The Malakand Expedition 1896-1897

From 1896-97 there was a civil war in Chitral, India, that a British expedition suppressed.

The Kafir of Chitral are an exceptionally interesting people. Their name means "Infidel" or "Non-Muslim" and seems to have been used since the 11th century. Traditionally, they are divided into two groups--the kalasha ("black") Kafir of Chitral and the kati ("red") Kafir of Nurestan. In the past, the Kafir inhabited a much larger area of the Hindu Kush. The Kafir of Nurestan were forcibly converted to Islam in 1896.

The Nuristani also called NURI, KAFFIR, OR KAFIR (Arabic: Infidel) are a people of the Hindu Kush mountain area of Afghanistan and the Chitral area of Pakistan. Their territory, formerly called Kafiristan, was renamed Nuristan, "Land of Light" or "Enlightenment," when they became Muslims at the turn of the 20th century. The territory now forms the northern part of the Afghan province of Nangarhar and has a population of about 65,000. Only about 3,000 live in Pakistan.

Their language, Kafiri (or Nuristani), belongs to the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. They are nominally Sunni Muslims but continue in many of their traditional ways dating from before their conquest by the Afghans in 1895.

References

How to Stop a War; Hindu Kush; Nuristani; Churchill, The Malakand Field Force.

Category

TBD

Region

TBD

State(s)

TBD

Belligerents

TBD

Dispute

TBD

Initiation Date

TBD

Termination Date

TBD

Duration

TBD

Outcome

TBD

Fatalities

TBD

Magnitude

TBD