1.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
2.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
3.
Pakistan
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Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a federal parliamentary republic in South Asia on the crossroads of Central Asia and Western Asia. It is the sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 200 million people, in terms of area, it is the 33rd-largest country in the world with an area covering 881,913 square kilometres. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistans narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, Pakistan is unique among Muslim countries in that it is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and it is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with a similarly diverse geography and wildlife. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic, an ethnic civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh. The new constitution stipulated that all laws were to conform to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran. Pakistan has an economy with a well-integrated agriculture sector. The Pakistani economy is the 24th-largest in the world in terms of purchasing power and it is ranked among the emerging and growth-leading economies of the world, and is backed by one of the worlds largest and fastest-growing middle classes. The post-independence history of Pakistan has been characterised by periods of military rule, the country continues to face challenging problems such as illiteracy, healthcare, and corruption, but has substantially reduced poverty and terrorism and expanded per capita income. It is also a member of CERN. Pakistan is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, the name Pakistan literally means land of the pure in Urdu and Persian. It is a play on the word pāk meaning pure in Persian and Pashto, the letter i was incorporated to ease pronunciation and form the linguistically correct and meaningful name. Some of the earliest ancient human civilisations in South Asia originated from areas encompassing present-day Pakistan, the earliest known inhabitants in the region were Soanian during the Lower Paleolithic, of whom stone tools have been found in the Soan Valley of Punjab. The Vedic Civilization, characterised by Indo-Aryan culture, laid the foundations of Hinduism, Multan was an important Hindu pilgrimage centre. The Vedic civilisation flourished in the ancient Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā, the Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria included Gandhara and Punjab and reached its greatest extent under Menander, prospering the Greco-Buddhist culture in the region. Taxila had one of the earliest universities and centres of education in the world. At its zenith, the Rai Dynasty of Sindh ruled this region, the Pala Dynasty was the last Buddhist empire, which, under Dharampala and Devapala, stretched across South Asia from what is now Bangladesh through Northern India to Pakistan. The Arab conqueror Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the Indus valley from Sindh to Multan in southern Punjab in 711 AD, the Pakistan governments official chronology identifies this as the time when the foundation of Pakistan was laid
4.
Tajikistan
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Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a mountainous, landlocked country in Central Asia with an estimated 8 million people in 2013, and an area of 143,100 km2. It is bordered by Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the south, the Republic of Uzbekistan to the west, the Kyrgyz Republic to the north, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan lies to the south, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Traditional homelands of Tajik people included present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, a civil war was fought almost immediately after independence, lasting from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability, Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Most of Tajikistans 8 million people belong to the Tajik ethnic group, many Tajiks also speak Russian as their second language. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country and it has a transition economy that is highly dependent on remittances, aluminium and cotton production. Tajikistan means the Land of the Tajiks, the suffix -stan is Persian for place of or country and Tajik is, most likely, the name of a pre-Islamic tribe. Tajikistan appeared as Tadjikistan or Tadzhikistan in English prior to 1991 and this is due to a transliteration from the Russian, Таджикистан. In Russian, there is no single letter j to represent the phoneme /ʤ/ and дж, Tadzhikistan is the most common alternate spelling and is widely used in English literature derived from Russian sources. Tadjikistan is the spelling in French and can occasionally be found in English language texts, the way of writing Tajikistan in the Perso-Arabic script is. The earliest recorded history of the dates back to about 500 BCE when much, if not all. After the regions conquest by Alexander the Great it became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, northern Tajikistan was part of Sogdia, a collection of city-states which was overrun by Scythians and Yuezhi nomadic tribes around 150 BCE. The Silk Road passed through the region and following the expedition of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi commercial relations between Han China and Sogdiana flourished. Sogdians played a role in facilitating trade and also worked in other capacities, as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers. Later the Hephthalite Empire, a collection of tribes, moved into the region. Central Asia continued in its role as a crossroads, linking China, the steppes to the north. It was temporarily under the control of the Tibetan empire and Chinese from 650–680, the Samanid Empire,819 to 999, restored Persian control of the region and enlarged the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara which became the cultural centres of Iran and the region was known as Khorasan. The Kara-Khanid Khanate conquered Transoxania and ruled between 999–1211, during Genghis Khans invasion of Khwarezmia in the early 13th century the Mongol Empire took control over nearly all of Central Asia
5.
Wakhi language
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Wakhi is an Indo-European language in the Eastern Iranian branch of the language family spoken today in Wakhan District, Afghanistan and also in Northern Pakistan, China, and Tajikistan. Wakhi is one of languages that belong to the areal Pamir language group. Its relationship to the other Iranian languages is not clear, in certain features Wakhi shows affinity to the extinct Saka language in particular, the Wakhi people are occasionally called Pamiris and Guhjali. The origin of language is Wakhan and it is, according to many sources. It is spoken by the inhabitants of the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, parts of Gilgit–Baltistan of Pakistan, Gorno-Badkhshan region of Tajakistan, the Wakhi use the self-appellation ‘X̌ik’ and suffix it with ‘wor’/’war’ to denote their language as ‘X̌ik-wor’ themselves. The noun ‘X̌ik’ comes from *waxša-ī̆ka- (an inhabitant of *Waxša- ‘Oxus’, for Wakhan, there are other equivalents for the name Wakhi or Wakhani, Vakhantsy, Gojali/Gojo, Guyits/Guicho, Wakhigi/Wakhik-war and Cert. A very rough estimate of the population of Wakhis is 58,000 worldwide, the Wakhi live in six different countries. In the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, the Wakhi people mainly live in Gojal, Ishkoman, Darkut, linguists universally refer to Wakhi as an East Iranian language independent of Tajik Persian, but many Tajik nationalists insist that Wakhi and other Pamir languages are actually dialects of Tajik. Yarkhun is located in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while others are in the Gilgit–Baltistan, Gojal, in the Hunza valley, has the largest Wakhi population of any of the above five areas. The Wakhis of Ishkoman live primarily in the Karambar valley, in the town of Imit and beyond. In Yasin, they live mostly in the vicinity of Darkot, the Association is working for the preservation of the Wakhi language and culture, as well as documenting their poetry and music. Radio Pakistan Gilgit relays the Wakhi radio programme Sadoyah Boomy Dunyo, in 2000, the WCA won a Best Programme organizer award in the Silk Road Festival from the President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf. A computerized codification of the Wakhi script has been released, which help to promote the language development programme and documentation of Wakhi poetry, literature. Wakhi is also spoken in the Xinjiang province of China, there are approximately 6000 Wakhi in Russia, Most of them have migrated from Tajikistan and Afghanistan. There are some Wakhi villages in Turkey in the eastern regions, traditionally Wakhi was not a written language. Writing systems have developed for the language using Arabic, Cyrillic. Gawarjons comparison of the dialects of Sarikoli and Wakhi spoken in China is reproduced below, Wakhi Khushkhati Wakhi Qaida Wakhi Huroof Wakhi people Backstrom, Peter C. Wakhies in Gojal, Pakistan The Wakhis, Article from the Ismaili dot net English-Ishkashimi-Zebaki-Wakhi-Yazghulami Vocabulary Wakhi poetry Georg Morgenstierne multimedia database
6.
Isma'ilism
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Ismāʿīlism is a branch of Shia Islam. Ismailis believe in the oneness of God, as well as the closing of divine revelation with Muhammad, the Ismāʿīlī and the Twelvers both accept the same initial Imams from the descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah and therefore share much of their early history. Both groups see the family of Muhammad as divinely chosen, infallible, and guided by God to lead the Islamic community, Ismaili thought is heavily influenced by neoplatonism. There are also 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 and this also included his two sons, who were the grandsons of Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah. Soon after his ascendancy, Aisha, the third of the Prophets wives, claimed along with Usmans tribe, the Ummayads, ‘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, following this battle, Muawiya, the Umayyad governor of Syria, also 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, ‘Ali accepted this, and an arbitration was done which ended in his favor. A group among Alis army believed that subjecting his legitimate authority to arbitration was tantamount to apostasy and 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 defeated their forces in subsequent battles. Regardless of these defeats, the Kharijites survived and became a problematic group in Islamic history. 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 caliphate was soon taken over by Muawiya. Even some of Ali’s early followers regarded him as “an absolute and divinely guided leader who could demand of them the kind of loyalty that would have been expected for the Prophet. ”For example, one of Ali’s supporters who also was devoted to the Prophet said to him, “our opinion is your opinion. 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 sunnah was not specifically defined as “Sunnah of the Prophet” but was used in connection to Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, Uthman. The idea of “Hadith” or traditions ascribed to the Prophet was not mainstream nor was Hadith criticism, even the earliest legal texts by Malik b
7.
Ethnic religion
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Ethnic religion, alongside indigenous religion, is a term used within religious studies to describe various expressions of religion associated with a particular ethnic group. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from religions which claim to not be limited in ethnic or national scope, ethnic religions do not have to be excluded to independent religions. A number of terms have been used instead of ethnic or indigenous religions. The term primal religion was coined by Andrew Walls in the University of Aberdeen in the 1970s to provide a focus on forms of religion as found in Africa, Asia. Cox prefers to use the indigenous religion. Another term that is used is folk religion. While ethnic religion and folk religion have overlapping uses, the term implies the appropriation of religious beliefs. Ethnic religions are distinctive in their relationship with an ethnic group. Some ethnic religions can be strong, for instance Hinduism of the Indians, Judaism of the Jews, Shenism of the Han Chinese. Some ancient ethnic religions, such as those found in pre-modern Europe, have found new vitality in neopaganism. Moreover, non-ethnic religions such as Christianity have been known to assume ethnic traits to an extent that they serve a role as an important ethnic identity marker, animism Ancestor worship Endogamy List of ethnic religions List of Neopagan movements National god Shamanism Totemism
8.
Gojal
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Gojal, also known as Gojal Valley, is a valley situated in the far north of Pakistan. It borders Pakistan and China at Khunjerab Pass and Afghanistan at Chipurson valley and it is the largest tehsil of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. Gojal is a series of large and small valleys sharing borders with Hunza in the south, China in the north-east, shishkat is the first village of Gojal. Except for the Shimshal, Misgar and Chipursan valleys, all the villages of Gojal can be seen from the Karakorum Highway, the valleys and villages of Gojal were settled over time by people from surrounding regions. In the opinion of most researchers, Kirghiz nomads initially used the areas in upper Gojal as winter pastures and it is said that later on when Wakhis migrated from Wakhan to this region. It is very difficult to determine when the Wakhis settled in Gojal, however, it is narrated that the earlier Wakhi migrated from Wakhan and settled in the Yishkuk valley, Hussaini and later the Boiber areas of Moorkun village. It is also narrated that when Hunza was under the Central Government of Gilgit the Ishkook settlement was wealthy and paid cattle, later, the oral history holds, a catastrophic flood destroyed the Ishkook settlement during the 18th century. Since 2010, parts of the valley have been inundated by the 27 km long Attabad Lake, Gulmit is the administrative headquarters of the Gojal Tehsil, in the upper Hunza region. Gulmit is a historic town, with mountains, peaks. It is a tourist spot and has many hotels, shops and it is located 2,408 meters above the sea level. Gulmit consists of hamlets called Kamaris, Odver, Dalgiram, Laksh, Kalha, Shawaran, Khor Lakhsh, Chamangul. Gulmit is home to around 4,000 people, all of them Wakhi-speakers and followers of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, before 1974, when Hunza was a state, Gulmit used to be the Summer Capital of the state. After the abolition of the state it became the Tehsils seat of government, the oldest intact house in Gulmit is more than six centuries old. There are six Jamaat-khanas or religious community centres in Gulmit, one notices their presence in every ward of the village. The old Summer Palace of Mir of Hunza stands at the edge of Gulmits historic Polo Ground. Old mosques, now used as libraries, also adorn the beautiful physique of Gulmit valley, al- Amyn Model School, a community-based organization, has a beautiful building standing next to the Health Center of Aga Khan Health Services. Passu is located with 125 km from Gilgit on the KKH near the border of China and is surrounded by the mountains of the Karakoram range and its neighbourhood also includes two large glaciers, Batura and Passu Glacier. It is one of the most dangerous places to live in due to the threat of floods and has been flooded four times in the past
9.
