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	Afghanistan was one of the Geography and places good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 7, 2006 Good article nominee Listed March 6, 2009 Good article reassessment Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

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A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on August 11, 2004.

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Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

To Jrkso: Stop cutting pieces of Afghan history out of the article

The Soviet War, Islamic State and Taliban Emirate periods are three very important parts of Afghan history. You cannot belittle them by simply putting them as one section. Also, the information given by the version you keep restoring is heavily misleading (to say the least). The episode of the "Democratic Republic and Saur Revolution" is not that important like the parts you keep erasing and they make a huge part of the history section. Operation Enduring Freedom has an own section. Yet you concentrate only on the Soviet War, Islamic State and Taliban Emirate. The question that springs to mind is, why is that? JCAla 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Sikhs as part of the Maratha Empire?

Regarding the section on the "Hotaki dynasty and the Durrani Empire", specifically the line "He defeated the Sikhs of the Maratha Empire in the Punjab region nine times, one of the biggest battles was the 1761 Battle of Panipat.". The "Battle of Panipat" article has the following line "The Sikhs, did not support either side and decided to sitback and see what would happen. The exception was Ala Singh of Patiala, who sided with the afghans and was actually being granted and crowned the first Sikh Maharajah despite the Sikh holy temple being destroyed by the Afghans.". Further reading shows that the Sikhs weren't part of the Maratha Empire, this should be corrected in the Afghanistan article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.244.179.210 (talk) 09:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

languages

This site has no credibility and should not be included in the languages of Afghanistan section. There are hundreds of websites like this and Misplaced Pages does not allow adding nonacademic sources like this one.--Inuit18 (talk) 01:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The link you posted is to Ethnologue and I think it qualifies as a W:Reliable source. If you think it doesn't then take it to Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.--Jrkso (talk) 01:52, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Kaki joe (talk · contribs) has provided a source (in Pashto) for his claim that Pashto speakers are the majority language group in Afghanistan. It appears (based on machine translation) to be an unsigned and unsourced op/ed. The op/ed was widely copied, so I don't know that taand is the originator of the editorial either. The editorial itself seems to acknowledge that the numbers are not widely accepted, blaming a conspiracy of some sort. In the face of reasonably good data from the CIA World Factbook and other sources, I suggest this op/ed should have little or no weight per WP:UNDUE and WP:RS. But perhaps I am misreading the situation. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker (talk) 01:33, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic groups

User:Tajik added "Tajik (may include subgroups, such as Qizilbash and Farsiwan)" but none of the 4 given sources support this claim. As a matter of fact, two of the sources have them as separate groups from Tajik.

• Paṧtūn about 4,800,000, Tajik about 3,500,000, Fārsīwān about 600,000, Qizilbāš they are scattered throughout Afghanistan and are primarily urban. Hazāra about 1,000,000, Uzbek about 1,000,000, Aymāq about 500,000, Turkman about 400,000, Balūč about 200,000, Nūrestānī about 70,000, Kōhestanī about 60,000, Hindu about 20,000, Brāhūī about 10,000, Sikh about 10,000, and others unknown numbers (1979-1982).
• In 1996, approximately 40 percent of Afghans were Pashtun, 11.4 of whom are of the Durrani tribal group and 13.8 percent of the Ghilzai group. Tajiks make up the second largest ethnic group with 25.3 percent of the population, followed by Hazaras, 18 percent; Uzbeks, 6.3 percent; Turkmen, 2.5 percent; Qizilbash, 1.0; 6.9 percent other.

Even the Afghan National Anthem appears to make Qizilbash a separate ethnic group. Also, none of these sources claim Tajiks at 33.7%, I only see Tajiks at 25-27%. --Jrkso (talk) 13:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

3 sources are given which put the number of Tajiks at 30-40% (one of them is the authoritative Encyclopaedia Iranica which puts the number at 33.7%). Please revert your latest change. Thank you. The mentioned references are listed below.

(1) Louis Dupree in Encyclopaedia Iranica (the percentages were calculated based on the numbers given in the article; they were checked by Misplaced Pages admins in 2008; see the talkpage history/archives):

• 39.4% Pashtun
• 33.7% Tajik, Farsiwan, and Qezelbash
• 8.0% Hazara
• 8.0% Uzbek
• 4.1% Aimak
• 3.3% Turkmen
• 1.6% Baloch
• 1.9% other

(2) "A survey of the Afghan people – Afghanistan in 2006" by The Asia Foundation, the Indian Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR):

• 40.9% Pashtun
• 37.1% Tajik
• 9.2% Hazara
• 9.2% Uzbek
• 1.7% Turkmen
• 0.5% Baloch
• 0.1% Aimak
• 1.3% other

(3) "Afghanistan: Where Things Stand", a combined study by ABC News, BBC, and ARD (from the years 2004 to 2009):

• 41% Pashtun
• 38% Tajik
• 10% Hazara
• 6% Uzbek
• 2% Turkmen
• 1% Nuristani
• 1% Baloch
• 1% other

They are/were all mentioned in the article. Tajik (talk) 16:45, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I've quoted the 1982 Encyclopaedia Iranica's numbers above but no where is mentioned Tajiks 33.7% in its article. Its numbers are very old (over 30 years) and it fails to give the numbers of some of the other groups. Regarding the latest news surveys, we can't rely on that because the results of these surveys only cover or apply to a group of 6,226 Afghans. On the other hand, the "ethnic groups" of Afghanistan form 28,150,000 people.

• A total of 6226 respondents were surveyed in the study, out of which 4888 (78.5%) were from the rural areas and 1338 (22%) were from the urban areas. Almost equal percentages of male and females were interviewed. The following tables provide demographic and socio-economic details of the respondents with gender classification. They also provide the educational status, religion, and ethnicity of the respondents.
• "This survey is ABC’s fourth in Afghanistan since 2005, part of its ongoing “Where Things Stand” series there and in Iraq. It was conducted in late December and early January via face-to-face interviews with a random national sample of 1,534 Afghan adults in all 34 of the country’s provinces, with field work by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research in Kabul."

Furthermore, the latest Encyclopedia Britannica , CIA Factbook , Library of Congress Country Studies , Center for Applied Linguistics , and others all state that Tajiks make up 25-27%. So therefore, the surveys you presented contradict all the major sources. I made these changes to prevent vandalism by editors who constantly change the numbers to their own taste.--Jrkso (talk) 22:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

To sum it up: based on your own WP:POV, you decide what's reliable and what's not (--> WP:OR). Great! And as for Iranica: I already told you that Iranica gives numbers and not percentages. But the percentages can be easily calculated using the numbers. The percentages were checked by Misplaced Pages admins 2 years ago. The percentage given for Tajiks is 33.7%. It's not up to you to decide whether the surveys are reliable or not. They are sources, representative polls, and they put the number of Tajiks to up to 38% (quite interestingly, it's very similar to the numbers of Iranica). Tajik (talk) 16:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Let me explain one more time, the Encyclopaedia Iranica numbers are from 1979 (over 30 years ago), and if someone was to convert them into percentages, it will match with what Encyclopedia Britannica is saying

One-fourth equals 25%. I just went through the archives but didn't find the conversion of Iranica's numbers into percentages. About the news surveys, they were not intended to determine the percentages of Afghanistan's ethnic groups, they were conducted to figure out how ordinary Afghans feel about the 2001-2009 situation in their country. This is one reason why we can't use that as a source for the "ethnic groups." The other more important reason is that the surveys go against major sources such as Encyclopedia Britannica, CIA Factbook, Library of Congress Country Studies, Center for Applied Linguistics, U.S. State Department, UN Census Bureau, Afghan Embassy, PBS, and many others. Because all these tell us that Tajiks make up approximately 25-27%., , , , , , , , , . This is not my own view but the views of the majority. If you believe I'm wrong, you may take this issue to the Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts.--Jrkso (talk) 17:45, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The Iranica numbers are given above. I am sure that you know how to do the math. And again: it is not up to you to decide which source is reliable or not and which one should stay in the article and which one should not! And random samples are pretty much representative. Anyway, I have tagged the section and will ask an admin for help. Take care. Tajik (talk) 22:02, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

If you look at articles of other nations they all have recent datas for these things. The 1980 info given by Iranica is incomplete and incorrect. When you add the numbers given by Iranica it totals 12,170,000 but the official 1979 census reported the population at around 15.5 million. This means that Iranica has over 3 million people unaccounted. Dupree's 1980 numbers are as follow: pages 105-106

• Pashtuns = 6.5 million
• Tajiks = 3.5 million
• Farsiwans = 600,000
• Hazaras = 870,000 and the list goes on

I did a search but couldn't find any reliable source showing Tajiks more than 27%.--Jrkso (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Then you should stick to these numbers and describe all of it in the text in an encyclopedic way. That means, start by saying: "there are no reliable census numbers, but in 1980, it was estimated by Dupree etc etc etc." Then continue that "modern estimates, like the CIA factbook, give the numbers as ...". That is an encyclopedicway to describe the problem so that the readers understand. Your current version which mixes up different numbers from difference eras is misleading, false, and unencyclopedic. As for the numbers in Iranica: whether they are based on the 15.5m of the official census is not known. It is pure speculation on your side. It gives a pretty detailed list, perhaps different from official census numbers. And if you ad up the numbers, you get some 39% for Pashtuns and some 34% for Tajiks and Farsiwans (incl. Qizilbash; not that these groups are generally included in the Tajik community for they only represent a different religious group not a different ethnic group). A small side-note: I believe that the name "Dari" should be largely avoided. Instead, Misplaced Pages should use "Persian". As explained in Iranica, naming the language "Dari" is a political move by the (Pashtun nationalist) government of Afghanistan. And since Misplaced Pages is not political, the scholastically correct and established name should be used. Please see Iranica: "... In Badaḵšān and Panjšir of Afghanistan, Tājik was a heteronym bestowed by the local Uzbeks, and adopted by the ruling Pashtuns and the local Persian-speakers themselves in comparatively recent times. In journalistic usage it is increasingly applied to speakers of Persian (or Dari, the official term coined by a Pashtun nationalist government) in Kabul and throughout the north of Afghanistan, with the exception of the Hazāras. ..." Tajik (talk) 00:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The numbers shown in the Encyclopedia Iranica are based on 1890-1970s bibliography as you can see here and the 1979 Afghan census is not mentioned anywhere in that article. All sources mention Tajiks at 25-27% and claiming anything above that needs to be well sourced. These are the very basic rules of Misplaced Pages.--Jrkso (talk) 20:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Per this, this, this, and this, I'm gonna change "2008-2010" to "2004-2010" at the top of the line chart in the "Ethnic groups" section.--Jrkso (talk) 02:35, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Introduction page

Someone has reverted my edits and stated in the edit summary "Kushans did not conquer Afghanistan, they rose from this territory with their capital within afghanistan; Achaemenids & Sassanids are not the conquerers either, afghanistan was par of the greater iran". The sources which I cited say:

• "The first of the conquerors who marched into Afghanistan was Darius the Great, who in 500 BCE expanded the Zoroastrian Achaemenid Empire as far east as the Kabul-Jalabad-Peshawar area."
• "The next major incursion into the Afghan area was in the 1st century BCE The Kushans, a confederation of central Asian nomadic tribes, took Afghanistan from the Greeks and held power over the area for several centuries.
• "In the third century A.D. Kushan control degenerated into independent kingdoms that were easy targets for conquest by the rising Iranian dynasty, the Sassanians (c. 224-561 A.D.)."

