Re: Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): 31 Oct 201

[sanjaykumar]

The second coming may well be in the form of extraterrestrials. One can only hope they are 'Hindus' and not 'Christian'.

[parsuram]

brihaspati ji: I understand you have a book you have written. I sure would like to read what you have to say. Let me know if you need a contact.

[shiv]

Here is something:

The earliest known use of this name was by the famous Arab traveller, Ibn Battūta c. 1334, who wrote: "Another reason for our halt was fear of the snow, for on the road there is a mountain called Hindūkūsh, which means "Slayer of Hindus," because the slave boys and girls who are brought from Hind (India) die there in large numbers as a result of the extreme cold and the quantity of snow."
There are others who consider this origin to be a "folk etymology", and put forward alternate possibilities for its origin: that the name is a corruption of "Caucasus Indicus." In modern Persian, the word "Kush" is derived from the verb Kushtan - to defeat, kill, or subdue. This could be interpreted as a memorial to the Indian captives who perished in the mountains while being transported to Central Asian slave markets

What I find remarkable is that almost all the references to Hindu Kush on the net go back to the same 2 or 3 sources, including what Koenrad Elst has written.

I have done some searching about Ibn Batuta, who may be the earliest recorded person to use the name Hindu Kush. Ibn Batuta apparently travelled more than Marco Polo and went from Morooco on a 24 year Hajj that too k him to Persia, India and China. Here is what I have found. I will start with Wiki becaise Wiki says that he mentions the Hindu Kush in a book called the "Rihla"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta

En route to the coast at the start of his journey to China, Ibn Battuta and his party were attacked by a group of Hindus.[37] Separated from his companions, he was robbed and nearly lost his life.[38] Despite this setback, within ten days he had caught up with his group and continued on to Khambhat in the Indian state of Gujarat. From there, they sailed to Kozhikode (Calicut), where Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama would land two centuries later. While Ibn Battuta visited a mosque on shore, a storm arose, and one of the ships of his expedition was sunk.[39] The other ship then sailed without him only to be seized by a local Sumatran king a few months later .

Afraid to return to Delhi and be seen as a failure, he stayed for a time in southern India under the protection of Jamal-ud-Din, ruler of the small but powerful Nawayath sultanate on the banks of the Sharavathi River next to the Arabian Sea. This area is today known as Hosapattana and lies in the Honavar administrative district of Uttara Kannada. Following the overthrow of the sultanate, Ibn Battuta had no choice but to leave India. Although determined to continue the journey to China, he first took a detour to visit the Maldive Islands.
A view of an island in the Maldives.

He spent nine months on the islands, much longer than he had intended. As a Chief Qadi, his skills were highly desirable in the formerly Buddhist nation that had recently converted to Islam. Half-kidnapped into staying, he became chief judge and married into the royal family of Omar I. He became embroiled in local politics and left when his strict judgments in the laissez-faire island kingdom began to chafe with its rulers. In the Rihla he mentions his dismay at the local women going about with no clothing above the waist, and the locals taking no notice when he complained.[40] From the Maldives, he carried on to Sri Lanka and visited Adam's Peak and Tenavarai temple.

I scoured the net about this man's life and writings. He had at least 3 wives during his travels and had bought one Greek slave girl. But I digress.
This is the most detailed internet source I found of his travels in India:

After his return to the steppes from Constantinople, Ibn Battuta relates descriptions of the route's continuation along the Silk Road and its cities. Near Samarkand Ibn Battuta spent 54 days with Tarmashirin, the Chagatay khan who had only recently converted to Islam and was interested in what a worldly-wise qadi might tell him. Although Tarmashirin "never failed to attend the dawn and evening prayers with the congregation," he was overthrown by a nephew soon thereafter.

Ibn Battuta's exact path through Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush is uncertain because he does not make it clear where along the Indus he came out. But once on the hot plains, he headed for Multan, the sultan's westward customs outpost, which lay 40 days' march from Delhi "through continuously inhabited country." The traveler's pen waxed prolix as he noted the new foods, spices, trees, fruits and customs of this land where the ruling Muslims were the minority among the majority Hindu population.

bn Battuta's intention was to impress Sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluq sufficiently to win a sinecure—which we might justly call the Moroccan jurist-vagabond's first steady job. When he reached Multan he presented his credentials, including, in effect, the economic and social implications of his train and entourage, to the governor, who dispatched a courier to the sultan.

It was very important to make a good first impression, for no one in Delhi was likely to know anything about the new arrival's background or lineage. When Ibn Battuta was finally told to proceed to court, he was also informed that it was the custom of the sultan to reward every gift with a much greater one. So Ibn Battuta struck a deal with a merchant who offered to advance him a sizable stake of dinars, camels, and goods in exchange for a fat cut of the proceeds when the sultan's reward was duly given. The merchant, clearly an early venture capitalist, also turned out to be a fair-weather friend, for he "made an enormous profit from me and became one of the principal merchants. I met him many years later at Aleppo after the infidels had robbed me of everything I possessed, but he gave me no assistance."

Ibn Battuta's long stays in Baghdad and Damascus, studying the law and discussing fiqh, or legal interpretation, with fellow jurists, served him well in Delhi. He impressed Sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluq, who appointed him qadi in Delhi with the handsome compensation of 12,000 silver dinars per year, plus a "signing bonus" of 12,000 dinars for agreeing to reside there permanently.

Here is an image caption on the same page

“From [Kabul] we rode to Karmash, which is a fortress between two mountains, where the Afghans intercept travelers. During our passage of the defile we had an engagement with them.... We entered the great desert...[and] our company arrived safely (praise be to God Most High) at Banj Ab, which is the water of Sind [the Indus River].” Although Ibn Battuta’s descriptions of this leg of his journey are vivid, his geography is vague, and scholars still debate his route across the mountains to the Indus River Valley.

