Everything about Afghan Turkestan totally explained
Afghan Turkestan is a northwestern part of
Afghanistan, on the border with the former
Soviet republics of
Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan.
Afghan Turkestan is also the name of a former province in this area, which was centred on
Mazari Sharif and included territory in the modern provinces of
Kunduz,
Balkh,
Jowzjan and
Sar-e Pol. The whole territory, from the junction of the
Kokcha river with the
Amu Darya on the north-east to the province of
Herat on the south-west, was some 500 miles in length, with an average width from the Russian frontier to the Hindu Kush of 114 miles (183 km). It thus comprised about 57,000 square miles (148,000 km²) or roughly two-ninths of the former kingdom of Afghanistan.
Geography
The area is agriculturally poor except in the river valleys, being rough and mountainous towards the south, but subsiding into undulating wastes and pasture-lands towards the
Turkman Desert.
Population
Ethnically and historically Afghan Turkestan is more connected with
Bukhara than with
Kabul, of which government it has been a dependency only since the time of
Dost Mahommed. The bulk of the people are
Turkic (
Uzbek) and
Turkmen, with large concentrations of
Tajik,
Hazara and
Pashtuns in the cities.
History
Ancient Balkh or Bactriana was a province of the
Achaemenian Empire, and probably was occupied in great measure by a race of
Afghan blood. About
250 BC Diodotus (Theodotus), governor of
Bactria under the
Seleucidae, declared his independence, and commenced the history of the Greco-Bactrian dynasties, which succumbed to
Parthian and nomadic movements about
126 BC. After this came a
Buddhist era which has left its traces in the gigantic sculptures at Bamian and the rock-cut topes of Haibak. The district was devastated by
Genghis Khan, and has never since fully recovered its prosperity. For about a century it belonged to the
Delhi empire, and then fell into Uzbeg hands. In the
18th century it formed part of the dominion of Ahmad Khan Durani, and so remained under his son Timur. But under the fratricidal wars of Timur's sons the separate khanates fell back under the independent rule of various Uzbek chiefs. At the beginning of the
19th century they belonged to Bukhara; but under the
emir Dost Mahommed the Afghans recovered Balkh and Tashkurgan in
1850, Akcha and the four western khanates in
1855, and Kunduz in
1859. The sovereignty over Andkhui, Shibarghan, Saripul and Maimana was in dispute between Bukhara and Kabul until settled by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1873 in favour of the Afghan claim. Under the strong rule of
Abdur Rahman these outlying territories were closely welded to Kabul; but after the accession of Habibullah the bonds once more relaxed.
Further Information
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