Zamindawar is a historical district of Afghanistan, situated on the right bank of the Helmand River to the northwest of Kandahar bordering the road which leads from Kandahar to Herat via Farah.
Zamindawar was a district of hills, and of wide, well populated, and fertile valleys watered by important tributaries of the Helmand. The principal town was Musa Kala, which stands on the banks of a river of the same name, about 60 m, north of Girishk.
The whole of this region was a well-known hotbed of fanaticism, the headquarters of the Achakzais, the most aggressive of all Durani tribes. It was from Zamindawar that much of the strength of the force which besieged Kandahar under Ayub Khan in 1880 was derived; and it was the Zamindawar contingent of tribesmen who so nearly defeated Sir Donald Stewart's force at the Battle of Ahmed Khel previously. The control of Zamindawar was regarded by the British forces as the key to the position for safeguarding the route between Herat and Kandahar during the Second Anglo-Afghan War.
Predominantly Persian but possessing Central Asian features was also the God Zun from which the Zunbils derived their name .[1]
Marqart maintained that Zunbil or Zhunbil is the correct form and Ratbil a corruption , and it was he who connected the title with the God Zun or Zhun whose temple lay in Zamindawar before the arrival of Islam , set on a sacred mountain and still existing in the later ninth century when the Saffarid Yaqub and Amr b Layth conquered the area as far as Kabul .[2]
With Kabul Ghazana and Bust as the key points between the commerce between India and Persia , Zamindawar had become an important pilgrimage center .[3]