Bangash

Daniel Balland

Encyclopaedia Iranica

BANGASH, one of the least-known Pashtun tribes in the Solayman range, Pakistan, and one of the few that are not named after eponymous ancestors. The origin of the name is obscure since, as Raverty (p. 387) pointed out, the folk etymology from bon-has (Persian for "root-drawer") is not acceptable.

The tribe is a combination of lineages from various origins. Evidence of this comes from both the lineage names (e.g., Laghmani and Jamshedi) and the mythical descent of the tribe from a man named Esmail, who moved from Persia to the Solayman mountains but whose eleventh-generation ancestor was the famous Arab general Khaled bin Walid and whose wife was a Formoli (a local Iranian ethnic group; S.M. Khan, pp. 311f.). At this point, nothing-apart from distant kinship through the same Arab ancestor relates the Bangash to the Pashtun genealogical megastructure, wherein they are nowadays incorporated through the Karlani branch, which comprises several Solaymani tribes that have been genealogically adopted and more or less culturally pashtunized. This incorporation, which is never clearly formulated in terms of affiliation or even of adoption, may have originated in a military alliance between the Bangash and Khattak in the 9th/15th century.

The tribe is formed around two fractions Gar(i) and Samel(zi), whose names supposedly derive from those of Ismail's two sons. Interestingly, Gar and Samel also designate the two rival political leagues between which the Solaymani tribes have been traditionally divided. Following Muhammad Hayat Khan (p. 297), some authors have concluded that this pan-Pashtun political cleavage first took place among the Bangash and then gradually passed among neighbouring tribes. According to another hypothesis (Bellew, p. 106), the Bangash's genealogy metaphorically transposes a long-standing political (or other) duality that existed before the tribe was formed. In any case, the decomposition of traditional political structures since, at least, the last century has generated much discordance between the genealogical status of lineages and their declared political affiliations (see Table).

The Bangash also stand out among the Pashtun because the majority are Shiite and a minority Sunni. It has often been said (e.g., Caroe, pp. 202ff.) that Shi'ism among the Pashtun - in fact only among the Bangash, the Turi, and a small part of the Orakzi is but the modern avatar of religious dissent going back to the Roshani heresy. As regards the Bangash, Bellew (p. 105) has suggested that the tribe, given the name of its putative ancestor, might have formed around the preaching of Ismaili missionaries. Surprisingly, the details of Bangash myths fit in with this hypothesis in ways that had not previously been suspected. Before settling in the Solayman range, Ismail, it is said, abode in Multan, a town over which he was appointed governor (Gazetteer, p. 30). Using his genealogy to make a quick calculation, this event can be placed in the 4th/10th century (and not in the 7th/ 13th as indicated in the Gazetteer), in other words, during the very period when Multan was the centre of a short-lived Ismaili state. The ultimate episode in the myth, which has to do with Ismail's arrival in the Solayman mountains (specifically in the Gardiz region which was then an active center of the Kharijite movement), is historically grounded in the religious persecution that followed the Multan takeover by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (on three successive occasions during 396-401/1006-10; A. N. Khan, pp. 44ff.). All evidence leads to considering Ismail to be a metaphor for a small Ismaili community and to seeking for the origins of Shi'ism among the Pashtun in the Ismaili da`wa activities in Khorasan during the early centuries of the emergence of the sect. This conclusion is reinforced by Raverty's remark (p. 389) that the Pashtun Shiites recognize the Agha Khan's authority.

