Editing Pashtuns (section)

=== Hephthalite origin ===

According to some accounts the [[Ghilji]] tribe has been connected to the [[Khalaj people]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Minorsky|first=V.|title=The Khalaj West of the Oxus|url=http://www.khyber.org/articles/2005/TheKhalajWestoftheOxus.shtml|journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London|volume=10|issue=2|pages=417–437|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00087607|s2cid=162589866|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613145756/http://www.khyber.org/articles/2005/TheKhalajWestoftheOxus.shtml|archive-date=13 June 2011|url-status=usurped|quote="The fact is that the important Ghilzai tribe occupies now the region round Ghazni, where the Khalaj used to live and that historical data all point, to the transformation of the Turkish Khalaj into Afghan Ghilzai."}}</ref> Following [[al-Khwarizmi]], [[Josef Markwart]] claimed the Khalaj to be remnants of the [[Hephthalite]] confederacy.<ref name="iri1">"[http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/khalaj-i-tribe-turkistan ḴALAJ i. TRIBE]" – ''[[Encyclopaedia Iranica]], 15 December 2010 (Pierre Oberling)''</ref> The Hephthalites may have been Indo-Iranian,<ref name="iri1" /> although the view that they were of [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] [[Tiele people|Gaoju]] origin{{sfn|de la Vaissière|2003|pp=119–137}} "seems to be most prominent at present".<ref>{{harvnb|Rezakhani|2017|p=135}}. "The suggestion that the Hephthalites were originally of Turkic origin and only later adopted Bactrian as their administrative, and possibly native, language (de la Vaissière 2007: 122) seems to be most prominent at present."</ref> The Khalaj may originally have been Turkic-speaking and only federated with Iranian Pashto-speaking tribes in medieval times.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://iranicaonline.org/|title=Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica|first=Encyclopaedia Iranica|last=Foundation|website=iranicaonline.org}}</ref>

However, according to linguist [[Nicholas Sims-Williams|Sims-Williams]], archaeological documents do not support the suggestion that the Khalaj were the successors of the Hephthalites,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bonasli|first=Sonel|year=2016|title=The Khalaj and their language|journal=Endangered Turkic Languages II A|location=Aralık|pages=273–275}}</ref> while according to historian [[Vladimir Minorsky|V. Minorsky]], the Khalaj were "perhaps only politically associated with the Hephthalites."<ref>{{cite web|last=Minorsky|first=V.|title=The Khalaj West of the Oxus [excerpts from "The Turkish Dialect of the Khalaj", Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol 10, No 2, pp 417–437]|url=http://www.khyber.org/articles/2005/TheKhalajWestoftheOxus.shtml|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613145756/http://www.khyber.org/articles/2005/TheKhalajWestoftheOxus.shtml|archive-date=13 June 2011|access-date=10 January 2007|website=Khyber.ORG}}</ref>

According to [[Georg Morgenstierne]], the [[Durrani]] tribe who were known as the "Abdali" before the formation of the [[Durrani Empire]] 1747,<ref>{{cite book|last=Runion|first=Meredith L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EY6NDgAAQBAJ&q=sadozai+or+durrani&pg=PR24|title=The History of Afghanistan, 2nd Edition|date=24 April 2017|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9781610697781}}</ref> might be connected to with the [[Hephthalites]];<ref>{{cite journal|last=Morgenstierne|first=Georg|year=1979|title=The Linguistic Stratification of Afghanistan|journal=Afghan Studies|volume=2|pages=23–33}}</ref> [[Aydogdy Kurbanov]] endorses this view who proposes that after the collapse of the Hephthalite confederacy, Hephthalite likely assimilated into different local populations.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kurbano|first=Aydogdy|title=THE HEPHTHALITES: ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS|url=https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/bitstream/handle/fub188/8366/01_Text.pdf|url-status=live|journal=Department of History and Cultural Studies of the Free University, Berlin|type=PhD Thesis|pages=242|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/bitstream/handle/fub188/8366/01_Text.pdf|archive-date=9 October 2022|quote="The Hephthalites may also have participated in the origin of the Afghans. The Afghan tribe Abdal is one of the big tribes that has lived there for centuries. Renaming the Abdals to Durrani occurred in 1747, when descendants from the Sadozai branch Zirak of this tribe, Ahmad-khan Abdali, became the shah of Afghanistan. In 1747 the tribe changed its name to "Durrani" when Ahmad khan became the first king of Afghanistan and accepted the title "Dur-i-Duran" (the pearl of pearls, from Arabian: "durr" – pearl). "}}</ref>

According to [[The Cambridge History of Iran]] volume 3, Issue 1, the [[Ghilji]] tribe of Afghanistan are the descendants of Hephthalites.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fisher|first1=William Bayne|last2=Yarshater|first2=Ehsan|title=The Cambridge History of Iran|date=1968|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-20092-9|page=216|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko_RafMSGLkC&dq=the+cambridge+history+of+iran+pashtun+hephthalites&pg=PA216}}</ref>