Shibar Pass
Shibar Pass is situated at a height of 3,000 m above sea-level, connecting Parwan Province with Bamyan Province. It is the longer of the two main routes from Kabul to Bamiyan in Hazarajat; the journey is 6 and half hours long covering around 237 km. It was designed and built by Ahmad Shah Shairzay and a German engineer between 1933 to 1938; the route to Bamyan via Unai Pass and Hajigak Pass in Maidan Wardak is shorter and more direct, but more difficult, rising to 3,700 m, is not preferred in the winters
Hazaras
The Hazaras are an ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Hazarajat in central Afghanistan, speaking the Hazaragi variant of Dari, itself an eastern variety of Persian, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. They are the third-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, they make up a significant minority group in the neighboring Pakistan, with a population of over 650,000–900,000 living in the region of Quetta. Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire in the early 16th century, records the name Hazara in his autobiography, he referred to the populace of a region called Hazaristan, located west of the Kabulistan region, north of Ghazna, southwest of Ghor. The conventional theory is that the name Hazara derives from the Persian word for "thousand", it may be the translation of the Mongol word ming, a military unit of 1,000 soldiers at the time of Genghis Khan. With time, the term Hazar could have been substituted for the Mongol word and now stands for the group of people, while the Hazaras in their native language always call themselves and.
The origins of the Hazara have not been reconstructed. Significant inner Asian descent—in historical context and Mongol—is impossible to rule out because the Hazara's physical attributes, facial bone structures and parts of their culture and language resemble those of Mongolians and Central Asian Turks. Genetic analysis of the Hazara indicate partial Mongolian ancestry. Invading Mongols and Turco-Mongols mixed with the local Iranian population, forming a distinct group. For example, Nikudari Mongols settled in what is now Afghanistan and mixed with native populations who spoke Dari Persian. A second wave of Chagatai Mongols came from Central Asia and were followed by other Mongolic groups, associated with the Ilkhanate and the Timurids, all of whom settled in Hazarajat and mixed with the local Dari-speaking population, forming a distinct group; the Hazara identity in Afghanistan is believed by many to have originated in the aftermath of the 1221 Siege of Bamyan. The first mention of Hazara are made by Babur in the early 16th century and by the court historians of Shah Abbas of the Safavid dynasty.
It is reported that they embraced Shia Islam between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, during the Safavid period. Hazara men along with tribes of other ethnic groups had been recruited and added to the army of Ahmad Shah Durrani in the 18th century; some claim that in the mid‑18th century Hazara were forced out of Helmand and the Arghandab District of Kandahar Province. During the second reign of Dost Mohammad Khan in the 19th century, Hazara from Hazarajat began to be taxed for the first time. However, for the most part they still managed to keep their regional autonomy until the subjugation of Abdur Rahman Khan began in the late 19th century; when the Treaty of Gandomak was signed and the Second Anglo-Afghan War ended in 1880, Abdur Rahman Khan set out a goal to bring Hazarajat and Kafiristan under his control. He launched several campaigns in Hazarajat due to resistance from the Hazara in which his forces committed atrocities; the southern part of Hazarajat was spared as they accepted his rule, while the other parts of Hazarajat rejected Abdur Rahman and instead supported his uncle, Sher Ali Khan.
In response to this Abdur Rahman waged a war against tribal leaders who rejected his policies and rule. Abdur Rahman arrested Syed Jafar, chief of the Sheikh Ali Hazara tribe, jailed him in Mazar-i-Sharif; the 1888–1893 Uprisings of Hazaras occurred when the Treaty of Gandomak was signed and the Second Anglo-Afghan War ended in 1880, causing Abdur Rahman Khan to set out on a goal to bring Hazarajat and Kafiristan under his control. He launched several campaigns in Hazarajat due to resistance from the Hazara in which his forces committed atrocities; the southern part of Hazarajat was spared as they accepted his rule, while the other parts of Hazarajat rejected Abdur Rahman and instead supported his uncle, Sher Ali Khan. In response to this Abdur Rahman waged a war against tribal leaders who rejected his policies and rule. Abdur Rahman arrested Syed Jafar, chief of the Sheikh Ali Hazara tribe, jailed him in Mazar-i-Sharif; these campaigns had a catastrophic impact on the demographics of Hazaras causing 60% of them to perish or become displaced.
