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55-835: It rises in Afghanistan's highlands region of Hazarajat , near 33°7′N 67°56′E  /  33.117°N 67.933°E  / 33.117; 67.933 , south of the Lomar Pass . The Tarnak flows in a south-westerly direction for around 350 km before joining the Dori River some 30 km downstream of the Dori- Arghastan confluence, and some 30 km upstream of the Dori- Arghandab confluence, at 31°24′N 65°33′E  /  31.400°N 65.550°E  / 31.400; 65.550 . The combined waters of these rivers join

110-552: A "protective belt" around the province that stopped anyone outside, including other Afghanis, from coming into Bamyan. Control of the belt was given to local militias, which caused conflict between various ethnic groups. By 2009, the regional Afghan National Police , who fought against insurgents, started running out of money, and had to be aided by U.S. and New Zealand troops. By 2011, the Taliban in Bamyan started gaining strength, and there

165-511: A new government in Afghanistan. In 2003, Bamyan was recognized as one of the safest provinces in the country, which allowed for civil rebuilding. Over the next few decades, women's rights would be restored. It became the area of the country most visited by tourists, and it elected Afghanistan's first female governor of a province, Habiba Sarabi , who created the Band-e-Amir National Park . A local Hazara named Haji Hekmat Hussein,

220-512: A parliamentary candidate in the U.S.' new government, was secretly a Taliban intelligence officer who participated in the 2001 massacre. He would be arrested and jailed, but was released in 2020 as a part of the Doha Agreement between the U.S. and Taliban. A small number of troops from New Zealand would be stationed there, and the Taliban insurgency started targeting them in 2008. The U.S. made

275-1016: Is a mostly mountainous region in the central highlands of Afghanistan , among the Kuh-e Baba mountains in the western extremities of the Hindu Kush . It is the homeland of the Hazara people who make up the majority of its population. Hazarajat denotes an ethnic and religious zone. Hazarajat is primarily made up of the provinces of Bamyan , Daykundi and large parts of Ghor , Ghazni , Uruzgan , Parwan , Maidan Wardak , and more. The most populous towns in Hazarajat are Bamyan , Yakawlang (Bamyan), Nili (Daykundi), Lal wa Sarjangal (Ghor), Sang-e-Masha (Ghazni), Gizab (Daykundi) and Behsud (Maidan Wardak). The Kabul , Arghandab , Helmand , Farah , Hari , Murghab , Balkh , and Kunduz rivers originate from Hazarajat. The Hazara people and surrounding peoples use

330-565: Is also known for a "shuttle system" of planting, wherein seed potatoes are grown in winter in Jalalabad , a warm area of eastern Afghanistan, and then transferred to Bamyan for spring re-planting. Prior to the Soviet invasion of 1979, the province attracted many tourists. Although this number is considerably fewer now, Bamyan is the first province in Afghanistan to have set up a tourist board, Bamyan Tourism. A feature of this developing tourist industry

385-576: Is based on skiing. The province is said to have 'some of the best "outback skiing" in the world and in 2008 an $ 1.2 million project to encourage skiing was launched by the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) with the help of NZAID , New Zealand government's international aid agency. The province hosts the Afghan Ski Challenge, a 7 km downhill race over ungroomed and powdered snow, founded by Swiss journalist and skier Christoph Zurcher. Tissot ,

440-432: Is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BC, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley civilization . After 2000 BC, 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 south to India, west to what

495-572: Is mountainous, and a series of mountain passes extend along its eastern edge. One of them, the Salang Pass , is blocked by snow six months out of the year. Another, the Shibar Pass , at a lower elevation, is blocked by snow only two months out of the year. Bamyan is the colder part of the region, with severe winters. Hazarajat is the source of the rivers that run through Kabul , Arghandab , Helmand , Hari , Murghab , Balkh , and Kunduz ; during

550-462: Is now Iran, and towards Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea . The region as a whole was called Ariana . The people shared similar culture with other Indo-Iranians . The ancient religion of Kafiristan survived here until the 19th century. Another religion, Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BC, as its founder Zoroaster

605-501: Is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan with the city of Bamyan as its center, located in central parts of Afghanistan. The terrain in Bamyan is mountainous or semi-mountainous, at the western end of the Hindu Kush mountains concurrent with the Himalayas . The province is divided into eight districts , with the town of Bamyan serving as its capital. The province has a population of about 495,557 and borders Samangan to