Looks like someone didn't check the sources before they reverted my edits.--Jrkso (talk) 13:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we should first define what do we mean by "the land from which many kingdoms have risen to form dynasties of their own"; do we mean being "a local dynasty"? and which would be the criteria for putting a dynasty in that group? There are two possible propositions:

• First, you can choose the criteria as "having its capital or center" in what is now Afghanistan.
• Second, you can choose the criteria as "being from the same people (with common civilisation and cultural traditions)".

Going by any of these two criteria, your listing and sorting of those dynasties as the local and foreign dynasties has flaws in it, in either way.

• If you choose the first criteria, then Kushans despite being the descendants of the Yuezhi tribes of the Central Asia had one of their capitals inside of the today's Afghan territories: i.e. Kapisa or Bagram; which qualifies it to be listed among other local dynasties.
• If you choose the second criteria, then none of the dynasties of Greco-Bactrians, Kabul Shahis, Ghaznavids, and Timurids qualify. Greco-Bactrians were of Hellenistic civilization, the descendants of the Seleucids. Kabul Shahis, also known as Kushano-Hephthalites, were either of Turkic or of Tibetan origin, who came from the Central Asian regions in the north. Ghaznavids' founders Aleptagin and Subuktagin were of Turkic origin who came from the Central Asia. The same way, Timurids were of Turko-Mongol origin. On the contrary, Achaemenids and Sassanids would qualify according to this criteria because both were Ancient Iranian peoples who belong to the same territory, i.e. Iranian plateau. Afghanistan is part of the same territory and its peoples are all the descendants of the same Iranian peoples, speaking the different languages of Iranian languages.

Now I leave it to you, to choose the criterion you'd like to base your argument on, and then list or sort the dynasties as locals and foreigners/invaders. Then we'll deal with it. There are several other sources which do not consider the Achaemenids and Sassanids as the "foreign" invaders of Afghanistan, and which recognize the Kushans strictly as a local dynasty in Afghanistan. There is no use for me to cite those references - as a reference war (!) - because it depends on how the author have perceived the old/new Afghanistan and how it defines foreigners and locals.

So please choose a specific criterion, and sort the dynasties according to that, then I will have no objection. But it is illogical and irrational to have a discriminating approach in this case. And please consider reviewing Misplaced Pages:Civility (-->"Looks like someone didn't check the sources before they reverted my edits"). Thanks. Cabolitæ (talk) 17:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Going in the same logic, there is a contradiction among your own references. The first two references (which are exactly the same) consider the Achaemenids to be foreign invaders ("The first of the conquerors who marched into Afghanistan was Darius the Great, who in 500 BCE expanded the Zoroastrian Achaemenid Empire as far east as the Kabul-Jalabad-Peshawar area."), while the last reference does not do so; it explicitly says: "Urban civilization in the Iranian Plateau, which includes most of Iran and Afghanistan, may have begun as early as 3000 to 2000 B.C.... The area that is present-day Afghanistan comprised several satrapies (provinces) of the Achaemenid Empire." So here, the author considers Afghanistan and Iran the two major parts which form the Iranian Plateau. Later on, he recognizes the Achaemenids and Sassanids as the Iranian plateau's native or local empires. The sentence which you cited ("In the third century A.D. Kushan control degenerated into independent kingdoms that were easy targets for conquest by the rising Iranian dynasty, the Sassanians.") actually disproves your point and backs up the point I made, because: since Afghanistan is part of the Iranian plateau, then Sassanids is an Iranian dynasty, so it is a native dynasty and not a foreign invader!

I think it is better to read fully and thoroughly an article before citing a selected passage from it and then twist the methodological argument of the author to incorrectly support its own POV.Cabolitæ (talk) 17:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

We mean by local dynasty as the birth of a kingdom inside present-day Afghanistan. The oldest people known to have lived in Afghanistan are the Medes (700-550 BC), Darius invaded their land and in 500 BC annexed it with his Achaemenid empire. Alexander invaded the land in 330 BC and took it from Darius III, allowing Seleucus Nicator (a Greek) to rule over it. Nicator gave some of the land to Chandragupta (an Indian) after a treaty of friendship was reached (upon terms of intermarriage and an exchange of 500 elephants, etc.). After this the Indo-Greek race developed and they established small local dynasties until the Kushans arrived from the north and took over control. The first Kushans were invaders to the land of present-day Afghanistan, as were the Sassanids.--Jrkso (talk) 19:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This is simplified and is partially wrong. The western parts of Afghanistan (Herat) have always been within the sphere of influence of the Persian kings. In other words: it was an integral part of mainland Persia until the era of the Qajars. Other dynasties mentioned in the article, such as the Samanids, were certainly "local", but not from what is now Afghanistan. The Pashtuns, on the other hand, are more or less "locals" in the south and east, but - from a historical perspective - they are also "invaders" of the northern and western regions. In terms of language and ethnic identity, they are even more "foreign" than the Persian invaders from the west or the Turkic invaders from the north. See the article DORRĀNĪ in Encyclopaedia Iranica: "... Northern Afghanistan has been the main target of Dorrānī out-migration. Two different waves of colonization, both sponsored by successive Afghan governments, can be distinguished. The first and least documented followed Aḥmad Shah’s imperial conquests (Ross, p. 31; de Planhol, 1973, p. 8; idem, 1976, p. 286, noting the toponym Sākzay, of unequivocal Dorrānay origin). The second, more important wave of colonization took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Afghan amirs systematically organized the colonization of depopulated Bādḡīs (q.v.) and Afghan Turkestan, relying massively on their Dorrānī cotribalists. ..."

Or the article AFGHANISTAN x. Political History: "... Chronic uprisings in the north and northwest clearly indicated that the submission of the non-Paṧtūn populations was more superficial than real, especially since they were burdened by a deliberately unfavorable fiscal policy. ..."

The Encyclopaedia Iranica comprises Afghanistan's history to a post-1747 era, the "political history" of Afghanistan. Everything before 1747 is treated as part of the larger Iranian history and part of the "Lands of Iran" and "People's of Iran". Hence, neither the Achaeminds nor the Sassanids were "foreign invaders" - certainly not more than the later Pashtun "invaders".

Honestly, I do not like the Pashtun-centric and biased edits of User:Jrkso. He should discuss these things BEFORE changing the article. I have tagged the whole article for now. Much work is needed. Tajik (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

This article is not limited to the political history of Afghanistan. The articles in Encyclopaedia Iranica are about neighboring state Iran and its people, and nothing is mentioned about "Everything before 1747 is treated as part of the larger Iranian history". I find that the Encyclopaedia Iranica is limited to articles relating to Iran and that area only. For example, you can't find an article about the powerful Indian Mughal Empire in the Encyclopaedia Iranica. Here are some excellent sources to help you understand more about Afghanistan.

• Afghanistan Country Study
• A Country Study: Afghanistan
• Afghans - History
• Afghanistan - Britannica

Misplaced Pages has to be based on the same info found in these major sources.--Jrkso (talk) 03:28, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

@User:Jrkso: Okay then, we take the criterion as the birth of a kingdom inside present-day Afghanistan. And according to this, the Kushans are a local dynasty. The Yuezhi tribes who lived in the Central Asia in the 2nd century BCE moved south and conquered Bactria from the Parthians and settled in the HinduKush and Bactrian regions around 125 BC. A hundred years later, one of the five tribes of the Yuezhis in Bactria, known as Guishuang or Kushan took control of the Yuezhi confederation, invaded the southern regions as far as Kapisa and Bagram, and founded the empire around 30 CE. Here is a direct citation from Encyclopaedia Britannica "Kushan dynasty" (DVD version, Ultimate Reference Suite 2010):

"The Yuezhi conquered Bactria in the 2nd century BCE and divided the country into five chiefdoms, one of which was that of the Kushans (Guishuang). A hundred years later the Kushan chief Kujula Kadphises (Qiu Jiuque) secured the political unification of the Yuezhi kingdom under himself."

In the same source, in the article of "Yuezhi", it says:

"About 128 BC the Yuezhi were recorded living north of the Oxus River (Amu Darya), ruling Bactria as a dependency, but a little later the Great Yuezhi kingdom was in Bactria, and Sogdiana was occupied by the Ta-yuan (Tocharians). A new dynasty, the Kushān, was subsequently founded by one of the five chieftains among whom Bactria was divided."

