µþ´¡á¸Ë¶ÄªÄ€¸éĪ³§ of AFGHANISTAN. Two small PaṧtÅ-speaking groups in the eastern part of the Irano-Afghan area bear the name BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ« or BaḵtÄ«Är. There is nothing in the scanty information about them to show that they have any connection with the BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ« tribes of the Zagros region, whose eastward spread under the aegis of NÄder Shah AfšÄr appears to have ended with his death in 1160/1747.
1. A group BaḵtÄ«Är(an), BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ«, or BaḵtÄ«Ärīḵēl (the first form being the commonest) lives in the southeast of Afghanistan. They were allied to the MÄ«Änḵēl, a PaṧtÅ«n tribe, and finally were adopted into its genealogical structure (ŠÄ“r-Moḥammad Khan, TawÄrīḵ-e ḴᵛoršÄ«d e JahÄn, Lahore, 1311/1894, p. 227; J. A. Robinson, Notes on Nomad Tribes of Eastern Afghanistan, New Delhi, 1935, repr. Quetta, 1978, p. 175). In the nineteenth century they were nomads, migrating with MÄ«Änḵēl tribesmen between the middle Indus valley and the Afghan highlands and reputedly specializing in the horse trade (A. Hamilton, Afghanistan, London, 1906, p. 204). When they lost control of their winter grazing grounds as the result of a conflict with the Ganá¸ÄpÅ«r tribe (ŠÄ“r-Moḥammad Khan, loc. cit.), several lineages turned to sedentary life in their old summer quarters in southeastern Afghanistan (one hundred families in the estimate of J. A. Robinson, op. cit., p. 176). They have thus given their name to several localities between ḠaznÄ« and QandahÄr (L. W. Adamec, Gazetteer of Afghanistan V: Kandahar and South-Central Afghanistan, Graz, 1980, p. 78, s.v. Bakhtiar. M. H. NÄheż, ed., QÄmÅ«s-e joḡrÄfÄ«aʾī-e AfḡÄnestÄn I, Kabul, 1335 Š./1956, p. 225, s.v. BaḵtÄ«Är; Aá¹las-e qaryahÄ-ye AfḡÄnestÄn, A Provisional Gazetteer of Afghanistan, Kabul, 1353 Š./1975, I, pp. 230, 239, 273, and III, p. 1320). It is unlikely, however, that there is any connection between this group and two places, named Qaḷʿa-ye BaḵtÄ«Är and BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄn, which lie close to Kabul, in the city’s southern and northeastern outskirts respectively; BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄn is known to have been settled by ḠelzÄ« people at the end of the nineteenth century (Gazetteer of Afghanistan VI: Kabul and Southeastern Afghanistan, p. 57).
The origin of this tribal group is obscure. Although they are probably not indigenous, the theory of their transplantation from western Iran at the time of NÄder’s campaign (which still has supporters, e.g. V. V. TrubetskoÄ, Bakhtiary, Moscow, 1966, p. 15; D. Ehmann, Baḫtiyaren. Persische Bergnomaden im Wandel der Zeit, Wiesbaden, 1975, p. 50) stems from a rash identification made by M. Elphinstone (An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, London, 1815, repr. Graz, 1969, p. 376) and amplified by H. Field, who did not hesitate to make them descendants of a BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ« garrison purportedly left at Peshawar by NÄder Shah (An Anthropological Reconnaissance in the Near East, 1950, Cambridge, Mass., 1956, p. 31); the theory must be rejected because there is evidence that BaḵtÄ«Är nomads were already living in the SolaymÄn mountains and foothills in the early years of the seventeenth century (ḴᵛÄja NeÊ¿mat-AllÄh, Maḵzan-e AfḡÄnÄ«, tr. B. Dorn, History of the Afghans, pt. 2, London, 1836, repr. London, 1965, and Karachi, 1976, pp. 55-56). A local tradition makes them members of a saintly lineage (²õ³ÙÄå²Ô²¹) of the ŠÄ“rÄnÄ« tribe who acquired the apotropaic name BaḵtÄ«Är “fortunate,” and claims that their ultimate ancestor, Sayyed EsḥÄq, came from Iraq (ḴᵛÄja NeÊ¿mat-AllÄh, tr. Dorn, loc. cit.; H. G. Raverty, Notes on Afghanistan and Part of Baluchistan, London, 1880-88, repr. Lahore, 1976, pp. 429, 525f.). The genealogical tree of the tribe presented by Moḥammad ḤayÄt Khan (Afghanistan and Its Inhabitants, tr. from the “ḤayÄt-i-Afghan” by H. Priestley, Lahore, 1874, repr. Lahore, 1981, p. 280), though far from complete, contains data which complement those given by ḴᵛÄja NeÊ¿mat-AllÄh and ŠÄ“r-Moḥammad Khan (op. cit., p. 274).
2. There are also nomads and seminomads named BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ« who spend the winter in various places in the southern Bactrian plain and the summer in the central highlands of Afghanistan. Their total number in the 1970s exceeded eight hundred families. The most important group has winter campsites near Ḥażrat-e Solá¹Än in the Province of SamangÄn, where the village of Qarya-ye BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ« bears their name. Others are reported in the Ä€qÄa oasis (35 percent of the total) and in the FÄryÄb province (5 percent). Also mentioned are some forty sedentary families in the village of Ḥasan BolÄq, north of Maymana. Although the literature contains some scattered allusions, the first full proof of the existence of BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ« communities in northern Afghanistan was obtained by the Afghan Nomadic Survey of 1357 Š./1978 (D. Balland and A. de Benoist, Nomades et semi-nomades d’Afghanistan, forthcoming). It should be added that there may be some more settlements which escaped the notice of the survey teams. The real ethnic status and origin of these people can only be conjectured. Some describe themselves as TÄjÄ«k, PaṧtÅ«n, or sayyed, but most say only that they are BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ«. This suggests that they were involved in the restructuring processes which have taken place throughout northern Afghanistan since the nineteenth century. They all speak PaṧtÅ, but in general are bilingual, using Persian for their second language as PaṧtÅ-speakers in the Bactrian region frequently do. Moreover, the only lineage name found among them, that of the Ê¿Abd-AllÄh-ḵēl near Ä€qÄa, is typically PaṧtÅ«n. These characteristically PaṧtÅ«n features suggest that they are late-comers in the region. The supposition that they stem from BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄn families displaced from southeastern Afghanistan seems highly probable.
A compact colony of BaḵtÄ«ÄrÄ« FÄrsÄ«wÄn and TÄjÄ«k has been recorded in the southwestern part of the HerÄt oasis. It was estimated at about 925 families in the 1880s (Mirza Muhammad Takki Khan, Report on the City and Province of Herat, tr. W. R. H. Merk, ca. 1886, India Office Records, London; see also L. W. Adamec, ed., Gazetteer of Afghanistan III: Herat and Northwestern Afghanistan, Graz, 1975, p. 53, s.v. Birinji) but seems never to have been mentioned again since then.
Bibliography: Given in the text.
Search terms:
| بختیاری های اÙغانستان | bakhtiarihaye afghanistan | bakhtiyarihaay e afghanistaan | bakhtiari hay e afghanistan |
(D. Balland)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: December 15, 1988