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660-563: Is thought to have lived and died in Balkh . Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persians overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia , Aria , and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of King Darius I of Persia mentions

715-578: The Buddhas of Bamyan , measuring 53 and 40 meters high respectively, which were the largest examples of standing Buddha carvings in the world. They were probably erected in the 4th or 5th century A.D. They were cultural landmarks for many years and are listed among UNESCO 's World Heritage Sites . By the 7th century, when the Arabs first arrived, it was under the control of the Turk Shahis before being conquered in

770-689: The Delhi Sultanate . In the 13th century, it was invaded by Genghis Khan and his Mongol army. In the following decades, the Qarlughids emerged to create a local dynasty that offered a few decades of self-rule. Later, the area became part of the Timurid dynasty , the Mughal Empire and the Durrani Empire . The subjugation of the Hazarajat, particularly the mountain fortresses of Bamyan, proved difficult for

825-726: The Durrani state . Until the late 19th century, the Hazarajat remained somewhat independent and only the authority of local chieftains was obeyed. Joseph Pierre Ferrier, a French author who supposedly traveled through the region in the mid-19th century, described the inhabitants settled in the mountains near the rivers Balkh and Kholm "The Hazara population is very less but ungovernable, and has no occupation but pillage; they will pillage and pillage only, and plunder from camp to camp". Subsequent British travelers doubted whether Ferrier had ever actually left Herat to venture into Afghanistan's central mountains and have suggested that his accounts of

880-754: The Helmand at 31°27′N 64°23′E  /  31.450°N 64.383°E  / 31.450; 64.383 , near Lashkargah . The Tarnak River valley is a tectonic trough that runs from northeast to southwest. It has multilayered aquifers and both Quaternary and Neocene deposits. This article related to a river in Afghanistan is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hazarajat 34°49′00″N 67°49′00″E  /  34.8167°N 67.8167°E  / 34.8167; 67.8167 Hazarajat ( Persian : هزاره‌جات , romanized :  Hazārajāt ), also known as Hazaristan ( Persian : هزارستان , romanized :  Hazāristān )

935-571: The Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great seized the area but left it to the Seleucids to rule. Afghanistan's significant ancient tangible and intangible Buddhist heritage is recorded through wide-ranging archeological finds, including religious and artistic remnants. Buddhist doctrines are reported to have reached as far as Balkh even during

990-669: The Koh-e Baba mountains and the western extremities of the Hindu Kush . Its boundaries have historically been inexact and shifting. Its physical limitations, however, are roughly marked by the Bā-miān Basin to the north, the headwaters of the Helmand River to the south, Firuzkuh to the west, and the Unai Pass to the east. The regional terrain is mountainous and extends to the Safid Kuh and

1045-749: The Koh-e Baba mountains by the Chashma Sabz Pass. General Peter Lumsden and Major C. E. Yate, who surveyed the tracts between Herat and the Oxus , visited the Qala-e Naw Hazaras in the Paropamisus mountain range, to the east of the Jamshidis of Kushk . Noting surviving evidence of terraced cultivation in times past, both described the northern Hazaras as semi-nomadic with large flocks of sheep and black cattle. They possessed an "inexhaustible supply of grass,

1100-581: The Silk Road . The town stands at a height of 7,500 feet (2,300 m), surrounded by the Hindu Kush to the north and Koh-i Baba to the south. The Hazarajat was considered part of the larger geographic region of Khurasan ( Kushan ), the porous boundaries of which encompassed the vast region between the Caspian Sea and the Oxus River , thus including much of present-day Northern Iran and Afghanistan. Hazarajat

1155-601: The Soviet-Afghan War , the Hazara rebel leader Abdul Ali Mazari began a resistance movement against the Soviets in the region, Shura-e-Itifaq-e-Islami. In the early 1990s, there was an agreement to run Bamyan under a council of "local ethnic and political groups". Later in the 1990s, the Taliban took control of the region and made their own government; one notable figure of this group was Mohammed Akbari, who effectively worked with

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1210-456: The Afghanistan government believed could be the start of a turnaround for their military in the region. In August 2021, Ashraf Ghani 's government collapsed, and the Taliban took Bamyan on August 15. Initially, there was a conflict between different Taliban members in the area of whether or not policies put in place in the province to show the new Taliban government would be more liberal or moderate in its ideology. Other Taliban members resented

