Twilight of the Sultanate c19.s3.39

c19.s3.39

Another question which needs clarification is as to when the Afghans converted to Islam. The probable earliest reference to the existence of Afghans (Abgan) is in the third century Sassanian inscription. The Afghans are first referred to within India by the Indian astronomer Varaha Mihir. He calls them Vokkana in his *Brahat-Samhita* written in the sixth century. Hiuen-Tsang also mentions a people whom he calls A-po-Kien in the northern part of the Sulaiman mountains who can be no other than Afghans.²⁹ Then occurred the Muslim invasions of Afghanistan, first under the Arabs in the seventh century, and later by the Saffarid dynasty in the ninth. Some conversions must have taken place, and Ibn Haukal writes that the Buddhists, Jews and Muslims each lived in a separate area of the city of Kabul.³⁰ Furthermore Alberunī, always a keen student, designated the Afghans of "the mountains to the west of India ... extending up to the valley of Sindh" as Hindus.³¹