| State |
Entry |
Exit |
Combat Forces |
Population |
Losses |
| Britain |
1896 |
1897 |
25000 |
41000000 |
2000 |
| Rebels |
1896 |
1897 |
10000 |
2000000 |
3000 |
From 1896-97 there was a civil war in Chitral, India, that a British
expedition suppressed.
The Kafir of Chitral are an exceptionally interesting people. Their name means "Infidel" or "Non-Muslim" and seems to have been used since the 11th century. Traditionally, they are divided into two groups--the kalasha ("black") Kafir of Chitral and the kati ("red") Kafir of
Nurestan. In the past, the Kafir inhabited a much larger area of the Hindu Kush. The Kafir of Nurestan were forcibly converted to Islam in 1896.
*****
Nuristani
also called NURI, KAFFIR, OR KAFIR (Arabic: Infidel), people of the Hindu Kush mountain area of Afghanistan and the Chitral area of Pakistan. Their territory, formerly called
Kafiristan, was renamed Nuristan, "Land of Light" or "Enlightenment," when they became Muslims at the turn of the 20th century. The territory now forms the northern part of the Afghan province of Nangarhar and has a population of about 65,000. Only about 3,000 live in Pakistan.
Their language, Kafiri (or Nuristani), belongs to the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. They are nominally Sunni Muslims but continue in many of their traditional ways dating from before their conquest by the Afghans in 1895.
See Winston S. Churchill, The Malakand Field Force,
New York, W.W. Norton, 1990.
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