Wakhan
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Wakhan or the Wakhan is a very mountainous and rugged part of the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakoram regions of Afghanistan. Wakhan District is a district in Badakshan Province, the Wakhan is located in the extreme north-east of Afghanistan. It contains the headwaters of the Amu Darya River, and was an ancient corridor for travellers from the Tarim Basin to Badakshan. Until 1883 the Wakhan included the valley of the Panj River. Since then, the name Wakhan is now used to refer to the Afghan area south of the two rivers. The northern part of the historic Wakhan is now part of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan, the only road into the Wakhan is a rough track from Ishkashim past Qila-e Panja to Sarhad-e Broghil. Paths lead from the end of the road to the Wakhjir Pass, the western part of the Wakhan, between Ishkashim and Qila-e Panja, is known as Lower Wakhan, which includes the valley of the Panj River. The valleys of the Wakhan River, the Pamir River and their tributaries, the eastern extremity of Upper Wakhan is known as the Pamir Knot, the area where the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges meet. West of the Pamir Knot is the Little Pamir, a broad U-shaped grassy valley 100 km long and 10 km wide, which contains Chaqmaqtin Lake, at the eastern end of the Little Pamir is the Tegermansu Valley, from where the closed Tegermansu Pass leads to China. The Great Pamir or Big Pamir, a 60 km long valley south of Zorkol lake, drained by the Pamir River, the mountain range that divides the two Pamirs is known as the Nicholas Range. West of the Nicholas Range, between the Great Pamir and the valley of the Wakhan River, is the Wakhan Range. The Wakhan River flows through the corridor from the east to Qila-e Panja where it joins the Pamir River to become the Panj River which then forms the border. In the south the corridor is bordered by the mountains of the Hindu Kush, crossed by the Broghol pass, the Irshad Pass. Historically the Wakhan has been an important region for thousands of years as it is where the Western and Eastern portions of Central Asia meet. Until 1883 Wakhan was a principality on both sides of the Panj and Pamir Rivers, ruled by a ruler with his capital at Qila-e Panja. In the 1880s, under pressure from Britain, Abdur Rahman Khan the Emir of Afghanistan imposed Afghan rule on the Wakhan, on its south side, the Durand Line agreement of 1893 marked the boundary between British India and Afghanistan. This left a narrow strip of land as a buffer between the two empires, in 1949, when Mao Zedong completed the Communist takeover of China, the borders were permanently closed, sealing off the 2, 000-year-old caravan route and turning the corridor into a cul-de-sac. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they occupied the Wakhan and built strong military posts at Sarhad-e Broghil, to facilitate access they built a bridge across the Pamir River at Prip, near Gaz Khan
10.
Badakhshan
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Badakhshan is a historic region comprising parts of what is now northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan. The name is retained in Badakhshan Province, which is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan and is located in North-East Afghanistan, much of historic Badakhshan lies within Tajikistans Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region located in the south-eastern part of the country. The music of Badakhshan is an important part of the cultural heritage. Badakhshan has a diverse ethno-linguistic and religious community, tajiks and Pamiris are the majority while a tiny minority of Kyrgyzs and Uzbeks also are found in their own villages. There are also groups of speakers of several Pamir languages of the Eastern Iranian language group, during the 20th century within Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan the speakers of Pamir languages formed their own separate ethnic identity as Pamiris. The Pamiri people were not officially recognized as an ethnic group in Tajikistan. The main religions of Badakhshan are Ismaili Islam and Sunni Islam, the people of this province have a rich cultural heritage and they have preserved unique ancient forms of music, poetry and dance. Badakhshan was an important trading center during antiquity, lapis lazuli was traded exclusively from there as early as the second half of the 4th millennium BC. Badakhshan was an important region when the Silk Road passed through and its significance is its geo-economic role in trades of silk and ancient commodities transactions between the East and West. According to Marco Polo, Badashan/ Badakshan was a province where Balas ruby could be found under the mountain Syghinan, the region was ruled over by the mirs of Badakhshan. Sultan Muhammad of Badakhshan was the last of a series of kings who traced their descent to Alexander the Great, when Mahmud died, Amir Khusroe Khan, one of his nobles, blinded Baysinghar Mirza, killed the second prince, and ruled as usurper. He submitted to Mughal Emperor Babur in 1504 CE, when Babur took Kandahar in 1506 CE, from Shah Beg Arghun, he sent Khan Mirza as governor to Badakhshan. A son was born to Khan Mirza by the name of Mirza Sulaiman in 1514 CE and they were released by Emperor Humayun in 1545, and took again possession of Badakhshan. Bent on making conquests, he invaded Balkh in 1560, but had to return and his son, Mirza Ibrahim, was killed in battle. When Akbar became Mughal Emperor, his stepbrother Mirza Muhammad Hakims mother had killed by Shah Abul Maali. He returned to Kabul in 1566, when Akbars troops had left that country, Mirza Sulaimans wife was Khurram Begum, of the Kipchak tribe. She was clever and had her husband so much in her power and her enemy was Muhtarim Khanum, the widow of Prince Kamran Mirza. Mirza Sulaiman wanted to marry her, but Khurram Begum got her married, against her will, to Mirza Ibrahim, by whom she had a son, Mirza Shahrukh
11.
Xinjiang
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Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a provincial-level autonomous region of China in the northwest of the country. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and the 8th largest country subdivision in the world and it contains the disputed territory of Aksai Chin, which is administered by China. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiangs borders, as well as its western and southern regions. Xinjiang also borders Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu, the most well-known route of the historical Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang and it is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Han, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Hui, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Russians. More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are in Xinjiang, older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range, only about 4. 3% of Xinjiangs land area is fit for human habitation. With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, the territory came under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, which was later replaced by the Republic of China government. Since 1949, it has been part of the Peoples Republic of China following the Chinese Civil War, in 1954, Xinjiang Bingtuan was set up to strengthen the border defense against the Soviet Union, and also promote the local economy. In 1955, Xinjiang was turned into a region from a province. In the last decades, there have been tensions regarding Xinjiangs political status, amnesty International said that activists in Xinjiang have been arrested and tortured. Under the Han dynasty, which drove the Xiongnu empire out of the region in 60 BC, Xinjiang was previously known as Xiyu or Qurighar and this was in an effort to secure the profitable routes of the Silk Road. Dzungaria was known as Zhunbu and the Tarim Basin was known as Huijiang during the Qing dynasty before both regions were merged and became the region of Gansu Xinjiang, later simplified as Xinjiang. The name Xinjiang, which literally means New Frontier or New Borderland, was given during the Qing dynasty, according to the Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtangs report to the Emperor of Qing, Xinjiang means an old land newly returned. For instance, present-day Jinchuan County was known as Jinchuan Xinjiang, in the same manner, present-day Xinjiang was known as Xiyu Xinjiang and Gansu Xinjiang. After 1821, the Qing changed the names of the other regained regions, the name East Turkestan was created by Russian sinologist Hyacinth to replace the term Chinese Turkestan in 1829. East Turkestan was used traditionally to only refer to the Tarim Basin, in 1955, Xinjiang province was renamed Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The name that was proposed was simply Xinjiang Autonomous Region
12.
Chitral District
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Chitral is the largest district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, covering an area of 14,850 km². It is the northernmost district of Pakistan, a narrow strip of Wakhan Corridor separates Chitral from Tajikistan in the north. Chitral retained this status even after its accession to Pakistan in 1947, only being made an administrative district of Pakistan in 1969. Chitral is counted amongst the highest regions of the world, sweeping from 1,094 meters at Arandu to 7,726 meters at Tirichmir, and packing over 40 peaks more than 6,100 meters in height. The terrain of Chitral is very mountainous and Tirich Mir the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, around 4.8 per cent of the land is covered by forest and 76 per cent is mountains and glaciers. Chitral is connected to the rest of Pakistan by two road routes, the Lowari Pass from Dir and Shandur Top from Gilgit. Both routes are closed in winter, the Lowari Tunnel is being constructed under the Lowari Pass. A number of high passes, including Darkot Pass, Thoi Pass and Zagaran Pass. The general population is mainly of the Kho people, who speak the Khowar, Chitral is also home to the Kalash tribe, who live in Bumburet and two other remote valleys southwest of Chitral town. Iranian languages and Pamir languages spoken by immigrant groups in Chitral include Pushto, Munji, Yidgha, Tajik, the Turkic languages Kyrgyz and Uzbek are also spoken in minority. Although the predominant language of Chitral is Khowar, more than ten other languages are spoken here and these include Kalasha-mun, Palula, Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nuristani, Yidgha, Burushaski, Gujar, Wakhi, Uzbeki, Kyrgyz, Dari and Pashto. Since many of these languages have no form, letters are usually written in Urdu or Pashto. The town of Chitral is the town in the district. It is situated on the west bank of the Chitral River at the foot of Tirich Mir which at 7,708 m is the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, until 1969, it served as the capital of the princely state of Chitral
13.