If I am to believe the references I have found, the name "Hindu Kush" is attributed to Ibn Batuta in his book called the Rihla where his route through Afghanistan (to India) is not clear. He went through some mountains and came out somewhere hear the Indus river and by some method a particular mountain range was called "Hindu Kush" I think I need to find more sources. There must be others who coined that name.

Any assistance will be appreciated...

[shiv]

It appears to me that Ibn Batuta was treated very well by the Muslim Royalty he met all the way through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan etc. Until he went though India. His experiences in India are unlikely to have left Ibn Batuta loving Hindus much. Same source as above:

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/2 ... .india.htm

He was to accompany 15 Chinese envoys then in residence in Delhi and somehow oversee the transport and presentation to the king of China of a gift of "a hundred thoroughbred horses saddled and bridled; a hundred male slaves; a hundred Hindu singing-and dancing-girls"; some 1200 pieces of various kinds of cloth, each type of which Ibn Battuta details; "10 embroidered robes of honor from the Sultan's own wardrobe...; 10 embroidered quivers, one of them encrusted with pearls"; similarly decorated swords, scabbards, hats and, to top it all off, 15 eunuchs.

On July 22,1342, with an escort of "a thousand horsemen," Ibn Battuta set forth for Calicut, where the plan was to put the embassy on one of the Chinese junks that were there waiting out the contrary monsoon.

The trouble that was to dog him for the next five years began immediately, during the long march from Delhi to the coast via Daulatabad, the sultan's second capital. Ibn Tugh-luq's rule was breaking down rapidly, and Hindu rebels now roamed the roads, sometimes as guerrilla armies, other times as brigands. Near the town of al-Jalali, the ambassador's retinue battled "about a thousand cavalry and 3000 foot [soldiers]." There were skirmishes over the next few days, and at one point Ibn Battuta became separated from his train and fell from his horse. He ran for his life—straight into the arms of one of the rebel bands. Their leader ordered Ibn Battuta executed, but for unknown reasons the rebels dithered and then let him go. He hid in a swamp, and for seven days found no refuge. The locals who saw him refused him food. A village sentry took away his shirt. He came to a well, tried to use one of his shoes as a bucket, and lost the shoe in the depths. As he was cutting the other in two to make sandals, a man happened along—a Muslim. He asked Ibn Battuta in Persian who he was, and Ibn Battuta replied warily, "A man astray." The man replied, "So am I." The Muslim then carried Ibn Battuta, fainting with exhaustion, to a Muslim village.

Thanks to his coreligionist, Ibn Battuta regained his caravan, and in time they reached Calicut. The gifts and the slaves were put aboard the hired Chinese junk while Ibn Battuta stayed ashore to attend prayers. There he decided that he was unwilling to travel on the junk because its cabin was "small and unsuitable." His personal retinue, including a concubine pregnant with his child, transferred to a smaller kakam that would sail with the junk.

What I find remarkable about this description is that Chinese junks were not known to be anything more than coastal sailing boats. They were hardly ocean liners. Now look at the list of gifts put on a Chinese junk.

a gift of "a hundred thoroughbred horses saddled and bridled; a hundred male slaves; a hundred Hindu singing-and dancing-girls"; some 1200 pieces of various kinds of cloth, each type of which Ibn Battuta details; "10 embroidered robes of honor from the Sultan's own wardrobe...; 10 embroidered quivers, one of them encrusted with pearls"; similarly decorated swords, scabbards, hats and, to top it all off, 15 eunuchs.

Is it possible that this man had to exaggerate numbers in order to shower praise on his employer and benefactor?

[Airavat]

North-West Frontier Province (Imperial Gazetteer of India)

Hazara District lies on the east bank of the Indus among the confused mass of mountains formed by the meeting of the Outer and Mid-Himalayan ranges. From this mass the two mountain walls, which enclose Kagan, run in unbroken lines to where they meet at the Babusar pass (13,589 feet). West of the Indus the mighty range of the Hindu Koh, usually called the Hindu Kush, or Indian Caucasus, runs almost due east and west along the north-eastern and northern frontiers of the Province, and at its north-eastern corner meets a continuation of the Outer Himalayan chain which crosses the Indus above the Kagan valley. From this chain minor ranges descend in a north-westerly direction, traversing Bajaur and Swat, until they meet the curved range of hills which connects the Mid-Himalaya with the Safed Koh and encircles the Peshawar valley on the north.

The Expansion Of Britain From The Age Of The Discoveries

From this great knot, where all the chains of folded mountains are tied together, there strikes off south-westward the Hindu Kush, which separates the Oxus basin from the Indus, and is the historic north-western mountain barrier of Hindustan. The total length of the Hindu Kush range from the Pamir to the Koh-i-Baba system near Bamian, where it terminates, is 400 miles ; but the
mountain barrier is carried westward another 300 miles to Herat by the Koh-i-Baba and Hazara Highlands. The chief passes across it, taken from east to west, are as follows :

1. Baroghel Pass, 12,500 feet.

2. Dorah Pass, 14,800 feet, from Badakshan to Chitral.

3. Khawak Pass, 11,600 feet.

4. Kaoshan Pass, 14,300 feet.

5. Chahardar Pass, 13,900 feet.

6. Kotal-i-Irak, 13,500 feet.

The four last-mentioned lead from Turkestan to Kabul, and of these the Kaoshan or Hindu Kush Pass, from which the mountains take their name, has been the recognized gateway through all ages from High Asia into Kabul and India.

