Afghanistan is a country at the crossroads of Asia. Placed in South Asia, as it has cultural, ethno-linguistic, and geographic links with most of its neighbors. It is bordered by Iran in the west, Pakistan in the south and east, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China to the east. It has a population of 30 million people, although this remains an estimate, as no official census has been taken for decades.

Afghanistan literally translates to 'land of the Afghans', but a plethora of other names have been applied to its general location in the past. Between the fall of the Taliban after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 Loya jirga, Afghanistan was referred to by the Government of the United States as the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan. Under its new constitution, the country is now officially named the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Origin and history of the name

The name of Afghanistan derives from word Afghan. The Pushtuns appear to have begun using the term Afghan as a name for themselves from the Islamic period onwards. According to W.K. Frazier Tyler, M.C. Gillet and several other scholars, "The word Afghan first appears in history in the Hudud-al-Alam in 982 AD."

There are numerous views, regarding the origin of name Afghan, most of them being purely speculative as can be seen below:

Makhzan-i-Afghni by Nematullah written in 1612 CE, traces the Afghan or Pakhtun origin from the super-Patriarch Abraham down to one named King Talut or Saul. It states that Saul had a son Irmia (Jeremia), who had a son called Afghana. Upon the death of King Saul, Afghana was raised by David, and was later promoted to the chief command of the army during the reign of King Solomon. The progeny of this Afghana multiplied numerously, and came to be called Bani-Israel. In the sixth century BCE, Bakhtunnasar, or Nebuchadnezzar king of Babul, attacked Judah and exiled the progeny of Afghana to Ghor located in the center of what is now Afghanistan. In course of time, the exiled community came to be addressed as Afghan after the name of their ancestor, and the country got its name as Afghanistan. This traditional view has many historical discrepancies, and is therefore not accepted by modern scholarship---the last pleader for the Bani-Israel hypothesis being Mayor Raverty (The Pathans, 1958, Olaf Caroe).

Another version of Pushtun legend places Afghana, the professed eponymous ancestor of the Afghans or Pushtuns, as a contemporary of Muslim Prophet Mohammad. On hearing about the new faith of Islam, Qais from Aryana travelled to Medina to see the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, and returned to Aryana as a Muslim. Qais Abdur Rashid purportedly had many sons, one of whom was Afghana. Afghana, in turn, had four sons who set out to the east to establish their separate lineages. The first son went to Swat, the second to Lahore and India, the third to Multan, and the last one to Quetta. This legend is one of many traditional tales amongst the Pashtuns regarding their disparate origins. Again, it was this legendary Afghana who is stated to have given the Pushtuns their current name. It is notable that the Afghan of this legend is separated from the Afghana of Solomon's times by at least 11 centuries.

Dr H.W. Bellew, in his book An Enquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, believes that the name Afghan derives from the Latin term Alban, used by Armenians as Alvan or Alwan, which refers to mountaineers, and in the case of transliterated Armenian characters, would be pronounced as Aghvan or Aghwan. To the Persians, this would further be altered to Aoghan, Avghan, and Afghan as a reference to the highlanders or "mountaineers" of the eastern Iranian plateau.

Some people hold that the name derives from "Abagan" (i.e without God) which term the Persians are stated to have coined for the Pushtuns to describe them as Godless or non-believers. It is claimed that word Abagan is antonym of the word Bagan (=believer in God) just as word apolitical is antonym of political in the English language.

There are also a few people who link "Afghan" to an Uzbek word "Avagan" said to mean "original". Still others believe that the name derives from Sanskrit upa-ganah, said to mean "allied tribes".

Another etymological view is that the name Afghan evidently derives from Sanskrit Ashvaka or Ashvakan (q.v), the Assakenoi of Arrian. This view was propounded by J. W. McCrindle and is supported by numerous modern scholars (including C. Lassen, S. Martin, Bishop, Crooks, W. Crooke, J. C. Vidyalnar, M. R. Singh, P. Smith, N. L. Dey, Dr J. L. Kamboj, S. Kirpal Singh and several others). In Sanskrit, word ashva (Iranian aspa, Prakrit assa) means "horse", and ashvaka (Prakrit assaka) means "horseman". Pre-Christian times knew the people of eastern Afghanistan as Ashvakas (horsemen), since they raised a fine breed of horses and had a reputation for providing expert cavalrymen. The fifth-century-BCE Indian grammarian Panini calls them Ashvayana and Ashvakayana. Classical writers use the respective equivalents Aspasios (or Aspasii, Hippasii) and Assakenois (or Assaceni/Assacani, Asscenus). The Aspasios/Assakenois (= Ashvakas = cavalrymen) is stated to be another name for the Kambojas because of their equestrian characteristics (see List of country name etymologies).

The last part of the name Afghanistan originates from the Persian word stan (country or land). The English word Afghanland that appeared in various treaties between Qajar-Persia and the United Kingdom dealing with the Eastern lands of the Persian kingdom (modern Afghanistan) was adopted by the Afghans and became Afghanistan.

Before being called 'Afghanistan', the region had gone through several name changes in its long history of around 5000 years. One of the most ancient names, according to historians and scholars, was Ariana - the Greek pronunciation of the ancient Avestan Aryanam Vaeja or the Sanskrit "Aryavarta", Land of the Aryans. Today this Old-Persian, and Avestan expression is preserved in the name Iran and it is noted in the name of the Afghan national airline, Ariana Airlines. The term 'Ariana Afghanistan' is still popular amongst Persian speakers in the country.

Many centuries later, Afghanistan was part of Greater Khorasan, and hence was recognized with the name Khorasan (along with regions centered around Merv and Neishabur), which in Pahlavi means "The Eastern Land".