what is Afghan literature?
From today's perspective, it is easy to believe that Afghanistan is but a country of incessant warfare, the graveyard of empires, full of land mines, spare arms and legs tossed around, invisible women and one-eyed mujahids. It is rarely associated with literacy, and books, and culture. But it should. It is in fact a culturally rich area, and a cool, peaceful, civilised country that the hippies loved to visit in the 1960s.
The Afghan literature, thus, is basically written in either Dari or Pashto written in Arabic characters. The country is linguistically more complex than this, but these are the main strands. It had surprising range of long-distance contacts early in history; this is why even pre-Islamic scripts of Arabia are attested. Also Bactrian Greek is well attested. There are also several strange writing systems coming from India, such as Kharosthi.
The literary flourishing came to Afghanistan under the Ghaznavids and the Ghurid dynasty, between the 1oth and the 12th century. It developed under the auspices of the great Persian figures, such as Rumi and Rudaki. The great figure of the time was Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, the 11th-c. "Sage from Herat" who composed poetry in the margin of his greater intellectual endeavours, such as Qur'an commentary.
The Afghan literature, thus, is basically written in either Dari or Pashto written in Arabic characters. The country is linguistically more complex than this, but these are the main strands. It had surprising range of long-distance contacts early in history; this is why even pre-Islamic scripts of Arabia are attested. Also Bactrian Greek is well attested. There are also several strange writing systems coming from India, such as Kharosthi.
The literary flourishing came to Afghanistan under the Ghaznavids and the Ghurid dynasty, between the 1oth and the 12th century. It developed under the auspices of the great Persian figures, such as Rumi and Rudaki. The great figure of the time was Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, the 11th-c. "Sage from Herat" who composed poetry in the margin of his greater intellectual endeavours, such as Qur'an commentary.
I have readAtiq Rahimi, Khâkestar-o-khâk (Terre et cendres, 2000)
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