In 1901, Habibullah Khan, Abdur Rahman's successor, granted amnesty to all people who were exiled by his predecessor. However, the division between the Afghan government and the Hazara people was made too deep under Abdur Rahman. Hazara continued to face severe social and political discrimination through most of the 20th century. In 1933 King Mohammed Nadir Khan was assassinated by Abdul Khaliq Hazara; the Afghan government captured and executed him along with several of his innocent family members. Mistrust of the central government by the Hazaras and local uprisings continued. In particular, in the 1940s, during Zahir Shah's rule, a revolt took place against new taxes that were imposed on the Hazara; the Kuchi nomads meanwhile not only were exempted from taxes, but received allowances from the Afghan government. The angry rebels began killing government officials. In response, the central government sent a force to subdue the region and removed the taxes. During the Soviet–Afghan War, the Hazarajat region did not see as much heavy fighting as other regions of Afghanistan.
However, rival Hazara political factions fought. The division was between the Tanzáim-i nasl-i naw-i Hazara, a party based in Quetta, of Hazara nationalists and secular intellectuals, the pro-Khomeini Islamist parties backed by the new Islamic Republic of Iran. By 1979, the Iran-backed Islamist groups liberated
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that there is only one God, that Muhammad is the messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion with over 1.8 billion followers or 24% of the world's population, most known as Muslims. Muslims make up a majority of the population in 50 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful and has guided humankind through prophets, revealed scriptures and natural signs; the primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the verbatim word of God, the teachings and normative example of Muhammad. Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith, revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Abraham and Jesus. Muslims consider the Quran in its original Arabic to be the final revelation of God. Like other Abrahamic religions, Islam teaches a final judgment with the righteous rewarded paradise and unrighteous punished in hell. Religious concepts and practices include the Five Pillars of Islam, which are obligatory acts of worship, following Islamic law, which touches on every aspect of life and society, from banking and welfare to women and the environment.
The cities of Mecca and Jerusalem are home to the three holiest sites in Islam. Aside from the theological narrative, Islam is believed to have originated in the early 7th century CE in Mecca, by the 8th century the Umayyad Islamic Caliphate extended from Iberia in the west to the Indus River in the east; the Islamic Golden Age refers to the period traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century, during the Abbasid Caliphate, when much of the Muslim world was experiencing a scientific and cultural flourishing. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates, such as the Ottoman Empire and conversion to Islam by missionary activities. Most Muslims are of one of two denominations. About 13 % of Muslims live in the largest Muslim-majority country. Sizeable Muslim communities are found in the Americas, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe, Mainland Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Russia. Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world. Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root S-L-M which forms a large class of words relating to concepts of wholeness, submission and peace.
In a religious context it means "voluntary submission to God". Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, means "submission" or "surrender". Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the same verb form, means "submitter" or "one who surrenders"; the word sometimes has distinct connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as an internal spiritual state: "Whomsoever God desires to guide, He opens his heart to Islam." Other verses connect Islam and religion together: "Today, I have perfected your religion for you. Still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that includes imān, ihsān. Islam was called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies; this term has fallen out of use and is sometimes said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims' religion, parallel to Buddha in Buddhism.
Some authors, continue to use the term Muhammadanism as a technical term for the religious system as opposed to the theological concept of Islam that exists within that system. Faith in the Islamic creed is represented as the six articles of faith, notably spelled out in the Hadith of Gabriel. Islam is seen as having the simplest doctrines of the major religions, its most fundamental concept is a rigorous monotheism, called tawḥīd. God is described in chapter 112 of the Quran as: "He is God, the One and Only. Muslims repudiate polytheism and idolatry, called Shirk, reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension and thus. God is described and referred to by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahmān, meaning "The Compassionate" and Al-Rahīm, meaning "The Merciful". Muslims believe that the creation of everything in the universe was brought into being by God's sheer command, "Be, it is" and that the purpose of existence is to worship or to know God.
He is viewed as a personal god who responds whenever a person in distress calls him. There are no intermediaries, such as clergy, to contact God who states, "I am nearer to him than jugular vein." God consciousness is referred to as Taqwa. Allāh is the term with no plural or gender used by Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews to reference God, while ʾilāh is the term used for a deity or a god in general. Other non-Arab Muslims might use different names as much as Allah, for instance "Tanrı" in Turkish, "Khodā" in Persian or "Ḵẖudā" in Urdu. Belief in angels is fundamental
Hazarajat
Hazāristān or Hazārajāt is a mountainous region in the central highlands of Afghanistan, among the Koh-i-Baba mountains in the western extremities of the Hindu Kush. It is the homeland of the Hazara people. "Hazārajāt denotes an ethnic and religious zone rather than a geographical one—that of Afghanistan's Turko-Mongol Shiʿites." Hazarajat is made up of the provinces of Bamyan, Daykundi and large parts of Ghazni, Urozgan and Wardak. The most populous towns in Hazarajat are Bamyan, Nili, Lal wa Sarjangal, Sang-e-Masha and Behsud; the Kabul, Helmand, Hari, Murghab and Kunduz rivers originate in Hazarajat. The name "Hazarajat" first appears in the 16th-century book Baburnama, written by Mughal Emperor Babur; when the famous geographer Ibn Battuta arrived in Afghanistan in 1333, he travelled across the country but did not record any place by the name of Hazarajat or any Hazara people. It was not mentioned by previous geographers, adventurers or invaders either; the name Hazarajat is used by the Hazara people, surrounding peoples to identify the historic Hazara lands.
The term might be linguistically compounded the suffix jat. Maqdesi, an Arab geographer, named Hazarajat as Gharj Al-Shar-Gharj meaning "mountain" area ruled by chiefs; the region was known as Gharjistan in the late Middle Ages, though the exact locations of main cities still remain unidentified. The name Hazarajat first appears in the 16th century Baburnama, written by Mughal Emperor Babur; the Hazarajat lies in the central highlands of Afghanistan, among the Koh-i Baba mountains and the western extremities of the Hindu Kush. "Its boundaries have been inexact and shifting, in some respects Hazārajāt denotes an ethnic and religious zone rather than a geographical one–that of Afghanistan’s Turko-Mongol Shiʿites. Its physical boundaries, are marked by the Bā-miān Basin to the north, the headwaters of the Helmand River to the south, Firuzkuh to the west, the Unai Pass to the east; the regional terrain is mountainous and extends to the Safid Kuh and the Siāh Kuh mountains, where the highest peaks are between 15,000 to 17,000 feet.
Both sides of the Kuh-e Bābā range contain a succession of valleys. The north face of the range descends steeply, merging into low foothills and short semi-arid plains, while the south face stretches towards the Helmand Valley and the mountainous district of Besud."Northwestern Hazarajat encompasses the district of Ghor, long known for its mountain fortresses. The 10th century geographer Estakhri wrote that mountainous Ghor was "the only region surrounded on all sides by Islamic territories and yet inhabited by infidels." The long resistance of the inhabitants of Ghor to the adoption of Islam provides an indication of the region's inaccessibility. The language of the inhabitants of Ghor differed so much from that of the people of the plains, that communication between the two required interpreters; the northeastern part of the Hazarajat, is the site of ancient Bamyan, a center of Buddhism and a key caravanserai on the Silk Road. The town is situated at a height of 7,500 feet and surrounded by the Hindu Kush to the north and Koh-i Baba to the south.
The Hazarajat was considered part of the larger geographic region of Khurasan, the porous boundaries of which encompassed the vast region between the Caspian Sea and the Oxus River, thus including much of what is today Northern Iran and Afghanistan. Hazarajat is mountainous, a series of mountain passes extend along its eastern edge. One of them, Salang Pass, is blocked by snow six months out of the year. Another, Shibar Pass, at a lower elevation, is blocked by snow only two months out of the year. Bamyan is the colder part of the region. Hazarajat is the source of the rivers that run through Kabul, Helmand, Murghab and Kunduz, during the spring and summer months, it has some of the greenest pastures in Afghanistan. Natural lakes, green valleys and caves are found in Bamyan; the area was ruled successively by the Achaemenids, Mauryas and Hephthalites before the Saffarids Islamized it and made it part of their empire. It was taken over by the Samanids, followed by the Ghaznavids and Ghurids before falling to the Delhi Sultanate.
