Ancient history The
Indus Valley Civilisation (3300 BCE – 1700 BCE) was one of the earliest human civilisations to emerge in the region. Considered a
cradle of civilisation, its decline was followed by migration of
Indo-Iranian peoples from
Central Asia, and was known for
its art and sculptures, as well as
Buddhist culture. The people of Gandhara spoke
Gandhari language. Gandhara was conquered by
Alexander the Great, who crossed the
Hindu Kush in the spring of 327 BCE and defeated the tribes of
Assakenoi and
Gouraios. , a 1st century CE
Gandharan Buddhist representation of the Buddha. The Macedonian rule did not remain for long, as soon
Chandragupta Maurya entered into conflict with
Seleucus I Nicator, the successor of Alexander in Persia. A short
war between the two emperors was followed by a peace treaty in 302 BCE; Seleucus ceded the lands of
Aria,
Arachosia, Gandhara, and
Gedrosia to Chandragupta in exchange for a matrimonial alliance and 500 elephants.
Ashoka the Great, the grandson of Chandragupta, spent his youth as viceroy in the region. He converted to
Buddhism and made it the official religion of the empire. His
rock-inscriptions are found at
Shahbazgarhi and
Mansehra. The decline of Mauryas allowed
Greco-Bactrians to expand into Gandhara under
Demetrius I.
Menander I (reigned 155–130 BCE), the greatest of the
Indo-Greeks, drove the Greco-Bactrians out of Gandhara and beyond the Hindu Kush, becoming king shortly after his victory. The were replaced by yet another group of central Asian origins, the
Indo-Parthians, who built the Buddhist monastery of
Takht-i-Bahi. They had
Taxila in Punjab as their residence, but during their last few years of existence the capital shifted between Kabul and Peshawar.
monastery Takht-i-Bahi (a
UNESCO World Heritage Site) constructed by the Indo-Parthians. In the first century CE, the
Yuezhi nomads were forced southwards by the nomadic
Xiongnu. One group, known as the
Kushan, took the lead, and its chief
Kadphises I seized vast territories extending south to the
Kabul valley. Their greatest ruler was
Kanishka the Great, who had his capital at Peshawar and like Ashoka patronised Buddhism. once kept sacred Buddhist relics in the
Kanishka casket. Kushans were followed by various groups of
Huna people. The reign of
Alchon Hun ruler
Mihirakula in the 6th century was particularly disastrous for the Buddhism, as he prosecuted Buddhists and destroyed their monasteries, resulting in the rise of Hinduism in Gandhara.
Medieval history . The headgear has been interpreted as a
turban. The
Turk Shahis ruled Gandhara until 870, when they were overthrown by the
Hindu Shahis. Of
Brahman or
Kshatriya origins, the Hindu Shahis are suggested by some scholars to have originated from
Oddiyana (Swat). Their capital was at Udabandhapura, near the modern village of
Hund. At its zenith, the kingdom stretched from Kabul and Gandhara to western Punjab under
Jayapala (r. 9641001). Jayapala fought a series of battles against the invading
Ghaznavids; Ghaznavid ruler
Mahmud finally annexed Gandhara by defeating Jayapala at the
battle of Peshawar in 1001. Hindu Shahis continued their struggle for independence but were unsuccessful. They eventually exiled themselves to the Kashmir
Siwalik hills. Throughout 13th and 14th centuries Peshawar and surrounding areas remained the scene of battles between Delhi sultans and
numerous invading Mongol armies. In the 15th century
Yousafzais migrated to Peshawar and Swat, displacing Dilazaks and
Swatis.
Modern period was founded by Mughal governor Mohabbat Khan in 1630. In the early 16th-century, Peshawar, Kohat and surrounding areas were annexed by the Mughal emperor
Babur. Babur married
Bibi Mubarika, the daughter of Yousafzai chief. He noted the town of Peshawar as Bagram. His grandson,
Akbar the Great carried out administrative reforms in the region in 1580. During the
Mughal period,
Hazara was a part of Punjab while much of rest of the present-day province was a part of Kabul Subah, which had provincial capitals at Peshawar and Kabul. Akbar faced rebellion by the Yousafzai tribes, as did his great-grandson
Aurangzeb, when they rose against Mughals in 1667, and engaged in pitched-battles with Mughal battalions in Peshawar and
Attock. Following another massacre in the winter of 1673, Mughal armies led by emperor Aurangzeb himself regained control of the entire area in 1674, Peshawar was invaded subsequently by
Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the
Durrani Empire, in 1748. Ahmad Shah expanded his rule over Kashmir, Sindh and much of Punjab. His rule was briefly interrupted by an invasion of the
Marathas, who ruled over Peshawar for eleven months from 1758 till early 1759 when the Durrani rule was re-established. The northern regions of
Kohistan and
Chitral, inhabited by
Dardic peoples, remained outside the Durrani sphere of influence. Under
Timur Shah, the Mughal practice of using Kabul as a summer capital and Peshawar as a winter capital was reintroduced. The
Bala Hissar Fort served as the residence of Durrani kings during their winter stay in Peshawar. In 1809, the British sent an emissary to the court of
Shah Shujah Durrani in Peshawar, marking the first diplomatic meeting between the British and Durrani rulers. From 1826 to 1830 Peshawar became a centre of activities of
Syed Ahmad Barelvi, who had declared
jihad against the Sikh Empire.
Sultan Muhammad Khan rendered valuable services for Ranjit Singh against Ahmed Barelvi, and massacred thousands of his followers in November 1830, forcing Ahmed Barelvi to relocate to Hazara. Ultimately Peshawar was directly annexed by
Hari Singh Nalwa in 1834. Shah Shuja Durrani recognised Peshawar as a part of kingdom of Ranjit Singh under the tripartite treaty signed in 1838.
