PEOPLE

JEWS AND PASHTUNS

BY: NASSER YOUSAF 

Something really uncanny appears to have given an impetus to the discussion surrounding the genealogy of the Pashtuns, particularly the myths tracing the trail to one of the lost tribes of Jews.

In what could be called as a new to this rather trite topic, video clips on social media are being posted to give credence to the unfounded theory that Pashtuns indeed are the descendants of the Jewish tribes. 

In these videos, some Jewish men and women could be seen excitedly dwelling on various similarities between the Pashtuns and Jews and calling that as proof enough of the two being one and the same people. 

Such puerile arguments are undoubtedly laughable and ought not to be taken seriously. But one may ask why this persistent interest in tracing the genealogy of the Pashtuns only and not of any other people?

Could this be something in humour or some serious attempt to douse the fired-up emotions of the Pashtun militants up in arms on the world circuit?

On the genealogical grounds, adding more to the subject from the old chronicles would certainly be at the risk of indulging in unwanted plagiarism. But two points from Olaf Caroe's 'The Pathans' would merit mention.

For instance, it has long been argued that one of the ten Jewish tribes that did not join the Exodus into Judea went to Mecca. A sizable number of Jews from this tribe took a different route and resettled in Ghor (the present-day Hazarajat), in Afghanistan. The much talked about Jewish-Pashtun lineage is said to be rooted here.

This is simply preposterous, as also argued by Caroe who believed that conversion among the Jews was unknown and they had let themselves be marked out for not forsaking their faith. The Jews who settled in Ghor, if they ever really did, could not thus be expected to have forsaken their faith to embrace Islam.

The myth around Ghor was spun and fostered to the liking of people like Syed Jabbar of Kohat, a friend of Olaf Caroe. Jabbar couldn't bring himself to appreciate the idea of being the offspring of the Polytheistic Aryans. 

Jews as monotheistic and believing in the same God were more presentable as forefathers than the Aryans, Caroe thought.

The timing of the Jewish proposition and its threadbare dissection by the British during their rule in the Frontier is also pretty interesting. There certainly was more to the subject being discussed with such zest than met the eye. 

Za heraan yam pa de khalqu na puegam

Thagi mri walaar thar halqa pa darya ke

(When I look at these people they bewilder me; 

They are dying of thirst while standing in the river up to their necks.

Khushal Khan Khattak)

There is hardly anything that escaped the imagination of the 17th century Pashtun warrior-poet Khushal Khan Khattak. His voluminous poetry even prescribes cures for various ailments. He was Pashtun nationalism personified. 

Same was the case with the 17th century Pashtun poet Rahman Baba. While Rahman Baba remained grounded to his soil in a little known village, Khushal spent his life traveling and fighting the Mughal rulers of India.

Both these great Pashtun chroniclers in verse knew the world from Adam down to their own times, and in fact far ahead of their times. But there is absolutely no suggestion in their works that says anything of the Pashtuns being the children of the Jews.

Those wishing to find a non-existent  connect between the turban and the kippah (Jewish skull cap), need go nowhere but scan the works of Khushal and Rahman.