ADVENTURES
IN
AFGHANISTAN
Afghans, to generations of the British military, were people who refused to join the Empire, backing up their arguments with what ever weapons they could get .
They were ruled by wily monarchs, some of them, from time to time, suspected of planning to let the Russians in, on their way to conquer India .
To the Arabs , Afghans were the people who defied victorious Islam-the superpower of the Middle Ages-for a hundred years . Subsequently Afghanistan became the homeland of Jamaluddin Afghan, the pioneer of the Middle Eastern freedom struggle against the Turks, British, French, Italians, Spanish and others .
Afghanistan, to the Hindus, is both the land from which their ancestors came, and the highway through which conquering Islam attacked, again and again .
To the Zoroastrians, Balkh in Afghanistan is the birthplace of Zoroaster . For the priests of ancient Egypt, it was the place where the magical stone Lapis Lazuli came from .
The Jews reached China from here, Marco Polo crossed its passes-the list is endless . The Afghans are descended from the armies of Alexander the Great, from the original Aryan Race, from the progenitors of the Hindus . It was in the this region that Indian Vedas were composed ; were Buddhism had its greatest flowering .
In the country's history figure Moslems, Christians, Jews and fire-worshippers, as well as people of various pagan beliefs . Its mountains contain miraculous waters, herbs and stones . Egyptian Pharaohs built pyramids in imitation of the Hindu Kush mountains, trying to reproduce certain magical effects said to occur here .
The Afghans, again according to their own traditions are the original Beni Isra'il the Lost Tribes . In the nineteen-thirties, the Nazis sent a special mission themselves of their secrets notably how to conquer the world .
And I have only just started to amass my information, or legends………………….
But Afghanistan and the Afghans are mysterious .
Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamerlang fought great battles here, opening up paths to greater conquests .
The Moguls started off from Kabul on their conquest of India .
The Afghans themselves created dynasties by the dozen, as they swept through India, or Iran .
In science and culture, the glorious cities of Heart, Balkh and Ghazni produced, for centuries, men of learning second to none, buildings considered wonders of the world .
Afghan luminaries included those who stood behind the throne of the Caliphs of Baghdad, the mighty Barmecides ; wrote the first books on algebra ; pioneered research in medicine, philosophy and astronomy . Jabir , the father of Western Chemistry, lived here-and wrote more than a hundred works on the subject .
The ancient route form china to the Eastern Mediterranean civilizations ran through this land ; and people traversed it even long before Islam commanded ' Seek ye knowledge ' even as far as china.
It is therefore not surprising that both legend and recorded fact should speak of a concentration of knowledge and experience of a high order . Naturally, given the role of rumor and distortion in ancient societies, there has always been, in Asia, an emphasis upon the miraculous .
The Pharaohs, for instance, not only produced imitation snowcapped mountains, in their pyramids covered with white marble ; they collected the deep-blue lapis lazuli, the Afghans gemstone, from the land where, for them, the sun, their symbol of the Creator, rose every morning .
MAY GOD BLESS AFGHANISTAN AND BESTOW PEACE ON ITS PEOPLE .
Aimal Faizi Afghan