British colonial period The
British East India Company defeated the Sikh Empire in the
Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849, and incorporated western portions of the present-day province into
British Raj, which remained part of the
Province of Punjab until 1901. During the
1857 war of independence, Pashtun tribes throughout the region were generally neutral or supportive of the British, in contrast to other parts of Raj which rose up in revolt against the British. The British raised 35,000 soldiers from among Pashtun tribes, which proved instrumental in putting down the rebellion. British had inherited Kohat, Bannu, Peshawar, Hazara, Mardan and Dera Ismail Khan from the Sikh Empire, which they declared settled districts. In the other parts of what would later become North-Western Frontier Province, the British control was tenuous. The defeat of the
Kingdom of Kabul in the
Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1878 was followed by further expansion of British suzerainty in the tribal areas of Kurram, Waziristan and Khyber. In 1893, the
boundary with Afghanistan was finalised under a treaty agreed to by the Afghan king,
Abdur Rahman Khan. British awarded parts of Chitral in
Asmar, as well as
Nuristan, to Afghanistan under the terms of treaty. The Durand treaty also established the
Wakhan Corridor, recognised as a part of Afghanistan to act as buffer zone between British and
Russian Empire. In 1895, the British
campaign against Chitral resulted in Chitral being formally brought under British suzerainty. In the same year, the colonial government established the
Malakand Agency to supervise Chitral as well as the tribes of Swat and Dir. Earlier, these areas had been under the jurisdiction of
Gilgit Agency. The tribes of Waziristan rose in rebellion in 1897 against British; the rebellions by
Waziris continued to flare up until 1947. In 1901,
North-West Frontier Province was created by separating the five districts of Punjab, namely Peshawar,
Kohat,
Bannu,
Hazara and
Dera Ismail Khan, by the colonial government for the administrative ease and supervision of northwestern borders. In 1918,
Swat was recognised as a
princely state by British Indian government, the last of the princely states to be recognised as such. The British government transferred
Indus Kohistan from the Gilgit Agency to NWFP in November 1934. Concurrently, the British continued their large public works projects in the region, and extended the
Great Indian Peninsula Railway into the region, which connected the modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region to the plains of India to the east. Other projects, such as the
Attock Bridge,
Islamia College University,
Khyber Railway, and establishment of
cantonments in Peshawar, Kohat,
Mardan, and
Nowshera further cemented British rule in the region. During colonial period, North-West Frontier Province was a "scene of repeated outrages on Hindus." There were other tensions in the area as well, particularly those that involved agitations by Pashtun tribesmen against the Imperial government. For example, in 1936, a British Indian court ruled against the marriage of a Hindu girl allegedly converted to Islam in Bannu, after the girl's family filed a case of abduction and forced conversion. The ruling was based on the fact that the girl was a minor and was asked to make her decision of conversion and marriage after she reaches the age of majority, till then she was asked to live with a third party. After the girl's family filed a case, the court ruled in the family's favour, angering the local Muslims who had later gone on to lead attacks against the
Bannu Brigade. Such controversies stirred up anti-Hindu sentiments amongst the province's Muslim population. By 1947 the majority of the ulama in the province began supporting the
Muslim League's idea of Pakistan. After
1946 elections a
Congress-led ministry was established in the province under
Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, a brother of
Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The two politicians were opposed to
partition of British India. When the partition became inevitable, in June 1947,
Khudai Khidmatgars led by
Mirzali Khan, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and other demanded from British government the choice of a separate independent state for Pashtuns, which was refused as the principles laid for their departure required regions under their control to choose either to join India or Pakistan, with no third option. The
1947 North-West Frontier Province referendum to allow voters to choose between joining India or Pakistan was held on 6 July 1947 and the referendum results were made public on 20 July 1947. According to the official results, there were 572,798 registered voters, out of which 289,244 (99.02%) votes were cast in favour of Pakistan, while 2,874 (0.98%) were cast in favour of India. The referendum was boycotted by Khudai Khidmatgars; their appeal for boycott had an effect, as according to an estimate, the total turnout for the referendum was 15% lower than the total turnout in the 1946 elections, although over half of all eligible voters had voted for Pakistan. He later claimed that "Pashtunistan was never a reality. The idea of Pashtunistan never helped Pashtuns and it only caused suffering for them." He further claimed that the "successive governments of Afghanistan only exploited the idea for their own political goals".
Post-independence After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, Afghanistan was the sole member of the
United Nations to vote against Pakistan's accession to the UN because of Kabul's claim to the Pashtun territories on the Pakistani side of the
Durand Line. This led to border tensions with Pakistan. Afghanistan's governments have periodically refused to recognize Pakistan's inheritance of past treaties regarding the Pak-Afghan border. During the 1950s, Afghanistan supported the
Pashtunistan movement, a secessionist movement that failed to gain substantial support amongst the tribes of the North-West Frontier Province. After the Afghan-Soviet War, North-West Frontier Province became one of the areas of top focus for the
War against Terror. The province was reported to struggle with the social and infrastructure issues even as other parts of the country continue to receive funding. In 2010, the name of the province changed to "Khyber Pakhtunkhwa". Protests arose among the locals of the Hazara division due to this name change, as they began to demand their own province. The
Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa approved a bill on 28 May 2018 to merge the
FATA as well as the
Provincially Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa following the approval of the
Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan by the national legislature; it was signed into law on 31 May by then
President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain, which officially completed the administrative merger process. == Geography ==