Chapter GHAUT to GHILZAI of G by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

The learned and eminently judicious William Erskine was also inclined to accept the identity of the two tribes, doubting (but perhaps needlessly) whether the Khiliji had been really of Turki race. We have not been able to meet with any translated author who mentions both Khiliji and Ghilzai. In the following quotations all the earlier refer to Khiliji, and the later to Ghilzai. Attention may be called to the expressions in the quotation from Ziauddin Barni, as indicating some great difference between the Turk proper and the Khiliji even then. The language of Baber, again, so far as it goes, seems to indicate that by his time the Ghilzais were regarded as an Afghan clan.

c. 940.—“Hajjaj had delegated ’Abdarrahman ibn Mahommed ibn al-Ash’ath to Sijistan, Bost and Rukhaj (Arachosia) to make war on the Turk tribes diffused in those regions, and who are known as Ghuz and Khulj…”—Mas’udi, v. 302.

c. 950.—“The Khalaj is a Turki tribe, which in ancient times migrated into the country that lies between India and the parts of Sijistan beyond the Ghur. They are a pastoral people and resemble the Turks in their natural characteristics, their dress and their language.”—Istakhri, from De Goeje’s text, p. 245.

c. 1030.—“The Afghans and Khiljís having submitted to him (Sabaktigín), he admitted thousands of them…into the ranks of his armies.”—Al-’Utbi., in Elliot, ii. 24.

c. 1150.—“Tho Khilk hs (read Khilij) are people of Turk race, who, from an ear ly date invaded this country (Dawar, on the banks of the Helmand), and whose dwellings are spread abroad to the north of India and on the borders of Ghaur and of Western Sijistan. They possess cattle, wealth, and the various products of husbandry; they all have the aspect of Turks, whether as regards features, dress, and customs, or as regards their arms and manner of making war. They are pacific people, doing and thinking no evil.”—Edrisi, i. 457.

1289.—“At the same time Jalálu-d dín (Khilji), who was ’Ariz-i-mamálik (Muster-master-general), had gone to Bahárpúr, attended by a body of his relations and friends. Here he held a muster and inspection of the forces. He came of a race different from that of the Turks, so he had no confidence in them, nor would the Turks own him as belonging to the number of their friends.…The people high and low…were all troubled by the ambition of the Khiljis, and were strongly opposed to Jalálu-d dín’s obtaining the crown.…Sultán Jalálu-d dín Fíroz Khilji ascended the throne in the…year 688 A.H.… The people of the city (of Delhi) had for 80 years been governed by sovereigns of Turk extraction, and were averse to the succession of the Khiljis…they were struck with admiration and amazement at seeing the Khiljis occupying the throne of the Turks, and wondered how the throne had passed from the one to the other.”—Ziáu-d-dín Barní, in Elliot, iii. 134-136.

14th cent.—The continuator of Rashídud-dín enumerates among the tribes occupying the country which we now call Afghanistan, Ghuris, Herawis, Nigudaris, Sejzis, Khilij, Baluch a nd Afghans. SeeNotices et Extraits, xiv. 494.

c. 1507.—“I set out from Kábul for the purpose of plundering and beating up the quarters of the Ghiljis…a good farsang from the Ghilji camp, we observed a blackness, which was either owing to the Ghiljis being in motion, or to smoke. The young and inexperienced men of the army all set forward full speed; I followed them for two kos, shooting arrows at their horses, and at length checked their speed. When five or six thousand men set out on a pillaging party, it is extremely difficult to maintain discipline.… A minaret of skulls was erected of the heads of these Afghans.”—Baber, pp. 220- 221; see also p. 225.

[1753.—“The Cligis knowing that his troops must pass thro’ their mountains, waited for them in the defiles, and successively defeated several bodies of Mahommed’s army.”—Hanway, Hist. Acc. iii. 24.]

1842.—“The Ghilji tribes occupy the principal portion of the country between Kándahár and Ghazní. They are, moreover, the most numerous of the Afghan tribes, and if united under a capable chief might…become the most powerful.… They are brave and warlike, but have a sternness of disposition amounting to ferocity. …Some of the inferior Ghiljís are so violent in their intercourse with strangers that they can scarcely be considered in the

light of human beings, while no language can describe the terrors of a transit through their country, or the indignities which have to be endured.… The Ghiljis, although considered, and calling themselves, Afghâns and moreover employing the Pashto, or Afghân dialect, are undoubtedly a mixed race.

“The name is evidently a modification or corruption of Khaljí or Khilají, that of a great Turkí tribe mentioned by Sherífudín in his history of Taimúr.…”—Ch. Masson, Narr. of various Journeys, &c., ii. 204, 206, 207.

1854.—“The Ghúri was succeeded by the Khilji dynasty; also said to be of Turki extraction, but which seems rather to have been of Afghán race; and it may be doubted if they are not of the Ghiljí Afgháns.”— Erskine, Báber and Humáyun, i. 404.

1880.—“As a race the Ghilji mix little with their neighbours, and indeed differ in many respects, both as to internal government and domestic customs, from the other races of Afghanistan…the