Zabulistan - History of Zabulistan

History of Zabulistan

Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty in the 16th century, records in Baburnama that Ghazni is also known as Zabulistan. The name possibly covered a larger area in the past, as evident by the existence of a province in Afghanistan called Zabul at the foot of the Hindu Kush. According to Persian mythology, Zabulistan was the country of Iranic hero Rostam. In Shahnameh, Zabulistan and Sistan are used interchangeably.

In ancient times, Zabulistan was part of the setrapy known as Arachosia. It was under the control of the Median Empire before 550 BCE, after which the province fell to the Achaemenid Persians. Alexander the Great invaded Zabulistan during his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in the 330 BCE. The region later became part of the Seleucid Empire, which was given to the Mauryan Empire in 305 BCE as part of a treaty. The Sunga Dynasty overthrew the Mauryans in 185 BC, but shortly afterwards lost Zabul to the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. Zabulistan became part of the break-away Indo-Greek Kingdom in the mid 2nd century BCE.

Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BCE, but lost the region to the Parthians and Indo-Parthians in the early 1st century CE. The Kushan Empire soon expelled the Indo-Parthians and ruled Zabulistan until around 230 CE, when the Kushans were defeated by the Persian Sassanid Empire and were replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Kushan Shahs or Indo-Sassanids. In 420 CE the Kushanshas were driven out from the area of what is now Afghanistan by the Chionites, who established the Kidarite Kingdom. The Kidarites were replaced in the 460s CE by the Hephthalites, who were defeated in 565 CE by a coalition of Persian and Turkish armies. Zabulistan became part of the surviving Kabul Shahi kingdoms of Kapisa, then Kabul, before coming under attack from the Muslim Arabs.