Wakhan Corridor
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The Wakhan Corridor is the narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from Pakistan. The corridor, wedged between the Pamirs to the north and the Karakoram range to the south, is about 350 km long, inside the Wakhan Corridor is a high mountain valley from which the Panj and Pamir Rivers emerge and form the Amu Darya. A trade route through the valley has been used by travelers going to and from East, South, Wakhan Corridor can also refer to the valley and the trade route. The closure of the Afghan-Chinese border crossing at the Wakhjir Pass at the east end of the Wakhan Corridor, the corridor was a political creation of The Great Game. On its south side, the Durand Line agreement of 1893 marked the boundary between British India and Afghanistan and this left a narrow strip of land as a buffer between the two empires, which became known as the Wakhan Corridor in the 20th century. As of 2010, the Wakhan Corridor had 12,000 inhabitants, the northern part of the Wakhan is also referred to as the Pamir. The Wakhan Corridor forms the panhandle of Afghanistans Badakhshan Province, at its western entrance near the Afghan town of Ishkashim, the corridor is 18 km wide. The western third of the corridor varies from 13–30 km in width, at its eastern end, the corridor forks into two prongs that wrap around a salient of Chinese territory, forming the two countries 92 km boundary. The Wakhjir Pass, on the southeastern prong is about 300 km from Ishkashim, the easternmost point of the northeastern prong is about 350 km from Ishkashim. On the Chinese side of the border is Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the northern border is formed by the Pamir River and Lake Zorkul in the west and the high peaks of the Pamir Mountains in the east. To the north is Tajikistans Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous region, in the south, the corridor is bounded by the high mountains of the Hindu Kush and Karakoram. The Broghol and Irshad Passes along the southern flank offer access, respectively, to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the corridor is higher in the east and descends to about 3,037 m at Ishkashim. The Wakhjir River emerges from an ice cave on the Afghan side of the Wakhjir Pass and flows west, joining the Bozai Darya near the village of Bozai Gumbaz and forms the Wakhan River. The Wakhan River then joins the Pamir River near Kala-i-Panj to form the Panj River, Chinese considers the valley east of Wakhjir Pass on the Chinese side connecting Taghdumbash Pamir to be part of Wakhan Corridor. The high mountain valley is about 100 km long and this valley, through which the Tashkurgan River flows, is generally about 3–5 km wide and less than 1 km at its narrowest point. This entire valley on the Chinese side is closed to visitors, however, local residents, although the terrain is extremely rugged, the Corridor was historically used as a trading route between Badakhshan and Yarkand. It appears that Marco Polo came this way, the Portuguese Jesuit priest Bento de Goes crossed from the Wakhan to China between 1602 and 1606. In May 1906, Sir Aurel Stein explored the Wakhan and reported that at time,100 pony loads of goods crossed annually to China
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Sarikoli language
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The Sarikoli language is a member of the Pamir subgroup of the Southeastern Iranian languages spoken by Tajiks in China. It is officially referred to in China as the Tajik language, Sarikoli is officially referred to as Tajik in China. However, it is not closely related to Tajik as spoken in Tajikistan and it is also referred to as Tashkorghani, after the ancient capital of the Sarikoli kingdom, however, this usage is not widespread among scholars. The earliest written accounts in English, from the 1870s, generally use the name Sarikoli, the number of speakers is around 35,000, most reside in the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in southern Xinjiang Province, China. The Chinese name for the Sarikoli language, as well as the usage of Sarikol as a toponym, is Sèlèkùěr yǔ, speakers in China typically use Uyghur and Chinese to communicate with people of other ethnic groups in the area. The rest are found in the Pakistani-controlled sector of Kashmir, closely hugging the Pakistan-Chinese international borders and it is mutually unintelligible with the related Wakhi language. The language has no written form. The majority of Sarikoli-speakers attend schools using Uyghur as the medium of instruction, Sarikoli vowels as used in Russian works, a, e, ɛy, ɛw, ə, i, o, u, ы. In some dialects also long variants of vowels can appear, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ы̄. Also, several noun declensions and verb inflections regularly place stress on their first syllable, an Acoustic, Historical, and Developmental Analysis of Sarikol Tajik Diphthongs. 中国塔吉克语色勒库尔方言概述/A Probe into China-Tajik Selekur Dialect, the Tajik Ethnic Group in China
15.
Tajiks of Xinjiang
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They are Mountain Tajiks, unlike Plain Tajiks in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. They are one of the 56 nationalities officially recognized by the government of China, despite the name by which they are known in China, the Tajiks of Xinjiang are not the same as the Tajik people. The Tajiks in Xinjiang of China, are an extension of the Pamiri people, though most Tajiks in China also speak Persian as well. Tashkurgan Town became the capital of the Sarikol kingdom, a kingdom of the Pamir Mountains, during the Qing dynasty, the Tajiks were administered by a system of Begs like the rest of Xinjiang. The Tajiks of Xinjiang practiced slavery, selling some of their own as a punishment, submissive slaves were given wives and settled with the Tajiks. They were considered property and could be sold anytime and their slaves came from numerous sources, enslaving Sunni captives such as Kirghiz in retaliation for Kirghiz slave raids, or from Kunjud, Gilgit, Chitral. The Tajiks also sold some slaves to Bukhara, the Sunnis called them Rafidites and did not consider them Muslim. Most foreign slaves in Xinjiang were Shia Mountain Tajiks, they were referred to by Sunni Turkic Muslims as Ghalcha, in the 1940s around 9,000 Tajiks lived in Xinjiang. During the Ili Rebellion, Uyghur forces butchered the livestock of the Tajiks as they advanced south, the Soviet backed insurgents destroyed Tajik crops and acted aggressively against the Tajiks and Kirghiz of China. The population of Tajiks in China numbers 41,028 and they are located in Chinas western Xinjiang region with 60% living in Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County. Despite the name Tajik that is used to refer to them, early 20th-century travelers to the region referred to them as Sarikoli, Mountain Tajiks, or Ghalcha. In China, the languages of the Tajik people have no written form. The great majority speak the Sarikoli language, which has heavily influenced by Uyghur, Chinese. A small proportion speak Wakhi language, Sarikoli and Wakhi are Iranian languages, commonly classified in the Pamir or Eastern Iranian areal groups. The Chinese authorities allow a few Ismaili religious buildings to function in Xinjiangs Tajik Autonomous District, but recently, the Aga Khan has begun to communicate with China more. The Aga Khan IV had last visited China in 1981
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Pamiris
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The Pamiris are composed of people who speak the Pamiri languages, the indigenous language in the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous province. In the Pamiri languages, the Pamiris refer to themselves as Pamiri or Badakhshani, in China, Pamiris are referred to as ethnic Tajiks. In Afghanistan, they are recognized as ethnic Pamiris and the Afghan National Anthem mention Pamiris in the list of groups of Afghanistan. In 1929 Gorno-Badakhshan was attached to the newly formed republic of Tajikistan, some Tajik scholars claim Pamiri languages to be a dialects of Tajik language and there has been a long running debate as to whether the Pamiris constituted a nationality separate from Tajiks. In the 1926 and 1937 Soviet censuses Rushani, Shugni and Wakhis were counted as separate nationalities, after 1937 these groups were required to register as Tajiks. During the Soviet period many Pamiris migrated to the Vakhsh River Valley and settled in Qurghonteppa Oblast, in the 1980s debate raged in Tajikistan about the official status of the Pamiri languages in the republic. After the independence of Tajikistan in 1991 Pamiri nationalism stirred and the Pamiri nationalist political party Lali Badakhshan took power in Gorno-Badakhshan, anti-government protests took place in the provinces capital, Khorog, and in 1992 the republic declared itself an independent country. In the early 1990s there was a movement amongst Pamiris to separate Gorno-Badakhshan from Tajikistan, Pamiris are predominantly Nizārī Ismāīlī Shia and follow the Aga Khan. The Aga Khan Foundation became the primary non-governmental organization in Gorno-Badakhshan, there are also Sunni Pamiris currently numbering at approximately a few thousand
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Nizari
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The Nizari are the second-largest branch of Shia Islam. There are an estimated 15-25 million Nizari residing in more than 25 countries and territories, Nizari teachings emphasize human reasoning, pluralism and social justice. From quite early on in his reign, the Fatimid Caliph-Imam al-Mustansir Billah had publicly nominated his elder son Nizar as his heir to be the next Fatimid Caliph-Imam after him and this was common knowledge in Fatimid Egypt at the time. Dai Hassan-i Sabbah, who had studied and accepted Ismailism in Fatimid Egypt, had been aware of this fact personally by al-Mustansir. Al-Afdal engineered a coup on behalf of the much younger. In early 1095, Nizar fled to Alexandria where he received the peoples support, there were even gold dinars minted in Alexandria in Nizars name. In late 1095, al-Afdal defeated Nizars Alexandrian army and took Nizar as a prisoner to Cairo where he had Nizar executed, after Nizars execution, the Nizari Ismailis and the Mustaali Ismailis parted ways in a bitterly irreconcilable manner. The schism finally broke the remnants of the Fatimid Empire and the now divided Ismailis separated into the Mustaali following, the later Ismaili following came to be known as Nizari Ismailism. The followers of the young Imam Hadi who joined the military were trained as the Fidai, the Fidais bravery and self-sacrificing spirituality was due to their belief that the Nizari Imam-ul-waqt had the Noor of God within him. The Fidai were feared as the Assassins, but in fact did not assassinate for payment, although they were trained in the art of spying and combat, they also practiced their Islamic mysticism at the highest level. This religious ardor turned them into formidable foes which reached a level as told in the anecdote of Count Henry of Champagne. Returning from Armenia, Henry spoke with Grand Master Rashid ad-Din Sinan at one of his castles, al-Kahf, Henry pointed out that since his army was bigger by far than Sinans, Sinan should pay him an annual tribute. Sinan refused asserting that his army was far stronger in spirit and he invited Henry to witness this obedience and sacrificial spirit of his Fidai. Sinan signalled to a Fidai standing on the parapet of a wall of his castle. The Fidai called out God is Great and unhesitatingly took a headlong dive into the rocks far below. The bewildered Henry asked Sinan the cause for the suicidal jump, Sinan pointed once again to the Fidai who had taken the place of the now dead Fidai. Again Sinan gave a signal to the Fidai to jump and the second Fidai also called out God is Great, Henry was visibly shaken by the experience of witnessing the two Fidais total disregard for their own lives. He accepted Sinans terms of peace on a paying basis
18.
Shia Islam
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Shia is a branch of Islam which holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor. Shia Islam primarily contrasts with Sunni Islam, whose adherents believe that Muhammad did not appoint a successor, instead they consider Abu Bakr to be the correct Caliph. Adherents of Shia Islam are called Shias of Ali, Shias or the Shia as a collective or Shii individually, Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam, in 2009, Shia Muslims constituted 10–13% of the worlds Muslim population. Twelver Shia is the largest branch of Shia Islam, in 2012 it was estimated that perhaps 85 percent of Shias were Twelvers. Shia Islam is based on the Quran and the message of Muhammad attested in hadith, Shia consider Ali to have been divinely appointed as the successor to Muhammad, and as the first Imam. The word Shia means follower and is the form of the historic phrase shīʻatu ʻAlī, meaning followers of Ali, faction of Ali. Shia and Shiism are forms used in English, while Shiite or Shiite, as well as Shia, the term for the first time was used at the time of Muhammad. At present, the word refers to the Muslims who believe that the leadership of the community after Muhammad belongs to Ali, nawbakhti states that the term Shia refers to a group of Muslims that at the time of Muhammad and after him regarded Ali as the Imam and Caliph. Al-Shahrastani expresses that the term Shia refers to those who believe that Ali is designated as the Heir, Imam and caliph by Muhammad, for the Shia, this conviction is implicit in the Quran and history of Islam. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing, Shia search for the true meaning of the revelation to get the purpose of the life blood and the human destiny. Shia Muslims believe that just as a prophet is appointed by God alone and they believe God chose Ali to be Muhammads successor, infallible, the first caliph of Islam. The Shias believe that Muhammad designated Ali as his successor by Gods command, Ali was Muhammads first cousin and closest living male relative as well as his son-in-law, having married Muhammads daughter Fatimah. Ali would eventually become the fourth Muslim caliph, after the Farewell Pilgrimage, Muhammad ordered the gathering of Muslims at the pond of Khumm and it was there that Shia Muslims believe Muhammad nominated Ali to be his successor. The hadith of the pond of Khumm was narrated on 18th of Dhu al-Hijjah of 10 AH in the Islamic calendar at a place called Ghadir Khumm, located near the city of al-Juhfah, Saudi Arabia. Muhammad there stated, Shia Muslims believe this to be Muhammads appointment of Ali as his successor, when Muhammad died in 632 CE, Ali and Muhammads closest relatives made the funeral arrangements. While they were preparing his body, Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali and his family accepted the appointment for the sake of unity in the early Muslim community. Alis rule over the early Muslim community was often contested, as a result, he had to struggle to maintain his power against the groups who betrayed him after giving allegiance to his succession, or those who wished to take his position. This dispute eventually led to the First Fitna, which was the first major civil war within the Islamic Caliphate, the Fitna began as a series of revolts fought against Ali ibn Abi Talib, caused by the assassination of his political predecessor, Uthman ibn Affan
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Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon 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 also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
20.
