RASC News Agency: Afghanistani historian and researcher Aziz Arianfar asserts that the Tajiks are the oldest indigenous ethnic group in Afghanistan, with their distinct identity emerging prominently during the Samanid era. In a detailed post on his Facebook page, Arianfar wrote:
“After four decades of historical research, authoring 75 books comprising 41,000 pages 10,000 of which are translations participating in over 1,000 conferences and seminars, and engaging with some of the world’s leading scholars, I can confidently state the following, based on irrefutable historical evidence: Any claims regarding the presence of Afghanistan’s modern ethnic groups in the pre-Islamic era are fundamentally incorrect, unfounded, and speculative. All ethnic groups currently residing in Afghanistan took shape after the advent of Islam.”
He emphasized:
“The oldest indigenous ethnic group in our homeland (Afghanistan) is the Tajiks, who, according to scholarly consensus, first emerged as a distinct people during the Samanid dynasty.” Arianfar elaborated on the ethnic composition of the Tajiks, asserting that their core ancestry can be traced back to the Medes, Persians, and Parthians, while their secondary lineage includes the Bactrians, Khwarezmians, Sogdians, Greeks, Kushans, Kidarites, Hephthalites, and later, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols.
Regarding the Pashtuns, Arianfar stated:
“Their ancestral homeland lies in the Suleiman Mountains, the Roh region, Mastung, and other areas of present-day Pashtunistan and Balochistan in Pakistan. The Pashtuns only migrated to their current territories in Afghanistan after the Timurid period.” He further asserted that the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Hazaras are relatively recent ethnic groups, formed through the intermixing of Mongols, smaller Turkic populations, and Tajiks.
Arianfar categorically rejected the notion of a significant Turkic presence in Afghanistan before the Ghaznavid period, calling such claims historically inaccurate and baseless. As a historian and prolific author, Aziz Arianfar has previously declared that he is fully prepared to prove the Tajiks’ historical precedence in Afghanistan, backed by extensive scholarly research and historical documentation.