The ethnogenesis of the Bangash, therefore, seems both to be religious and to be located in the Gardiz region during the Ghaznavid period. The myth has transposed these origins in terms of Ismail's marriage with a woman from Formol (= Organ), a district just south of Gardiz. Later on the Bangash, who were then expelled from their mountain den by the Ghelzi during Timor's invasions, crossed the Paywar pass and progressively moved into the upper Korram basin on the eastern slopes of the Solayman mountains. There they met the hostility of the Orakzi who were eventually, owing to the Bangash's tactical alliance with the Khattak who were moving into the same area, pushed back into the Safidkuh (Spinghar) foothills. The Bangash could then occupy the whole area that, just south of the Safidkuh, was called the Bangash district in the 10th/16th century (Beveridge, p. 220), whence the name. Even today, they are mainly settled along the major route between Afghanistan and India that passes through the Miranzay and Kohat valleys. Though forced to cede most of the upper Korram valley to the Turi in the 12th/18th century, the Bangash still have a few isolated villages there, in particular Shalozan which, near the Afghanistan border, is the westernmost point that they still inhabit.

The Bangash Tribe
Main Bangash Lineages	Genealogical Descent	Political Affilliation	Religion
Baizai	Gar	Gar	Sunni
Miranzai	Gas	Gas + Samel Minority	Sunni + Shiite
Samelzi	Samel	Gar + Samel Minority	Shiite + Sunni minority

Like the other tribes in the Solayman range, the Bangash have provided mercenaries to India during the Mughal and British periods. In the early 14th/20th century, about 1,500 Bangash were serving in the Indian army and militias (Ridgway, pp.76f.). In 1125/1713, one of these mercenaries, a member of the Samelzay lineage, managed to be granted an important principality in the Gangetic Doab and founded the dynasty of the nawabs of Farrokhabad, from the name of the capital he built there (Irvine, 1878, pp. 259-383; 1879, pp. 49-170; Rashid, I, pp. 272ff.). The last Bangash nawab was exiled to Mecca in 1859 because of his involvement in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 (Raverty, p.387 n.).

The number of Bangash in the Northwest Frontier Province was estimated at 7,925 men in the 1901 census (Ridgway). Although they apparently used to lead a semi-nomadic life (Gazetteer, p. 31), they are now settled farmers (Dichter, p. 125). In the late 13th/19th century, there were still indications that wesh (the periodic redistribution of land) was practiced (Gazetteer, pp. 85ff.). The Bangash have a few matrimonial customs peculiar to themselves with, it seems, traces of matri-locality (Rose, II, pp. 58ff.).

Bibliography:

There is no monograph about the Bangash. More general sources about the Pashtun tribes must be consulted even though they mostly repeat each other without adding much information. Only those providing original information are cited here. The most detailed accounts of the tribe's lineage structure are found in S.M. Khan and M.H. Khan; the latter, however contains errors in transcriptions. The fullest reports about the geographical distribution of lineages and sub lineages are given in Ridgway and Frontier.

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2. D. BALLAND, Du mythe a l'histoire: aux origines du chiisme chez les Pashtun, (forthcoming).
3. H. W. BELLEW, An Inquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, Woking, 1891, repr. Graz, 1973.
4. O. CAROE, The Pathans, London, 1958.
5. D. DICHTER, The North-West Frontier of West Pakistan: A Study in Regional Geography, Oxford, 1967.
6. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions from India, Calcutta, 1908, repr., Quetta, 1979, II, pp. 310ff.
7. Gazetteer of the Kohat District 1883-4, Calcutta, n.d.
8. W. IRVINE, The Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad, a Chronicle (1713-1857), Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 47/1, 1878; 48/1, 1879.
9. A. N. KHAN, Multan, History and Architecture, Islamabad, 1403/1983.
10. M.H. KHAN, Hayat-e Afghan, tr. H. PRIESTLEY, Afghanistan and Its Inhabitants, Lahore, 1874, repr. Lahore, 1981.
11. S.M. KHAN, Tawarikh-e khorshid-e jahan, Lahore, 1311/1894.
12. S. A. RASHID, History of the Muslims of Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent, Lahore, 1978.
13. H. G. RAVERTY, Notes on Afghanistan and Part of Baluchistan, London, 1880-88, repr. Lahore, 1976.
14. R. T. I. RIDGWAY, Pathans, Calcutta, 1910.
15. H. A. ROSE, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, Lahore, 1919, repr. Lahore, 1978.