Pashtun

The roots of the Pashtun go back to Iranian peoples who settled in the region around a thousand years before Christ, long before the arrival of Islam. The people's own oral tradition tells of diverse origins, including ties to ancient tribes of the Middle East, but what truly united the Pashtun over the centuries was their common language and the Pashtunwali code, passed down from generation to generation even under foreign rule.

In 1893, the agreement that drew the so called Durand Line divided Pashtun territory between British India at the time and Afghanistan, a border Afghanistan has never fully recognized. With the creation of Pakistan in 1947, that division was consolidated, leaving the Pashtun people split between two countries to this day, without erasing the sense of belonging to one single nation.

Pashtun life revolves around the tribe and the clan, which govern everything from conflict resolution to major family arrangements such as marriages. The unwritten code known as Pashtunwali rules daily life: generous hospitality to the visitor, unyielding defense of one’s own and one’s family’s honor, and the duty to answer any offense received. It is an ancient code, predating Islam, but today it is lived as an inseparable part of the people’s religious and ethnic identity.

Many Pashtun still live off farming and herding in the mountainous regions they have inhabited for generations, while others have settled in cities such as Kabul, Peshawar and Karachi, or emigrated to the Gulf and the West in search of work. Wherever they are, the Pashto language and tribal ties remain the bond that unites them as one people.

The Pashtun are, almost entirely, Sunni Muslims, and for them the Islamic faith is not merely a religion but a constitutive part of their very identity as a people. Islam blends with Pashtunwali so thoroughly that separating one from the other is nearly unthinkable in the traditional mindset: to be Pashtun is, above all, to profess Islam.

In daily practice, this religiosity is expressed both through the prayers and formal precepts of Sunni Islam and through local popular beliefs, such as respect for tribal religious leaders and certain customs passed down from generation to generation. This fusion of faith and ethnicity makes any religious change a matter that goes beyond the individual and affects the honor of the whole family and clan.

Pashto has advanced Bible translation, with the New Testament and part of the Old Testament available, and a complete Bible in the southern dialect, more widely used in Pakistan. Even so, the high illiteracy rate in many rural communities makes orality the more natural path for the Word, through audio recordings, the Jesus film dubbed in Pashto, and radio, more than through direct reading of the printed text.

To be Pashtun is, in practice, to be Muslim: faith is intertwined with ethnicity and with the Pashtunwali code of honor, so that abandoning Islam is seen as betrayal of the clan and the family, and can cost the convert their life. The tribal organization and instability of the regions where they live, especially the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, make any approach to a different faith even harder, so a Pashtun’s first contact with a Christian is rare.

Decades of war, displacement and instability in the Afghan and Pakistani regions where the Pashtun live have left deep marks: divided families, weakened economies and an enormous number of refugees within and beyond their countries. There is a real need for lasting peace, for work and education opportunities, especially for women, who in many communities are still confined to the domestic sphere.

In the spiritual realm, the need is just as great: there are almost no local Christian communities among the Pashtun, and those who come to believe in Jesus often do so without any support from other believers nearby, facing the weight of that decision alone.