So the foundation of the dynasty took place inside the present-day Afghanistan (i.e. Bactria) in the beginning of the first century CE and NOT outside when the Yuezhis were in Central Asia in the late second century BCE; at that time there was no dynasty under the name of "Kushan dynasty" but just a "Yuezhi confederation". You listed Britannica as one of the reliable sources for Afghanistan to User:Tajik, so I think this single source is enough for now. Check any reliable source in google books and you will find the same point. I will put the Kushans among the local dynasties, because I think this is an obvious and undisputed fact.

As to the term "Iran", I think you should distinguish between Iran as a modern-state or a modern political entity, and Iran as the Ancient Iran or Aryana or the Iranian Plateau. YOUR OWN SOURCE EXPLICITLY EXPLAINS THE POINT: "Iranian Plateau ... includes most of Iran and Afghanistan". When the sources have identified the Achaemenids and Sassanids as Iranian dynasties, how can a native dynasty of the same region (Iranian Plateau) would be a foreign invader to the non-separable part of this region??

User:Tajik pushes sometimes some pro-Iranian POVs and you're taking an anti-Iran position which is obviously a POV and I am not sure if you're trying to push the pro-Pashtun POV as I have not reviewed your other edits yet. Why can't someone be impartial and unbiased in wikipedia?! Cabolitæ (talk) 09:23, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

You have also put Timur as a foreign invader. He was crowned at Balkh in 1369, so how can he be a foreign invader?

Similarly, Babur founded his empire in Kabul in 1504: "He was driven from Samarkand and initially established his rule in Kabul in 1504.

Therefore they are not considered foreign invaders and I removed them from the list. Cabolitæ (talk) 09:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Jrkso, your comments regarding Iranica noted. But they are irrelevant. Keeping aside the fact that Iranica is the most authoritative source on the region's history and culture, you also need to know that the work is still not finished. Only because you miss certain articles, it does not mean that Iranica is wrong. Secondly, the article "Afghanistan" is pretty clear: Afghanistan's history begins with the poltical ascent of the Pashtuns. Prior to that, the region belonged to different neighboring powers. "Afghanistan" (and as the name suggest, it started as a Pashtun kingdom) was conquered by Pashtuns. They were as much "invaders" and "conquerors" as all others before them. Your definition of "Afghanistan" is the same as that of the former Pashtunist governments of Afghanistan: totally Pashtun-centric ... and hence totally unencyclopedic. Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country and each group has its own history and identity. The Sassanids may be considered "invaders" by Pashtuns, but they certainly were no "invaders" in the eyes of the Persian-speaking "Tajik" population which still takes much pride in the Persian heritage of the country, be it medieval Persian poets or the Shahnama. To a Tajik or a Hazara, the Pashtuns - from Ahmad Shah Abdali to the Taliban - were and are "invaders". Therefore, your version is simply Pashtun-centric POV. The best thing would be taking out controversial names, such as Darius, Sassanids, and so forth, and only keep those who are universially considered "foreign invaders": the Greeks, the Arab Muslims, and the Mongols of Genghis Khan. That would be encyclopedic neutrality. Tajik (talk) 12:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually the term foreign invader is always pretty politically charged, better is to use conquered by. How foreign are one's neighbors? If they share a different religious belief is that foreign? What if they use different patterns on their rugs? --Bejnar (talk) 14:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The foreign invaders was there before I edited the intro and I think that was specifically intended for the Greeks and Mongols. I added conquerors and that is mainly for Muslims who spread Islam and some Arab culture, as well as the Persians who spread their culture into the Kabul valley as what the sources say.--Jrkso (talk) 16:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Jrkso's edits

User:Jrkso, can you please explain your reasons for your unexplained edits?

• You removed the following paragraph without giving any explication:

From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, part of the region was recognized as Khorasan. Several important centers of Khorasan are thus located in modern Afghanistan, such as Herat and Balkh. In some cases even the cities of Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul were recognized as the frontier cities of Khorasan. However, the area which was inhabited by the Afghan tribes (Pashtuns) was referred to as Afghanistan.

The material was well-sourced and yet your removed it. I have added additional sources from The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Encyclopaedia Britannica and Baburnama.

• Can you please also provide a source for what you wrote in the caption of the image?

"Arabs introduced Islam to the Afghan tribes living in Afghanistan during the 7th century, which at that point was recognized as Khorasan to the outside world."

You should provide a reliable source for two points: first, for "Arabs introduced Islam to the Afghan tribes". Do you mean Pashtuns by the "Afghan tribes"? While according to the historical recordings, it was the Samanids and Ghaznavids who introduced Islam to the Pashtun tribes in the south of Khorasan. Arabs conquered only through the northern and western Afghanistan. Secondly, saying "recognized as Khorasan to the outside world" means that it was known as something else within the country/region or among the people. So can you back this up by a reliable and academic source?

• Another source is needed for the claim that "Afghanistan was recognized as Sindh or was included in Sindh". Can you provide a single academic source for this POV?

• Did you by the way look at the source I provided for the term "Afghan Persian" in here? What was your reason for reverting it? The source I provided was from the SIL International (ISO 639 code sets).

If you are not well informed about the history of Afghanistan, I suggest that you do a little bit of research before removing any well-sourced material, inserting incorrect claims and making improper edits. Thanks. Cabolitæ (talk) 18:11, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam came out of the west to defeat the Sasanians in 642 AD and then they marched with confidence to the east. On the western periphery of the Afghan area the princes of Herat and Seistan gave way to rule by Arab governors but in the east, in the mountains, cities submitted only to rise in revolt and the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies passed. The harshness and avariciousness of Arab rule produced such unrest, however, that once the waning power of the Caliphate became apparent, native rulers once again established themselves independent.

— Nancy Hatch Dupree, 1971

(Source: Dupree, Nancy Hatch (1971) "Sites in Perspective (Chapter 3)" An Historical Guide To Afghanistan Afghan Tourist Organization, Kabul, OCLC 241390)

I copy-edited the section, the map clearly shows two regions (Khorasan and Sind) the cities Herat and Balkh were within the Khorasan region and Kabul, Ghazni, and Kandahar within the Sind region. You can read Ibn Batutta where he explains this in the 1300s, he mentions both Khorasan and Sind. Something like that doesn't need more sources unless you are disputing the fact. Anyway, why did you remove the mention of Sind in the map? Most of the sources you provided cannot be checked, they are just references to books. Only the Britannica article on Khorasan is good.--Jrkso (talk) 01:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, User:Jrkso has also a lot to account for on the more recent history parts for the period 1979-2001. Jrkso keeps editing to mislead people who come to wikipedia for information on Afghanistan.

• He mostly uses "sources" of no value.
• Jrkso has erased most of the well-sourced information on the 1992-2001 period, among other things, i. e. information relating to the involvement of Pakistan in Afghan history.
• Jrkso is not interested in evidence from other editors who provide academic sources even with page numbers. If he does not like the information given he simply ignores academic sources and page numbers and starts an annoying edit war.
• He keeps editing misleadingly. One minor example (that however is exemplary for his other more harmful edits): His edits keep implying that resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was a big recipient of foreign aid during the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979-1989) when indeed he was the exact opposite. See the following video where experts like Edmund McWilliams (former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan), Professor Tom Johnson (Afghanistan expert U.S. Naval Post Graduate School), Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH, ret.) and other experts state what has also been written in many academic books on Afghanistan.

I will come back to the issue of Jrkso's systematically misleading edits when I have more time. JCAla (talk), 21 October 2010 (UTC)

You are pushing uneducated stupid POVs and destroying the article. Like I told you before edits like that don't last long in Misplaced Pages and they are either reverted or removed. Keep the history section as short as possible with only the main events without giving too many details, and don't use too many biased news reports. Stick to Library of Congress, U.S. State Department, Britannica, Iranica, and other major academic sources that specialize on the Afghan history like these , , , , etc. The Soviet war, the Taliban and the American-NATO involvement is so well documented I don't see a point why you are re-writing the history when there's plenty probably 1,000s of books written about this and 100s of encyclopedia and government reports all over the internet. You are probably bored and just want to create discussions so you can argue over nonsense.--Jrkso (talk) 01:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

@User:Jrkso: If only you had read the sources you provided above and the 1,000s of books you mention and would abide to them ... JCAla (talk), 22 October 2010 (UTC)

@User:Jrkso: Nancy Hatch Dupree's text explains perfectly well the historical accounts. At the beginning, the Muslim armies reached even Kabul city, but they were pushed back to the west of Khorasan. Later on, Ya'qub-i Laith Saffari of the Saffarid dynasty conquered the eastern regions of Khorasan (including Kabul) and converted the Zoroastrian people to Islam. A short while later, the Samanids conquered the southern regions of Khorasan (i.e. South of Ghazni, and Kandahar) and converted the Afghan tribes into Islam. The Ghaznavids converted further people until the Sindh River and Punjab.

We need a source for the point on Sindh, because there is an ambiguity on the issue. The different parts of today's Afghan territories have been known under various names. For example, the northern parts of Afghanistan were called Tocharistan, or Bactria or Bakhtar. The western parts were known as Hari or Aria. The eastern parts were known as Kabulistan. The southern parts were known as Sistan, Arachosia, Balochistan and Sindh (!!). These names were more region-specific names, vaguely defined, without implying any specific political or geographic borders. Saying "Afghanistan was recognized as or was included in Kabulistan" is WRONG. The same way if you say "Afghanistan was recognized as or was included in Sindh" is wrong equally. Why not to mention Sistan? I assure you that the name "Sistan" has been much much widely used in the historical books, among the geographers of those days and even among the people of those time, compare with Sindh. Sistan has been frequently used among Persians, Arabs, Greeks and Hindustanis.

But none of these regional names (Sistan, Sindh, Balochistan, Arachosia, Kabulistan, Tocharistan, etc.) were used in the political or "governmental administration" sense. Only Khorasan was used both in the Pre-Islamic period (it was one of the four great satrapies or divisions of the Sassanid empire) and in the Islamic period (it was one of the "vilaya" (Province) of the Islamic Caliphate; both during the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate). The later empires subsequently called themselves as the rulers of Khorasan. So I disagree with your sentence (Afghanistan was recognized as Sindh); it is false, ambiguous and inappropriately used. If you insist, then please provide a direct reliable source (according to the wikipedia rules); you can't base your argument on a single map, which is just hypothetically drawn and mixes up the political names with geo-regional names.

