The Pre-Mongol History of the Khalaj in Eastern Afghanistan

On April 14^th, 2025, Professor Minoru Inaba of Kyoto University visited the IAUNRC to give a lecture on “The Pre-Mongol History of the Khalaj in Eastern Afghanistan”. He began by saying that the Khalaj people speak a Turkic language, and first appear in documents around the 9^th and 10^th century. He underscored that important work had been done in 20^th century by V. Minorsky, M. Muqaddam, and G. Doerfer. He proceeded to discuss how the Khalaj people were at first noted in the army of Rutbil, a king of Zabulistan in the 8^th or 9^th century, where the Khalaj were in armies fighting against the Umayyads at the beginning of the 8^th century. He said the Khalaj also appear in Ghaznavid times, again in armies fighting against the Ghaznavids and against the Qarakhanids. Many references to them, Prof. Inaba said, relate to the time of the Ghorids (Central / Western Afghanistan), where again they are mentioned in military histories. Professor Inaba explained that the Ghorids were conquered by the Khwarezmshahs, and that the Khalaj soldiers were incorporated into the army of the Khwarezmshahs at that point, around 1212. The Khalaj also fought against the Mongols in Samarkand in 1220. After the Khwarezmshahs, some of the Khalaj soldiers fled beyond the Hindu Kush mountains, and joined the army of Jalal al-Din Mankbirdi who led an army to defeat the Mongols in 1221. Other Khalaj soldiers joined the Kart Dynasty in Herat from the 13^th to 14^th centuries. Prof. Inaba described how in 1290 the Khalaji/Khalji Dynasty was started in Delhi, and how at the end of the 14^th century a ruler, Mahmud Shah Khalaji, began a kingdom in Malwa.

            Prof. Inaba taught the audience that originally it is believed that the Khalaj were from the Lake Issyk-Kol region (modern Kyrgyzstan), as described by a Medieval Muslim geographer, Ibn Khurdadhbih. Another 10^th century geographer says that the Khalaj were a Turkic people who lived in the area between India and Sijistan. Yet another 10^th century geographer, Professor Inaba explained, said that the Khalaj lived in Gharchistan, Bistam, Sijistan, and Kirman. However, by the 13^th century, in the Jahan-name, the Khalaj are said to live in Zabulistan, around Ghaznin, and some live as dar as Abiward and Darra-I Gaz. The Jahan-name also describes how in this time the appearance and language of the Khalaj became different. Prof. Inaba noted some recent scholarship by P. Oberling that in the Timurid era the Khalajs were in Save, Qom, and Kashan, which is present day Khalajistan in Iran. The Khalaj were also in Anatolia, as they moved into Anatolia with the Seljuks in the 11^th century. There were also many towns with the name Halaç (or variants of) in this area.  

            However, Professor Inaba argued that we can investigate the Khalaj in earlier history than previously thought. He noted that Khalaj began a kingdom in 666 whose ruler was known as the “Kabulshah” in Islamic sources. Arab armies went into Kabul in 665 to conquer it, but a year later the Kabulshah and his armies retook the city. The Islamic sources say that the Kabulshah was a king of the Turks. Later, in the 720s, a Chinese monk named Huichao went to Eastern Afghanistan and wrote that an area from Kabul to Gandara was ruled by a Turkic king. Huichao noted that this king had served the previous dynasty, but usurped the rule of the king. Prof. Inaba detailed that the source describes that this king was the king of Zabulistan, who was the nephew of the King of Kabul. Furthermore, Professor Inaba discussed that Al-Tabari described a story about a conflict between two brothers, one of them, Rutbil, went to the area around Sistan and ruled there. This was the Rutbil kingdom of Zabulistan. Professor Inaba explained that there is an Arabic poem which tells that the first Rutbil was killed in a battle with Arab armies, and afterwards his son took over in the 690s. The Chinese sources and coins from this time, place Khorasan Tegin Shah as the Kabul Shah, who ruled in the 680s, and who abdicated the throne for his son in 738. Professor Inaba said that he is likely the uncle of Rutbil, King of Zabulistan.  In addition, Prof. Inaba noted some linguistic evidence as well for the early existence of the Khalaj. He noted the existence of the word “khalalava” on a coin of the Kabul Shah, which he said Yoshida, the famous Japanese scholar of the Sogdians, argued should be read “khalalaça”, a form of “khalaç”. This term “khalaç” is attested also in the Bactrian documents compiled by Sims-Williams (2000). In addition, he discussed the attestation of a title for ruler that applies to the Khalaj, and is also associated with the King of Zabulistan and Kabul.

            The Khalaj, Professor Inaba argued, also migrated earlier than some originally thought. In Mafatih al-‘Ulum, the author says that the Khalaj were of Hephthalite origin, and Professor Inaba explained that the Khalaj may have been migrated south during the Hephthalite’s expansion. In addition, in 640, a Chinese author explains in his text that he passed through the mountain to the west of Kabulistan, and that the people there were Turks, who Prof. Inaba believes were the Khalaj. By the 8^th century, the Kabul Shah’s kingdom was a central point for defense against Arab armies. From Kesar, a Khalaj ruler, defeated an Arab Muslim army in Tokharistan, as his coins tell us. This ruler, From Kesar, was also noted in a Buddhist monk’s biography, as having donated many Buddhist temples. Meanwhile, a Tibetan source, Professor Inaba explained, records the marriage of From Kesar’s daughter with the king of Khotan. However, the Khalaj kingdom mostly declined after 745, although there is a mention of them in a newly published Bactrian inscription (Sims-Williams, 2020-2021). Then, Prof. Inaba said, from 793 to 793, there was an Abbasid military expedition against Kabul where the Kabul Shah had to pay additional taxes and give tribute to the Abbasid Muslims. After this point, the Kabul Shah dynasty moved to the Hindu and Indian branch of their family, instead of the Turkish branch. Meanwhile, Professor Inaba said that Kingdom of Rutbil was active until the 860s, when the Saffarids conquered them.