PATHAN

This article appears in Volume V20, Page 913 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PAS-PER

PATHAN , the name applied throughout India to the Afghans, especially to those permanently settled in the country and to those dwelling on the borderland. It is apparently derived from the Afghan name for their own language, Pushtu or Pukhtu, and may be traced back to the Paktues of Herodotus. In Igor the

total

TOTAL

number of Pathans in all India was nearly 31 millions, but the speakers of Pushtu numbered less than l t millions. The name is frequently, but incorrectly, applied to the

Mahommedan

MAHOMMEDAN

dynasties that preceded the Moguls at Delhi, and also to the style of architecture employed by them; but of these dynasties only the Lodis were Afghans.
The Pathans of the Indian borderland inhabit the mountainous country on the Punjab frontier, stretching northwards from a line

drawn

DRAWN

roughly across the southern border of the Dera Ismail

Khan

KHAN (from the Turki, hence Persian and Arabic Khan)

district

DISTRICT

South

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

of this line are the Baluchis. The Pathans include all the strongest and most warlike tribes of the North-West frontier of India, such as the Afridis, Orakzais, Waziris, Mohmands, Swatis and many other clans. Those in the settled districts of the North-West Frontier Province (in 1901) numbered 883,779, or more than two-fifths of the population. Each of the

principal

PRINCIPAL

divisions is dealt with separately in this

work

WORK

under its tribal name. The Pathans are split up into different tribes, each tribe into clans, and each clan into sections, so that the nomenclature is often very puzzling. The tribe, clan and section are alike distinguished by patronymics formed from the name of the common ancestor by the addition of the word zai or khel; zai being a corruption of the Pushtu word we, meaning son, while khel is an Arabic word meaning an association or company. Both terms are used indifferently for both the larger and smaller divisions. Pathans enlist largely in the native army of India; and since the frontier risings of 1897 they have been formed with increasing frequency into class-regiments and regiments of native militia. They make excellent soldiers. The greater partof the Pathan country was placed under British political

control

CONTROL (Fr. contrdle, older form contre rolle, from Med. Lat. contra-rotulus, a counter roll or copy of a document used to check the original; there is no instance in English of the use of " control " in this, its literal, meaning)

by the Durand agreement made with the Amir of Afghanistan in 1893.

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