As to what text to put in the caption for the image/map, let's write the original caption/text without further speculating on what the image signifies. The original map shows the region of Khorasan during the Islamic Caliphate in 750. That's it. The point is about Khorasan, and the image suits well.

I will also add The Encyclopaedia of Islam source. It is accessible. Check page 55.. Cabolitæ (talk) 08:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't access page 55 in the link you provided, what does it say? I only see Khorasan mentioned in page 57. I'm not the one worrying about which names were used for today's Afghanistan during the middle ages to 19th century. The article had claimed that Kandahar, Ghazni, and Kabul were included in Khorasan but the map as well as scholars who visited the area in person prove this wrong. Ibn Batutta describes Khorasan in 1300s exactly what that map is showing.

About Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, the Arabs introduced Islam to the people, some accepted it and others revolted or refused to become Muslims so the Arabs moved on, by leaving the cities behind. The cities of Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul at that time were ruled by Hindu Turks (Kabul Shahi) and were part of Greater India (refering to the land where Hindus (or Indians) ruled over). Ibn Batutta describes the Afghanistan-western Pakistan region as a Turkish land. As for Khorasan, it was ruled by Persian people and was located in Persia's territory. It was people among those early local Afghan Muslims (Ya'qub) who spread Islam followed by Samanids and Ghaznavids who made it the official religion of the area. I don't see a point in discussing this. There are so many sources which state the same thing and Misplaced Pages should reflect on those sources such as Library of Congress Country Studies, Britannica, Iranica, authentic non-biased books or websites that are verifiable, etc. All books you read are based on these major sources, you're not going to find a source which state something different unless it is a propaganda site. So please go by what these authentic sources say and don't push your own POVs. I hope you understand the truth now.--Jrkso (talk) 11:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a communication problem between we two. First, I did not put The Encyclopaedia of Islam as a source for "Kandahar and Kabul being in Khorasan"; in fact it was backed up by Baburnama, where it says that Kabul and Khorasan were at the frontier of Khorasan. Secondly, what was the point of copying that text from Ibn Battuta? Where does it say that "Afghanistan was recognized as Sindh" or that "Afghanistan was part of Sindh"? Thirdly, did you at least check Kabul Shahis article (at least in wikipedia) that where were their initial capitals were? Kabul Shahi's capitals were Kabul and Kapisa in the beginning. (Later on, when they were defeated by the Saffarids, they moved to India where they were called as Hindu Shahis) So how can you say they were part of Greater India? Finally, haven't I provided sources from Britannica and Encyclopaedia of Islam that you are accusing me of providing unreliable sources? And which POV am I pushing here?? I have provided reliable and academic sources for each point I have stated and written. In the contrary, you could not even back up your claim (the case of Sindh) by a reliable source; and now you're trying to turn around the issue at me? Good try! Cabolitæ (talk) 17:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

And please stop falsifying the sources. Where exactly in the source does it say that

You are randomly arguing many things at once and I can't follow you. I'll go with you the history in step by step ladder, and you gonna have to stop calling my edits falsifying the sources and also try to be civil. The map is from the 7th century but you're using 16th century Baburnama (almost 1,000 years difference). It's my edit which state that part of today's Afghanistan was recognized as Sind and it's a fact, and as an editor I'm entitled to write that. The map clearly shows this and there are also other sources to back it up. The map maker appears to be an expert, I'm sure he has used valid historical references to prepare this map, he used the pink color for Sind to help us understand that this was a disputed territory or a buffer zone between Persia and Hindustan. The geographical name "Sind" is "Hind", depending on which language you use. As a geo term, Sind, Hind and Hindu are actually all one and the same. The land below the Hindu Kush was connected with greater India or land of Hindus since the Hindu Maurya Empire after legally obtaining it from Greek Seleucus I Nicator by Chandragupta Maurya in 305 BC. The pink color in the map again helps explain that it was not a totally Hindu populated land as India but that it was claimed as part of a Hindu kingdom, etc, I'm sure you get the point.

When Arabs came to this non-Persian area in the 7th century they saw everyone as Hindu, worshipping various idols. Not being able to tell the difference, Arabs also viewed those who practiced Buddhism as Hindus, that's why no references to the Buddhas of Bamyan were made to explain the religion of Buddhism in detail. The countries (Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar, including Bust in the Helmand valley) were under the Hindu-Buddhist Shahi rule of Kabul. The Kabul Museum is full of Hindu-Buddhist relics discovered in these areas in the 20th century. Below is a reference to help you understand my point.

• Biládurí informs us that under the Khiláfat of Mu'áwiya, 'Abdu-r Rahmán, son of Samrah, penetrated to the city of Kábul, and obtained possession of it after a month's siege. He conquered also the circum­jacent countries, especially Ar-Rukhaj (Arachosia). The king of Kábul made an appeal to the warriors of India, and the Musulmáns were driven out of Kábul. He recovered all the other conquered countries, and advanced as far as Bust, but on the approach of another Musulmán army, he submitted, and engaged to pay an annual tribute.

The Persian Sassanid Empire controlled the northern and western part of today's Afghanistan, where Zoroastrianism was still widely practiced and there's not dispute on that. Now you see that Afghanistan has been a buffer zone for ages. All major sources explain that the nation sits at a crossing point where people from the north, south, east, and west have been moving back and forth with some deciding to settle and today you have a state with a unique and complex multi-ethnic society. This is done by nature and it's difficult to unite it and also you can't divide it.

The geographical name "Sind (Hind)" began to disappear during the Ghaznavids era, when the entire population was made Muslim by the 11th century. At that point and on "Hind" only referred to the land on the east of the Indus River (modern day Punjab/India and beyond, etc). Instead of continuing this never ending debate which isn't going anywhere let's just use a less controversial method, we should avoid name claims. Since Afghanistan is multi-racial, you claiming it as being part of the Persian Khorasan from middle ages to 19th century is not only false but also provocative to those who don't like to be associated with the Persian culture. You see the person below is an example, he doesn't like even the idea of being associated with Persians and I've seen many Afghans feel that way. I'd like to add that you are not even sure about your claim because in Talk:Greater Khorasan#Geography of Khorasan you stated in May 2010: Cabolitae:...Khorasan in its improper sense extended to larger areas, which might have included the whole territory of Afghanistan. That means you have no idea what you are claiming. Now, I don't want to hear too much irrelevant things from you, just show evidence that state that during the 7th century and onward much of Afghanistan was recognized as Khorasan. If you fail to show evidence then don't make such claim in the article as I said this is provocative statement to the non-Persian Afghans. After I hear what you have to say, I will then discuss the history from the 11th century to the 19th century. Be polite in your talk backs and thanks for reading.--Jrkso (talk) 05:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

As an editor, you are not entitled to make personal (and sometimes deviating) deductions and interpretations from what has been mentioned in the sources. Your such method has two flaws. First you choose a specific period (let's say Babur's period) and you try to generalize that for the whole Middle Age which covers almost 1000 years; while the boundary of Khorasan was flexible and was determined according to the empires in the both sides (in the north-west and in the south-east; for example between Safavids and Mughals). That's why historians have coined the terms "proper Khorasan" and "improper Khorasan". Khorasan was strictly used for the regions surrounding four cities (Balkh, Herat, Merv and Nishapur) i.e. Proper Khorasan; but it was also used for the regions lying between the Caspian Sea and Badakhshan, and between Transoxiana and Sindh River. The same is the case for the frontier of Hindustan, but mostly - as you explained it well - it was until the Sindh River.

Secondly, you cannot base a very important claim on a single map. The map can show anything, but it is you who is making a personal deduction from what has been shown and then you write "Afghanistan was called Sindh". In the original source, it only says "The Califate in 750", and then you put this in the map: Map showing Ancient Persia in light yellowish and the the land called Sind (most of today's Afghanistan and part of Pakistan) in pinkish" and you totally ignore to mention "Khorasan". This is called using the source to show something else. And you still have to prove your claim (Afghanistan was called Sindh)!! This single map cannot be used a reference. If your claim is true, then you undoubtedly will be able to find academic and reliable books which mention this clearly.

Misplaced Pages should have a Neutral point of view. All the facts and historical accounts should be reported as what they are. You cannot modify, change or twist a historical account in order to consider the cultural, religious or ethnical sensitivities of a specific group of people. I am Muslim, and you are free to write how Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna conquered India and destroyed the temples; you have to report them soundly and authentically, based on reliable sources. The same way applies to the case of Khorasan. We have to report what is authentic and factural; we cannot be biased and partial due to the sensitiveness of a specific ethnic group.

As to the Khorasan, Britannica and EI are very clear. Britannica writes: The historical region extended, along the north, from the Amu Darya (Oxus River) westward to the Caspian Sea and, along the south, from the fringes of the central Iranian deserts eastward to the mountains of central Afghanistan. Arab geographers even spoke of its extending to the boundaries of India. Let's see what Britannica says about "Historical India/Hindustan" and where was the frontier limit of India in order to determine the are of Khorasan:

historically, northern India, in contrast to the Deccan, or southern India. This area can be defined more particularly as the basin of the five Punjab rivers and the upper Indo-Gangetic Plain.. (Indo-Gangetic Plain: extensive north-central section of the Indian subcontinent, stretching westward from (and including) the combined delta of the Brahmaputra River valley and the Ganges (Ganga) River to the Indus River valley.) (and you yourself affirmed the point ("At that point and on "Hind" only referred to the land on the east of the Indus River (modern day Punjab/India and beyond, etc)")).

So Khorasan's boundaries stretched to the Indus River or Indus valley, which covers and includes all of present-day Afghanistan..