1265-553: The Buddhas of Bamiyan, claiming they were symbols of idolatry. UNESCO called it a "crime against culture". Later in 2001, the U.S. and NATO invaded Afghanistan , and local militias in Bamyan sided with them to fight against the Taliban. There was evidence that Taliban fighters started massacring many Hazaras there in October. The Taliban fled the region in December. NATO eventually created

1320-524: The Feroz Bahar, Astopa, Klegan, Gaohargin, Kaferan and Cheldukhtaran. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic , Mesolithic , Neolithic , Bronze , and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization

1375-432: The Hazarajat highlands. The travels of Captains P. J. Maitland and M. G. Talbot from Herat , through Obeh and Bamyan , to Balkh , during the autumn and winter of 1885, explored the Hazarajat proper. Maitland and Talbot found the entire length of the road between Herat and Bamyan difficult to traverse. As a result of the expedition, parts of the Hazarajat were surveyed on one-eighth inch scale and thus made to fit into

1430-594: The Roman Empire, Han dynasty, Central Asia , and South Asia . Bamyan was a stopping-off point for many travelers. It was here that elements of Greek and Buddhist art were combined into a unique classical style known as Greco-Buddhist art. The province has several famous historical sites, including the now-destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan , around which are more than 3,000 caves, the Band-e Amir National Park , Dara-e Ajhdar, Gholghola and Zuhak ancient towns,

1485-631: The Shura to be overthrown by the Sazman-i Nasr and Sepah-i Pasdaran groups. However inter-factional rivalry continued thereafter. Most of the Hazara groups united in 1987 and 1989 and formed the Hizb-e-Wahdat . During the rule of the Taliban , once again, ethnic and sectarian violence struck Hazarajat. In 1997, a revolt broke out among Hazara people in Mazar-e Sharif when they refused to be disarmed by

1540-588: The Siāh Kuh mountains, where the highest peaks reach between 15,000 feet (4,600 m) and 17,000 feet (5,200 m). Both sides of the Kuh-e Bābā range contain a succession of valleys. The north face of the range descends steeply, merging into low foothills and small semi-arid plains, while the south face stretches towards the Helmand Valley and the mountainous district of Behsud . Northwestern Hazarajat encompasses

1595-644: The Survey nor the Indian Intelligence Department succeeded in obtaining any trustworthy information on the routes between Herat and Kabul through the Hazarajat. Various members of the Afghan Boundary Commission were able to gather the information that brought the geography of remote regions such as the Hazarajat further under state surveillance. In November 1884, the Commission crossed over

1650-475: The Swiss watch manufacturer, is the principal sponsor. Bamyan Province is home to the region's only university, Bamiyan University in the city of Bamyan. The school was founded in the mid-1990s, and largely destroyed under the Taliban and by US airstrikes. It was later refurbished by New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Teams following the fall of the Taliban. As of 2020, the total population of Bamyan province

1705-520: The Taliban after meeting with one of their delegations in 1998 (and would later serve as an Afghan Parliament member in the 2000s). Some Hazaras allied with them. Bamyan was the main location for a rebellion against the Taliban, an alliance of armed Shiite groups named the Hizb-e Wahdat . This led to a struggle in the western province of Bamyan, Yakawlang , which was regarded by both sides as being key to control northern and central Afghanistan. In 2000,

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1760-408: The Taliban lost control of the district to local militias, but quickly took it back. To curb future rebellions, in early 2001 the Taliban arrested 300 civilian adult men and executed them publicly. The Supreme Leader of the Taliban at the time, Mullah Mohammad Omar , allegedly stopped more retribution acts in the area, but he did not forgive the rebellion. In March, Omar ordered the Taliban to destroy

1815-558: The Taliban; 600 Taliban were killed in subsequent fighting. In retaliation, the genocidal policies of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan 's era were adopted by the Taliban. In 1998, six thousand Hazaras were killed in the north; the intention was ethnic cleansing of Hazara. At that stage, Hazarajat does not exist as an official region; the area comprises the administrative provinces of Bamyan, Ghor , Maidan Wardak , Ghazni, Oruzgan, Juzjan , and Samangan. In March 2001, two giant Buddhist statues, Buddhas of Bamiyan , were also destroyed even though there

