Coordinates: 35°N 71°E / 35°N 71°E / 35; 71

Hindu Kush
Chitral Terich Mir
Hindu Kush Range
Highest point
Peak	Tirich Mir (Pakistan)
Elevation	7,690 m (25,230 ft)
Coordinates	36°14′45″N 71°50′38″E / 36.24583°N 71.84389°E / 36.24583; 71.84389
Geography
Countries	Pakistan and Afghanistan
Region	South-Central Asia
Parent range	Himalayas

The Hindu Kush (Pashto/Persian: ھندوکُش‎, Urdu: سلسلہ کوہ ہندوکش) is an 800 km (500 mi) long mountain range that stretches between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. The highest point in the Hindu Kush is Tirich Mir (7,708 m or 25,289 ft) in Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

It is the westernmost extension of the Pamir Mountains, the Karakoram Range, and is a sub-range of the Himalayas.

Name[link]

The names Hindu Kush (Persian: ھندوکُش‎), Hindu Kūh (ھندوکوه) and Kūh-e Hind (کوهِ ھند) are usually applied to the entire range separating the basins of the Kabul and Helmand rivers from that of the Amu River (ancient Oxus) or more specifically to that part of the range, northwest of the Afghan capital Kabul. Sanskrit documents refer to the Hindu Kush as Pāriyātra Parvata (पारियात्र पर्वत). Greek geographers adapted the Sanskrit to "Paropanisadae" by Greeks in the late first millennium BC.^[1]

The Persian-English dictionary ^[2] indicates that the word 'Kush' is derived from the verb Kushtar - to slaughter or carnage. Kush is probably also related to the verb Koshtan, meaning to kill.

Encyclopedia Americana comments:

The name Hindu Kush means literally 'Kills the Hindu', a reminder of the days when Indian slaves from the Indian subcontinent died in the harsh weather typical of the Afghan mountains while being transported to Central Asia.^[3]

At the time, the word Hindu was a secular term which was used to describe all inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent – or Hindustan – irrespective of their religious affiliation. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists referred collectively to the followers of Indian religions as Hindus.

According to the National Geographic article "West of Khyber Pass", :Generations of raiders brought captive Hindus past these peaks of perpetual snow. Such bitter journeys gave the range its name Hindu Kush - 'Killer of Hindus'."^[4] The World Book Encyclopedia informs that "the name Kush, .. means Death".^[5] While Encyclopædia Britannica says 'The name Hindu Kush first appears in 1333 AD in the writings of Ibn Battutah, the medieval Berber traveller, who said the name meant 'Hindu Killer', a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers who are traditional enemies of Indian plainsmen (i.e. Hindus).^[6]

The word "Koh" or "Kuh" means mountain in many of the local languages. According to Nigel Allan, there were at least two meanings for "Hindu Kush" common centuries ago "mountains of India" and "sparkling snows of India" - he notes that the name is clearly applied from a Central Asian perspective.^[7] Others maintain that the name Hindu Kush is probably a corruption of Hindi-Kash or Hindi-Kesh, the boundary of Hind (i.e. Indian subcontinent).^[8]

The mountain range between Hindu Kush and Karakoram is known as Hindu Raj.

History[link]

Landscape of Afghanistan with a T-62 in the foreground.

The mountains have historical significance in the Indian subcontinent, China and Korea.^{[citation needed]} There has been a military presence in the mountains since the time of Darius the Great. The Great Game of the 19th century often involved military, intelligence and/or espionage personnel from both the Russian and British Empires operating in areas of the Hindu Kush. The Hindu Kush were considered, informally, the dividing line between Russian and British areas of influence in Afghanistan.

During the Cold War the mountains again became militarized, especially during the 1980s when Soviet forces and their Afghan allies fought the mujahideen. After the Soviet withdrawal, Afghan warlords fought each other and later the Taliban and the Northern Alliance and others fought in and around the mountains.

The American and ISAF campaign against Al Qaeda and their Taliban allies has once again resulted in a major military presence in the Hindu Kush.^[9][10]

Alexander the Great explored the Afghan areas between Bactria and the Indus River after his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC. It became part of the Seleucid Empire before falling to the Indian Maurya Empire around 305 BC.

Alexander took these away from the Persians and established settlements of his own, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), upon terms of intermarriage and of receiving in exchange 500 elephants.^[11]

—Strabo, 64 BC–24 AD

Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BC, but lost the area to the Kushan Empire about 100 years later.^[12]

Before the Christian era, and afterwards, there was an intimate connection between the Kabul Valley and India. All the passes of the Hindu-Kush descend into that valley; and travellers from the north as soon as they crossed the watershed, found a civilization and religion, the same as that much prevailed in India. The great range was the boundary in those days and barrier that was at time impassable. Hindu-Kuh--the mountain of Hind--was similarly derived.

Pre-Islamic populations of the Hindu Kush included Shins, Yeshkun,^[13] Chiliss, Neemchas ^[14] Koli,^[15] Palus,^[15] Gaware,^[16] Yeshkuns,^[17] Krammins,^[17] Indo-Scythians, Bactrian Greeks, Kushans.

Mountains[link]

The Hindu Kush occupy the lower left centre of this satellite image

The mountains of the Hindu Kush system diminish in height as they stretch westward: Toward the middle, near Kabul, they extend from 4,500 to 6,000 meters (14,700 feet to 19,100 feet); in the west, they attain heights of 3,500 to 4,000 meters (11,500 feet to 13,000 feet). The average altitude of the Hindu Kush is 4,500 meters (14,700 feet). The Hindu Kush system stretches about 966 kilometres (600 mi) laterally, and its median north-south measurement is about 240 kilometres (150 mi). Only about 600 kilometres (370 mi) of the Hindu Kush system is called the Hindu Kush mountains. The rest of the system consists of numerous smaller mountain ranges including the Koh-e Baba, Salang, Koh-e Paghman, Spin Ghar (also called the eastern Safēd Kōh), Suleiman Range, Siah Koh, Koh-e Khwaja Mohammad and Selseleh-e Band-e Turkestan. The western Safid Koh, the Malmand, Chalap Dalan, Siah Band and Doshakh are commonly referred to as the Paropamise by western scholars, though that name has been slowly falling out of use over the last few decades.

Rivers that flow from the mountain system include the Helmand River, the Hari River and the Kabul River, watersheds for the Sistan Basin.

Numerous high passes ("kotal") transect the mountains, forming a strategically important network for the transit of caravans. The most important mountain pass is the Salang Pass (Kotal-e Salang) (3,878 m); it links Kabul and points south of it to northern Afghanistan. The completion of a tunnel within this pass in 1964 reduced travel time between Kabul and the north to a few hours. Previously access to the north through the Kotal-e Shibar (3,260 m) took three days. The Salang tunnel at 3,363 m and the extensive network of galleries on the approach roads were constructed with Soviet financial and technological assistance and involved drilling 1.7 miles through the heart of the Hindu Kush.

Before the Salang road was constructed, the most famous passes in the Western historical perceptions of Afghanistan were those leading to India. They include the Khyber Pass (1,027 m), in Pakistan, and the Kotal-e Lataband (2,499 m) east of Kabul, which was superseded in 1960 by a road constructed within the Kabul River's most spectacular gorge, the Tang-e Gharu. This remarkable engineering feat reduced travel time between Kabul and the Pakistan border from two days to a few hours.