Provincial geographies of India

It is this fact that gives the town of Kabul its great strategic importance. The highest of the three passes, the Kaoshan or Hindu Kush (dead Hindu), crosses the chain at an elevation of 14,340 feet. It took its own name from the fate that befel a Hindu army when attempting to cross it, and has handed it on to the whole range.

[shiv]

China does not use memories of atrocities by current "groups". It has almost none [except Mongolia] except the colonials who are no longer there. They use claimed past "glorious" empire.

Brihaspati, the use of "national humiliation" is big in China. I read about that recently in the papers and have found some refs:
Click for pdf

National Humiliation, History Education,
and the Politics of Historical Memory:
Patriotic Education Campaign in China
Zheng Wang
Seton Hall University
This manuscript explores the state’s political use of the past and the
function of history education in political transition and foreign rela-
tions. Modern historical consciousness in China is largely characterized
by the ‘‘one hundred years of humiliation’’ from mid-1800s to mid-
1900s when China was attacked, bullied, and torn asunder by imperial-
ists. This research focuses initially on how such historical memory has
been reinforced by the current regime’s educational socialization
through the national ‘‘Patriotic Education Campaign’’ after 1991. It
then explores the impact of this institutionalized historical conscious-
ness on the formation of national identity and foreign relations. This
study suggests that, even though existing theories and literature illumi-
nate certain aspects of China’s political transition and foreign affairs
behavior, a full explanatory picture emerges only after these pheno-
mena and actions are analyzed through the ‘‘lenses’’ of history and
memory.

From Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation

As a result of the Century of humiliation and the Chinese Communist Party's historiography[9] "sovereignty and integrity of [Chinese] territory" is a major force in Chinese nationalism. It has colored Chinese perceptions of incidents like the US bombing of the People's Republic of China embassy in Belgrade, the Hainan Island incident, and European and American protests for Tibetan independence along the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch relay.[10]
[edit]

[Airavat]

Anyone know the Pashto name for the Indus river?

Aba (Father) Sind. Landay (little) Sind is the name of a stream in Afghanistan.

In Persian the Sindhu is called Nilab, or Blue river.

[shiv]

Thanks for the links Airavat. From them I found the blog of a modern day explorer who has explored the Hindu Kush
http://bobmckerrow.blogspot.com/2010/08 ... h-and.html

The dominant mourn-tain system in Afghanistan is the Hindu Kush which commences in the extreme north-eastern corner of the Wakhan corridor and stretches in a south-westerly direction for more than 700 km finishing at the Shibar Pass.

The boundaries of Afghanistan have changed dramatically in the last 200 years. At the start of the 19th century, Afghanistan stretched from Meshad to Kashmir, from the Oxus to the Satlej River and to the Arabian Sea. This greater Afghanistan was built by Ahmad Shah Durrani (1747-1773) and was known as the Durrani Empire.

Unfortunately, the British colonialists in playing the great game and wanting to feed their politician's paranoia of the Russians, placed a buffer between Lahore and the Afghan border. The north-west frontier province was carved out of eastern Afghanistan and was incorporated it into the Indian Empire. In placing this formidable barrier between themselves and Russia, they left the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, Tirich Mir in India, now Pakistan. As most Afghans still regard everything in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province across to the Indus as rightly belonging to them and knowing that the 100 year agreement (forced upon Abdur Rahman Khan in 1893) over the artificial border known as the Durrand Line has expired, they believe one day they will get back all their lands illegally seized by the British.

The Hindu Kush has an "oriental" part and an "occidental" part

Remote, mysterious and seldom visited the countries of Tajikistan, China, Pakistan and of course Afghanistan meet. With its starting point in the Wakhan, the Oriental Hindu Kush con-tinues through Badakshan to the Khawak Pass in the Panjcher Valley, the graveyards of thousands of young Greek soldiers, who were led by Alexander the Great in the spring of 327 BC over the Khawak Pass. The soldiers died, frozen to rocks as they dropped from cold, exhaustion and frostbite.

It contains the highest mountains in Afghanistan. Noshaq, 7485 metres is the highest point, of the Afghan Hindu Kush.

It's a wonder Alexander knew where he was at the time, because he referred to the Hindu Kush as the Caucasus. On later maps they were referred to as the Indicus Caucasus. Probably, "Caucasus" was bandied about in the same way the name "Alps" is to-day, Aristotle further confused the issue by calling the Hindu Kush the Asiatic Parnassus. According to Babur, founder of the Mogul Empire, Hindu Kush means "Dead Hindu." Today we render it "Hindu Death."

[shiv]

From a translation of the Babur Nama
http://www.farlang.com/diamonds/beverid ... a/page_257

Just as 'Arabs call every place outside 'Arab (Arabia), 'Ajam, so Hindustanis call every place outside Hindustan, Khurasan. There are two trade-marts on the land-route between Hindustan and Khurasan ; one is Kabul, the other, Qandabar. To Kabul caravans come from Kashghar,2 Farghana.Turkistan, Samarkand, Bukhara, Balkh, H'?ar and Badakhshan. • To Qandahar they come from Khurasan. Kabul is an excellent trading-centre ; if merchants went to Khlta or to Rum,3 they might make no higher profit. Down to Kabul every year come 7, 8, or 10,000 horses and up to it, from Hindustan, come every year caravans of 10, 15 or 20,000 heads-of-houses, bringing slaves {barda), white cloth, sugar-candy, refined and common sugars, and aromatic roots. Many a trader is not content with a profit of 30 or 40 on io.4 In Kabul can be had the products of Khurasan, Rum, 'Iraq and Chin (China); while it is Hindustan's own market.

The country of Kabul is a fastness hard for a foreign foe tp make his way into.
The Hindu-kush mountains, which separate Kabul from Balkh, Qiinduz and Badakhshan, are crossed by seven roads.* Three of these lead out of Panjhir (Panj-sher), vis. Khawak, the uppermost, Tul, the next lower, and Bazarak.1 Of the passes on them, the one on the Tul road is the best, but the road itself is rather the longest whence, seemingly, it is called Tul. Bazarak is the most direct; like Tul, it leads over into Sar-i-ab ; as it passes through Parandl, local people call its main pass, the Parandl. Another road leads up through Parwan ; it has seven minor passes, known as Haft-bacha (Seven-younglings), between Parwan and its main pass (Baj-gah). It is joined at its main pass by two roads from Andar-ab, which go on to Parwan by it. This is a road full of difficulties. Out of Ghur-bund, again, three roads lead over. The one next to Parwan, known as the Yangl-yul pass (New-road), goes through Walian to Khinjan; next above this is the Olpchaq road, crossing to where the water of Andar-ab meets the Surkh-ab (Qlzil-su) ; this also is an excellent road ; and the third leads over the Shibr-tu pass;2 those crossing by this in the heats take their way by Bamlan and Saighan, but those crossing by it in winter, go on by Ab-dara (Water-valley).3 Shibr-tu excepted, all the Hindu-kush roads are closed for three or four months in winter,4 because no road through a valley-bottom is passable when the waters are high. If any-one thinks to cross the Hindu-kush at that time, over the mountains instead of through a valley-bottom, his journey is hard indeed. The time to cross is during the three or four autumn months when the snow is less and the waters are low. Whether on the mountains or in the valley-bottoms Kafir highwaymen are not few.
The road from Kabul into Khurasan passes through Qandahar; it is quite level, without a pass.

From the following page there is a remarkable description of Hindustan from the Babur Nama
http://www.farlang.com/diamonds/beverid ... a/page_536

[RajeshA]

Provincial geographies of India

It is this fact that gives the town of Kabul its great strategic importance. The highest of the three passes, the Kaoshan or Hindu Kush (dead Hindu), crosses the chain at an elevation of 14,340 feet. It took its own name from the fate that befell a Hindu army when attempting to cross it, and has handed it on to the whole range.

So a Hindu Army was trying to cross over through a pass "Kaoshan" at the height of 4370 meters, where it fell to the forces of nature!

As a tribute to those brave Hindu soldiers, perhaps one needs to keep the name "Hindu Kush"! One just needs to spread the word around a bit more, why it is called "Hindu Kush"!

[shiv]

Provincial geographies of India
It is this fact that gives the town of Kabul its great strategic importance. The highest of the three passes, the Kaoshan or Hindu Kush (dead Hindu), crosses the chain at an elevation of 14,340 feet. It took its own name from the fate that befell a Hindu army when attempting to cross it, and has handed it on to the whole range.

So a Hindu Army was trying to cross over through a pass "Kaoshan" at the height of 4370 meters, where it fell to the forces of nature!

As a tribute to those brave Hindu soldiers, perhaps one needs to keep the name "Hindu Kush"! One just needs to spread the word around a bit more, why it is called "Hindu Kush"!

Koenrad Elst, quoting Ibn Batuta says nothing about any Hindu army, He says:

In the bilingual Arabic-French edition Voyages d’Ibn Battûta, texte arabe accompagné d’une introduction, by C. Defremenery and Dr. B.R. Sanguinetti (1854, reprint by Editions Anthropos, Paris), on p.84, we find the Moroccan traveller’s account: “Another motive for our journey was fear of the snow, for in the middle of this route there is a mountain called Hindû Kûsh, meaning ‘Hindu-killer’, because many of the male and female slaves transported from India die in these mountains because of the violent cold and the quantity of snow.”

So there you have it. Yes, Ibn Battuta testifies that Hindu Kush means “Hindu-killer”, and he records it as an already existing name. He also testifies that the name was occasioned by a Muslim mistreatment of Hindus, viz. their massive abduction as slaves to Central Asia. In his account, the name does not refer to one particular incident of slaughter, but to the frequent phenomenon of caravans of Hindu slaves crossing the mountains range and losing part of their cargo to the frost. So, Rajesh Sinha, well on his way to becoming an “eminent historian”, is wrong. I don’t know whether he is deluded or deliberately lying, both are ailments common among his tribe.

Which version is correct?

[Airavat]

Hindu-Kush is not a modern name. It appears to have been current in the 14th Century, when Timur crossed from Andarab, "by the Pass of (the) Hindu-Kush, and the ice-bound road (or path) of Jarkaran " (Charikar ?) into the valley of the Kabul river, on his way towards India. In a 17th Century Indian Chronicle (Badshahnamah) the variant Hindu-Kuh, is to be found.

Hindu-Kush is probably a corruption of Hindi-Kash or Kesh — the boundary of Hind, i.e. India. Before the Christian era, and afterwards, there was an intimate connection between the Kabul Valley and India. All the Passes of the Hindu-Kush descend into that valley ; and travellers from the north as soon as they crossed the watershed, found a civilization and religion, the same as that
which prevailed in India. The great range was the boundary in those days and a barrier that was at times impassable.

Hindu-Kuh — the mountains of Hind — was similarly derived

From The kingdom of Afghanistan: a historical sketch

[RajeshA]

There are several theories out there.

Just thinking out loudly, it seems either the name was given to the mountain range by the Iranians or it was given by the Indo-Aryans.

If it was given by the Indo-Aryans, then it would not have been called 'Hindu' but rather 'Sindhu' and could have pertained to the Indus River. So the name could have been Indo-Aryan in origin speaking in reverence or respect about those mountains. The Indo-Aryans could have been calling it Sindhu-Kesh! We do speak of rivers which arise from the hair of our gods! If there were small streams flowing through the mountains feeding the bigger river down South, then it may make sense! Also we must keep in mind, that Indo-Aryan influence did extend much to the North, including into present-day Afghanistan. So it is thinkable that the Indo-Aryans gave the mountains its name. The Iranian name 'Hindu-Kush' may have been a variant of 'Sindhu-Kesh' for example!

The name could also have been given by the Farsi speakers. Considering that Indo-Aryans were once a dominant power in the region, the Farsi-speakers could well have considered the Indo-Aryans a threat, in which case, it made sense for them to consider the Hindu-Kush mountains as a natural defense against the Indo-Aryans. It used to kill the Hindu Armies who tried to cross-over through the high-lying mountain passes - hence 'Hindu-Kush'! Or it could also have been an attempt to demarcate the extent of India and thus calling the mountains 'Hind-Kesh' - the hair of the Hind region!

So the name could be from times before the advent of Islam!

Of course, that does not detract from the fact that the Islamics were enslaving and selling Indians!

I think, we should unilaterally simply start to call the mountain range by an Indian name like 'Sindhu-Kesh' and claim 'Hindu-Kush' to be a variation of the same! Who knows when our influence in the region who be to an extent that we could ordain a name change just like that! So should we wait till then!

[shiv]

So the name could be from times before the advent of Islam!

Of course, that does not detract from the fact that the Islamics were enslaving and selling Indians!

I think, we should unilaterally simply start to call the mountain range by an Indian name like 'Sindhu-Kesh' and claim 'Hindu-Kush' to be a variation of the same! Who knows when our influence in the region who be to an extent that we could ordain a name change just like that! So should we wait till then!

+1

Has anyone checked Chinese maps recently? The Chinese have not had any worries about labeling Arunachal Pradesh as Tibet. This is a matter of gumption, chutzpah. Not a victory, but a mere change of mindset. Cheap and there is nothing to lose.

Long ago a certain enqyoob had suggested that people should post their holiday pictures labelled "Mount Gopalankutty" all over North Arunachal Pradesh aka Tibet so it shows up in Google Earth community links. What would anyone lose if 25 of us logged into Google earth and labelled the mountain as Sindhu Kesh? Or even that ancient name Pariyatra Parvata?

[shiv]

Hindu-Kush is not a modern name. It appears to have been current in the 14th Century, when Timur crossed from Andarab, "by the Pass of (the) Hindu-Kush, and the ice-bound road (or path) of Jarkaran " (Charikar ?) into the valley of the Kabul river, on his way towards India. In a 17th Century Indian Chronicle (Badshahnamah) the variant Hindu-Kuh, is to be found.

Hindu-Kush is probably a corruption of Hindi-Kash or Kesh — the boundary of Hind, i.e. India. Before the Christian era, and afterwards, there was an intimate connection between the Kabul Valley and India. All the Passes of the Hindu-Kush descend into that valley ; and travellers from the north as soon as they crossed the watershed, found a civilization and religion, the same as that
which prevailed in India. The great range was the boundary in those days and a barrier that was at times impassable.

Hindu-Kuh — the mountains of Hind — was similarly derived

From The kingdom of Afghanistan: a historical sketch

An important pass in the mountain range has the name "Kushan pass" or "Kaoshan pass" after the Kushan dynasty n the region. If Kush does not sound like Koh, it certainly does sound like Kesh or Kaoshan.

Unfortunately, anyone who talks like this immediately gets branded as a person who is trying to hide Muslim slaughter of Hindus. I think that is tiresome.

[shiv]

Lookee what I found. Take FWIW
http://www.astroset.com/bireysel_gelisi ... nt/a35.htm

Kushan Empire

Doç. Dr. Haluk BERKMEN

In Chapter 25, From Kurgans to Pyramids the Kushite Empire was mentioned and its name meaning “bird” in Turkish was questioned. The reason being that, this word is found in languages that have been separated for very long periods of time. This word meaning “bird” is found as kus in the Sumerian language and as kutz in the Maya language (1). As no words could have been borrowed from Sumerian to Mayan or vice-versa, the only logical explanation is that Sumerian, Mayan and Turkish stem from a common root language, which is the Asiatic Proto-language.

But there is one more clue supporting the Central Asiatic origin of this word. This clue is found in the name of an Empire known as the Kushan Empire, which lasted from the first to the third centuries AD, but has a much ancient beginning. The Kushan name is clearly made out two words Kush and Han meaning “bird” and “king”, where “Han” is a late version of the “Khan” title used also for Ottoman emperors.

The bird has been an important animal for ancient cultures, symbolizing the solar deity (see Chapter 29, The bird symbolism). Below we see the territories controlled by the Kushan Empire. It extended from western China on the east, to Bactria on the west and included the Indus Valley as well as most of northern India.

In the name of the Hindu-Kush Mountains (shown on the map) we can still find the connection between Hind (ancient India) and Kush (the Kushan Empire). The Kushan Empire included important cultural centers such as Belh (Bactra), Kashgar, Kucha, Turfan and the capital city Ghandara. The northern region of the ancient Kushan Empire is defined nowadays as BMAC (see Chapter 16, The south-west expansion). This vast region has been the land of the Saka (As-Okh / Scythians), the Sarmatians, the Kushans and the Alans.

