Afghanistan's history, internal political development, foreign relations, and very existence as an independent state, have largely been determined by its geographic location at the crossroads of Central, West, and South Asia. Over the centuries, waves of migrating peoples passed through the region—described by historian Arnold Toynbee as a "roundabout of the ancient world"--leaving behind a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups. In modern times, as well as in antiquity, vast armies of the world passed through this region of Asia, temporarily establishing local control and often dominating.
Invariably, most of Afghanistan's history was spent as part of the larger events that took place upon the Iranian plateau as a whole. The Aryan people who arrived in Afghanistan left their languages, (Pashto, Persian, etc.) and culture as a legacy.
It is perhaps not surprising that it is the Middle Eastern influence (Persian and Arab invasions) that has defined modern Afghanistan, while its Greek, Central Asian nomadic, and Zoroastrian/Pagan/Hindu/Buddhist past have long since vanished. Although it was the scene of great empires and flourishing trade for over two millennia, the area's heterogeneous groups, with Turkic groups predominant in the extreme northwest and showing some connection to the mixed Hazaraz of the central regions, were not bound into a single political entity until the reign of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who in 1747 founded the monarchy that ruled the country until 1973. In the nineteenth century, Afghanistan lay between the expanding might of the Russian and British empires.
In 1900, Abdur Rahman Khan (the "Iron Amir"), after twenty years of rule, looked at the events of the past century and wondered how his country, which stood "like a Lion between these Hypocrites (Britain and Tsarist Russia) or a King between two Hypocrite ministers stand in the midway of the stones without being ground to dust.
Islam played perhaps the key role in the formation of Afghanistan's society. Despite the early thirteenth century Mongol invasion of what is today Afghanistan which has been described as resembling "more some brute cataclysm of the blind forces of nature than a phenomenon of human history," even a warrior as formidable as Genghiz Khan did not uproot Islamic civilization; within two generations, his heirs had become Muslims. Later, native Afghan empire builders such as the Ghorids, would continue to make Afghanistan a major medieval power as well as a center of learning that produced Ferdowsi, and Al-Beruni among countless other academics and literary iconic figures.
Geography of Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a landlocated nation in South- Central country. Strategically located at the crossroads of major north-south and east-west trade routes, it has attracted a succession of invaders ranging from Alexander the Great, in the fourth century B.C., to the in the Soviet Union twentieth century A.D.
The Hindo Kush mountains, running northeast to southwest across the country, divide it into three major regions: 1) the Central Highlands, which form part of the Himalyan mountins and account for roughly two thirds of the country’s area; 2) the Southwestern Plateau, which accounts for one-fourth of the land; and 3) the smaller Northern Plains area, which contains the country’s most fertile soil.
Land elevations generally slope from northeast to southwest, following the general shape of the Hindu Kush massif, from its highest point in the Pamir mountins near the Chinese border to the lower elevations near the border with Iran. To the north, west, and southwest there are no mountain barriers to neighboring countries. The northern plains pass almost imperceptibly into the plains of Turkmenistan. In the west and southwest, the plateaus and deserts merge into those of Iran.
The greater part of the northern border and a small section of the border with Pakistan are marked by rivers; the remaining boundary lines are political rather than natural. The northern frontier extends approximately 1,689 km southwestward, from the Pamir Mountains in the northeast to a region of hills and deserts in the west, at the border with Iran. The border with Iran runs generally southward from the Harirud river across swamp and desert regions before reaching the northwestern tip of Pakistan. Its southern section crosses the Helmand river.
Afghanistan is located on the Eurasion Tectonic Plate. The Vakhan corridor and the rest of northeastern Afghanistan, including Kabul, are situated in a geologically active area. Over a dozen earthquakes occurred there during the twentieth century.
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