Aga Khan IV
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Prince Shah Karim Al Hussaini, Aga Khan IV, KBE, CC is the 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism, a denomination of Ismailism within Shia Islam consisting of an estimated 25 million adherents. The Aga Khan is a British business magnate, racehorse owner and breeder. He has held this position of Imam, under the title of Aga Khan IV, since 11 July 1957, Forbes describes the Aga Khan as one of the worlds ten richest royals with an estimated net worth of US$800 million. Additionally he is unique among the richest royals as he does not rule over a geographic territory and he is the founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network, one of the largest private development networks in the world. Aga Khan IV became the first faith leader to address the Joint Session of the Canadian Parliament on 27 February 2014, born Prince Karim Aga Khan, the Aga Khan IV is the eldest son of Prince Aly Khan, and his first wife, the Hon. Princess Tajuddawlah Aly Khan, formerly the Hon. Joan Barbara Yarde-Buller, born in Geneva, Switzerland, on 13 December 1936, Prince Karim was declared healthy despite being born prematurely. The Aga Khans brother, Prince Amyn, was less than a year later. The Aga Khan IV also had a half-brother, Patrick Benjamin Guinness, from his mothers first marriage, Prince Karim spent his childhood in Nairobi, Kenya, where his early education was done by private tutoring. His grandfather, Aga Khan III, engaged Mustafa Kamil, a teacher from Aligarh Muslim University, for both Prince Karim and Prince Amyn. Prince Karim later attended the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, the most expensive boarding school in Europe, for nine years where he ended up with, in his words, There, he switched to majoring in History after failing an engineering course. He says about it, Overnight, my life changed completely. I woke up with serious responsibilities toward millions of human beings. I knew I would have to abandon my hopes of studying for a doctorate in History. The Aga Khan IV graduated from Harvard in 1959, two years becoming the Imam of the Nizari Ismailis, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. The young Aga Khan was a downhill skier, and he skied for Iran in the 1964 Olympic Games. Specifically, his followers wanted to know whether they should try to hold on to their interests in East Africa or instead return to India and Pakistan. Paul Ress, of Sports Illustrated, writes that the young, contact lens wearing Prince turned Aga Khan IV, having responsibility to go with his wealth and he did, however, relish. speed on water as well as on snow, highways and in the air. And increased the speed of his 72-foot yacht by almost 20%, after being named Aga Khan the young prince, who habitually drove at 90 to 145 miles an hour road permitting, noted he could no longer afford to risk his life on a piste
21.
Lok Virsa Museum
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Lok Virsa Museum is situated in Islamabad, Pakistan. It displays the heritage of Pakistani people. The living style of the different areas of Pakistan is exhibited here in statues, pictures, pottery, music, Lok Virsa is the finest cultural museum in Pakistan. It is located near Shakarparian Hills and has a display of embroidered costumes, jewellery, woodwork, metalwork, block printing, ivory. Traditional architecture facades exhibiting such skills as fresco, mirror work and marble inlay, tile, mosaic, adjacent to the Lok Virsa Museum, the Lok Virsa Heritage Reference Library is well equipped with resource data on ethnography, anthropology, folk music, art, history and crafts. Books on culture, heritage, audio and video-cassettes of folk, list of museums in Pakistan Official website more heritage and cultural work here
22.
Poetry
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Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, in todays increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy, others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd millennium BCE in Sumer. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe, other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in poetics—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as Chinas through her Shijing, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance, Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Later aestheticians identified three major genres, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry, Aristotles work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in Europe during the Renaissance. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability and this romantic approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic
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Music
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Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch, rhythm, dynamics, different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. The word derives from Greek μουσική, Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as the harmony of the spheres and it is music to my ears point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, There is no noise, the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. There are many types of music, including music, traditional music, art music, music written for religious ceremonies. For example, it can be hard to draw the line between some early 1980s hard rock and heavy metal, within the arts, music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art or as an auditory art. People may make music as a hobby, like a teen playing cello in a youth orchestra, the word derives from Greek μουσική. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the music is derived from mid-13c. Musike, from Old French musique and directly from Latin musica the art of music and this is derived from the. Greek mousike of the Muses, from fem. of mousikos pertaining to the Muses, from Mousa Muse. In classical Greece, any art in which the Muses presided, Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. With the advent of recording, records of popular songs. Some music lovers create mix tapes of their songs, which serve as a self-portrait. An environment consisting solely of what is most ardently loved, amateur musicians can compose or perform music for their own pleasure, and derive their income elsewhere. Professional musicians sometimes work as freelancers or session musicians, seeking contracts and engagements in a variety of settings, There are often many links between amateur and professional musicians. Beginning amateur musicians take lessons with professional musicians, in community settings, advanced amateur musicians perform with professional musicians in a variety of ensembles such as community concert bands and community orchestras. However, there are many cases where a live performance in front of an audience is also recorded and distributed. Live concert recordings are popular in classical music and in popular music forms such as rock, where illegally taped live concerts are prized by music lovers
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Aga Khan Trust for Culture
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It focuses on the revitalization of communities in the Muslim world—physical, social, cultural, and economic. The AKTC was founded in 1988 and is registered in Geneva, Switzerland, Aga Khan Award for Architecture is an architectural prize that recognizes architectural excellence in the Muslim world. Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme supports the revitalization of historic sites in the Muslim world, Aga Khan Music Initiative provides financial resources and technical assistance to support the preservation and promotion of professional oral tradition music in Central Asia and other regions. Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture is a center for the history, theory and practice of Islamic architecture at Harvard University. ArchNet is a website on architecture, urban design, urban development, museums and Exhibitions refers to museum and exhibition projects, including the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. It also displays exhibitions of pieces from its collection and provides services for museums in the developing world. Aga Khan Trust for Culture Brochure, Aga Khan Trust for Culture Archives on ArchNet. org. Archived from the original on 15 November 2006
25.
Pakistan Television Corporation
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Pakistan Television Corporation is a public and commercial broadcasting television network, as well as a mass-media state-owned megacorporation, with headquarters at Islamabad, Pakistan. Although it was originally under private-ownership management, the PTV was integrated under government-ownership in a programme in 1970. The PTV is one of the broadcasting network infrastructure and media broadcasting divisions in the cities of Pakistan. For most of the 20th century, the PTV enjoyed a dominant position in media outlets until the start of the 21st century and was one of the two television networks in the country. The end of PTVs monopoly in 2000 led to a boom in electronic media in Pakistan, as of 2016, the PTV competes with the other private television channels and remains an important asset of Government of Pakistan. The idea of establishing a media and television industry was conceived in late 1956 and created by the set up national education commission. In 1963, a meeting was chaired by President Ayub Khan, in which the government made decisions about the Pakistan Television stations. Since 1963, its headquarters are in Islamabad, near the Cabinet Secretariat, from 1961 to 1962, a television headquarters was established in Lahore and several pilot transmission tests were taken by Rahmans team. Subsequently, many divisions were established throughout Pakistan by this team. On 26 November 1964, after an introduction by Syed Wajid Ali, Aslam Azhar was appointed the first Managing Director of the Pakistan Television in charge of all the staffing requirements at the first PTV Lahore Center. This first Managing Director and executive Aslam Azhar is widely considered to be the father of Pakistan Television, Private industries commercials were permitted with no fee, initially all the commercials of industrial conglomerates were tax-free with no additional charges. President Ayub Khan appointed Ubaidur Rahman in the Ministry of Information to continue with the NEC joint venture collaboration in launching the PTV. The project began with a tent on the lot of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation by Ubaidur Rahman where a transmission tower. On 29 May 1967, a company was established as Pakistan Television Corporation under the Company Act,1913. After the Indo-Pakistani war in 1971, the PTV was nationalized, communication network expansion was vast by the PTV and government publicly funded its infrastructure expansion all over the country. The PTV was considered as source of national integration. The PTV transmission switched over from its black and white to color transmission in 1975. Regional headquarters of PTV and television centers were established in Peshawar, in 1977–78, the PTV broadcast the live Cricket match between England vs. Pakistan
26.
Silk Road
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While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
27.
Festival
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A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or traditions. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere, Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanksgiving. The celebrations offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups and they may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. In Ancient Greece and Rome, festivals such as the Saturnalia were closely associated with social organisation, in modern times, festivals may be attended by strangers such as tourists, who are attracted to some of the more eccentric or historical ones. The word festival was used as an adjective from the late fourteenth century. In Middle English, a festival dai was a religious holiday and its first recorded used as a noun was in 1589. Feast first came into usage as a noun circa 1200, the term feast is also used in common secular parlance as a synonym for any large or elaborate meal. When used as in the meaning of a festival, most often refers to a religious rather than a film or art festival. In the Philippines and many other former Spanish colonies, the Spanish word fiesta is used to denote a religious feast to honor a patron saint. Many festivals have religious origins and entwine cultural and religious significance in traditional activities, the most important religious festivals such as Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, and Eid al-Adha serve to mark out the year. Others, such as harvest festivals, celebrate seasonal change, events of historical significance, such as important military victories or other nation-building events also provide the impetus for a festival. An early example is the established by Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses III celebrating his victory over the Libyans. In many countries, royal holidays commemorate dynastic events just as agricultural holidays are about harvests, there are numerous types of festivals in the world and most countries celebrate important events or traditions with traditional cultural events and activities. Most culminate in the consumption of specially prepared food and they bring people together, Festivals are also strongly associated with national holidays. Lists of national festivals are published to make participation easier, among many religions, a feast is a set of celebrations in honour of Gods or God. A feast and a festival are historically interchangeable, the Sed festival, for example, celebrated the thirtieth year of an Egyptian pharaohs rule and then every three years after that
28.