The people forming the Kushan Empire were descendents of the Central Asiatic Yueh-chi or Yuezhi tribes who were nomads traveling long distances. They even went up to the north-eastern regions of Asia for fur trading. There are numerous theories about the derivation of the name Yuezhi. My own interpretation is that these Asiatic people defined themselves as “superior”, a word pronounced as Yuedje in Turkish. This meaning is quite possible considering that the difficult phoneme “dje” -not found in Chinese- has been replaced, most probably, by the “zhi” sound, which is quite common in Chinese.

There is more to this "Hindu Kush" story than I imagined.

[shiv]

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Hindu_Kush.aspx

The system is crossed by several high-altitude passes; once used by Alexander the Great, Timur, and others in their invasions of India, they are now trade routes. The Hindu Kush were called the Caucasus Indicus by the ancient Greeks.

Indic Caucusus? Hindu Caucusus? Name sound familiar to anyone? Alexander came 2000 years ago. Ghaznavi, 1000 years ago.

[Lalmohan]

hind is a greek and arab adaptation of sindh/sindhu from what i gather
kush could well be related to kushan
hindu-kush could well have had its origins in sindhu-kushan - not an unreasonable name to denominate the boundary between the steppes and the indian heartland - which ofcourse in the frontier was centred around kabul...
batuta when hearing of the names and struggling with pronunciation might have picked up on recent stories of hindu deportations and merged the two ideas together

i also believe that hindu doesn't necesarily mean hindu, but anything from india - including muslim captives from the delhi region, etc.
we know that timur took back many captives to samarqand. similarly he is supposed to have strangled 100,000 'hindus' outside delhi whom he captured on his path down from the khyber... 1. is the number accurate? very possibly - given the large scale of timur's genocides against every one he fought against, but i continue to wonder about the logistics of strangling such a large number of people! 2. were they all specifically hindu or did timur slaughter anyone and anything in his way? we know that much of delhi would have been muslim at that time, and we know that he slaughtered many hundreds of thousands in iran, afghanistan and the ottoman empires too.

why is this relevant? simply because it reinforces the non-indic view that the paquis are as indic as the kaffirs and there is no refuge for them in the two-nation two-race theory

[shiv]

2. were they all specifically hindu or did timur slaughter anyone and anything in his way?

You are not supposed to ask this question. It means that you deny that Muslims are murderers of Hindus and you are a leftist historian.

The greatest Kushan king was Kanishka, who was a Buddha bhakta. He also made Bactrian, the court language of the empire.

Ibn Batuta, who visited the area 1000 years later picked up a Greek slave girl long before he came anywhere near Afghanistan.

These are just data points. What you want to make of them is entirely up to you.

Incidentally you might know that Gengis Khan came before Timur Lang. Genetic studies show that 1 in 200 men today are direct descendants of Gengis Khan
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/ ... ghis-khan/

In 2003 a groundbreaking historical genetics paper reported results which indicated that a substantial proportion of men in the world are direct line descendants of Genghis Khan. By direct line, I mean that they carry Y chromosomes which seem to have come down from an individual who lived approximately 1,000 years ago. As Y chromosomes are only passed from father to son, that would mean that the Y is a record of one’s patrilineage. Genghis Khan died ~750 years ago, so assuming 25 years per generation, you get about 30 men between the present and that period. In more quantitative terms, ~10% of the men who reside within the borders of the Mongol Empire as it was at the death of Genghis Khan may carry his Y chromosome, and so ~0.5% of men in the world, about 16 million individuals alive today, do so.
<snip>
To me the power and fury of the Mongol expansion, the awe and magnetism which Genghis Khan’s bloodline held for Asiatic societies in the wake of their world conquest, is attested to by the fact that descent from Genghis Khan became a mark of prestige even within Islamic societies. Timur claimed a relationship to Chagatai. His descendants in India, the Timurids, retained pride in their Genghiside heritage. In Russia among the Muslim Tatars and in Central Asia among the Uzbeks descent from Genghis Khan was a major calling card for any would-be warlord. This is peculiar in light of the fact that Genghis Khan, and his near descendants, were non-Muslims! Not only were they non-Muslims, but the Mongol assault on West Asian Muslims societies was particularly deleterious; it is generally assumed that Iran and Mesopotamia’s relatively productive irrigation system were wrecked during the Mongol conquests to the point where it took centuries for them to rebound to their previous levels of productivity. More symbolically, it was the Mongols who finally extinguished the Abbasid Caliphate.

In Muslim societies pride of place is given to Sayyids, descendants of Muhammad through his grandsons Hasan and Husain. Naturally this is often fictive, but that matters little. In fact in the Golden Horde, the northwestern region of the Mongol Empire which eventually gave rise to the Tatars who imposed the yoke on the Russians, non-Genghiside warlords produced fictive genealogies claiming descent from Muhammad as a way to negate the lineage advantage of their Genghiside rivals. But it is still shocking that there was even a question as to whether descent from Genghis Khan was more prestigious than descent from the prophet of Islam!

[RajeshA]

shiv saar,

though knowledge of the existence of the Kushan Empire was known to me, I too did not make the connection between 'Hindu Kush" and Kushan!

If indeed "Hindu Kush" comes from Kushan, then one needs to think what the combination of the two could signify!

It could mean the boundary between the Kushan and Hind at some time. Perhaps later on Kushan expanded into the Indian Subcontinent.

It could refer to the Kushans themselves who identified themselves with the Hind region as well. Their main faith was Buddhism and Shaivism, which were Hindu in origin. And the Kushan wanted to emphasize that!

It could refer to some split between Hindu Kushan and some non-Hindu Kushan!

