The Qizilbash population of
Istalif
Istalif.―Town in the Kabul province
of Afghanistan, situated in 34° 59/ N. and 69° 5’ E., 20 miles north-north-west
of Kabul city. The population, including that of seven villages depending on
it, comprises from 15,000 to 18,000 souls. The inhabitants are Tajiks,
Ghilzais, Kizilbashis, and about fifty families of Sikh shopkeepers. The Tajiks
of Istalif, contrary to the usual habits of these people, are among the most
turbulent in the country. They have the reputation also of being the best
foot-soldiers in Afghanistan, and are a healthy and handsome race, fond of
sport and war.
The
place is singularly picturesque and beautiful. It is built on the side of the
hills in the form of a pyramid, the houses rising one above the other in
terraces, the whole being crowned by magnificent chinars (planes) which surround the shrine of Hazrat Eshan, while
far below, in a deep glen, a foaming brook rushes over a bed of rocky boulders,
on both sides of which the valley is covered with the richest orchards and
vineyards. ‘The people of the country have a proverb that he who not seen
Istalif has seen nothing; and certainly it may be allowed that he who has seen
Istalif is not likely to see many places to surpass it, and few to equal it1.’
Nearly every householder has his garden or orchard, to which the families
repair in the fruit season, closing their houses in the town. A great part of
the population is of the weaver class, and quantities of coarse cloths are
manufactured, a trade in which is maintained with Turkistan.
Istalif
was destroyed in September, 1842, by a force under General McCaskill, on
account of its having harboured several chiefs implicated in the murder of Sir
A. Burnes at Kabul and in the massacre of the garrison of Charikar.
1 Masson, Narrative
of Journeys in Baluchistan, Afghanistan, &c.
Imperial Gazetteer of India. Afghanistan and Nepal
(1908)
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