Kafiristan

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Map showing present-day Nuristan province in Afghanistan

Kafiristan or Kafirstan ("Land of the Infidel" in Persian) was a historic name of Nurestan (Nuristan), a province in the Hindukush region of Afghanistan. This historic region lies on, and mainly comprises, basins of the rivers Alingar, Pech (Kamah), Landai Sin, and Kunar, and the intervening mountain ranges. It is bounded by the main range of the Hindukush on the north, the Pakistani border on the east, the Kunar Valley in the south, and the Alishang River in the west.

Kafiristan takes its name from the inhabitants, the Kafirs, a fiercely independent people with distinctive culture, language and religion. In 1896 the country was conquered and forcibly converted to Islam by the Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, who renamed the people as Nuristani ("Enlightened Ones" in Persian) and the land as Nuristan ("Land of the Enlightened").

[edit] Etymology of the name

It has been claimed that the name "Kafir" comes from the Arabic kafir, usually translated as "infidel" (i.e. "non-Muslim"). However, that may be a folk etymology, and the word may in fact derive from an ancient name of the region; see Hindukush Kafir people for more details.

[edit] Kafiristan in literature

Kafiristan was the setting for Rudyard Kipling's short story The Man Who Would Be King and the movie with the same title starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine.

Kipling's story apparently has a basis in history as documented in Ben MaCintyre's book, The Man Who Would Be King: The First American In Afghanistan (2004). Josiah Harlan, the object of Kipling's Dravot, an American from Chester County, Pennsylvania assisted Shah Shujah al-Moolk in attacking Dost Mohammed Khan in Afghanistan.

The cultural background for Kipling's story can be found in George Scott Robertson, Kafirs of the Hindu Kush (London, 1896), which came out a few years after Kipling's story. Robertson had spent a year living among the Kafirs before becoming British Agent in Gilgit.

Kafiristan is also the setting for the visit by G. I. Gurdjieff, to the legendary monastery of the World Brotherhood, in Meetings with Remarkable Men (pp. 228-231, 236-244.)

Kefiristan is a mentioned in passing, from the Doom novels mini-series by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver, a mini-series based on the DOOM franchise.

Kafiristan (and Nuristan) are the basis of Eric Newby's book - A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush