Hindu Kush - WikiHQ

thumb|290px|Hindu Kush (top right) and its extending mountain ranges like [[Paropamisus Mountains|Selseleh-ye Safīd Kūh or Koh-i-Baba to the west]]

The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH); The range and communities settled in it hosted ancient monasteries, important trade networks and travelers between Central Asia and South Asia. While the vast majority of the region has been majority-Muslim for several centuries now, certain portions of the Hindu Kush only became Islamized relatively recently, such as Kafiristan, which retained ancient polytheistic beliefs until the 19th century when it was converted to Islam by the Emirate of Afghanistan and renamed Nuristan ("land of light"). is relatively recent. It does not appear in the writings of the early Arab geographers and is first mentioned in the works of Ibn Battuta, in the 14th century.

Hindu Kush is generally translated as "Killer of Hindus" or "Hindu-Killer" in the popular literature. According to linguist Francis Joseph Steingass, the suffix -kush means "a male; (imp. of kushtan in comp.) a killer, who kills, slays, murders, oppresses as azhdaha-kush ['dragon-slayer']." The 16th-century Mughal court historian Abu al-Fazl ibn Mubarak also refers to the range as Hindu Koh in his Ain-i-Akbari. According to Nigel Allan, the term Hindu Kush had two alternate meanings popular for centuries i.e 'mountains of India' and 'sparkling snows of India', with Kush respectively being a soft variant of kuh ('mountain') or referring to the quality of snow. Allan further states that to the Arab geographers Hindu Kush was the frontier boundary of Hindustan.

Another theory posits the name to may have been derived from ancient Avestan, meaning 'water mountain', with Kush probably being a corruption of the Persian word kuh ('mountain'). According to Hobson-Jobson, a 19th-century British dictionary, Hindukush might be a corruption of the ancient Latin Indicus [Caucasus] ('Caucasus of India'); the entry mentions the interpretation first given by Ibn Battuta as a popular theory already at that time, despite doubts cast upon it.

Some 19th-century encyclopedias and gazetteers state the term Hindu Kush to originally have applied only to the peak in the area of the Kushan Pass, which had become a center of the Kushan Empire by the first century.

Other names

In Vedic Sanskrit, the range was known as upariśaina, and in Avestan, as upāirisaēna (from Proto-Iranian *upārisaina- 'covered with juniper'). It can alternatively be interpreted as "beyond the reach of eagles".

In the time of Alexander the Great, the mountain range was referred to as the Caucasus Indicus (as opposed to the Greater Caucasus range between the Caspian and Black Seas), and the extension of the former as Paropamisos (see Paropamisadae) by Hellenic Greeks in the late first millennium BCE. The Macedonians who served with Alexander called it Kaukasos

The range was also known as Hindu Koh during the medieval period, as referred to as in the works of Abu al-Fazl during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar.

Passes

Numerous high passes ("kotal") transect the mountains, forming a strategically important network for the transit of caravans. The most important mountain pass in Afghanistan is the Salang Pass (Kotal-e Salang) () north of Kabul, which links southern Afghanistan to northern Afghanistan. The Salang Tunnel at and the extensive network of galleries on the approach roads was constructed with Soviet financial and technological assistance and involved drilling through the heart of the Hindu Kush; since the start of the wars in Afghanistan it has been an active area of armed conflict with various parties trying to control the strategic tunnel. The range has several other passes in Afghanistan, the lowest of which is the southern Shibar pass () where the Hindu Kush range terminates. and the Dorah Pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan at 14,000 feet. Other high passes in Pakistan include the Lowari Pass at 10,200 feet, the Gomal Pass. The Darmodar Aghost Pass is at elevation of . The Ishkoman Aghost Pass is at elevation of .

Watershed

The Hindu Kush form the boundary between the Indus watershed in South Asia, and Amu Darya watershed in Central Asia. Melt water from snow and ice feeds major river systems in Central Asia: the Amu Darya (which feeds the Aral Sea), Helmand River (which is a major source of water for the Sistan Basin in southern Afghanistan and Iran), and the Kabul River The eastern end of the range, with the highest peaks, high snow accumulation allows to long-term water storage.

Geology

Geologically, the range is rooted in the formation of the subcontinent from a region of Gondwana that drifted away from East Africa about 160 million years ago, around the Middle Jurassic period. The Indian subcontinent, Australia and islands of the Indian Ocean rifted further, drifting northeastwards, with the Indian subcontinent colliding with the Eurasian Plate nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Palaeocene.

The Hindu Kush are a part of the "young Eurasian mountain range consisting of metamorphic rocks such as schist, gneiss and marble, as well as of intrusives such as granite, diorite of different age and size". The northern regions of the Hindu Kush witness Himalayan winter and have glaciers, while its southeastern end witnesses the fringe of Indian subcontinent summer monsoons.

The Hindu Kush range remains geologically active and is still rising; it is prone to earthquakes. The Hindu Kush system stretches about laterally, and its median north–south measurement is about . The mountains are orographically described in several parts.]]

ICIMOD's first annual regional 30-meter resolution land cover database of HKH and a scene of modern era warfare in Afghanistan.

Buddhism was widespread in the ancient Hindu Kush region. The ancient artwork of Buddhism includes the giant rock-carved statues called the Bamiyan Buddhas, in the southern and western end of the Hindu Kush. These statues were destroyed by Taliban Islamists in 2001.

One of the early Buddhist schools, the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda, was prominent in the area of Bamiyan. The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang visited a Lokottaravāda monastery in the 7th century CE, at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Birchbark and palm leaf manuscripts of texts in this monastery's collection, including Mahāyāna sūtras, have been discovered in the caves of Hindu Kush, and these are now a part of the Schøyen Collection. Some manuscripts are in the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script, while others are in Sanskrit and written in forms of the Gupta script.

According to Alfred Foucher, the Hindu Kush and nearby regions gradually converted to Buddhism by the 1st century CE, and this region was the base from where Buddhism crossed the Hindu Kush expanding into the Oxus valley region of Central Asia. Buddhism later disappeared and locals were forced to convert to Islam. Richard Bulliet also proposes that the area north of Hindu Kush was center of a new sect that had spread as far as Kurdistan, remaining in existence until the Abbasid times. The area eventually came under the control of the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul. The Islamic conquest of the area happened under Sabuktigin who conquered Jayapala's dominion west of Peshawar in the 10th century.

Ancient

The significance of the Hindu Kush mountain ranges has been recorded since the time of Darius I of the Achaemenid Empire. The Greeks under Alexander entered the Indian subcontinent through the Hindu Kush as his army moved past the Afghan Valleys in the spring of 329 BCE. He moved towards the Indus Valley river region in the Indian subcontinent in 327 BCE;_his armies built several towns in this region over the intervening two years.

After Alexander died in 323 BCE, the region became part of the Seleucid Empire, according to the ancient history of Strabo written in the 1st century BCE, before it became a part of the Indian Maurya Empire around 305 BCE. The region became a part of the Kushan Empire around the start of the common era.

Medieval era

The lands north of the Hindu Kush, in the Hephthalite dominion, Buddhism was the predominant religion by mid 1st millennium CE. This Central Asia region along the Hindu Kush was taken over by Western Turks and Arabs by the eighth century, facing wars with mostly Iranians. One major exception was the period in the mid to late seventh century when the Tang dynasty from China destroyed the Northern Turks and extended its rule all the way to the Oxus River valley and regions of Central Asia bordering all along the Hindu Kush.

thumb|upright=1.65|Hindu Kush relative to Bactria, Bamiyan, Kabul and Gandhara (bottom right).

The subcontinent and valleys of the Hindu Kush remained unconquered by the Islamic armies until the 9th century, even though they had conquered the southern regions of the Indus River valley such as Sind. Kabul fell to the army of Al-Ma'mun, the seventh Abbasid caliph, in 808 and the local king agreed to accept Islam and pay annual tributes to the caliph. When the extraction of silver from the mines in the Hindu Kush was at its greatest (c.850), the value of silver in relation to gold dropped, and the content of silver in the Carolingian denarius was increased so that it should maintain its intrinsic value.

The range came under the control of the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul He began a military campaign that rapidly brought both sides of the Hindu Kush range under his rule. From his mountainous Afghani base, he systematically raided and plundered kingdoms in north India from east of the Indus river to west of Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030.

Mahmud of Ghazni raided the treasuries of kingdoms, sacked cities, and destroyed Hindu temples, with each campaign starting every spring, but he and his army returned to Ghazni and the Hindu Kush base before monsoons arrived in the northwestern part of the subcontinent.

In 1017, the Iranian Islamic historian Al-Biruni was deported after a war that Mahmud of Ghazni won, to the northwest Indian subcontinent under Mahmud's rule. Al Biruni stayed in the region for about fifteen years, learnt Sanskrit, and translated many Indian texts, and wrote about Indian society, culture, sciences, and religion in Persian and Arabic. He stayed for some time in the Hindu Kush region, particularly near Kabul. In 1019, he recorded and described a solar eclipse in what is the modern era Laghman Province of Afghanistan through which Hindu Kush pass.

In the late 12th century, the historically influential Ghurid empire led by Mu'izz al-Din ruled the Hindu Kush region. He was influential in seeding the Delhi Sultanate, shifting the base of his Sultanate from south of the Hindu Kush range and Ghazni towards the Yamuna River and Delhi. He thus helped bring Islamic rule to the northern plains of the Indian subcontinent. In the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, Genghis Khan invaded the region from the northeast in one of his many conquests to create the huge Mongol Empire.

thumb|Kabul in the 19th century

The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta arrived in the Delhi Sultanate by passing through the Hindu Kush. Timur, also known as Temur or Tamerlane in Western scholarly literature, marched with his army to Delhi, plundering and killing all the way. He arrived in the capital Delhi with his army. Then he carried the wealth and the captured slaves, returning to his capital through the Hindu Kush.

Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, was a patrilineal descendant of Timur with roots in Central Asia. He first established himself and his army in Kabul and the Hindu Kush region. In 1526, he made his move into north India, and won the Battle of Panipat, ending the last Delhi Sultanate dynasty, and starting the era of the Mughals.

Slavery

Slavery, as with all major ancient and medieval societies, has been a part of Central Asia and South Asia history. The Hindu Kush mountain passes connected the slave markets of Central Asia with slaves seized in South Asia. The seizure and transportation of slaves from the Indian subcontinent became intense in and after the 8th century CE, with evidence suggesting that the slave transport involved "hundreds of thousands" of slaves from India in different periods of Islamic rule era. According to John Coatsworth and others, the slave trading operations during the pre-Akbar Mughal and Delhi Sultanate era "sent thousands of Hindus every year north to Central Asia to pay for horses and other goods". However, the interaction between Central Asia and South Asia through the Hindu Kush was not limited to slavery, it included trading in food, goods, horses and weapons.

The practice of raiding tribes, hunting, and kidnapping people for slave trading continued through the 19th century, at an extensive scale, around the Hindu Kush. According to a British Anti-Slavery Society report of 1874, the governor of Faizabad, Mir Ghulam Bey, kept 8,000 horses and cavalrymen who routinely captured non-Muslims as well as Shia Muslims as slaves. Others alleged to be involved in the slave trade were feudal lords such as Ameer Sheer Ali. The isolated communities in the Hindu Kush were one of the targets of these slave-hunting expeditions.

Modern era

thumb|right|[[The Last Stand of the 44th Regiment at Gundamuck by William Barnes Wollen. The last stand of the 44th Foot, during the 1842 retreat from Kabul]]

The people of Kafiristan had practiced ancient polytheistic traditions until the 1896 invasion and conversion to Islam at the hands of Afghans under Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. The first British invasion of Afghanistan ended in disaster in 1842, when 16,000 British soldiers and camp followers were massacred as they retreated through the Hindu Kush back to India.

After 1947

In the colonial era, the Hindu Kush was considered, informally, the dividing line between Russian and British areas of influence in Afghanistan. During the Cold War the Hindu Kush range became a strategic theatre, especially during the 1980s when Soviet forces and their Afghan allies fought the Afghan mujahideen channelled through Pakistan. After the Soviet withdrawal and the end of the Cold War, many mujahideen morphed into Taliban and al-Qaeda forces imposing a strict interpretation of Islamic law (Sharia), with Kabul, these mountains, and other parts of Afghanistan as their base. Other Mujahideen joined the Northern Alliance to oppose the Taliban rule.

Climate change

thumb|Observed glacier mass loss in the HKH since the 20th century.

The 2019 Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment concluded that between 1901 and 2014, the Hindu Kush Himalaya (or HKH) region had already experienced warming of 0.1 °C per decade, with the warming rate accelerating to 0.2 °C per decade over the past 50 years. Over the past 50 years, the frequency of warm days and nights had also increased by 1.2 days and 1.7 nights per decade, while the frequency of extreme warm days and nights had increased by 1.26 days and 2.54 nights per decade. There was also a corresponding decline of 0.5 cold days, 0.85 extreme cold days, 1 cold night, and 2.4 extreme cold nights per decade. The length of the growing season has increased by 4.25 days per decade.

There is less conclusive evidence of light precipitation becoming less frequent while heavy precipitation became both more frequent and more intense. Finally, since 1970s glaciers have retreated everywhere in the region beside Karakoram, eastern Pamir, and western Kunlun, where there has been an unexpected increase in snowfall. Glacier retreat had been followed by an increase in the number of glacial lakes, some of which may be prone to dangerous floods.

In the future, if the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 °C of global warming is not exceeded, warming in the HKH will be at least 0.3 °C higher, and at least 0.7 °C higher in the hotspots of northwest Himalaya and Karakoram. If the Paris Agreement goals are broken, then the region is expected to warm by 1.7–2.4 °C in the near future (2036–2065) and by 2.2–3.3 °C (2066–2095) near the end of the century under the "intermediate" Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5).

Under the high-warming RCP8.5 scenario where the annual emissions continue to increase for the rest of the century, the expected regional warming is 2.3–3.2 °C and 4.2–6.5 °C, respectively. Under all scenarios, winters will warm more than the summers, and the Tibetan Plateau, the central Himalayan Range, and the Karakoram will continue to warm more than the rest of the region. Climate change will also lead to the degradation of up to 81% of the region's permafrost by the end of the century.

Future development and adaptation

A range of adaptation efforts are already undertaken across the HKH region: however, they suffer from underinvestment and insufficient coordination between the various state, institutional and other non-state efforts, and need to be "urgently" strengthened in order to be commensurate with the challenges ahead.

The 2019 Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment outlined three main "storylines" for the region between now and 2080: "business-as-usual" (or "muddling through"), with no significant change from the current trends and development/adaptation initiatives proceeding as they do now; "downhill", where the intensity of global climate change is high, local initiatives fail and regional cooperation breaks down; and "prosperous", where extensive cooperation allows region's communities to weather "moderate" climate change and increase their living standards while also preserving the region's biodiversity. In addition, it described two alternate pathways through which the "prosperous" future can be achieved: the first focuses on top-down, large-scale development and the latter describes a bottom-up, decentralized alternative.

!rowspan="2"|Actions

!colspan="4"|Benefits

!colspan="2"|Need

!|Risk

! style="font-weight:normal;font-size:85%;"|Economic

! style="font-weight:normal;font-size:85%;"|Social

! style="font-weight:normal;font-size:85%;"|Environmental/climate

! style="font-weight:normal;font-size:85%;"|Cross sectoral

! style="font-weight:normal;font-size:85%;"|Finance and human resources

! style="font-weight:normal;font-size:85%;"|Governance

! style="font-weight:normal;font-size:85%;"|Source

|Large hydro power generating capacity||Leapfrog in economic prosperity for the region as a whole, high potential for power trade||New skill development, diversified livelihood options||Air pollution reduction, both adaptation and mitigation||Large water storage to manage seasonal variability and strategic cross-sector allocation||Large corporate, global finance, sustained climate finance||HKH institution, regional tariff, cross-border policy coordination||Lack of transboundary sustainable political cooperation; lack of cross-sector water sharing formal arrangements; lack of ecosystem-based design of reservoirs/power plants; public acceptance, silt accumulation

|HKH and non-HKH electric grid||Very high economic prosperity for the region and beyond||New skill, non-farm diversified livelihood options||Unplanned local resource extraction will decrease||Reliable power supply for all sectors||Large corporate, global finance, climate finance||HKH electric distribution corporation||Transboundary sustainable political cooperation;lack of ecosystem-based design

|HKH ICT (information and communications technology) network||Boost to regional and local economic growth||New skill, non-farm diversified livelihood options||Connectivity across mountainous terrain without ecological impact||Extent of market cutting across sectors and regions||Large corporations, global finance, climate finance||HKH communications corporation||Transboundary sustainable political cooperation; lack of biodiversity-sensitive design

|Cross-border trade corridors e.g., silk route re-development ||Income, consumption, production leapfrogs as per comparative advantage, benefit to large-scale tourism industry||Food security, energy security, health service, social interdependence, non-farm livelihood generation||Comparative advantage will lead to biodiversity conservation, enhance payment for ecosystem service||Multiple opportunities across sectors emerge||Regional, global||HKH trade authority||Transboundary sustainable political cooperation; lack of biodiversity-sensitive design in transport corridor development

|Large water storage and supply ||Income, consumption, production leapfrog||Food security, energy security, non-farm water sector livelihood generation||Less GLOF, less flash floods, pump storage facility||Multiple opportunities across sectors emerge||Regional, global||HKH water council||Transboundary sustainable political cooperation; lack of ecosystem-sensitive development

|Large water treatment facilities||Leapfrog in water resource management||Water security, non-farm water sector livelihood generation||Reduction in waste disposal||Multiple opportunities across sectors emerge||Regional, global||HKH water council||Transboundary sustainable political cooperation; lack of ecosystem sensitive development

|Large-scale urbanization||Leapfrog in economic growth centers||Non-farm water sector livelihood generation||Reserve nature for biodiversity conservation||Multiple opportunities across sectors emerge||Local, national, regional, and global||National urban development authorities||Lack of ecosystem-sensitive development

|Large contract farming||Leapfrog in farm-level activity and income||Income, livelihood security||Investment in environmental management||Farming based industrial/trade growth||Local, national, regional, and global||National farming development authorities||Lack of ecosystem-sensitive development; lack of public acceptance, possibility of food crop reduction, crop monoculture

{| class="wikitable"

|+Pathway 2 Chiliss, Neemchas Koli, Palus, and Krammins.

Sources

; Works cited

(facsimile of the original edition).

External links

Khyber Pass
Early Explorers of the Hindu Kush
Geology
More geology
And more geology