[Murugan]

The people forming the Kushan Empire were descendents of the Central Asiatic Yueh-chi or Yuezhi tribes who were nomads traveling long distances. They even went up to the north-eastern regions of Asia for fur trading.

It is great to know the effects of Bharatvars on tribes wandering here and there for trade of fur or grazing cattles. After coming in contacts with Indics they become civilized, mint currency, become emperors and worship indian gods (Lord Shiv, - in the case of Yues Chi Kushans !!) and simultaneously worship iranian goddesses.

If one googles Yueh Chi in google images one will find occasionally mongoloid features who do not grow a centimeter thick full beard while Kushan kings portraits carved/engraved - if to be believed for its histrocity - have indic features long hairs and thick beards. But still not an issue - if they were chinese tribes what made them worship Iranian goddesses and Hindu Gods?

Looks some accounts of history of nomadic emperors are vague. Or india was indeed a Game Changer for whosoever came in contact with. Later these nomads established cultured civilized empires in India !!!

[Lalmohan]

murugan - that is very true - india absorbed all the invaders of the past and changed them into indics

[Murugan]

murugan - that is very true - india absorbed all the invaders of the past and changed them into indics

with only Two Exceptions - gore angrez and momeens

[Lalmohan]

i would argue that quite a lot of angreziness was absorbed, and in the early days the angrez were well on their way to being absorbed as individuals. when the company took over they made a conscious choice to NOT be absorbed. i dont want to get into an economics discussion here, but their economic (and power) drivers were different to that of previous invaders)

even the momeen were significantly absorbed - if it were not, then there would be no need for deoband

[Murugan]

Regarding momeens, i agree partially. But when we talk to them they link themselves with egyptians, mesopotemians and babylonians. They do not want to be identified with indic roots for unknown reasons.

[Lalmohan]

not really, i think shiv and others have outlined the reasons above

[shiv]

It could mean the boundary between the Kushan and Hind at some time. Perhaps later on Kushan expanded into the Indian Subcontinent.

It could refer to the Kushans themselves who identified themselves with the Hind region as well. Their main faith was Buddhism and Shaivism, which were Hindu in origin. And the Kushan wanted to emphasize that!

It could refer to some split between Hindu Kushan and some non-Hindu Kushan!

The Khushan empire was the one empire that extended across the Hindu-Kush mountains - all the way from China to the Ganga plain in Northern India. If we start quibbling over whether "koh" does or does not sound like "kush", then we have a whole boatload of quibbles about whether Kushan and Kush have any similarities, and whether kesh and kush do or do not sound similar, or whether kush may or may not be a corruption of Caucasus.

What seems clear to me is that that mountain range has been known from 1000 years or more before Mahomet. Insisting that its name comes form Mahomet's followers is moot.

[Lalmohan]

hind koh refers to a separate region now within pakistan anda language similar to pashtun

[shiv]

hind koh refers to a separate region now within pakistan anda language similar to pashtun

I think you are speaking of Hindko, the language . But the word for mountain in Afghanistan is "koh" as in Ras el koh. Mountain names in Afghanistan are a koh-llection of kohs.

Hindu Kush is our backyard. There was a Hindu king there before the Moslems came in. But excuse me - I am suddenly getting a bevy of SMSes and emails from Angelina Jolie who is deeply in love with me.

On the subject of bulshitting, I am fed up with the stories about Afghans never having been beaten or ruled. Like I said, Afghanistan had Hindu and Buddha-bhakta/Bodhi dharma rulers. Then Muslims. Then Ranjit Singh. Then Brits. Then Soviets, Then Taliban and now USA. So what was that again about Angelina Jolie er Afghanistan not having been ruled by any outsiders? Macaulay's gosht.

[parsuram]

Batuta time? It is DeJa vu all over again for me. Seems I followed this guy's fancy travel fairy tales just yesterday, but it was - oh about 20-22 years ago, and having the curiosity about this Islamic "historian" in our history books, I spent fair bit of time reading his fancy fiction. Sindbad is better. All I can say that if you persist enough in trying to get corroboration, you will be disappointed. i did not keep any of the material, so it will be useful to dig it up again, I guess. But for what it is worth, my opinion is that it isn’t worth much. Anyone notice how he got all those gazillion gifts on a "junk" Chinese boat? Oh, and before that, as he had just "escaped with his life because the horrible Hindus did not so much as give him a bit of water to drink - and then, lo and behold - a MUSLIM appeared who did all the nice civilized things. Even found a whole Mussalman village! Now don’t we grow up being taught that the unexpected guest is God himself? And the Hindus did not give him water? Oh there are lots and lots of such innuendos and malicious little comments, placed deliberately so people will draw a very ugly picture of Hindu society. This guy was one mean piece of works.

[Sanku]

very possibly - given the large scale of timur's genocides against every one he fought against, but i continue to wonder about the logistics of strangling such a large number of people! 2. were they all specifically hindu or did timur slaughter anyone and anything in his way? we know that much of delhi would have been muslim at that time, and we know that he slaughtered many hundreds of thousands in iran, afghanistan and the ottoman empires too.

Apparently there are written records clearly stating that Timur made a special effort to slaughter Hindus.

Not that he did not or would not kill Muslims. But clearly there was special love for Hindus.

Muslims get targeted only for not being pure enough AFTER all the Hindus are gone, and the population is sufficiently Islamicied that less than pure muslims can be identified.

Therefore for Muslim genocide on Muslims for purity

1) All Kaffirs must be already flushed out.
2) The society must be already sufficiently Islamlized that the concepts of pure Islam vs Impure islam are present in the populace and understood.