1870-672: The area was ruled by Arghun Khan of Ilkhanate , later by the Timurids and Mughals . In 1709, when the Hotaki dynasty rose to power in Kandahar and defeated the Persian Safavids , Bamyan was under the Mughal Empire influence until Ahmad Shah Durrani made it become part of the Afghan Durrani Empire , which became what is now the modern state of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, during

1925-453: The demarcation of the Durand Line in southern Afghanistan, which cut into Pashtun territory, he set out to bring the northern peripheries of the country more firmly under his control. This policy had disastrous consequences for the Hazarajat, whose inhabitants were singled out by Abdur Rahman Khan's regime as particularly troublesome: "The Hazara people had been for centuries past the terror of

1980-419: The district of Ghor , long known for its mountain fortresses. The 10th-century geographer Estakhri wrote that mountainous Ghor was "the only region surrounded by Islamic territories and yet inhabited by infidels". The long resistance of the inhabitants of Ghor to the adoption of Islam indicates the region's inaccessibility; according to some travelers, the entire region is comparable to a fortress raised in

2035-591: The hardest and lowest-paid work. In 1979, there were reportedly one and a half million Hazaras in the Hazarajat and Kabul, although a reliable census has never been taken in Afghanistan. As the Afghan state weakened, uprisings broke out in the Hazarajat, freeing the region from state rule by the summer of 1979 for the first time since the death of Abdur Rahman Khan some Hazara resistance groups were formed in Iran , including Nasr and Sipah-i Pasdaran, with some being "committed to

2090-512: The hills around being covered knee-deep with a luxuriant crop of pure rye". Yate noted clusters of kebetkas, or the summer dwellings of the Qala-e Naw Hazaras on the hillsides and described "flocks and herds grazing in all directions". The geographical reach of the authority of the Afghan state was extended into the Hazarajat during the reign of Abdur Rahman Khan . Caught between the strategic interests of foreign powers and disappointed by

2145-558: The idea of a separate Hazara national identity". During the war with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan , most of the Hazarajat was unoccupied and free of Soviet or state presence. The region became ruled once again by local leaders, or mirs, and a new stratum of young radical Shiʿi commanders. Economic conditions are reported to have improved in the Hazarajat during the war, when Pashtun Kuchis stopped grazing their flocks in Hazara pastures and fields. The group ruling Hazarajat

2200-580: The invaders at their conquest of the region. "adopted the language of the vanquished". In the 18th and 19th centuries, a sense of "Afghan-ness" developed among the Hazaras and the Pashtuns began to coalesce. It has been suggested that in the 19th century there was an emerging awareness of ethnic and religious differences among the population of Kabul . This brought about divisions along "confessional lines" that became reflected in new "spatial boundaries". During

2255-430: The leprosy victims are Hazara. A 1989 report noted that common diseases in the Hazarajat included gastrointestinal infections, typhoid , whooping cough , measles , leprosy , tuberculosis , rheumatoid arthritis and malaria . [REDACTED] Media related to Hazarajat at Wikimedia Commons Bamyan Province Bamyan Province , also spelled Bamiyan , Bāmīān or Bāmyān ( Persian : ولایت بامیان ),

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2310-587: The life of the Buddha (563 BC to 483 BC), as recorded by Husang Tsang . It became the site of an early Buddhist monastery. Buddhism was by this time in "an expansionist mode, offering religious practices that spoke to the masses and an appealing style of illustrative art, backed by the subtle philosophy of the Mahayana sect". Many statues of Buddha were carved into the sides of cliffs facing Bamyan city. The two most prominent of these statues were standing Buddhas, now known as

2365-405: The locals who embraced those ideals in the prior 20 years. In July 2022, the Taliban forbid humanitarian aid into the province. In August 2023, they banned women from entering Band-e-Amir National Park. As of May 2014, the province was served by Bamyan Airport in Bamyan which had regularly scheduled direct flights to Kabul . Bamiyan has been particularly famous for its potatoes. The region

2420-551: The mapped order of modern nation-states. More thought and attention was put into demarcating the definite borders of modern nations than ever before, which entailed great difficulties in frontier regions such as the Hazarajat. During the Second Anglo-Afghan War , Colonel T. H. Holdich of the Indian Survey Department referred to the Hazarajat as "great unknown highlands". And for the next few years, neither

