DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15173#0157
CHAP. V.
AFGHANS.
139
is the costume exact, but in some of the figures, to
their great delight, they discovered likenesses.
Pictures are forbidden among the Soonee Mahom-
medans; but in the present instance they proved
very acceptable. Among the Nawab's friends we
met a man 114 years old, who had served with
Nadir Shah. He had been upwards of eighty years
in Cabool, and seen the Dooranee dynasty founded
and pass away. This venerable person walked up
stairs to our rooms.
From the crowd of people which we constantly
met at the house of our host, I was resolved on ga-
thering some information on the much disputed
point of the Afghans being Jews. They brought
me all their histories; but I had no time to examine
them, and wished for oral information. The Afghans
call themselves " Bin i Israeel," or children of
Israel; but consider the term of " Yahoodee," or
Jew, to be one of reproach. They say that Nebu-
chadnezzar, after the overthrow of the temple of
Jerusalem, transplanted them to the town of Chore,
near Bameean ; and that they are called Afghans,
from their chief Afghana, who was a son of the
uncle of Asof (the vizier of Solomon), who was the
son of Berkia. The genealogy of this person is
traced from a collateral branch, on account of the
obscurity of his own parent; which is by no means
uncommon in the East. They say that they lived
as Jews, till Khaleed (called by the title of Caliph)
summoned them, in the first century of Mahommed-
anism, to assist in the wars with the infidels: For
their services on that occasion, Kyse, their leader,
AFGHANS.
139
is the costume exact, but in some of the figures, to
their great delight, they discovered likenesses.
Pictures are forbidden among the Soonee Mahom-
medans; but in the present instance they proved
very acceptable. Among the Nawab's friends we
met a man 114 years old, who had served with
Nadir Shah. He had been upwards of eighty years
in Cabool, and seen the Dooranee dynasty founded
and pass away. This venerable person walked up
stairs to our rooms.
From the crowd of people which we constantly
met at the house of our host, I was resolved on ga-
thering some information on the much disputed
point of the Afghans being Jews. They brought
me all their histories; but I had no time to examine
them, and wished for oral information. The Afghans
call themselves " Bin i Israeel," or children of
Israel; but consider the term of " Yahoodee," or
Jew, to be one of reproach. They say that Nebu-
chadnezzar, after the overthrow of the temple of
Jerusalem, transplanted them to the town of Chore,
near Bameean ; and that they are called Afghans,
from their chief Afghana, who was a son of the
uncle of Asof (the vizier of Solomon), who was the
son of Berkia. The genealogy of this person is
traced from a collateral branch, on account of the
obscurity of his own parent; which is by no means
uncommon in the East. They say that they lived
as Jews, till Khaleed (called by the title of Caliph)
summoned them, in the first century of Mahommed-
anism, to assist in the wars with the infidels: For
their services on that occasion, Kyse, their leader,