The Encyclopaedia of Islam writes:: In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, the term “Khurassan” frequently had a much wider denotation, covering also parts of what are now Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan; early Islamic usage often regarded everywhere east of western Persia, sc. Djibal or what was subsequently termed 'Irak 'Adjami, as being included in a vast and ill-defined region of Khurasan, which might even extend to the Indus Valley and Sind. (So Khorasan covered almost all of Afghanistan !) ... To the south, there lies an extensive region of landlocked deserts and salt flats, such as the Dasht-i Kawir, the Dasht-i Lut and the Hilmand basin of Sistan.

I think these two sources are more than enough to prove what I was saying: much of Afghanistan was part of Khorasan. Now if you are not accepting these direct and explicit citations from Britannica and Encyclopaedia of Islam, and you're trying to deviate the whole discussion to another angle, I'm sorry my friend, I don't have that much free time to loose. The sources are clear and direct. Cabolitæ (talk) 09:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Like everyone else my edits are never perfect, so when you come across these things it's not that I do that for a purpose, and all that is part of editing. I'll try to make it short. I have read the Britannica and EI on Khorasan but there is not much help there. What you're doing is like someone searching for a needle in a haystack. If you are that serious about this you gonna have to dig in primary sources and look for clues there. Before I talk about Sind again, do you accept that Hindus (people of Indian race) lived in the country of Kabul, Ghazni and Kandahar? And do you accept that they lived in this area between 305 BC to the 11th century? If the answer is yes, then you shouldn't have a problem accepting the name Sind along with the map. I've explained that Sind and Hind are the same, Persians called it in their language Hind but the people of India used to called it Sind. Hindu in that period of history was a term used for anyone who was a non-Persian and Hinduism is not one religion but a combination of many. All non-Muslims were called by Arabs and Persians as Hindus. The following are references to help you understand around where did the Persian territory end and where the Indian territory began, it's just like shown in that map.

• The first invasion we read of was in the time of 'Abdu-llah, governor of 'Irák, on the part of the Khalif 'Usmán. He was directed by the Khalif to send an emissary to explore the provinces of Hind;...'Abdu-r Rahmán advanced to the city of Zaranj, and besieged the Marzabán, or Persian governor, in his palace, on the festival of the 'Íd. The governor solicited peace, and submitted to pay a tribute of two millions of dirhams and two thousand slaves. After that, 'Abdu-r Rahmán subdued the country between Zaranj and Kish, which was then styled Indian territory, and the tract between Ar-Rukhaj (Arachosia) and the province of Dáwar—in which latter country he attacked the idolaters in the mountain of Zúr, who sued for peace; and though he had with him 8,000 men... In the same expedition, Bust was taken. After this, 'Abdu-r Rahmán advanced to Zábul, and afterwards, in the time of Mu'áwiya, to Kábul.* The year in which this inroad was made is not mentioned, but as 'Abd-ulla was removed from his government in 36 A.H., we may consider it to have taken place about the year 35.

What that quote says is that southwestern Afghanistan all the way to it's center around Kabul was all Indian territory and the population was polythiest praying to Hindu idols, and Britannica is refering to this exact place where it mention "Arab geographers even spoke of its extending to the boundaries of India". Below is another reference to help you with understanding the geography of the area

• The letter which Anandpál wrote to Amír Mahmúd, at the time enmity existed between them, is much to be admired. ‘I have heard that the Turks have invaded your dominions, and have spread over Khurásán; if you desire it, I will join you with 5,000 cavalry, 10,000 infantry, and 100 elephants, but if you prefer it, I will send my son with twice the number. In making this proposal, I do not wish to ingratiate myself with you. Though I have vanquished you, I do not desire that any one else but myself should obtain the ascen­dancy.’ This prince was a determined enemy of the Musulmáns from the time that his son, Nardajanpál, was taken prisoner; but his son was, on the contrary, well-disposed towards them.”

The above statement is found in Al-Biruni's Táríkhu-l Hind (history of Hind (Sind)) and includes Afghanistan. So, after seeing these evidences I disagree with your view about all of present-day Afghanistan being Khorasan and I hope you also learned something from this research.--Jrkso (talk) 11:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we have stop the discussion here, if not, we will start another whole discussion. The people who lived in Afghanistan before the arrival of Muslims were people of the Iranian and Aryan race. The fact that they were Buddhists or Hindus by religion, does not make them become "Indians by race". That's as illogical as to say that all those who are muslims are arabs. The presence of Buddhism before the arrival of Islam in Afghanistan is undoubtedly correct, but calling those people "as of Indian race" is incorrect, and I don't want to start another whole discussion. Let's finish it here. Cabolitæ (talk) 17:58, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Letter by Alexander

I have removed a dubious claim regarding an alleged letter by Alexander the Great in which he praises the present inhabitants of Afghanistan. That information is given by only one author (who happens to be Afghan) and cannot be found in any other sources. It is, so far, unknown to the EI and EIr. I think a much better source is needed for that! Personally, I consider it forgery. It is just a claim made by the author without any valid proofs. Tajik (talk) 17:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

In such cases you shouldn't remove sourced info, but you're free to add a dubious tag or an additional source needed tag. Further, you shouldn't judge written-work based on nationality or ethnicity. It took Alexander about 3 years to move his army from Bactria (Central Asia / northern Afghanistan) to reach the Indus Valley (or Indus River) and that is well documented, so I believe that the letter is true. It is also documented that Alexander did send letter(s) to his mother. I'm restoring this info and will add a citation needed tag.--Jrkso (talk) 23:53, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

It is totally irrelevant what you believe. And it is my right - and it is the best for Misplaced Pages - to doubt dubious authors who are not regarded experts. If there is such a letter, then it should be no problem to find a good and reliable source. Even if you google that claim, you either find that one author or clones of the Misplaced Pages articles using it. Misplaced Pages is not about posting nonsense and then asking all others to accept such a nonsense. It is about giving accurate information and using accurate sources for it (and in case you do not know it: an "accurate source" is not the same as "random book on google.books"). If you are not able to find accurate, reliable, academic sources for it, then that information will be removed. That easy. So please: before you restore that false and fabricated claim, at least try to find a REAL source. If you are not able to find a single academic to support your claims, you should not bother us with such a nonsense. Tajik (talk) 17:32, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Alexander didn't speak English so the quotation is the author's own interpretation of what Alexander has written to his mother in Greek language. To me the author and the book qualify as Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources. If you think it isn't so then take the issue to Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. By the way, the author of this book is not from Afghanistan but from India. On the issue of the survey you re-added, that is considered Misplaced Pages:Original research.--Jrkso (talk) 01:15, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

What you are doing is extereme POV-pushing and WP:OR. Although I asked you to provide a RELIABLE source, you stubbornly persist on your opinion that the one author - apparently the ONLY one who makes such a claim - is a "reliable source". In fact, you are not even able to prove that the author is an expert (is he an expert on history? has he studies Greek? has he seen and translated that letter personally?). I will ask an admin, and I will get that fabricated nonsense out of this article. But you stance in here proves that you are an extreme POV pusher. I have tagged the article because of your aggressive POV-pushing, your unscholarly and ethno-centric propaganda, and the fact that you actually believe to "own" this article. Tajik (talk) 11:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Why are you attacking me? It was there for a long time. I only didn't like to see you delete something without giving a good reason. Your reason so far is not good. The author whether you like him or not is a reliable source. If you disagree I told you take it to Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard and let others decide whether it is or not. This is how things work, it will save you all that frustration. I happen to trust the source, and you need to realise that it is only you who turned against it.--Jrkso (talk) 19:18, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

See my notes further below. You are falsifying sources. That is something that should be solved here. If this discussion does not work out, then we will have to take it to the next level, i.e. asking the community for help. I am asking you for the 3rd time: why do you consider that author who is a total no-name and whose claims are not supported by ANY serious scholar a "reliable source"? He makes a claim without giving any further explanation. That claim cannot be supported by any standard reference work or by any other scholarly work. You are refusing to provide us with further information and you are refusing to provide any information regarding the author. Is he an expert on Afghanistan?! And since this is about Alexander: is the author an expert on Greek history or language?! And why did you falsify a source in order to "prove" your claims?! Why are you not able to find a valid work to support your POV?! Tajik (talk) 20:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

User:JCAla's edits

User:JCAla's edits are unencyclopedic and very confusing to follow. He's a new editor who filled the 1979-present history with his own personal thoughts and all that needs to be re-written. He created 3 separate articles for the 1992-1996 Afghan civil war. The section titled "Islamic State, Foreign Intrusion, Civil War and Taliban Emirate" needs a better name. Everytime I fix this area of history he reverts my contributions so I left it for someone else to get involved in this. Thanks. To JCAla, please don't remove the tags until this is resolved.--Jrkso (talk) 00:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't really followed User:JCAla's edits, but I find the title of the section a bit too long. I think only "Civil war and Taliban emirate" would be completely enough. But the creation of three sub-sections, I think, is totally appropriate. As to his edits, if there are any major unsourced POV-edits - according to you, - you can point them out in the talk page for the discussion. Cabolitæ (talk) 14:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It would be very helpful for you to stop lying, Jrkso. I never created any article on wikipedia. What Jrkso has been claiming (also elsewhere) is that I created the following three articles:

• Civil war in Afghanistan (1989-1992)
• Civil war in Afghanistan (1992–1996)
• Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001)

That is obviously nonsense. I contributed to them but others created them. Now his claims have become even more bizarre with him claiming I'd created three articles for the 1992-1996 period alone (when I never created even one).

As for the Afghanistan article, we had very good names for the sections until Jrkso kept putting many sections into one which makes it complicated to find an appropriate title. Although I think the long title is factually the most correct I shortened it to "Foreign Intrusion and Civil War" since that is a correct description for the whole 1992-2001 period. As Jrkso was not able to point out - what he claims are - unsourced edits made by me I am removing the nonsense tags. If people are interested in my sources (I already provided tens of times to User:Jrkso) I am going to put some of them below. Jrkso is not interested in sources however but instead in ignoring them so he can continue misleading. My sources with page numbers regarding the issues Jrsko has been disputing the last months by starting edit wars are the following:

For the 1996-2001 period:

• Human Rights Watch

"Official denials notwithstanding, Pakistan ... has openly encouraged the recruitment of Pakistanis to fight for the 
Taliban. ... Pakistani aircraft assisted with troop rotations of Taliban forces during combat operations in late 2000 and 
that senior members of Pakistan's intelligence agency and army were involved in planning military operations." 

