AFGHANS CLAIM WHITE ORIGIN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17871, 12 June 1926, Page 8

AFGHANS CLAIM WHITE ORIGIN.

j DESCENT FROM JEWS IS AGAIN URGED. CALCUTTA. June 1. Great intirst is taken here in the contention advanced on behalf of Afghans before immigration officials in the United States that they are descendants of. a white race. They claim descent from Jewish and Arab tribes. Strangely Jhey do not mention the Greeks. DESCENT FROM KING SAUL. (The Afghan chroniclers call their people Beni-Israil (Arabic for Children of Israel), and claim descent from King Saul (whom they call by the Mohammedan corruption Talut), through a son whom the}* ascribe to him, called Jeremiah, who again had a son called Afghana. The numerous stock of Afghana were removed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and found their way to the mountains of Ghor and Feroza (east and north of Herat). Only nine years after Mahomet's announcement of his mission they heard of a new prophet, and sent to Medina a deputation headed by a wise and holy man called Kais, to make inquiry. The deputation became zealous converts, and on their return converted their countrymen. From Ivais and his three sons the whole of the genuine Afghans claim descent. VARYING DETAILS. This story is repeated, states the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in great and varying detail in sundry books by Afghans, the oldest of which appears to be the sixteenth century. Nor do we know that any trace of the legend is found of older date. In the version given by Major Raverty, Afghanah is settled by King Solomon himself in the Sulimani mountains; there is nothing about Nebuchadnezzar or Ghor. The historian Ferishta says he had read that the Afghans ware descended from Copts of the race of Pharaoh. And one of the Afghan histories relates “ a current tradition," that previous to the time of Kais, Bilo the father of the Biluchis, Uzbak (evidently the father of the Usbegs), and Afghana were considered as brethren. As Mahommed Usbeg Khan, the eponym (name of a person, real or mythical from whom a family, race or nation takes its name) of the medley of Tatar tribes called Usbegs, reigned in the fourteenth century A.D., this gives some possible light on the value of these so-called traditions. HEBREW TYPES. There are analagous stories in the literature of almost all nations that derive their religion or civilisation from a foreign source. A considerable number of persons have been found to propagate the doctrine that the English people are descended from the tribes of Israel. But the Hebrew ancestry of the Afghanis is more worthy at least of consideration, for a respectable number of intelligent officers, well acquainted with the Afghans, have been strong in their belief of it; and though the customs alleged in proof will .not bear the stress laid on them, undoubtedly a prevailing type of Afghan physiognomy has a character strongly Jewish. This characteristic is certainly a remarkable one, but it is shared, to a considerable extent, by the Kashmiris (a circumstance which led Bernier to speculate on the Kashmiris representing the lost tribes of Israel), and by the Tajik people of Badakshan.)