Some
anthropologists lend credence to the
oral traditions of the Pashtun tribes themselves. For example, according to the
Encyclopaedia of Islam, the theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites is traced to
Nimat Allah al-Harawi, who compiled a history for
Khan-e-Jehan Lodhi in the reign of
Mughal Emperor
Jehangir in the 17th century. The 13th century
Tabaqat-i Nasiri discusses the settlement of immigrant Bani Israel at the end of the 8th century CE in the
Ghor region of Afghanistan, settlement attested by Jewish inscriptions in Ghor. Historian André Wink suggests that the story "may contain a clue to the remarkable theory of the Jewish origin of some of the Afghan tribes which is persistently advocated in the Persian-Afghan chronicles." These references to Bani Israel agree with the commonly held view by Pashtuns that when the ten tribes of Israel were dispersed, the
tribe of Joseph, among other Hebrew tribes, settled in the Afghanistan region. This oral tradition is widespread among the Pashtun tribes. There have been many legends over the centuries of descent from the
Ten Lost Tribes after groups converted to
Christianity and Islam. Hence the tribal name
Yusufzai in Pashto translates to the "son of Joseph". A similar story is told by many historians, including the 14th century
Ibn Battuta and 16th century
Ferishta. However, the similarity of names can also be traced to the presence of Arabic through Islam. One conflicting issue in the belief that the Pashtuns descend from the
Israelites is that the Ten Lost Tribes were exiled by the ruler of
Assyria, while
Maghzan-e-Afghani says they were permitted by the ruler to go east to Afghanistan. This inconsistency can be explained by the fact that Persia acquired the lands of the ancient Assyrian Empire when it conquered the Empire of the Medes and Chaldean
Babylonia, which had conquered Assyria decades earlier. But no ancient author mentions such a transfer of Israelites further east, or no ancient extra-Biblical texts refer to the Ten Lost Tribes at all. Some Afghan historians have maintained that Pashtuns are
linked to the ancient Israelites.
Mohan Lal quoted
Mountstuart Elphinstone who wrote: While some sources assert that historical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a connection between the Israelite tribes & the Pashtuns, the theory has been criticized by others as not being substantiated by historical evidence. {{Blockquote|"Our study demonstrates genetic similarities between Pathans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which are characterized by the predominance of haplogroup R1a1a*-M198 (>50%) and the sharing of the same modal haplotype...Although Greeks and Jews have been proposed as ancestors to Pathans, their genetic origin remains ambiguous...Overall, Ashkenazi Jews exhibit a frequency of 15.3% for haplogroup R1a1a-M198"||"Afghanistan from a Y-chromosome perspective" == Arab/Egyptian theory ==