Beautiful Khyber Agency
Afridi (Pashto: اپريدي, Urdu: Ø¢Ùریدی, Hindi: आफ़रीदी), classically called the Abaörteans (pronounced /ˌæbÉ™.É”rˈtiËÉ™nz/; Latin: Abaortae), is the name of a Pashtun (Pathan) tribe. The Afridis inhabit about 1,000 square miles (3,000 km²) of rough hilly area in the eastern Safed Koh range, west of the Peshawar Valley and east of Torkham, and Maidan in Tirah, which can be accessed by the Kajurhi plains and the valleys of Bara and Churah in Pakistan.
HistorY
The famous historian Herodotus mentions a country bordering on the banks of the Indus occupied by a people called the Pactyans[1] who were divided into four[citation needed] nations, one which was the Aparthea, or Aparutai, identified with the modern Afridis. They lay claim to an inaccessible upland area of refuge, the Tirah and its central place, Maidan and at Bagh[citation needed]. As a result, they have literally have been able to force every passing conqueror to pay toll[citation needed] tax for use or passage through the Khyber Pass.
“ PÄṇini the great Sanskrit grammarian who himself hailed from Shalatur, a village located near the confluence of the Kabul and Indus river, has also mentioned the names of some of the northwestern tribes like the Madhumants and Aprits (Afridis) in his Ashtadhayayi (5th century BC)[2] â€
Some writers such as Haroon Rashid [3] think that some tribes like the Afridis and Khattaks are indigenous, considering, for instance, that the Afridis inhabited this terrain even during pre-historic times, which is before the recorded movement of other notable Pashtun tribes to their present abodes[citation needed]. Olaf Caroe and Aurel Stein are reported to have suggested that the Afridis may be the original inhabitants of the Gandhara area rather than an integral part of the great clans allegedly descended from the tribes of Israel. Thus, the Afridi tribe is one of the infamous Karlanri tribes, who have a formidable reputation as warriors.
Some historians[who?] think that Afridis are the direct descendants of the Greeks. During the time of Alexander The Great, some of his troops made this terrain their permanent abode.
The Afridis have a history as great warriors, known for their strategy and tenacity in the mountains. The Afridis once destroyed an entire Moghul army of emperor Aurangzeb's. Only five Moghuls made it out of the battle alive. [4] The first army to defeat the Afridis and gain control of the Khyber Pass was the British in the Tirah Campaign.
According to Pashtun folklore, the Afridi tribe can trace its origin back to the eponymous ancestor of all Pashtuns, Qais Abdur Rashid, through his youngest son, Karlan.
In 2010, Amir Mizroch in the Jerusalem Post referred to the theory that even Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be descending from the lost Jewish tribe of Efraim. Shahnaz Ali, a senior research fellow at the Indian National Institute of Immunohaematology in Mumbai, is studying the blood samples that she collected from Afridi Pathans in Malihabad, in the Lucknow district in Uttar Pradesh, India, to check their putative Israelite origin