• George Washington University National Security Archive:

1996
"Similar to the October 22, 1996 Intelligence Information Report (IIR), this IIR reiterates how "Pakistan's ISI is heavily 
involved in Afghanistan," but also details different roles various ISI officers play in Afghanistan. Stating that Pakistan 
uses sizable numbers of its Pashtun-based Frontier Corps in Taliban-run operations in Afghanistan, the document clarifies 
that, "these Frontier Corps elements are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary - combat."

1998
"According to a variety of Pakistani officials and journalists, including Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan has "regressed to a point 
where it is as hard-line as ever in favor of the Taliban." Pakistani government officials have given up "the pretense of 
supporting the U.N. effort," and have become unabashedly pro-Taliban. ... The cable speculates the spike in pro-Taliban 
Pakistani feeling can be attributed to the political fallout of recent nuclear testing and increased regional tension. These 
developments have increased Pakistan's need for a pro-Pakistan, anti-India regime in Kabul."

"Taliban ranks furthermore continue to be filled with Pakistani nationals (an estimated 20-40 percent of Taliban soldiers  
are Pakistani according to the document), which further solidifies Pakistan-Taliban relations, even though this does not 
indicate not outward or official Pakistani government support." 

"The parents of ... know nothing regarding their child's military involvement with the Taliban "until their bodies are 
brought back to Pakistan."

1999
"Pakistan's alliance with the Taliban is stronger than Iran or Russia with Massoud ..."

2000
"... in September 2000 an alarmed U.S. Department of State observes that "while Pakistani support for the Taliban has been 
long-standing, the magnitude of recent support is unprecedented." 

" also understand that large numbers of Pakistani nationals have recently moved into Afghanistan to fight 
for the Taliban, apparently with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani government." Additional reports indicate that direct 
Pakistani involvement in Taliban military operations has increased."

For the 1992-1996 period:

• Human Rights Watch: Blood Stained Hands(2005) (see the pdf version for page numbers):

p16
During most of the period discussed in this report, the sovereignty of Afghanistan was
vested formally in “The Islamic State of Afghanistan,” an entity created in April 1992,
after the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government. ...
With the exception of Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami, all of the parties listed above were
ostensibly unified under this government in April 1992 ...
Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami, for its part, refused to recognize the government for most
of the period discussed in this report and launched attacks against government forces
and Kabul generally.

p34
Numerous Iranian agents were assisting Wahdat forces, as Iran was
attempting to maximize Wahdat’s military power and influence in the new government.
Saudi agents of some sort, private or governmental, were trying to strengthen Sayyaf and
his Ittihad faction to the same end.
Rare ceasefires, usually negotiated by Jamiat commanders , representatives of Mujaddidi
or Rabbani, or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
commonly collapsed within days.

p39
Hekmatyar continued to refuse to join the government. Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami forces increased their
rocket and shell attacks on the city. Shells and rockets fell everywhere.

• Amin Saikal (2006): Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival; I. B. Tauris ("One of the "Five Best" Books on Afghanistan" according to the Wall Street Journal) (the parts of the book can be viewed here):

p204
Despite repeated warnings by serious analysts of Afghan politics, and by the British government form 1986 on, Washington 
continuously turned a blind eye to the ISI’s transfer of a lion’s share of its arms to Hekmatyar. 

p211
Sayyaf ... was strongly backed by Saudi Arabia, whose agenda was to disseminate its primarily anti-Iranian Wahhabi Islam, given 
Saudi Arabia’s traditional claim of leadership of Sunni Islam against Iran’s promotion of Shia Islam. ...

Combat units affiliated with this party  were often directly linked to 
particular religious leaders in Iran and were supervised by Iranian intelligence officers who knew (or cared) little about … 
politics in Afghanistan. 

p220
Pakistan was keen to gear up for a breakthrough in Central Asia. ... Islamabad could not possibly expect the new Islamic  
government leaders, especially Massoud (who had always maintained his independence from Pakistan), to subordinate their own 
nationalist objectives in order to help Pakistan realize its regional ambitions. ... Had it not been for the ISI’s logistic 
support and supply of a large number of rockets, Hekmatyar’s forces would not have been able to target and destroy half of Kabul.

• Roy Gutman (2008): How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan; United States Institute of Peace (the parts of the book can be viewed here):

p 54
Pakistan invited Dostum to Islamabad in an effort to draw him closer to Hekmatyar, and Iran’s deputy foreign minister made 
several trips to Afghanistan, attempting to draw Wahdat and Hekmatyar closer together.

For the Soviet war period (1979-1989):

• Roy Gutman (2008): How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan; United States Institute of Peace (the parts of the book can be viewed here):

p30-31
After several weeks of surveying Afghan military commanders and politicians in Peshawar and Quetta, covering much of the same 
ground as McWilliams,  Tomsen was convinced of the enormous and growing distrust  of Hekmatyar 
and his Pakistani patrons. ... And Tomsen, using his ambassadorial rank and privileges as special envoy, made it a practice to 
send cables from anywhere but Islamabad. Back in Washington, he marshaled the evidence, secured backings from conservatives (and 
some liberals) on Capitol Hill, and guided an interagency review that produced a new set of goals. Reviews are the place where 
policy changes. Tomsen feared that Hekmatyar might capture Kabul with ISI and Saudi support, thereby putting Pakistan in direct 
control of Afghanistan and changing the strategic balance in Central Asia. The new aim was "to break the monopoly of the ISI, and 
CIA support, of the extremists and to strengthen the moderates." The CIA would continue arming the rebel forces, but U.S. 
officials would try to sideline Hekmatyar, strengthen Massoud's role ... Tomsen would also encourage military commanders, the 
crucial figures in the anti-Soviet war who had been largely excluded from the ISI ... The ISI, with strong support from the CIA, 
was well along with a different plan ... 

p41
He  saw the war as an Afghan national struggle, not a proxy war. This put him at odds with Pakistan, whose ISI was eager 
to influence the fighting and hoped to use the U.S. aid it distributed to further its own national agenda in Afghanistan.
p42
As Massoud went his own way Hekmatyar, with Pakistan's backing, did everything possible to thwart him. 
p43
In November 1982, after receiving intelligence of a "massive" Soviet offensive planned for midwinter ... he  pleaded for 
weapons, cash and food, and, finally, for "the people to go to the mosques and pray for the success of the mujahideen". But the 
supplies did not arrive.

• Defense Intelligence Agency report provided by the George Washington University:

p2
Rather than allow the most gifted Afghan commanders and parties to flourish, who would be hard to control later, Pakistan  
preferred to groom the incompetent ones for the role of future leaders of Afghanistan. Being incompetent they would be fully 
reliant on Pakistan for support. The principal beneficiary of this policy was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. His credentials were that 
of an anti-western Islamic fundamentalist who reportedly boasted about throwing acid in the faces of women who did not wear 
the traditional all covering Afghan chadof at Kabul University. 

p3
In tandem with favoring the incompetent Hekmatyar over more enterprising and gifted commanders such as the Ahmad Shah Massoud, 
the Tadjik commander from Northern Afghanistan, Pakistan also encouraged, facilitated and often escorted Arabs from the Middle 
East into Afghanistan.” 

• Neamatollah Nojumi (2002): "The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan", published by PALGRAVE some pages can be seen here:

p129
This situation led the ISI to act against any Mujahideen organization both inside and outside who wanted to run the war against 
the Soviets in accordance with Afghanistan interests.  

• Coll, Steve (2004): Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 9, 2001 (won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction) Book Excerpt: Ghost Wars

"In their dim meeting room, Schroen handed Massoud a piece of paper. It showed an estimate of just more than two thousand 
missiles provided by the CIA to Afghan fighters during the jihad. Massoud looked at the figure. "Do you know how many of 
those missiles I received?" He wrote a number on the paper and showed it to Schroen. In a very neat hand Massoud had written 
"8." "That was all," Massoud declared, "and only at the end of the fight against the communist regime."
Later, after Schroen reported his conversations by cable to several departments at headquarters, the CIA determined that 
Massoud was correct . It seemed incredible to some who had lived through the anti-Soviet Afghan War that Massoud could have 
received so few. He had been one of the war's fiercest commanders. Yet for complicated reasons, Pakistan's intelligence service, 
the CIA's partner in supplying the anti-Soviet rebels, distrusted Massoud and tried continually to undermine him. Massoud also 
had shaky relations with the Islamist political party that helped channel supplies to him. As a result, when the war's most 
important weapon system had been distributed to Afghan commanders, Massoud had received less than 1 percent, and this only 
at the very end of the conflict, in 1991."

• Also watch this video (although it is on youtube). There are real experts in it including Edmund McWilliams (former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan), Professor Tom Johnson (U.S. Naval Post Graduate School), Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH, ret.) and others.

