afghanistankings themselves, however, venerated a plurality of gods and goddesses.
Under their rule Bactrian, an Aramaic language, replaced Greek, though
Bactrian was written using a modified Greek alphabet. At the end of the
third century ce, the Kushans were subjugated by the Iranian Sasanian
dynasty, an event commemorated in a rock carving outside Pul-i Khumri,
which depicts the Sasanian king hunting a rhinoceros. The Sasanians, who
were originally priests of the goddess Anahita, imposed Zoroastrianism as
the state religion of the empire, but Buddhism, Hinduism and local cults
were tolerated, although Christians were sporadically persecuted. In 650
the Sasanians were overthrown by the invasion of the Arab Muslim armies
and the last Shah, Yazdagird iii, was killed near Bala Murghab.
The Arab Muslims established cantonments near Herat, Maimana and
Balkh, and destroyed many Buddhist and Zoroastrian sites. Even so, the
Islamization of Afghanistan took many centuries and was initially confined
to the urban centres of the plains. Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians
and local cults persisted, particularly in the mountainous regions of Ghur,
Badghis and the Hindu Kush. In 642 Kabul was briefly occupied by an Arab
Muslim army, only for it to be resoundingly defeated by the Turki Shahi,
who were patrons of Buddhism. Kabul and southeastern Afghanistan was
only finally Islamized in the early eleventh century by Sultan Mahmud of
Ghazni (see Table 2). He also invaded Ghur and forced the people of that
region to accept Islam. The Kafirs of Kafiristan, however, maintained their
ancient polytheistic religion until the 1890s.
All but a tiny minority of Afghans are Muslims. Under the 2004
Constitution the country is formally designated as an Islamic Republic
and since the 1920s Afghanistan’s legal code has been strongly influ-
enced by Hanafi jurisprudence, one of the four Sunni legal schools, or
The Sasanid rock
relief at Rag-i Bibi
near Pul-i Khumri.
This remarkable relief
commemorates the
Sasanid subjugation
of the Kushans and the
conquest of northern
India.