In the 13th century, it was invaded by his Mongol army. In the following decades the Qarlughids emerged to create a short-lived local dynasty that offered a few decades of self-rule; the area became part of the Timurid dynasty, the Mughal Empire and the Durrani Empire, successively. When Alexander the Great travelled north into what is now Afghanistan, "his historians write that Alexander came across a strange people in the region who were more belligerent than the others; the description provided by Kent Corse about the mud houses of the people can be observed by any traveler today." In the 7th century, Hsuen Tsang wrote "that a swift spring gushes from Ho-sa-la and its water divides into several branches. The weather of this place is cold and it snows and hails there, its people are happy and free, they are skilled in magic craft and their language is different from the oth
Isma'ilism
Ismāʿīlism is a branch of Shia Islam. The Ismāʿīlī get their name from their acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor to Ja'far al-Sadiq, wherein they differ from the Twelvers who accept Musa al-Kadhim, younger brother of Isma'il, as the true Imām. Ismailism rose at one point to become the largest branch of Shī‘ism, climaxing as a political power with the Fatimid Caliphate in the tenth through twelfth centuries. Ismailis believe in the oneness of God, as well as the closing of divine revelation with Muhammad, whom they see as "the final Prophet and Messenger of God to all humanity"; the Ismāʿīlī and the Twelvers both accept the same initial Imams. After the death of Muhammad ibn Isma'il in the 8th century CE, the teachings of Ismailism further transformed into the belief system as it is known today, with an explicit concentration on the deeper, esoteric meaning of the Islamic religion. With the eventual development of Twelverism into the more literalistic oriented Akhbari and Usuli schools of thought, Shi'i Islam developed into two separate directions: the metaphorical Ismaili group focusing on the mystical path and nature of God, with the "Imām of the Time" representing the manifestation of esoteric truth and intelligible reality, with the more literalistic Twelver group focusing on divine law and the deeds and sayings of Muhammad and the Twelve Imams who were guides and a light to God.
Ismaili thought is influenced by neoplatonism. Though there are several paths within Ismailism, the term in today's vernacular refers to the Nizaris, who recognize Aga Khan IV as the 49th hereditary Imam and are the largest Ismaili group. In recent centuries Ismāʿīlīs have been a Pakistani and Indian community, but Ismailis are found in Bangladesh, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, East Africa, Angola and South Africa, have in recent years emigrated to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Trinidad and Tobago. There are a significant number of Ismāʿīlīs in Central Asia. Ismailism shares its beginnings with other early Shi‘i sects that emerged during the succession crisis that spread throughout the early Muslim community. From the beginning, the Shia asserted the right of Ali, cousin of Muhammad, to have both political and spiritual control over the community; this included his two sons, who were the grandsons of Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah. The conflict remained peaceful between the partisans of ‘Ali and those who asserted a semi-democratic system of electing caliphs, until the third of the Rashidun caliphs, Uthman was killed, ‘Alī, with popular support, ascended to the caliphate.
Soon after his ascendancy, the third of the Prophet's wives, claimed along with Uthman's tribe, the Ummayads, that Ali should take Qisas from the people responsible for Uthman's death. ‘Ali voted against it as he believed that situation at that time demanded a peaceful resolution of the matter. Both parties could rightfully defend their claims, but due to escalated misunderstandings, the Battle of the Camel was fought and Aisha was defeated but was respectfully escorted to Medina by Ali. Following this battle, the Umayyad governor of Syria staged a revolt under the same pretences. ‘Ali led his forces against Muawiya until the side of Muawiya held copies of the Quran against their spears and demanded that the issue be decided by Islam's holy book. ‘Ali accepted this, an arbitration was done which ended in his favor. A group among Ali's army believed that subjecting his legitimate authority to arbitration was tantamount to apostasy, abandoned his forces; this group was known as the Khawarij and ‘Ali wished to defeat their forces before they reached the cities where they would be able to blend in with the rest of the population.
While he was unable to do this, he nonetheless defeated their forces in subsequent battles. Regardless of these defeats, the Kharijites survived and became a violently problematic group in Islamic history. After plotting an assassination against ‘Ali and the arbitrator of their conflict, only ‘Ali was assassinated in 661 CE, the Imāmate passed on to his son Hasan and later his son Husayn, or according to the Nizari Ismāʿīlī, the Imamate passed temporarily to Hasan, an Entrusted Imam, afterwards to Husayn, the Permanent Imam; the Entrusted Imam is an Imam in the full sense except that the lineage of the Imamate must continue through the Permanent Imam. However, the political caliphate was soon taken over by Muawiya, the only leader in the empire at that time with an army large enough to seize control; some of Ali's early followers regarded him as "an absolute and divinely guided leader who could demand of them the same kind of loyalty that would have been expected for the Prophet." For example, one of Ali's supporters, devoted to the Prophet said to him: "our opinion is your opinion and we are in the palm of your right hand."