President of Pakistan
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The President of Pakistan, is the ceremonial head of state of Pakistan and a figurehead who represents the unity of the Republic. The President holds the title de jure and is a civilian commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces as per the constitution of Pakistan. In addition, the constitution prohibits the President from exercising the authority of running the government, the president is indirectly elected by the Parliament through the Electoral College for a five-year term. The Constitution requires the President to be a Muslim of not less than forty-five years of age, the President resides in an estate in Islamabad known as Aiwan-e-Sadar. There have been a total of 12 Presidents, in case of absence of the President, the Chairman Senate takes over as the Acting President until the President resumes office, or the election for the next President is held. The current President is Mamnoon Hussain, who took office on 9 September 2013 as the 12th President of Pakistan, the official residence and principal workplace of the president is the Aiwan-e-Sadr— the presidential palace located in northeastern Islamabad. The presidency forms the vital institutional organ of state and is part of the bicameral Parliament, powers to exercise the authority are limited to the ceremonial figurehead, and required to address the Parliament to give a direction for national policies before being informed of its key decisions. In addition, the President is also a civil commander-in-chief of the military, after a thorough confirmation comes from the Prime Minister, the President confirms the judicial appointments in the national court system. In addition, the Constitution allows the President to grant pardons, reprieves, and clemency in cases recommended to him by the executive and the judiciary. The President himself has absolute immunity from criminal and civil proceedings. There shall be a President of Pakistan who shall be the Head of State, furthermore, the presidential powers have significantly declined with Pakistans government reversed to a parliamentary democratic republic. The Constitution of Pakistan sets the qualifications that the candidate must meet to be eligible to the office of the President. A President has to be, A citizen of Pakistan, at least 45 years of age. Qualified to be elected as member of the National Assembly, whenever the Aiwan-e-Sadr becomes vacant, the selection of president is done by the electoral college, which consists of both houses of Parliament and the four provincial assemblies. The Chief Election Commissioner has to conduct elections to the office of the President in a special session, each elector casts a different number of votes. The general principle is that the number of votes cast by members of Parliament equals the total number of votes cast by provincial legislators. Also, legislators from larger states cast more votes than those from smaller provinces, the president is elected indirectly for a term of five years. The incumbent president is eligible for re-election to that office, the President may be removed before the expiry of the term through impeachment
29.
Pervez Musharraf
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Pervez Musharraf is a Pakistani politician and a retired four-star army general who was the tenth President of Pakistan from 2001 until tendering resignation, to avoid impeachment, in 2008. Musharraf entered the Pakistan Military Academy in 1961 and was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in 1964, Musharraf saw action in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 as a second lieutenant, by the 1980s, Musharraf was commanding an artillery brigade. In the 1990s, he was promoted to general and assigned an infantry division. Later he served as deputy secretary and the director general of military operation. Musharraf rose to prominence when he was elevated to the four-star general, appointed by then-Prime Minister Sharif in October 1998. He led the Kargil infiltration that brought India and Pakistan to a war in 1999. Musharraf became the head of the government while remaining the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2001. Although, Musharraf relinquished the position of chairman of joint chiefs in 2001 and he became the President of Pakistan on 20 June 2001, only to win a controversial referendum on May 1,2002 which awarded him five years of presidency. In October the same year, he oversaw a general election in 2002, over the next several years, Musharraf survived a number of assassination attempts. He reinstated the constitution in 2002, though it was amended with the Legal Framework Order. He also saw a process of social liberalism under his enlightened moderation program, while promoting economic liberalisation. He oversaw a rise of in overall gross domestic product at around 50%, however domestic savings declined, more importantly, Musharraf has been accused of human rights abuses. As Shaukat Aziz departed as Prime Minister, and after approving the suspension of the branch in 2007. Upon his return, Musharraf was disqualified from taking part in the elections by High Court judges in April 2013, on 31 March 2014, Musharraf was booked and charged with high treason for implementing emergency rule and suspending the constitution in 2007. His legacy is mixed, his era saw the emergence of a more middle class. Pervez Musharraf was born on 11 August 1943 to an Urdu-speaking family in Delhi and his family belonged to the Sayyid nobility. He is the son of Syed and Zarin Musharraf and his father, Syed Musharraf, graduated from the Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, and was a civil servant under the government of British India. His mother Zarin, born in the early 1920s, graduated from Delhi and Lucknow University, Musharrafs first childhood home was called Neharwali Haveli, literally house by the canal
30.
Radio Pakistan
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Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, also known as Radio Pakistan, is a public radio broadcasting network, as well as a mass-media state-owned megacorporation in Pakistan. PBC provides a range of radio and news services which are broadcast in TV, internet. A1973 law, signed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto regulated PBC to as to publish, circulate, distribute and regulate news and its one core mission states, education, news and information to be bring to public awareness the whole range of significant activity. PBCs radio services and television programmes are broadcast through satellite, cable, FM, AM, select PBC programming is also available through WRN. At national level, PBC broadcast its programmes in 23 different state-recognized languages at 24-hour news cycle period, while its external services programmes are broadcast eight hrs daily in 10 different foreign languages, covering Western, Southern, Eastern, Northern Asia and some parts of Eastern Europe. The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, popularly called Radio Pakistan came into being as Pakistan Broadcasting Service on 14 August 1947 when Pakistan emerged on the map as a new country. The independence of Pakistan was announced through Radio Pakistan on 13 August 1947 at 11,59 pm in Urdu, mustafa Ali Hamdani made the Urdu announcement in the following words, The English translation of this announcement is as follows, Greetings. The night between the thirteen and fourteen of August, year forty seven and this announcement is aired by Pakistan Television Network every year during the special independence day transmissions. One of the announcements by PTV can be found at this link. Https, //www. youtube. com/watch. v=7x3GHfJqs0k Abdullah Jan Maghmoom made the announcement for Radio Pakistan, at independence Pakistan possessed three radio stations at Dhaka, Lahore and Peshawar. A major program of expansion saw new stations opened at Karachi and Rawalpindi in 1948, and this was followed by new stations at Hyderabad, Quetta, a second station at Rawalpindi and a Receiving Centre at Peshawar. In 1970, training facilities were opened in Islamabad and a station opened at Multan, a major step was the establishment of the Radio Pakistan World Service on 21 April 1973 for overseas Pakistanis followed by new stations at Khairpur and Bahawalpur. From 1981 to 1982 stations and transmitters were established at Dera Ismail Khan, Khuzdar. Radio Pakistan opened a new broadcasting house in Khairpur on 7 May 1986, followed by stations in 1989 at Sibi. The remoter parts of the country began to receive coverage with new stations opened in the 1990s at Chitral, Loralai and Zhob. In 1997, the Federal Minister of Information inaugurated the computerisation of the PBC news processing system and availability of the bulletins on the Internet in text. In October 1998, Radio Pakistan started FM transmission and over the period 2002–2005, new FM stations were opened at Islamabad, Gwadar, Mianwali, Sargodha, Kohat, Bannu, in last two and a half years three new networks have been launched by PBC. On 28 August 2008 PBC launched National Broadcasting Service the first dedicated Current Affairs Channel and it is a combination of 5 AM transmitters permanently linked together to broadcast a single national program beamed across Pakistan
31.
Gilgit
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Gilgit is the capital city of Gilgit-Baltistan, an administrative territory of Pakistan. The city of Gilgit constitutes a tehsil within Gilgit District, the citys ancient name was Sargin, later to be known as Gilit, and it is still referred to as Gilit or Sargin-Gilit by local people. In the Burushaski language, it is named Geelt and in Wakhi, ghallata is considered its name in ancient Sanskrit literature. Gilgit was an important city on the Silk Road, along which Buddhism was spread from South Asia to the rest of Asia and it is considered as a Buddhism corridor from which many Chinese monks came to Kashmir to learn and preach Buddhism. Brogpas trace their settlement from Gilgit into the villages of Ladakh through a rich corpus of hymns, songs. The Dards and Shinas appear in many of the old Pauranic lists of peoples who lived in the region, two famous Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Faxian and Xuanzang, traversed Gilgit according to their accounts. According to Chinese records, between the 600s and the 700s, the city was governed by a Buddhist dynasty referred to as Little Balur or Lesser Bolü and they are believed to be the Patola Sahi dynasty, a devout adherent of early Vajrayana Buddhism. During that time, the region was battled over by the Tang dynasty, Tibetan Empire, in mid-600s, it was put under Chinese suzerainty after the fall of Western Turkic Khaganate due to Tang military campaigns in the region. In late 600s, the rising Tibetan Empire wrestled control of the region from the Chinese, however, faced with growing power of the Abbasid Empire to the west, the Tibetans had to ally with the Abbassid. The region was battled over by Chinese and Tibetan forces and their vassal states until the mid-700s. Chinese record of the region last until late-700s at which Tangs western military campaign was weakened due to An Lushan Rebellion, Gilgit was ruled for centuries by the local Trakhàn Dynasty, which ended about 1810 with the death of Raja Abas, the last Trakhàn Raja. The rulers of Hunza and Nager also claim origin with the Trakhàn dynasty and they claim descent from a heroic Kayani Prince of Persia, Azur Jamshid, who secretly married the daughter of the king Shri Badat. She conspired with him to overthrow her cannibal father, Sri Badats faith is theorised as Hindu by some and Buddhist by others. However, considering the regions Buddhist heritage, with the most recent influence being Islam, though the Sanskrit titular Sri and the name Badat could denotes a Hindu origin of this ruler, adherents to Buddhism frequently employed Sankrit in the use of Buddhist texts. In the beginning of the new year, where a Juniper procession walks along the river, in memory of chasing the cannibal king Sri Badat away. Azur Jamshid abdicated after 16 years of rule in favour of his wife Nur Bakht Khatùn until their son and heir Garg, grew of age and assumed the title of Raja and ruled, for 55 years. The dynasty flourished under the name of the Kayani dynasty until 1421 when Raja Torra Khan assumed rulership and he ruled as a memorable king until 1475. He distinguished his family line from his step brother Shah Rais Khan, the descendants of Shah Rais Khan were known as the Raissiya Dynasty
32.
History
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History is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory and it is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians and their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In Asia, a chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts survived. Ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries, the modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematical elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and secondary education, the word history comes ultimately from Ancient Greek ἱστορία, meaning inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge. It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his Περὶ Τὰ Ζῷα Ἱστορίαι, the ancestor word ἵστωρ is attested early on in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes oath, and in Boiotic inscriptions. History was borrowed from Latin into Old English as stær, and it was from Anglo-Norman that history was borrowed into Middle English, and this time the loan stuck. In Middle English, the meaning of history was story in general, the restriction to the meaning the branch of knowledge that deals with past events, the formal record or study of past events, esp. human affairs arose in the mid-fifteenth century. With the Renaissance, older senses of the word were revived, and it was in the Greek sense that Francis Bacon used the term in the sixteenth century. For him, historia was the knowledge of objects determined by space and time, in an expression of the linguistic synthetic vs. analytic/isolating dichotomy, English like Chinese now designates separate words for human history and storytelling in general. In modern German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, which are synthetic and highly inflected. The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669, Historian in the sense of a researcher of history is attested from 1531. Historians write in the context of their own time, and with due regard to the current dominant ideas of how to interpret the past, in the words of Benedetto Croce, All history is contemporary history. History is facilitated by the formation of a discourse of past through the production of narrative. The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the production of this discourse. All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute the historical record, the task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past. Therefore, the constitution of the archive is a result of circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating the usage of certain texts and documents
33.