2475-658: The name of Islam by the Saffarids in the 9th century. The Tang dynasty of China controlled large parts of the region during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang and Emperor Gaozong of Tang . The Tibetan Empire also extended its influence into the region. The region fell to the Ghaznavids followed by the Ghurids before the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. After the Mongol invasion,

2530-457: The names "Hazarajat" or "Hazaristan" to identify the historic Hazara lands. "Hazarajat" is a compound of "Hazara" and the Persian suffix "jat", which is used to make words associated with land in the south, central and west Asia and "Hazaristan" is a compound of "Hazara" and the Persian suffix ـستان -stan means "land" or "place of". The Hazarajat lies in the central Afghan highlands , among

2585-473: The north, Baghlan , Parwan and Wardak to the east, Ghazni and Daykundi to the south, and Ghor and Sar-e Pol to the west. It is the largest province in the Central region of Afghanistan . It was a center of commerce and Buddhism in the 4th and 5th centuries. In antiquity, central Afghanistan was strategically placed to thrive from the Silk Road caravans that crisscrossed the region, trading between

2640-617: The region were based on hearsay, especially since very few people dared then to enter the Hazarajat; even Pashtun nomads (Kuchi people) would not take their flocks to graze there, and few caravans would pass through. Afghanistan's Kuchi people , who are unsettled nomads who migrate between the Amu Darya and the Indus River , temporarily stayed in Hazarajat during some seasons, where they overran Hazara farmlands and pastures. Increasingly during summers, these nomads would camp in large numbers in

2695-513: The reign of Dost Mohammad Khan , Mir Yazdanbakhsh , a diligent chief of the Behsud Hazaras, consolidated many of the districts they controlled. Mir Yazdanbakhsh collected revenues and safeguarded caravans traveling on the Hajigak route through Bamyan to Kabul through Sheikh Ali and Behsud areas. The consolidation of the Hazarajat thus increasingly made the region and its inhabitants a threat to

2750-441: The rulers of Kabul". In the 1920s the ancient Shibar Pass road which leads through Bamyan and east to the Panjshir Valley was paved for lorries, and it remained the busiest road across the Hindu Kush until the building of the Salang tunnel in 1964 and the opening of a winter route. The Hazarajat became increasingly depopulated as Hazaras migrated to cities and to surrounding countries, where they became laborers and undertook

2805-423: The spring and summer months it has some of the greenest pastures in Afghanistan. Natural lakes , green valleys and caves are found in Bamyan. The area was ruled successively by the Achaemenids , Seleucids , Mauryas , Kushans , and Hephthalites before the Saffarids Islamized it and made it part of their empire. It was taken over by the Samanids , followed by the Ghaznavids and Ghurids before falling to

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2860-401: The upper Central Asian highlands: from every approach, tall and steep mountains have to be traversed to reach the area. The language of the inhabitants of Ghor differed so much from that of the people of the plains that communication between the two required interpreters. The northeastern part of the Hazarajat is the site of ancient Bamyan , a center of Buddhism and a key caravanserai on

2915-421: Was a lot of condemnation. The Hazaras constitute the majority of the Hazarajat population. Dari ( Persian ) is the official language of Hazarajat. People in different parts of the region with their special dialects where Ghazni , Daykundi , Behsud , Bamyan , Darah Sof and Sheikh Ali are from most popular. Leprosy has been reported in the Hazarajat region of Afghanistan. The vast majority (80%) of

2970-441: Was concern over their future plans as NATO began their phased withdrawal from the country . The U.S. and NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan formally ended in 2014. In 2021, the Taliban started an offensive to retake Afghanistan . They made significant advances by July, and two districts, Saighan and Kahmard, had been taken. There was an effort by police and local militias to keep the Taliban 60 miles away from Bamyan city, which

3025-505: Was the Revolutionary Council of Islamic Unity of Afghanistan or Shura-e Ettefaq , led by Sayyid Ali Beheshti . The region's geographic nature and un-strategic location meant that the government and Soviets ignored it as they fought rebels elsewhere. This effectively allowed the Shura-i Ettefaq administration to rule over the region and give autonomy to the Hazaras. Their politically opposing groups were mostly educated, secular and left-wing. Between 1982 and 1984, an internal civil war caused

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