[Lalmohan]

writing in those days was sponsored work - lifafa authorism, so writers wrote to please their paymasters
batuta would have been sucking up to emirs and sheikhs, so there would be an obvious slant to his writings regardless of reality

i don't dispute the chinese ship claim, the chinese did have large ocean going fleets before the mings overthrew the yuan and shut off china from the maritime world

[ArmenT]

On the subject of bulshitting, I am fed up with the stories about Afghans never having been beaten or ruled. Like I said, Afghanistan had Hindu and Buddha-bhakta/Bodhi dharma rulers. Then Muslims. Then Ranjit Singh. Then Brits. Then Soviets, Then Taliban and now USA. So what was that again about Angelina Jolie er Afghanistan not having been ruled by any outsiders? Macaulay's gosht.

You omitted to mention the Mongols and Iranians.

[Sanku]

writing in those days was sponsored work - lifafa authorism,

Lovely. Open and shut. So simple.

Hum nahi manenge kya kar loge (I dont believe what will you do)

Well the written proof as per Timur and many other historians says that what Shiv and you are saying is not correct. Of course you guys know what happened in Timur's time better than all the writers of Timur and others so who am I to say.

[parsuram]

shiv ji: namaskaar. I have a bit of paper I want to post here. I cut and pasted a part of a book (table) into a ms word doc page. It is a beedi mussalman documenting the horrors visited upon the gallant mujahdeen and jehaadis of Arakan region of Burma by the evil military dictator of that kafir country (time frame 1970s-1989). And according to mussalman edicts, the horror is tabulated in number of men killed and number of women raped. How can I paste that material (I have it as a jpeg and also a bitmap file) here in a post. Just to illustrate the mussalman's line of thinking (killed+raped stats). Thanks.

PS I can provide url for the book - amazon - oh, and the entire book (informative) is available to read on line (scanned, says "author copy").

[KLNMurthy]

Where does one see any systematic oppression of Muslims by other Muslims from that bygone era?!

Ah OK. So Muslims don't kill Muslims then. Or they started doing that only recently. That is what you are implying.

That is too broad and specious. We just need to acknowledge that when it comes to being the target of muslim atrocities, being a muslim puts one in a different category versus Hindus.

[shiv]

Ah OK. So Muslims don't kill Muslims then. Or they started doing that only recently. That is what you are implying.

That is too broad and specious. We just need to acknowledge that when it comes to being the target of muslim atrocities, being a muslim pots one in a different category versus Hindus.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to try and say something that I have been trying to put across for some time with almost zero success.

You see, what you say is dead right. The story we all love to believe is that Muslims are given special treatment by other Muslims.

Who likes to believe this story? We do. So do Muslims. So it makes everyone happy. We stand in the blue corner while they stand in the red corner. Al iz vel. No one, bar no one has tried to step outside this comfortable box. We agree that Muslims favor Muslims. Muslims agree that Muslims favor Muslims.

But is this true? Is it true that Islam really makes Muslims so loyal to each other that they favor each other. Is the magic of islam really true? The brotherhood and loyalty of islam where Muslims kill Kafirs and not Muslims? Is it true? According to our favorite position on this topic, yes it is true. Islam is great indeed as is Allah. We agree and admit that Muslims favor Muslims, and Muslims agree with us on that count.

But sir Isn't that a whole lot of crock? Haven't we spent thousands of posts on BRF dissecting the way islam causes one man/group to dominate over others, using any schsim he can to kill fellow kafirs, opponents and Muslims alike? Muslim son kills father. Uncle kills nephew. Shia kills sunni. Sunni kills Ahmedi. Isn't that what we observe throughout out the Islamic world and islamic history? Where does all this gyan and analysis go? What on earth do we even discuss all that here for if we dismiss it in a trice? It is all Maya. We have already agreed that Islam is good. It works as advertised. Muslims favor Muslims. And Muslims agree with that.

I am asking you. is islam really as good as you make it out to be? It it really working as advertised - as you claim it to be when I argue that it is not? I say it is not. And there is no way that you can show that Islam is not as good and effective as you advertise it to be unless you are willing to admit that the buggers have no hesitation in killing each other.

Sorry OT.

[harbans]

We've heard this and that too from Muslims too many times: 'Oh see, they are even killing Muslims'; 'Oh see they don't even discriminate if one is a Muslim' etc. We hear it in Sudan, in BD, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, in Libya everywhere. When Timur slaughtered the citizens of Delhi, he spelt it out for resident Muslims..if you don't kill Hindu's my soldiers kill you. (Something to that effect). What is not surprising is the more pious killing the less. What is that the less pious are surprised by that.

[Sanku]

You see, what you say is dead right. The story we all love to believe is that Muslims are given special treatment by other Muslims.

Who likes to believe this story?

Shiv, the need is to move from "believe" to "know".

So does there documented evidence of many past events which can bear the above statement out on way or the other?

Yes there is. Including in Bangladesh -- the primary attacks were on Hindu population. Only a very small section of politically active Muslims were targeted.

A Hindu will be attacked by Islamist just because he is there, his being Hindu is reason enough. For a Muslim, an attack by an Islamist will need more reasons, and will start only after the Hindus (or other Kaffirs) have been expelled.

Its quite as simple -- in the period discussed here, there were enough Kaffirs around to not treat Shia's Ahemdiyyas etc are Wajib-ul-quatl.

These green-on-green start ONLY after there are no Green-on-<any other color>.

So in the period that we are talking about, clearly the theory of selective and differential approach holds -- at a macro level of course.

[Sanku]

Oh and I believe you have said exactly the same as above some where before, in one your many expositions and experiments.