The early followers of ‘Ali seem to have taken his guidance as "right guidance" deriving from Divine support. In other words, ‘Ali's guidance was seen to be the expression of God's will and the Qur'anic message; this spiritual and absolute authority of ‘Ali was known as walayah and it was inherited by his successors, the Imams. In the first century after the Prophet, the term sunnah was not defined as "Sunnah of the Prophet" but was used in connection to Abu Bakr, ‘Umar and some Umayyad Caliphs; the idea of "Hadith" or traditions ascribed to the Prophet was not mainstream nor was Hadith criticism. The
Herat Province
Herat is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the western part of the country. Together with Badghis and Ghor provinces, it makes up the north-western region of Afghanistan, its primary city and administrative capital is Herat City. The province of Herat contains over 1,000 villages, it has a population of about 1,780,000, making it the second most populated province in Afghanistan behind Kabul Province. The population is multi-ethnic but Persian-speaking. Herat province shares border with Iran in the west and Turkmenistan in the north, making it an important trading province; the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is expected to pass through Herat from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India in the south. The province has two airports, one is the Herat International Airport in the capital of Herat and the other is at the Shindand Air Base, one of the largest military bases in Afghanistan; the Salma Dam, fed by the Hari River is located in this province. The region of Herat was part of Greater Khorasan, successively controlled by the Tahirids followed by the Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ilkhanates, Safavids, Afsharids, Qajarids until it became part of the modern state of Afghanistan.
During the 19th century, the British arrived from southern Afghanistan as part of its imperialistic policies and backed up the Afghans during one Persian siege and one capture of the city, the former in 1838, the latter in 1856 in order to prevent Persian or Russian influence reaching deeper in South Asia, more Britain's colony India as part of the Great Game. In the process, parts of the city of Herat were destroyed; the province remained peaceful until the 1979 Soviet invasion. The province saw a number of battles during the 1980s Soviet war, remained an active area of guerrilla warfare throughout, with local mujahideen commander Ismail Khan leading resistance against the Soviet-backed Afghan government; this continued until the Soviet Union withdrew all its forces in 1989. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, Ismail Khan became the governor of the province, a position he retained until the Taliban forces from the south took control of the province in 1995. Following the ousting of the Taliban and establishment of the Karzai administration, led by Hamid Karzai, Ismail Khan once again became governor of Herat.
Ismail Khan become a figure of controversy when the media began reporting that he was attempting to restrict freedom of the people, that he was becoming more of an independent ruler as a warlord. He lost a son Mirwais Sadiq in 2004 during a fight with forces of other warlords. In response to this, the central government began expanding into the provide with the newly trained Afghan National Security Forces. Ismail Khan was ordered to leave his post to live in Kabul. After 2005, the International Security Assistance Force established presence in the area to help assist the Afghan government, it is led by Italy. A multi-national Provincial Reconstruction Team was established to help the local population of the province; the United States established a consulate in Herat, trained Afghan security forces, built schools, clinics. Herat was one of the first seven areas that transitioned security responsibility from NATO to Afghanistan. On July 21, 2011, Afghan security forces assumed lead security responsibility from NATO.
On the occasion, Minister of Defense Wardak told the audience, "this is our national responsibility to take over our security and defend our country." The current governor of the province is Mohammad Asif Rahimi, before him was Fazlullah Wahidi who had succeeded Daud Shah Saba in 2013. The provincial Police Chief, who leads the regular Afghan National Police and the Afghan Border Police, is responsible for all law enforcement activities; the Police Chief represents the Ministry of the Interior in Kabull. The province is home to 90% of Afghanistan's Saffron production. In 2015 the World Bank noted that saffron cultivation had provided Herat Province's farmers a steady source of income, jobs for both men and women, a decreased dependency on poppy cultivation. With international borders to Iran and Turkmenistan and an international airport, trade could play an important part in the economy of Herat Province. Due to the lack of urbanization in Herat Province, around 75% of the population lives in rural areas and economic activity is correspondingly reliant on agriculture and horticulture production with around 82% of economic activity coming from these fields in 2011.