Gilgit-Baltistan
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Gilgit-Baltistan, formerly known as the Northern Areas, is the northernmost administrative territory in Pakistan. Gilgit-Baltistan is part of the Kashmir region that is disputed by India and Pakistan, along with Azad Kashmir, Aksai Chin, the Shaksgam Valley, and Jammu, Ladakh, the territory of present-day Gilgit-Baltistan became a separate administrative unit in 1970 under the name Northern Areas. It was formed by the amalgamation of the former Gilgit Agency, the Baltistan district and several small former princely states, however, scholars state that the real power rests with the governor and not with chief minister or elected assembly. The population of Gilgit-Baltistan wants to be merged into Pakistan as a fifth province. Gilgit-Baltistan covers an area of over 72,971 km² and is highly mountainous and it had an estimated population of 1,800,000 in 2015. Gilgit-Baltistan is home to five of the eight-thousanders and to more than fifty peaks above 7,000 metres, three of the worlds longest glaciers outside the polar regions are found in Gilgit-Baltistan. Tourism is mostly in trekking and mountaineering, and this industry is growing in importance, the rock carvings found in various places in Gilgit-Baltistan, especially those found in the Passu village of Hunza, suggest a human presence since 2000 BC. Within the next few centuries after human settlement in the Tibetan plateau, this region became inhabited by Tibetans, today Baltistan bears similarity to Ladakh physically and culturally. Dards are found mainly in the western areas and these people are the Shina-speaking peoples of Gilgit, Chilas, Astore and Diamir while in Hunza and in the upper regions Burushaski and Khowar speakers dominate. The Dards find mention in the works of Herodotus, Nearchus, Megasthenes, Pliny, Ptolemy, in the 1st century the people of these regions were followers of the Bon religion while in the 2nd century they followed Buddhism. Between 399 and 414, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Faxian visited Gilgit-Baltistan, between 627 and 645, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang travelled through this region. From 644 to 655, Navasurendrādityanandi was King of Palola, in 706/707, Jayamaṅgalavikramādityanandi became king of Palola. It is said that in the year 717, a delegation of a ruler of great Palola, named Su-fu-she-li-ji-li-ni according to the transcription of Chinese characters, in 719, Su-fu-she-li-ji-li-ni, King of Palola, sent a second delegation to the Chinese Imperial court. By at least 719/720, Ladakh was part of the Tibetan Empire, by that time uddhism iwa practiced in Baltistan and Sanskrit was the written language. It is unknown if Baltistan temporarily w sPruled under alolo. at that time 7In 20, thl deegation of Sou-lin-to i che, King of Palola, the Emperor gives the ruler of Cashmere, Tchen-fo-lo-pi-li, the title of King of Cashmere. By 721/722 Baltistan had become part of the Tibetan Empire, during 721-722 the conquest of Little Palola or Bru-zha by the Tibetan army failed. Mo-ching-mang had become the King of Palola by this time which was visited by the Korean Buddhist pilgrim Hyecho between 723-728, in 737/738, Tibetan troops under the leadership of Minister sKyes-bzang ldong-tsab conquered Little Palola. By 747 the Chinese army under the leadership of the ethnic-Korean commander Gao Xianzhi reconquered Palola, Turkic tribes practicing Zoroastrianism arrived in Gilgit during the 7th century, and founded the Trakhan dynasty in Gilgit
34.
Tajiks in Pakistan
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Tajiks in Pakistan have inhabited north western valleys which lay adjacent to Tajikistan since ancient time, though many are not counted as ethnic Tajiks due to census irregularities. There are many shrines dotted throughout Pakistan in honour of noted Tajik noblemen, in recent years, many Tajiks from Tajikistan have also settled in Pakistan due to the economic conditions prevalent in their home country, many have settled in the northern city of Ishkuman. In 1979, with the invasion by the Soviet Union of Afghanistan, exact numbers are difficult to ascertain as many dont have official identity cards. There also large number of Tajiks from Afghanistan that have settled in Pakistan permanently, many Tajik refugees from Tajikistan lived in Pakistan and some of them returned to Tajikistan. At least 7. 3% of Afghans in Pakistan are ethnic Tajiks, additionally, there is a sizeable community of Chinese Tajiks in Pakistan. Tajik Students in Pakistan are increasing due to the sound diplomatic relations between both countries which were established in 1992. Khalid Usman Qaiser and the Tajik Minister of Education Mr. Abdujabbor Rahmonov at the Oriental Studies Department of the Tajik National University on May 5,2009. Tajik people prefer Pakistan for education over other countries in Europe or Asia every year, hundreds of them seek admission in different public, the Poet of East Muhammad Iqbal national poet of Pakistan was introduced to Tajikistan by a Tajik national, Mirsaid Mirshakar, during the 1950s. Currently there are students studying in Pakistan in well known state universities such as University of Karachi approx 70 students
35.
Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County
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Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County is a county of Kashgar Prefecture in western Xinjiang, China. The county seat is Taxkorgan Town, the Muztagh Ata, at 7,546 metres, and the Kongur Tagh, at 7,719 metres, are the main peaks in the county, while the two main rivers are the Taxkorgan River and the Tiznap River. By including the Trans-Karakoram Tract, the county also borders several eight-thousanders, including K2, there are several hot springs and resources of gold, iron, and copper. Taxkorgan has a desert climate, influenced by the high elevation, with long, very cold winters. Monthly daily average temperatures range from −11.9 °C in January to 16.4 °C in July, while the annual mean is 3.58 °C. An average of only 68 millimetres of precipitation falls per year The total population of Taxkorgan is 27,800, among them 84% Tajiks, 4% Han and 12% other nationalities. During the Han dynasty, Taxkorgan was known as Puli, during the Tang dynasty, it was a protectorate of the Parthians, Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County was created in 1954 and is part of the district of Kashgar. In August 2013 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences announced that they excavated a cluster of Zoroastrian tombs in Taxkorgan and they are labelled as dating from the Bronze Age to the Warring States period. The mummies were discovered in the nearby Xiabandi Valley on the old route to Yarkand. The valley has now been flooded for a hydro-electric project, the county is served by Karakoram Highway, which runs through Taxkorgan Town. Taxkorgan or Tashkorgan is the last western most town in China and it is also the last/first town for visitors going/coming in/out of China and Pakistan through the Khunjerab Pass. There are public buses plying between Kashgar and Tashkorgan, another option is to hire a pick up for a few hundred RMB for the two way trip. It would be recommended to hire a car as the scenery along the Karakoram is breathtaking as such you might be spending a lot of making numerous stops to take in the views. The initial part of the route is rough and as you travel along it gets better and better in terms of conditions as well as the scenery. However, as of September 2016, China has began building an elevated roads, makan Map Taghdumbash Pamir Tashkurgan Nature Reserve Official website of Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County government
36.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
37.
NPR
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NPR produces and distributes news and cultural programming. Individual public radio stations are not required to broadcast all NPR programs that are produced and its content is also available on-demand via the web, mobile, and podcasts. The organizations legal name is National Public Radio and its brand is NPR. Is NPR has been used by its hosts for many years. However, National Public Radio remains the name of the group. National Public Radio replaced the National Educational Radio Network on February 26,1970 and this act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which created the Public Broadcasting Service in addition to NPR. A CPB organizing committee under John Witherspoon first created a Board of Directors chaired by Bernard Mayes, the board then hired Donald Quayle to be the first president of NPR with 30 employees and 90 charter member stations, and studios in Washington, D. C. NPR aired its first broadcast in April 1971, covering United States Senate hearings on the Vietnam War, a month later, the afternoon drive-time newscast All Things Considered began, on May 3,1971, first hosted by Robert Conley. NPR was primarily a production and distribution organization until 1977, when it merged with the Association of Public Radio Stations, NPR suffered an almost fatal setback in 1983 when efforts to expand services created a deficit of nearly US$7 million. After a congressional investigation and the resignation of NPRs president, Frank Mankiewicz, NPR also agreed to turn its satellite service into a cooperative venture, making it possible for non-NPR shows to get national distribution. It took NPR approximately three years to pay off the debt, delano Lewis, the president of C&P Telephone, left that position to become NPRs CEO and president in January 1994. In November 1998, NPRs board of directors hired Kevin Klose, NPR spent nearly $13 million to acquire and equip a West Coast 25, 000-square-foot production facility, NPR West, which opened in Culver City, Los Angeles County, California, in November 2002. C. In November 2003, NPR received US$235 million from the estate of the late Joan B, Kroc, the widow of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds Corporation. This was the largest monetary gift ever to a cultural institution, in 2004 NPRs budget increased by over 50% to US$153 million due to the Kroc gift. US$34 million of the money was deposited in its endowment, the endowment fund before the gift totaled $35 million. NPR will use the interest from the bequest to expand its news staff, the 2005 budget was about US$120 million. In August 2005, NPR entered podcasting with a directory of over 170 programs created by NPR, by November of that year, users downloaded NPR and other public radio podcasts 5 million times
38.
Ethnic groups in Pakistan
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The major ethnic groups of Pakistan in numerical size include, Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Siddis, Saraikis, Muhajirs, Balochis, Hindkowans, Chitralis, Gujarati and other smaller groups. Smaller ethnic groups, such as Kashmiris, Kalash, Burusho, Brahui, Khowar, Hazara, Shina, Kalyu, Pakistans census does not include the registered 1. Many of them were born inside Pakistan in the last 30 years and are counted as citizens, about 99% of languages spoken in Pakistan are of the Indo-Iranian branch, a branch of the Indo-European family of languages. About 99% of the groups are part of the Indo-Iranian group. The majority of these belong to the Iranic and Indo-Aryan subgroupings of peoples, the Nuristanis constitute another subgrouping amongst the Indo-Iranian peoples but are not indigenous to Pakistan. Punjabis in Pakistan are an Indo-Aryan group of people, and can be divided into sub-clans, Punjabis speak the language called Punjabi, a northwestern Indo-Aryan language. Punjabis have many different dialects and that depends in what region of Punjab they are from and they make up 78.7 million of Pakistans total population. They speak Pashto, an eastern Iranic language and they make up an estimated 27.7 million of Pakistans total population. The largest urban population of Pashtuns is interestingly found in the coastal city of Karachi with a fluctuating population estimated up to 7 million. This is then followed by Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and they make up the largest ethnic group in neighboring Afghanistan, forming anywhere between 42 and 60% there. Pashtuns practice a unique code of conduct referred to as Pashtunwali and are known for their tribal structure and they are an indigenous group from the land south of the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and west of the Indus River in Pakistan. Sindhis are multi-clan groups of people inhabiting the province of Sindh, Pakistan from where the river Indus runs and subsequently. Despite being a northwestern Indo-Aryan people, both culturally and genetically, Sindhis are heavily influenced by the adjacent Balochs in Pakistan, Sindhis can also be found in the southern part of Punjab, and there is significant Punjabi influence in the Sindhi population. Muhajirs are a group of primarily Indo-Aryan peoples. They are also called Urdu Speaking, Muhajirs is a collective ethnic group, which emerged by the migration of Indian Muslims from various parts of India to Pakistan starting in 1947, as a result of worlds largest mass migration. Majority of Muhajirs are settled in Urban areas of Sindh mainly in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sindh, but there are other parts of Pakistan, including cities like Lahore, Multan, Islamabad, Peshawar where Muhajirs have sizable community. Muhajirs held official offices during the years of Pakistani nation-building. Most of the politicians of India who took part in the Pakistan movement were Muhajir, the Baloch as an ethnic group are principally found in the east of Balochistan province of Pakistan
39.
