Hazara History

The Hazara Mongols of Afghanistan represent one of the last surviving Mongol remnants in western Asia of the Vast empire which was conquered by the armies of Chinggis Khan in the early thirteenthcentury and consolidated by his descendants. The Mongol origin ofthe Hazaras is attested by their high cheekbones and sparse beards, which readily distinguish them from Afghan and Iranian neighbors. The name "Hazara"is derived from the Persian word hazara, meaning "thousand," which came to be applied in the western Mongol empire to the military unit which the earlier Mongols called ming or minggan, "thousand". Contrary to the tradition often reported in modern publications, there is no evidence that Chinggis Khan left garrisons south of the Oxus when he returned to Mongolia in A.D 1227. A study of historical records indicates that the Hazaras are descended from Mongols who entered what is now the Hazarajat in central Afghanistan at various times between A.D. 1229 and 1447. In 1229 a Mongol army was is patched to the west, of which a part was stationed in the region of Ghazni until 1241. In 1256 a grandson of Chinggis Khan, Hulagu (Hulegu), marched west against the muslim caliphs of Baghdad, and his descendants, the Ilkhans, ruled Iran for nearly a hundred years. On more than one occasion troops stationed in northeastern Iran revolted against the Ilkhans, and it is possible that some of these rebels sought refuge in the central mountains of Afghanistan, where they could more easily avoid punitive expeditions.

The largest number of ancestral Hazaras, however, seem to have come from Transoxiana, the appanage north of the Oxus which Chinggis Khan left to his son Chagatai. During the latter part of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries chagtaian armies swept repeatedly across the Hindu Kush and into India. Although they were unsuccessful in establishing a foothold in India, the Chagataian did gain control of the route to the Indus and, by the last decade of the thirteenth century, claimed as an appanage of Transoxiana the region, which includes the present Hazarajat. Later this territory came under the nominal control of the Ilkhans of Iran, but it was assigned by them to generals of Chagataian origin. Following the fall of the Ilkhanate in AD 1337, there is a hiatus in the historical records, but it would appear that the Chagataians remained as permanent residents in the area between Kandahar, Ghazni, Kabul, and the Hindu Kush and became the chief ancestors of the Hazaras.
In AD 1380 another Chagataian, Timur, invaded Iran and laid claim to the provinces of Kandahar, Ghazni, and Kabul. Under his son and successor, Shah Rukh, troops and administrative officials were sent into the area, and it is probable that some of them remained when the Timurids returned north of the Oxus to Samarkand on the death of Shah Rukh in AD 1447. By the time another Timurid, Babur, invaded Afghanistan at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Hazaras were a distinct people, dwelling in approximately their present habitat.

The modern Hazara Mongols have no tradition of descent from Chinggis Khan or from any of his family or followers. Indeed, the name of Chinggis Khan appears to be unknown to them except for a few individuals who have been told of the great Mongol conqueror by Europeans.