Marble manufacturing and light industry comprised the remaining areas of economic activity. The percentage of households with clean drinking water fell from 31% in 2005 to 28% in 2011; the percentage of births attended to by a skilled birth attendant increased from 24% in 2005 to 25% in 2011. The overall literacy rate fell from 36% in 2005 to 25% in 2011; the overall net enrolment rate fell from 55% in 2005 to 52% in 2011. Herat University is Afghanistan's second largest university with over 10,000 students, 14 faculties and 45 departments in 2014; the total population of the province is about 1,780,000. Persian-speaking Tajiks form the majority. According to Afghanistan's Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development: "Around three quarters of the population of Hirat lives in rural districts while just under a quarter lives in urban areas. Around 50% of the population is male and 50% is female. Dari and Pashtu are spoken by 98% of the populati
Naimans
The Naiman is a tribe originating in Mongolia, one of the tribes in middle juz of Kazakh nation. In The Secret History of the Mongols, the Naiman subtribe. According to Russian Turkologist Nikolai Aristov's view, the Naiman Khanate's western border reached the Irtysh River and its eastern border reached the Mongolian Tamir River; the Altai Mountains and southern Altai Republic were part of the Naiman Khanate. They had diplomatic relations with the Kara-Khitans, were subservient to them until 1175; some scholars classified them as a Turkic people from Sekiz Oghuz. However, the term "Naiman" has Mongolian origin meaning "eight", but their titles are Turkic, they are thought to be Mongolized Turks, they have been described as Turkic-speaking, as well as Mongolian-speaking. Like the Khitans and the Uyghurs, many of them were Nestorian Buddhists; the Naimans were located to the west of the Mongols, there were more Naimans than Mongols in the late 12th century. In 1199, Temüjin together with an ally Ong khan launched a campaign against the Naimans.
They defeat a Naiman khan who ruled the mountain lineage. In 1203, the last Tayang khan, the ruler of Naimans of the steppe, was killed after a battle with Genghis Khan, his son Kuchlug with his remaining Naiman troops fled to the Kara-Khitan Khanate. Kuchlug was well received there and the Khitan Khan gave him his daughter in marriage. Kuchlug soon began plotting against his new father-in-law, after he usurped the throne, he began to persecute Muslims in the Hami Oases, but his action was opposed by local people and he was defeated by the Mongols under Jebe. Although the Naiman Khanlig was crushed by the Mongols, they were seen in every part of the Mongol Empire. Ogedei's great khatun Töregene might have been from this tribe. Hulegu had a Naiman general, who died in the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260; the modern Naiman tribe is a Mongol ethnic group in Inner Mongolia of China. The clan Naiman mixed with other tribes in Mongolia. There is a small population of Naimans in Afghanistan, they reside in the Shekh Ali District.
They are Sunni Muslims. Modern Kazakh historians claim, they originate from eastern Kazakhstan. Some Naimans are still found among them. Now, the Naimans are one of the big tribes of modern Kazakh peoples, they belong to Middle Juz of Kazakhs, live in the eastern and southern parts of Kazakhstan, with a population of 2 million among Kazakhs in Kazakhstan, they exist with considerable population among the Kazakhs in China and Russia, the Naiman tribe populations in the Kazakhs in China is one million or more living in the western part of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China, in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. Naimans are one of the major tribe among Kazakhs in the Uzbekistan, they exist among Kazakhs in Kyrgyzstan and Russia. See Naimans introduction in Kazakh language, "Kazakh shezhire"; the most Y-DNA tests which investigated by KZ DNA Project in Kazakhstan shows that the Y-DNA haplogroup of Naiman tribe of Kazakhs carries O3 and some C, G, N haplogroups see KZ DNA Project. The Naimans might have been Christians in the early 13th century.
However, there is no archaeological evidence to support this claim. They remained so after the Mongol conquest and were among the second wave of Christians to enter China with Kublai Khan; the Naimans who settled in the western khanates of the Mongol Empire all converted to Islam. There was a tradition that the Naimans and their Christian relatives, the Keraites, descended from the Biblical Magi; the commander of the Mongol army that invaded Syria in 1259, was a Naiman: he is recorded to have "loved and honoured the Christians, because he was of the lineage of the Three Kings of Orient who came to Bethlehem to adore the nativity of Our Lord". However, Kitbuqa was slain and his army decisively defeated at the Battle of Ain Jalut, ensuring continued Muslim hegemony over the Levant. Southern Mongolian Naimans converted to Buddhism in the sixteenth century. List of medieval Mongol tribes and clans Southern Mongolian dialect Naiman tribe of Kazakh people - from Wikipedia Naiman introduction in Kazakh language see the Naiman of Kazakhs at tribal system of Kazakh people www.elim.kz The relationship between Naimans with Khitans
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