated with the civilisation, but also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, to scatter its population eastward. The Indus civilisation is known as the Harappan Civilisation, after its type site, the first of its sites to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was the Punjab province of British India and now is Pakistan; the discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-Daro was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India during the British Raj. There were however earlier and cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. By 2002, over 1,000 Mature Harappan cities and settlements had been reported, of which just under a hundred had been excavated, there are only five major urban sites: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Ganeriwala in Cholistan and Rakhigarhi; the early Harappan cultures were preceded by local Neolithic agricultural villages, from which the river plains were populated.
The Harappan language is not directly attested, its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of scholars; the Indus Valley Civilisation is named after the Indus river system in whose alluvial plains the early sites of the civilisation were identified and excavated. Following a tradition in archaeology, the civilisation is sometimes referred to as the Harappan, after its type site, the first site to be excavated in the 1920s. A section of scholars use the terms "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilisation", the "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" or the "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation", because they consider the Ghaggar-Hakra river to be the same as the Sarasvati, a river mentioned several times in the Rig Veda, a collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns composed in the second millennium BCE. However, recent geophysical research suggests that unlike the Sarasvati, whose descriptions in the Rig Veda are those of a snow-fed river, the Ghaggar-Hakra was a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers, which became seasonal around the time that the civilisation diminished 4,000 years ago.
In addition, proponents of the Sarasvati nomenclature see a connection between the decline of the Indus civilisation and the rise of the Vedic civilisation on the Gangetic plain. The Indus civilization was contemporary with the other riverine civilisations of the ancient world: Egypt along the Nile, Mesopotamia in the lands watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris, China in the drainage basin of the Yellow River. By the time of its mature phase, the civilisation had spread over an area larger than the others, which included a core of 1,500 km up the alluvial plane of the Indus and its tributaries. In addition, there was a region with disparate flora and habitats, up to ten times as large, shaped culturally and economically by the Indus. Around 6500 BCE, agriculture emerged on the margins of the Indus alluvium. In the following millennia, settled life made inroads into the Indus plains, setting the stage for the growth of rural and urban human settlements; the more organized sedentary life in turn led to a net increase in the birth rate.
The large urban centres of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, during the civilization's florescence, the population of the subcontinent grew to between 4–6 million people. During this period the death rate increased as well, for close living conditions of humans and domesticated animals led to an increase in contagious diseases. According to one estimate, the population of the Indus civilization at its peak may have been between one and five million; the Indus Valley Civilisation extended from Pakistan's Balochistan in the west to India's western Uttar Pradesh in the east, from northeastern Afghanistan in the north to India's Gujarat state in the south. The largest number
Jalalabad
Jalālābād, or Dzalalabad, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. It is the capital of Nangarhar Province. Jalalabad is located at the junction of the Kunar River, it is linked by an 150-kilometre highway with Kabul to the west, a 130-kilometre highway with the Pakistani city of Peshawar to the east. Jalalabad has a population of 356,274, making it one of the five largest cities of Afghanistan. Jalalabad is a leading center of social and trade activity because of its proximity with the Torkham border crossing, 65 km away. Major industries include papermaking, as well as agricultural products including oranges and sugarcane, it has a total land area of 12,796 hectares. The total number of dwellings in this city is 39,586. Faxian visited and worshiped the sacred Buddhist sites such as of The Shadow of the Buddha in Nagarhara. In 630 AD Xuan Zang, the famous Chinese Buddhist monk, visited Jalalabad, which he referred to as Adinapur, a number of other locations nearby; the city was a major center of Gandhara's Greco-Buddhist culture in the past until it was conquered by Ghaznavids in the 11th century.
However, not everyone converted to Islam at that period. In Hudud-al-Alam, written in 982 CE, there is reference to a village near Jalalabad where the local king used to have many Hindu and Afghan wives; the region became part of the Ghaznavid Empire in the 10th century. Sabuktigin annexed the land all the way west of the Neelum River in Kashmir. "The Afghans and Khiljies who resided among the mountains having taken the oath of allegiance to Sabuktigin, many of them were enlisted in his army, after which he returned in triumph to Ghazni." The Ghurids expanded the Islamic empire further into Hindustan. The region around Jalalabad became part of the Khalji territory, followed by that of the Timurids, it is said. It was renamed as Jalalabad in the last decade of the sixteenth century, in honour of Jalala, the son of Pir Roshan; the modern city gained prominence during the reign of founder of the Mughal Empire. Babur had chosen the site for this city, built by his grandson Jalal-uddin Mohammad Akbar in 1560.
It remained part of the Mughal Empire until around 1738 when Nader Shah and his Afsharid forces from Khorasan began defeating the Mughals. Nader Shah's forces were accompanied by the young Ahmad Shah Durrani and his 4,000-strong Afghan army from southern Afghanistan. In 1747, he founded the Durrani Empire after re-conquering the area; the Afghan army has long used the city while going back and forth during their military campaigns into the Indian subcontinent. The British-Indian forces invaded Jalalabad in 1838, during the First Anglo-Afghan War. In the 1842 Battle of Jellalabad, Akbar Khan besieged the British troops on their way to Jalalabad. In 1878, during the Second Anglo-Afghan War, the British again invaded and set up camps in Jalalabad but withdrew two years later. Jalalabad is considered one of the most important cities of the Pashtun culture. Seraj-ul-Emarat, the residence of Amir Habibullah and King Amanullah was destroyed in 1929 when Habibullah Kalakani rose to power; the mausoleum of both rulers is enclosed by a garden facing Seraj-ul-Emart.
The Sulemankhils, a Pashtun family famous for their scientific research, is from Jalalabad. Other celebrated Pashtun families originate from the villages near Jalalabad too. From 1978 to early 1990s, the city served as a strategic location for the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. In spring 1989, two Mujahideen rebel factions backed by Pakistan and the U. S. assaulted the city during the Battle of Jalalabad. However government forces managed to drive them out within two months, a major setback to the resistance fighters and the ISI. After the resignation of President Najibullah, Jalalabad fell to mujahideen rebels of Yunus Khalis on April 19, 1992. On September 12, 1996, the Taliban took control of the city until they were toppled by the US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. Al-Qaeda had been building terrorist training camps in Jalalabad; the city returned to Afghan government control under Hamid Karzai. The economy of Jalalabad increased in the last decade. Many of the city's population began joining the Afghan National Security Forces.
Construction has risen. The Jalalabad Airport has long served as a military base for the NATO forces. In 2011, the U. S. Embassy in Kabul announced. Occasional suicide attacks by anti-Afghanistan forces take place; these forces include the Taliban, Haqqani Network, al-Qaeda, the new ISIS group. The United States has promised to eliminate these groups before withdrawing from Afghanistan; the city population is estimated to be 356,274 in year 2015. Nearly all residents of Jalalabad are followers of Sunni Islam; the city is home to one of Afghanistan's few Hindu temples, the Darga Hindu Temple founded in c. 1084 AD. Jalalabad is the regional hub in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan. Agriculture is the predominant land use at 44%, higher density of dwellings is found in Districts 1-5 and vacant plots are clustered in District 6. Districts 1-6 all have a grid network of roads. Jalalabad's climate is hot desert; the city's climate has close resemblance to that of Arizona in the United States.
It receives six to eight inches of rainfall per annum which are limited to winter and the months of spring. Frosts are not common, during the summer, the temperature can
Afghanistan
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Nangarhar Province