"The actual aid that was getting to the Panjshir and to Massoud was minimum. Nothing close to what Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and some 
of the other parties received." - Professor Tom Johnson (U.S. Naval Post Graduate School) at 1:10 into the video

These samples prove the validity of the information given by me. Any further tag adding by User:Jrkso should be correctly identified as vandalism. —JCAla (talk) 08 November 2010 (UTC)

All the above sources provided by User:JCAla are reliable and come from distinguished institutions and academic sources. I am not aware of the dispute or the discussion, but if the other party is trying to negate these sources by providing contrary sources from the Pakistani media and/or biased sources - which is very frequent in the discussions over political issues - then that's inappropriate. Cabolitæ (talk) 16:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Selective quoting and falsification of sources by User:Jrkso

User:Jrkso is inserting wrong information in the article. And to make his edits look "sourced", he is actually violating WP:OR by selectively quoting and linking unrelated sources. For example, he stubbornly sticks to the fabricated claim that in an alleged letter (which seems to be completely unknown to real scholars), Alexander called the inhabitants of modern Afghanistan "lions". To mislead the readers, he links this fabricated nonsese to another quote which has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. From that source, he selectively picks a few words which suite him, totally falsifying the message. Here is the original quote from the book:

• The importance of this particular route has always been minimal because of the harsh conditions along the way. Alexander the Great followed this rout in the opposite direction, thereby almost losing his life and his army. (The Afghans; Vogelsang, Willem; 2002; p. 11)

It is very obvious that the author is talking about the harsh geographic conditions, i.e. the hot and rough desert terrain south of the Hindu Kush in which Alexander and his army almost died on his way back to Iran from India (they had no water in the desert of Makran and Gedrosia). It is mentioned in the article Alexander the Great in the section Alexander_the_great#Indian_campaign. Jrkso, on the other hand, selectively picks the last part of the information, and turns it into this:

• Almost losing his life and his army, Alexander is believed to have described in a letter to his mother the inhabitants of what is now Afghanistan as lion-like brave people: "I am involved in the land of a 'Leonine' (lion-like) and brave people, where every foot of the ground is like a wall of steel, confronting my soldier. You have brought only one son into the world, but everyone in this land can be called an Alexander." —Interpretation of Alexander's words by contemporary writer, Abdul Sabahuddin

He falsifies the source, making it look like "lion-like Afghans almost killed Alexander and his army". That is POV-pushing, source-falsification, and original research at its worst! And Jrkso also fails to provide any information regarding Abdul Sabahuddin. Who is this guy?! What are his sources for this alleged letter?! Is this guy a scholar and expert on Afghanistan's history?! Does he know Greek and is he an expert on Greek history or language?! And why is Jrkso stubbornly claiming that this man is a reliable source, although the fabricated nonsense regarding that alleged letter cannot be found in any scholarly source?!

I have tagged the article, because Jrkso is propagating wrong and falsified information, his own POV, and because he is violating WP:OR and Misplaced Pages's rules on reliable sources! Tajik (talk) 14:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

You need to relax a bit. I added the new sentence to let readers know that Alexander was having real hard times in this region. There is a comma after "Almost losing his life and his army", that happened after he won the great war with Persia. Then it continues to say that he is believed to have wrote to his mother a letter describing the inhabitants... You should do a good research on this before you start calling the letter a bogus. Have you seen the 2004 Alexander (film)?--Jrkso (talk) 19:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

In any way, it is wrong information. And the comma does not change the meaning - it is clear that you are trying to mislead the reader. Most of all, because the area in question is the Makran desert - now located in Pakistan and not in Afghanistan. I am asking you once again: provide information about the author and prove that the letter is real and not fabricated. The reason why you fail to do so is because I am right: the letter is just a fabrication, and you are stubbornly insisting to keep it in the article because that nonsense supports your POV. And please do not come up with movies. If you want to know more about Alexander, go and read a good book by a real scholar. Alexander had many problems, actually he had the toughest time in Sogdiana - in present-day Uzbekistan - where a large Greek army was totally destroyed by Spitamenes. All of that was neither located in what is now Afghanistan, nor had it anything to do with Afghanistan. And neither did the long march of Alexander through the Makran desert (modern Pakistani Beluchistan) in which many Greeks died of thirst. Your edits are not only irrelevant, but also misleading and using falsified sources. Tajik (talk) 19:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The movie question was off topic, I was just wondering if you saw it. I laugh when you direct me to another Misplaced Pages article, especially when your are questioning a reliable good book. Did Alexander fly over Afghanistan? How did he get from Uzbekistan to Pakistan? Was mountainous Afghanistan at that time a flat ground and uninhabited? The Wiki articles about Alexander's conquests don't mention locations of Afghanistan, only Kandahar. So yeah, let's not use Wiki as a reference in this dicussion. The info in the book you have difficulty with can easily be checked, send an email to them. Contact info is here--Jrkso (talk) 20:15, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

For someone who sticks to a fabricated fairy-tale about an alleged letter and fails to provide any reliable (!) source for that, you should not laugh at others - especially not when at the same time you try to prove your point by hinting at a Hollywood movie (!). The path of Alexander is well known - especially his way back from India. The only one in here who does not get it is very obviously you. That's why you are selectively quoting from irrelevant passages and linking those quotes to fabricated claims. So, again, for the 4th or 5th time, I am asking you to either come up with a really good and reliable source for the "Afghans are lions" claim or at least provide some useful information regarding the author (and I mean the AUTHOR; not the publishing house), or the fabricated nonsense that you are trying to propagate as a gospel will be removed. Tajik (talk) 22:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

And by the way: it is not my job to send an email to a publishing house and ask them if any info written by an author is reliable or not. It is your job to provide the community with reliable information and sources. If it were the other way around, then anyone could write nonsense and then force the community to figure out if the information is right or wrong. If you fail to provide valid sources or if you fail to provide relevant information regarding the author (the simple fact that you are totally unable to find ANYTHING about the author is already the best proof that the source is not reliable; if the author were an expert or a reliable source, it would have been very easy to find a biography or information regarding his qualification!), then the community has the right to remove it. So, if you defend this fabricated nonsense, it is YOUR JOB to write an email to that publishing house, find information about the author, and then PROVE that he is a reliable source. I'll give you one more chance, then I will take it to next level, and I will promise you that this nonsense will be removed with the support of admins. See it as a benevolent move on my side: I want to spare you and embarrassing moment which could hurt your reputation as a reliable contributor. :-) Tajik (talk) 22:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't call the letter a fabrication when you have no clue. If you're lazy to do a research why don't you just say so? That way I can help you with this. Let's see.. A. Sabahuddin cited these sources as references in his book and I think that's where he found the mention of Alexander's letter to his mother. It makes no sense why Sabahuddin would make this up, so it's gotta be true. If you hold your horses maybe we'll be able to find where Sabahuddin got the letter info from. By the way, as you may know that there was no Pakistan in 330 BC, the area west of the Indus valley was Arachosia and its people were eastern Iranian tribes (Pactyans) that would be ancestors of today's Afghan tribes.--Jrkso (talk) 08:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I have to laugh. You want us to believe your word and that of the no-name author as gospel, because you think (= you do not know!) that he took that letter from one of the sources he has mentioned?! If it is that easy, why don't you just give the source?! So far, you consider it to be such an important information that you almost started an editwar. And now you are defending it with weaselwords, while constantly failing to provide it with a valid source. That not only shows that you have absolutely no clue, but your work is totally unencyclopedic. And when faced with valid questions and asked to provide reliable sources, you come up with more weaselwords. That's it. I am taking this to admins. I hope you can come up with better than your weaselwords. And you certainly have to understand that - according to Misplaced Pages - it is the duty of the author to provide valid and reliable sources (and to prove that the sources are reliable) and not that of the community. If the author (= you) is not able to come up with good sources, then the community (which includes myself) has the right to remove it. Tajik (talk) 11:12, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

As per Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Unreliable_source_and_falsification_of_sources_by_User:Jrkso, I am removing this nonsense. As pointed out by User:Paul Barlow, "it's palpable nonsense" and "there are no letters written by Alexander surviving". And he also states that "misrepresenting sources is a blockable offence" that could be taken to WP:ANI. Tajik (talk) 12:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I must admit I was very surprised to see Alexander the Great talking about a wall of steel. As far as I'm aware his army used bronze weapons and iron was too precious to be used in war. He'd have talked about men of bronze or as hard as diamonds or something like that I'd have thought. Is there a mistranslation or is this all made up? Dmcq (talk) 13:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic groups

Jrkso, could you please explain this edit?! Why is it a "correction"?! And why do you still claim that the poll was only conducted in Kabul while the survey explicitly states the collective includes people from 32 of 34 provinces?! Besides that, The Asia Foundation conducted only one survey while BBC/ARD/NBC evaluated data from 2004 to 2009. So again: which part of your edit is a "correction"?! Tajik (talk) 15:40, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• The percentages you made were incorrect and I made appropiate corrections. Low and high numbers from all the years (2004-2009) must be added.
• The sources state location: "Kabul". The Afghans were face to face interviewed in their provinces but field work was done by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research in Kabul. I don't think that's important, in the Asia Foundation survey it states in the Preface: "...The instability and frequent fighting in some provinces caused a few sampling points to be adjusted or replaced to keep interviewers out of areas with active violence"...
• This is the Asia Foundation percentages for 2006 = D-8.* Which ethnic group do you belong to? SINGLE RESPONSE ONLY Pashtun 41%, Tajik 37%, Uzbek 9%, Hazara 9%, Turkmen 2%, Baloch 1%, Nuristani 0%, Aimak 0%, Arab 1%, Pashaye 0%, Other 0%. (Source: page, 128)
• The results of the 2004-2009 surveys are as follow:
• Ethnicity: 1/12/09 - 11/7/07 - 10/19/06 - 10/18/05 - 3/13/04
• Pashtun 40 - 38 - 42 - 40 - 46
• Tajik 37 - 38 - 37 - 37 - 39
• Hazara 11 - 6 - 12 - 13 - 6
• Uzbek 7 - 6 - 5 - 6 - 6
• Turkmen 2 - 2 - 3 - 1 - 1
• Noristani 1 - 4 - 0 - 0 - 0
• Baloch 1 - 3 - 0 - 0 - 0
• Kirghiz 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0
• Aimak * 0 - 0 - 0 - 0
• Arab 2 0 - 0 - 0 - 0
• Other 0 - 1 - 1 - 3 - 3
• No opinion * - 2 - * - * - 0

You have used these numbers (40.9%, 37.1%, 9.2%, 9.2%, 1.7%, 0.5%, 1.3%) but no where are these mentioned in the survey reports.--Jrkso (talk) 20:03, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining to us that your claim, that the survey was conducted in Kabul only, is wrong. You should restore the original version! Secondly, the numbers I used were average numbers. Feel free to calculate them - you will get the same numbers. So nothing wrong about that. But isn't it interesting that 5 different representative polls in the course of 5 years reproduce almost exactly the same numbers?! And yet you still claim that these representative surveys are "unreliable". Sorry, but the only thing that is unreliable is your contribution to Misplaced Pages. Tajik (talk) 21:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