Baloch people
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They mainly speak the Balochi language, a branch of Northwestern Iranian languages, and are an Iranic people. About 50% of the total Baloch population live in Balochistan, a province of Pakistan, 40% of Baloch are settled in Sindh. They make up nearly 3. 6% of the Pakistani population, about 2% of Irans population, prominent Baloch people in Pakistan include former Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and former President Asif Ali Zardari who is an ethnic Baloch from Sindh. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry born in Quetta, is the longest-serving Chief Justice of Pakistan is another prominent Baloch personality, the son of Benazir Bhutto, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is the Chief of the Baloch Zardari tribe. Farooq Leghari was the first ever ethnic Baloch to be elected President, the exact origin of the word Baloch is unclear. Rawlinson believed that it is derived from the name of the Babylonian king, dames believed that it is derived from the Persian term for cockscomb, said to have been used as a crest on the helmets of Baloch troops in 6th century BCE. Herzfeld proposed that it is derived from the Median term brza-vaciya, the remnants of the original name such as Balochuk and Balochiki are said to be still used as ethnic names in Balochistan. Some writers suggest a derivation from Sanskrit words bal, meaning strength, the army in question is that of the Umayyad Caliphate after the conquest of Sindh. According to Baloch lore, their ancestors hail from Aleppo in what is now Syria and they are descendants of Hazrat Ameer Hamza, uncle of the prophet Muhammad, who settled in Halab. and they fled to the Sistan region. They allegedly remained there for nearly 500 years until they fled following a deception against the Sistan leader Badr-ud-Din to the Makran region, the Baloch began migrating towards the east in the late Sasanian period. The cause of the migration is unknown but may have been as a result of the unstable conditions in the Caspian area. The migrations occurred over several centuries and this brought them into conflict with the Buyids, and later the Ghaznavids and the Seljuqs. Adud al-Dawla of the Buyid dynasty launched a campaign against them. By the 13/14th centuries waves of Baloch were moving into Sindh, according to Dr. Akhtar Baloch, Professor at University of Karachi, the Balochis migrated from Balochistan during the Little Ice Age and settled in Sindh and Punjab. The Little Ice Age is conventionally defined as an extending from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, or alternatively. Although climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions. According to Professor Baloch, the climate of Balochistan was very cold, the area where the Baloch tribes settled was disputed between the Persian Safavids and the Mughal emperors. Although the Mughals managed to some control over the eastern parts of the area, by the 17th century
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Brahui people
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The Brahui or Brahvi people are a Pakistani ethnic group of about 2.2 million people with the vast majority found in Baluchistan, Pakistan. They are a minority group in Afghanistan, where they are native. They mainly occupy the area in Balochistan from Bolan Pass through the Bolan Hills to Ras Muari on the Arabian sea, the Brahuis are almost entirely Sunni Muslims. The ethnonym Brahui is an old term and a purely Dravidian one. The fact that other Dravidian languages only exist further south in India has led to speculations about the origins of the Brahui. There are three hypotheses regarding the Brahui that have proposed by academics. One theory is that the Brahui are a population of Dravidians, surrounded by speakers of Indo-Iranian languages. Another theory is that they migrated to Baluchistan from inner India during the early Muslim period of the 13th or 14th centuries, a third theory says the Brahui migrated to Balochistan from Central India after 1000 AD. The absence of any older Iranian influence in Brahui supports this last hypothesis, the main Iranian contributor to Brahui vocabulary is a northwestern Iranian language, Baluchi, Sindhi and southeastern Iranian language, Pashto. The Brahui language is a Dravidian language, even though it is far from South India. Brahui is generally written in the Perso-Arabic script and there is even a Latin alphabet that has developed for use with Brahui. Kalat, Jhalawan, and Sarawan, with Kalat as the standard dialect, at present Brahui is spoken in Pakistani Balochistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Sindh and the Persian Gulf Arab states. Other, relatively minor, low-frequency haplogroups among the Brahui are those of L, E1b1a, G, and N
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Burusho people
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The Burusho or Brusho people live in the Hunza, Nagar and Chitral District, and valleys of Gilgit–Baltistan in northern Pakistan. Their language, Burushaski, has not been shown to be related to any other, the Hunzakuts or Hunza people, are an ethnically Burusho people indigenous to the Hunza Valley, in the Karakorum Mountains of northern Pakistan. They are descended from inhabitants of the principality of Hunza. A popular belief among some Burusho clans is that they are the descendants of the Macedonian soldiers who came to the region with Alexander the Greats army in the 4th century BC. No conclusive evidence has been made either connecting genetic or linguistic roots to any ethnic groups present within the immediate region, people of the region have for centuries recounted their historical traditions down from one generation to the next, In an effort to preserve their ancestry. There are four major yet genealogically diverse clans in the area of Hunza that trace their paterlineal ancestry to varying ethnics groups. The Khurukutz, local history links them to the communities now settled in the Pamir region of the Wakhan/afghan corridor, the Buroong are said to have migrated up from the Indus region of the subcontinent. Diramiting, and Barataling, trace their roots to the balkan/east European ethnic diaspora, together the Hunza people are predominantly Shia Muslims of the Nizari Ismaili tradition. Hunzakuts and the Hunza region have high literacy rates, compared to most other districts in Pakistan. Hunza is a major tourist attraction in Pakistan, and many domestic and foreign travel to the region to enjoy the picturesque landscape. The district has many amenities and is quite advanced by Asian standards. Local legend states that Hunza may have associated with the lost kingdom of Shangri-La. In fact, not a shred of evidence has ever been presented to indicate that the Hunza people have a life expectancy significantly above that of the average poor. Writers who made claims about the health and long life of the Burusho almost always did so based solely on the words of the local Mir. The only author to have significant and sustained contact with the Burusho people was John Clark, far from being a peaceful paradise of longevity, Hunza was reported by both Clark and Lorimer as a land where violence and starvation were frequent. The popular claims about the Hunza diet have been exposed as pseudoscience, upper Hunza locally called Gojal, is inhabited by people whose ancestors moved up from proper Hunza in an effort to irrigate and defend the bordering lands with China and Afghanistan. They speak a dialect called Wakhi, which is influenced not only by Brushahski but also by Dari and tajiki due to the close proximity, the Shina-speaking people live in the southern part of Hunza. They have come from Chilas, Gilgit, and other Shina-speaking areas of Pakistan, genetic evidence supports only 2% Greek genetic component among the Pashtun ethnic group of Pakistan and Afghanistan, not the Burusho
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Hazaras
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The Hazaras are a Persian-speaking people who mainly live in central Afghanistan, Hazara Town in Balochistan, Pakistan, and Karachi. They are overwhelmingly Twelver Shia Muslims and make up the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, the dialect of Persian which they speak is called Hazaragi, which is more precisely a part of the Dari dialect continuum, and is mutually intelligible with Dari. Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire in the early 16th century and he referred to the populace of a region called Hazaristan, located west of the Kabulistan region, north of Ghazna and south-west of Ghor. The conventional theory is that the word Hazara derives from the Persian word for Thousand and 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, the origins of the Hazara have not been fully reconstructed. Thus, it is widely and popularly believed that Hazara have Mongolian ancestry, 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 Persian. 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 later 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 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, during the second reign of Dost Mohammad Khans 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 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 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 parts of Hazarajat rejected Abdur Rahman and instead supported his uncle. In response to this Abdur Rahman waged a war against tribal leaders who rejected his policies, Abdur Rahman arrested Syed Jafar, chief of the Sheikh Ali Hazara tribe, and jailed him in Mazar-e-Sharif. The first Hazara uprising against Abdur Rahman Khan took place between 1888 and 1890, when Emir Abdur Rahmans cousin, Mohammad Eshaq, revolted against him, tribal leaders of the Sheikh Ali Hazaras joined the revolt. The revolt was short lived and crushed as the Emir extended his control over parts of Hazarajat. Leaders of the Sheikh Ali Hazaras had allies in two different groups, Shia and Sunni, Abdur Rahman took advantage of the situation, pitting Sunni Hazara against the Shia Hazara, and made pacts among the Hazara
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Kalash people
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The Kalasha or Kalash, are an Indo-Aryan Dardic indigenous people residing in the Chitral District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. They speak the Kalasha language, from the Dardic family of the Indo-Aryan branch and they are considered unique among the peoples of Pakistan. They are also considered to be Pakistans smallest religious community, the neighboring Nuristani people of the adjacent Nuristan province of Afghanistan once practiced a form of ancient Hinduism adhered to by the Kalash. By the late 19th century much of Nuristan had been converted to Islam, the Kalash of Chitral maintained their own separate cultural traditions. According to linguist Richard Strand, the people of Chitral apparently adopted the name of the former Kafiristan Kalasha, the culture of the Kalash people is unique and differs completely from the various contemporary Islamic ethnic groups surrounding them in modern northwestern Subcontinent. They are polytheists and nature plays a significant and spiritual role in their daily life. As part of their religious tradition, sacrifices are offered and festivals held to give thanks for the abundant resources of their three valleys. Kalasha Desh is made up of two cultural areas, the valleys of Rumbur and Brumbret forming one, and Birir valley the other. Kalash mythology and folklore has been compared to that of ancient Greece, the Kalash have fascinated anthropologists due to their unique culture compared to the rest in that region. The language of the Kalash is a sub-branch of the Indo-Aryan group and it is classified as a member of the Chitral sub-group, the only other member of that group being Khowar. Norwegian Linguist Georg Morgenstierne believes that in spite of similarities, Kalasha is an independent language in its own right, there is some controversy over what defines the ethnic characteristics of the Kalash. Although quite numerous before the 20th century, the minority has seen its numbers dwindle over the past century. A leader of the Kalash, Saifulla Jan, has stated, If any Kalash converts to Islam, about three thousand have converted to Islam or are descendants of converts, yet still live nearby in the Kalash villages and maintain their language and many aspects of their ancient culture. By now, sheikhs, or converts to Islam, make up more than half of the total Kalasha-speaking population, Kalasha women usually wear long black robes, often embroidered with cowrie shells. For this reason, they are known in Chitral as The Black Kafirs, men have adopted the Pakistani shalwar kameez, while children wear small versions of adult clothing after the age of four. In contrast to the surrounding Pakistani culture, the Kalasha do not in general separate males and females or frown on contact between the sexes. However, menstruating girls and women are sent to live in the bashaleni and they are also required to give birth in the bashaleni. There is also a ritual restoring purity to a woman after childbirth which must be performed before a woman can return to her husband, the husband is an active participant in this ritual
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Kashmiris
