Kafiristan: They called out for Christ and the Church said no

The beautiful mountains of Nuristan, Afghanistan.

Once upon a time, the people of a region surrounded by Islamic nations  on all sides cried out to the Church to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sadly, the Church failed to respond.

In the early 19th Century, the British oversaw Pakistan and India as territories of their Empire and Afghanistan was maintained a buffer zone between their Empire and the Russian Empire to the North. However, both Empires often sent people through the country to make sure the other wasn't up to anything sneaky. Through contact with the British, the people of Kafiristan, came into contact with the Gospel but the Bible didn't (and still doesn't exist) in their language.


The tribal leaders of Kafiristan asked the people traveling through to send someone to talk to them about Jesus Christ whom they had heard about from both the Europeans passing through their lands and the Muslims who surrounded them.

Sadly, no one ever went to the people of Kafiristan and instead, some 60 years later, the leader of Afghanistan at the time  Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, sent his soldiers to convert the people of Kafiristan to Islam as an attempt to unify the nation of Afghanistan under Islamic law. Those who could fled across the border to their kin, the Kalash, in what is now Pakistan.

Today, Kafiristan is known as Nuristan and is a province of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The word Kafir comes from Arabic. The Islamic Dictionary defines a Kafir as the following:

Generally the word kafir means 'unbeliever' and it is not meant as a derogatory label (unless it is used against Muslims by another Muslim).

However, from the attitude of the Emir of Afghanistan and what his Soldiers did to the people there, it's quite clear that the people of Kafiristan were not respected nor equal to their Muslim neighbours. They were subjugated and their culture, language and customers were forever removed from the diverse ethnic and religious tapestry of the Afghanistan of the past.

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands" - Revelation 7:9

Nuristan today is a hot bed of the Taliban and one of the most fervently Islamic places in Afghanistan. Unlike the Kalash people, with home they share common ancestry, men and women are divided and women must be completely covered in public.

Imagine how different Afghanistan, Central Asia and indeed the world could be if the Church had sent Missionaries to the people of Kafiristan, a people crying out for Christ, and brought them the light and love of the world.


Please join with me in praying for the people of Nuristan, their Kalash brothers and sisters in Pakistan who maintain their Pagan religion and all the people of the region.


[You can find out more about the customs and native religion of the Nuristani and Kalash people by clicking here and here (respectively, of course).]

Posted in: Afghanistan, Christianity, Islam, Kalash, Nuristan, Pakistan