You shouldn't average them, just put in the figures from the latest one and then the citation will correspond with the data. Dmcq (talk) 00:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Where is "representative surveys" mentioned? They call them "opinion polls" and that is exactly what they are. How are 40-38-42-40-46, 11-6-12-13-6, and 1-4-0-0-0 almost exactly the same? My contribution to Misplaced Pages is not much but the little that I did is all nothing but improvements made.--Jrkso (talk) 00:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

That looks much better with the ranges, one should report what one gets. And that's why there is variation. the 13 to 6 variation is larger than I'd expect and I'd hope they investigate it but the rest is fairly normal. The bit about representative sample is given in the preface of the Asia Foundation one which also properly describes the methodology if you are interested. One's ethnicity is largely an opinion at this fine detail. Dmcq (talk) 08:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm wondering why the Aimak comes out as 0-0-0-0-0, they are 4% according to the CIA and according to latest Naval Postgraduate School Provincial Overview: "The best estimates of the Aimak population in Afghanistan hover around 1-2 million." map here out of 28 million total population of the nation. Another way to determine Afghanistan's ethnic composition is through the nation's vote counts. See Afghan presidential election, 2004#Results. Majority Afghans generally vote for their own tribal leader (i.e. Hazaras vote for Hazara leader, Uzbeks vote for own Uzbek, Tajiks vote for Tajik, etc.)--Jrkso (talk) 13:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The link you mention is original research, and looking at those presidential election figures is quite clearly too weak to be of any use in the way you suppose. Dmcq (talk) 20:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I notice the article on the Aimak say between 250,000 and 2 million, and perhaps more importantly that they are counted as Tajik in the NPS census. It may be that many of them self-identified as Tajik when asked. You can always send an email to ask though the result can't be put in the main article it could give some explanation in the talk page. Dmcq (talk) 20:56, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're saying by "The link you mention is original research". The 250,000 and 2 million in the article Aimak comes from Naval Postgraduate School, the same link I posted above:

Chapter 1, article 4 of the current Constitution of Afghanistan and the current National Anthem of Afghanistan both mention Aimak as a separate ethnic group. They are also mentioned as a separate ethnic group in all major sources such as CIA World Factbook, Library of Congress Country Studies, Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Iranica, etc. You said "may be that many of them self-identified as Tajik when asked", that's your opinion only and we can't go by that. If that was the case at least one or 2 would have self-identified themselves as Aimak but all we see is 5 zeros. This is another reason that the opinion polls are unreliable.--Jrkso (talk) 14:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The link between votes for the president and statistics of the population is original research. And from your statistics it is obviously not strong enough to be any use as an estimate. Dmcq (talk) 19:14, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

As to why they got low figures I suggested you email them. That would be far better than you engaging in original research and bringing in irrelevancies. I suggested one reason, that doesn't mean I know the answer or that is the only possible answer. There are not five zeroes and the accuracy of the survey was said to be plus or minus 2.5%. Dmcq (talk) 20:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Email them? Hahaha. This is not a place to joke around. The simple thing for you is to say "I don't know". Do you realize that I'm only defending the CIA's estimation with the Afghan presidential election, 2004#Results? Afghanistan is divided between ethnic lines, it always has been like this, and in most cases every ethnic group votes for their own kind. The reason why Hamid Karzai got over 55% is because his running mates were a Tajik and a Hazara which helped him pull some Tajik and Hazara votes.--Jrkso (talk) 04:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Jrkso's suggestion to estimate the population statistics by voters' count in national political polls is POV and OR. First of all, because candidates are NOT solely voted by a single ethnic group. In the 2004 election, for example, some 40% of Tajik voters had voted Hamid Karzai. While the Pashtun vote was in fact overwhelmingly for Karzai, the Non-Pashtun votes were much less ethno-centric. Back then, the Washington Times reported:

In the current parliamentary 2010 election, on the other hand, Karzai has also lost support among Pashtuns, while Tajik and Hazara candidates made big wins. It is estimated that the Tajik fraction won at least 20% more than in the previous election - that is way more than the estimated 27% of the population. In Ghazni province, all 11 seats were won by Hazara candidates, although - according to official statistics - Pashtuns are some 50% of the population of that province. See this article. Tajik (talk) 10:51, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The Afghan presidential election, 2004#Results in which over 8 million Afghans voted speaks for itself, opinions are not required. Eveything is not about Pashtun and Tajik, my suggestion was to focus on the smaller groups and work your way up. For example, the Uzbeks and Hazaras got 10% votes each, and if you look at the latest CIA percentages for these 2 ethnic groups they are 9% each. The 16% Qanooni recieved is 11% (40%) lower than then total CIA 27% for the Tajik ethnic group so yes some of the Tajik population (40%) voted for Karzai and others. Some non-Tajiks also voted for Qanooni. The current political situation is alot different because the majority of Afghans didn't vote, and the result of these few votes cannot tell us anything. The Taliban are Pashtuns and they made the majority of Afghans not vote.--Jrkso (talk) 14:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

What you do is simply POV and OR. And, like always, you only take the numbers that fit your POV. Going by your logic, then how do you explain Karzai's 54% in 2004?! 84% of Pashtuns voted for him, 40% of Tajiks voted for him, 21% of Hazaras voted for him, and so did 16% of Uzbeks. And yet, he still had only 54%. Going by this, and considering that almost 90% of Pashtuns voted for him (while Pashtun votes being some 50% of Karzai's entire vote), that would mean that the Pashtun population of Afghanistan is ca. 1/2 of Karzai's 54%, some 25%. Do you agree with that?! Tajik (talk) 15:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

In my above message I'm defending the CIA's estimation, which are widely used by everyone everywhere. Even the Afghan government which is made up of all ethnic groups accepts the CIA's estimation and agrees with it. So stop calling this a POV and an OR. You, on the other hand, found opinion polls and try to use them, but these opinion polls only tell us the ethnicity of around 7,000 people and Afghanistan's population is around 28 million. I just told you that the Afghan presidential election, 2004#Results speaks for itself and no need to go further with that. Your argument is based on surveys but mines is on the actual outcome of over 8 million voters. In Misplaced Pages we use what experts (official government, CIA, Library of Congress, scholars, etc.) say about the ethnic groups, and they all say Tajiks are 27%. You are the only one disagreeing with these experts. I don't want to proceed with this argument.--Jrkso (talk) 04:27, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

No one has said that using the figures from the CIA's World factbook was OR, quite the opposite their inclusion has never been disputed. The problem is they don't seem to have tried to actually collect the relevant figures where others have so the others should be included too. As to emailing I suggested you contacted the compilers of a survey if you had doubts about a figure they gave. What has been called OR is you trying to use the election figures to estimate something else. There is nothing funny about asking the compilers of a survey about their figures, they are normally perfectly happy to answer anyone who is interested and asks politely. Dmcq (talk) 08:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

The CIA estimation is based on academic researches. "where others have so"? Asking 7,220 people about their ethnicity is not a reliable way for figuring out the ethnicity of 28 million people. I keep repeating to you that the opinion polls were conducted only to see if whether the American-designed democracy was working in Afghanistan or not and you are using these polls to estimate the ethnicity of 28 million people. This is wrong and you know it. Telling a Misplaced Pages editor to email Asia Foundation, NBC, BBC, and ARD media groups is very funny to many of us. We can't use email replies as proof even if I hear something from them. So far it's just you and Tajik who keep sticking to these polls and this is getting boring.--Jrkso (talk) 11:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Dmcq. I have the impression that Jrkso simply does not want to understand ... Tajik (talk) 10:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I have already explained that how accurate a poll is does not depend on the size of the original population but on the sample size. Whether the population of Afghanistan is 1 million 20 million or 300 thousand million does not affect how good a sample is, what affects its reliability is how big the sample is, how representative it is and how well the questions are phrased. This is a reliable way of finding out the figures. I know a lot of people who have no mathematical training think the original population size matters but it does not. The CIA figures are included because cutting them out on the grounds of unreliability would be original research even though it is obvious from their returns saying 50% or 30% for regions that they just stuck their finger in the air and never did a proper survey. I wasn't suggesting you put an email in the article, in fact I said it could not be put in as it would be original research. It would only be eligible if it was in a reliable source. I suggested that because you were querying a reliable source and Misplaced Pages is not the place to ask for answers like that. If you want an answer why not ask them? Dmcq (talk) 14:06, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Jrkso: first of all, it would be very helpful if you stopped putting your answers in the middle of the discussion, ignoring the chronology. Just write your answers at the bottom of each discussion. Readers and participants are not dumb!

Secondly, it is totally irrelevant what the main purpose of those opinion polls was. Because that does not define the quality or reliability of a poll. What matters is the questions asked. And when it comes to ethnicity, there is only one relevant question: what is your ethnicity? And that question was asked. In this regard, it does not matter how many other questions were asked. Even if 1000 questions in the poll were about the color of houses in Afghanistan, if that one specific question is asked in the poll and if the answer is given, then it is reliable. Do you think the outcome of the poll would have been any different if the majority of the questions asked were about ethnicity?! It would not have changed anything, the result would have been the same. And that is exactly why these polls are a reliable. I do not blame you for not understanding the simple fact that as long as the sample questioned has a proper size (and 6500 people is very acceptable), then it does not matter what the population of the country is. You do not understand this because (and that is very obvious) you lack basic mathematical knowledge and understanding. In this case, I do not think that you are the best person to judge that. It should be left to people who understand the mathematical base of opinion polls. Tajik (talk) 15:47, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

• Delisted good articles
• All unassessed articles
• WikiProject templates with unknown parameters
• B-Class country articles
• WikiProject Countries articles
• B-Class Afghanistan articles
• Top-importance Afghanistan articles
• WikiProject Afghanistan articles
• B-Class Central Asia articles
• Top-importance Central Asia articles
• WikiProject Central Asia articles
• Unassessed South Asia articles
• Unknown-importance South Asia articles
• South Asia articles
• Selected anniversaries (August 2004)