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The Kashmiris are an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley, in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, who speak Kashmiri, an Indo-Aryan Dardic language. The bulk of Kashmiri people predominantly live in the Kashmir Valley–which is the actual Kashmir and does not include the territories of the former princely state of Jammu. Other ethnic groups living in the Jammu and Kashmir state include Gujjars, Dogras, although some residents of Azad Kashmir call themselves Kashmiri, most residents of Azad Kashmir are not actually ethnic Kashmiris. Whilst Kashmiris are native to the Kashmir Valley, smaller populations of Kashmiris also live in the districts of Jammu. Ethnic Kashmiris can be found in the Chenab regions Doda, Ramban, there are also ethnic Kashmiri populations inhabiting the Neelam Valley and Leepa Valley of northern Azad Kashmir. Since 1947, many ethnic Kashmiris and their descendants are found in Pakistan. Many ethnic Kashmiris from the Kashmir Valley also migrated to the Punjab region during Dogra, Most Kashmiris today are Sunni Muslim but a sizable Hindu community also exists. Pure ethnic Kashmiri Muslims are descended from Kashmiri Hindus and are known as Sheikhs. Common surnames among these people include Butt, Dar, Lone etc, Islam arrived in Kashmir starting with the conversion in 1323 of Kashmirs Buddhist ruler, Rinchan, at the hands of the saint, Sayyid Bilal Shah. After conversion to Islam he called himself Malik Sadur-ud-Din and was the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir, Islam grew in the 14th century under the Shah Mir reign and numerous Muslim ulama from Central Asia came to preach in Kashmir. Sayyid Ali Hamadani made immense contributions towards the spread of Islam in Kashmir and he and hundreds of his followers converted thousands of Kashmiris to Islam. His son Sayyid Muḥammad Hamadani also propagated Islam and influenced Kashmirs Muslim ruler Sikander to enforce Islamic law, by the late 1400s the majority of the population had embraced Islam. Since the arrival of invaders and the start of religious conflicts, before the Partition of India, many Kashmir Hindus, in 1557 the Shah Miri dynasty was overthrown by the Chaks who were foreigners to Kashmir and originated from Baltistan. Since they were from outside Kashmir they were not interested in the Kashmiri populations welfare, the Chak rulers, who were Shia, persecuted their Sunni subjects and this caused Sunni scholars to flee to safer environs. Some disenchanted Sunnis, such as notable Sunni scholar, Sheikh Yaqub Sarfi, went to the court of Akbar and invited the Mughals to conquer Kashmir and these conditions included a guarantee of Kashmiri rights such as freedom of religion for all of Kashmirs population. Shaikh Yaqub Sarfi also forbade Sunnis from carrying out any reprisal against Shias and he devoted his life to restoring peace, Kashmiri historians see Mughal rule as the beginning of the end of Kashmiri independence. The Mughal Emperor Akbar succeeded in invading the Kashmir Valley, despite tough Kashmiri resistance, the anti-Shia policies of Mirza Haidar Dughlat and the anti-Sunni policies of the Chaks had broken Kashmiri unity, thus paving the way for the Mughal occupation of Kashmir. Akbars victory brought an end to indigenous Kashmiri Muslim rule, Christopher Snedden states that the Mughals began a process of psychological warfare against Kashmiris to strip them of their martial capabilities
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Kho people
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The Kho people, also known as Chitralis, are a Dardic ethnic group located primarily in South Asia. They live primarily in Pakistan, with a population living in Afghanistan. They speak the Dardic Khowar language and they are also found in northern Afghanistan, the majority living in the northern provinces of Badakhshan, Kunduz, Balkh, and Takhar. The haplogroup R1b is found at a frequency of 80% among the Kho people, many are in Paragroup M343, also found in some Central Asian peoples. Kho culture is one of oldest cultures which places emphasis on poetry, song. Kho people also have a respect of law and order. Much of this can be attributed to Chitral being a kingdom for most of its history, where the rule of law. Because of Chitrals location at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia, Khowar is Indo-European dardic branch of language spoken by about 247,000 Kho people in northern Pakistan. They also used Pashto and Urdu as second language, folk singers and reed instrument players have a special respect in the Kho society and are featured in their festivities. The most common instruments are Surnai Shehnai, Sitar, and reed instruments, the Kho sitar is a popular musical instrument in Chitral. It is made out of wood with five steel strings arranged in three courses, the outer ones have double strings, tuned in unison, while the inner course is single. Popular music of the area includes, Shishtoo-war, a folk music played with shehnai on happy occasions. Shab-daraaz is a sad tone based on love poems. Ghalhwar is a combination of Dani and Sauz and this is a mixture of fast and classical music played at the starting of a polo match. Khowar language Khoshey people Shina people Brokpas chitraltoday. net Chitrali Khow article at Hindu Kush Trails
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Muhajir people
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Although some of them speak different languages at the native level, they are primarily identified as native Urdu speakers and hence are called Urdu-speaking people. The Urdu term muhājir comes from the Arabic muhājir, meaning an immigrant, after the independence of Pakistan, a significant number of Muslims emigrated or were out-migrated from territory that remained India. In the aftermath of partition, a population exchange occurred between the two newly formed states. In the riots which preceded the partition in the Punjab region, UNHCR estimates 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during the partition, it was the largest mass migration in human history. Most of these settled in the towns and cities of Sindh, such as Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur. Many spoke Urdu, or dialects of the such as Dakhani, Khariboli, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Mewati, Sadri and Marwari and Haryanvi. Conversion was a combination, initially by violence, threat or other pressure against the person followed by a change of heart. As a socio-cultural process of diffusion and integration over a period of time into the sphere of the dominant Muslim civilization. That conversions occurred for reasons of pragmatism and patronage such as social mobility among the Muslim ruling elite. The Hindustani-speaking Muslim people of Pakistan and India have diverse roots and this era saw conversion of part of native lower caste Hindu population to Islam. Conversion was a combination of factors such as violence, threat or other pressure by the foreign, Muslim ruling class on the natives. Conversions also happened as a process of diffusion and integration over an extended period of time into the sphere of then dominant Muslim civilization. And for non-religious reasons of pragmatism and patronage such as social mobility among the Muslim ruling elite, Mughal Emperor Babur defeated the Lodi dynasty with Tajik, Turkic and Uzbek soldiers and nobility. These diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic Muslim groups of foreign and native origin, the Rohilla leader Daud Khan was awarded the Katehar region in the then northern India by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to suppress the Hindu Rajputs, who were earlier allied with the Mughals. Originally, some 20,000 soldiers from various Afghan Pashtun tribes were hired by Mughals to provide soldiers to the Mughal armies, due to the large settlement of Rohilla Afghans, the Katehar region gained fame as Rohilkhand. Bareilly was made the capital of the Rohilkhand state and it became Afghan majority city with Gali Nawaban as the main royal street, other important cities were Moradabad, Rampur, Shahjahanpur, Badaun, and others. These diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic Muslim groups of foreign and native origin, sub-groups also includes the Hyderabadi Muslims, Memon Muslims, Bihari Muslims etc. who keep many of their unique, pre-Islamic and Indic cultural traditions intact. Muslims from what are now the states of Delhi, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were themselves of heterogeneous origin, the Kayastha community has historically been involved in the occupations of land record keeping and accounting
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Pashtuns
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The Pashtuns /ˈpʌʃˌtʊnz/ or /ˈpæʃˌtuːnz/, historically known by the exonyms Afghans, and Pathan, are an ethnic group native to Afghanistan and North-Western Pakistan. They are generally classified as Eastern Iranian ethno-linguistically, who use Pashto language and follow Pashtunwali, the origin of Pashtuns is unclear but historians have come across references to various ancient peoples called Pakthas between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BC, who may be their early ancestors. Their history is mostly spread amongst various countries of South and Central Asia, as the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, Pashtuns have been the dominant ethno-linguistic group for over 300 years. The Barakzai dynasty played a role during the Great Game from the 19th century to the 20th century as they were caught between the imperialist designs of the British and Russian empires. There have been many notable Pashtun people throughout history, Ahmad Shah Durrani is regarded as the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan. Under Amanullah Khan, Afghanistan was able to pursue an independent foreign policy, some others include Malala Yousafzai, Shah Rukh Khan, Hamid Karzai, and Imran Khan. They are an important community in Pakistan, which has the largest Pashtun population, Pashtuns attained presidency there and high rankings in sports. They are the worlds largest segmentary lineage ethnic group, according to Ethnologue, the total population of the group is estimated to be around 50 million but an accurate count remains elusive due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979. Estimates of the number of Pashtun tribes and clans range from about 350 to over 400, additional Pashtun communities are located in western and northern Afghanistan, the Gilgit–Baltistan and Kashmir regions and northwestern Punjab province of Pakistan. There are also sizeable Muslim communities in India, which are of largely Pashtun ancestry, throughout the Indian subcontinent, they are often referred to as Pathans. Smaller Pashtun communities are found in the countries of the Middle East, such as in the Khorasan Province of Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, important metropolitan centres of Pashtun culture include Peshawar, Quetta, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Kunduz, and Lashkar Gah. The cities of Kabul and Ghazni in Afghanistan are home to around 25% Pashtun population while Herat, with as high as 7 million by some estimates, the city of Karachi in Sindh, Pakistan has the largest concentration of urban Pashtuns in the world. In addition, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, and Lahore also have sizeable Pashtun populations, about 15% of Pakistans nearly 200 million population is Pashtun. In Afghanistan, they are the largest ethnic group and make up between 42-60% of the 32.5 million population. The exact figure remains uncertain in Afghanistan, which is affected by the 1.5 million or more Afghan refugees that remain in Pakistan. Another one million or more Afghans live in Iran, a cumulative population assessment suggests a total of around 49 million individuals all across the world. A prominent institution of the Pashtun people is the system of tribes. Despite this, many people identify themselves with various clans
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Punjabis
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The Punjabis, or Punjabi people, are an ethno-linguistic group associated with the Punjab, who speak Punjabi, an Indo-Aryan language. Punjab literally means the land of five waters (Persian, panj āb, Punjab is often referred to as the breadbasket in both Pakistan and India. The coalescence of the tribes, castes and the inhabitants of the Punjab into a broader common Punjabi identity initiated from the onset of the 18th century CE. Traditionally, Punjabi identity is primarily linguistic, geographical and cultural, integration and assimilation are important parts of Punjabi culture, since Punjabi identity is not based solely on tribal connections. More or less all Punjabis share the cultural background. Historically, the Punjabi people were a group and were subdivided into a number of clans called biradari or tribes. However, Punjabi identity also included those who did not belong to any of the historical tribes, the 1947 independence of India and Pakistan, and the subsequent partition of Punjab, is considered by historians to be the beginning of the end of the British Empire. The UNHCR estimates 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during the partition, to date, this is considered the largest mass migration in human history. Until 1947, the province of Punjab was ruled by a coalition comprising the Indian National Congress, the Sikh-led Shiromani Akali Dal, however, the growth of Muslim nationalism led to the All India Muslim League becoming the dominant party in the 1946 elections. As Muslim separatism increased, the opposition from Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs increased substantially, communal violence on the eve of Indian independence led to the dismissal of the coalition government, although the succeeding League ministry was unable to form a majority. Partition was accompanied by violence on both sides, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. West Punjab was virtually cleansed of its Hindu and Sikh populations, by the 1960s, Indian Punjab underwent reorganisation as demands for a linguistic Punjabi state increased. The Hindi-speaking areas were formed into the states of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana respectively, in the 1980s, Sikh separatism combined with popular anger against the Indian Armys counter-insurgency operations led to violence and disorder in Indian Punjab, which only subsided in the 1990s. Political power in Indian Punjab is contested between the secular Congress Party and the Sikh religious party Akali Dal and its allies, the Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian Punjab remains one of the most prosperous of Indias states and is considered the breadbasket of India. Subsequent to partition, West Punjabis made up a majority of the Pakistani population, today, Punjabis continue to be the largest ethnic group in Pakistan, accounting for half of the countrys population. They reside predominantly in the province of Punjab, neighbouring Azad Kashmir in the region of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjabis are also found in large communities in the largest city of Pakistan, Karachi, located in the Sindh province. Punjabis in India can be found in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, large communities of Punjabis are also found in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir and in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. In Delhi, Punjabis make up half of the population of Pakistan
