Pashtun culture: Pashtunwali, customs, dress and music

Ahmad Shah Durrani's mausoleum in KandaharThe octagonal tomb of Ahmad Shah Baba (d. 1772) stands in Kandahar under a blue-tiled dome, beside the Kherqa Sharif shrine of the Prophet's cloak, and has long been respected as a sanctuary.

Badal: Pashtun redress, feud and settlementBadal (بدل) is the Pashtunwali duty to answer an injury in kind. Raverty's 1860 dictionary defines it as "exchange, substitution, retaliation", and feuds over it ran between cousins for generations until jirgas, truces or marriage settled them.

Bala Hisar, Peshawar: the fort of the Durrani kingsThe Bala Hisar is the brick fort on the mound above old Peshawar. Timur Shah's Sadozai court sat there, Elphinstone was received there in 1809, the Sikhs wrecked and rebuilt it in the 1820s and 1830s, and the Frontier Corps has held it since 1948.

Bread of the Pashtuns: naan and the tandoorBread, dodai (ډوډۍ), is the Pashto word for both bread and a meal. It is baked in the clay tandoor or on a plate, bought from Kabul and Peshawar bakeries, and its price decides how a city eats.

Chalweshti, arbakai and lashkar: the tribe's own enforcersA jirga has no police, so Pashtun tribes use a band of about forty, the arbakai of Loya Paktia and, in war, the lashkar. Tariq found the arbakai unpaid and answerable to the jirga; the Afghan Local Police of 2010 was paid by the state.

Chapli kabab: the flat Pashtun kebab of Peshawar and Takht BhaiChapli kabab (چپلي کباب) is a flat minced beef or mutton patty fried in animal fat with pomegranate seed and coriander. Dawn says it is thought to have started at Takht Bhai in Mardan; Peshawar's Namak Mandi made it famous.

Darul Aman palace and Amanullah's new KabulDarul Aman palace, begun in the 1920s as the centre of King Amanullah's planned new capital south-west of Kabul, was left unfinished in 1929, burned three times, ruined in the 1990s and rebuilt by Afghans for the centenary of independence in 2019.

Feast food among Pashtuns: Eid, weddings and khairatAmong Pashtuns, Eid callers are given sweets (Rajjar methai in Charsadda), a wedding centres on a day-long meat and rice dish, and a death is marked by khairat, a charity meal to which kin bring rice, oil and sugar.

Ghayrat and tura: Pashtun self-respect, zeal and courageGhayrat (غیرت) is the Pashto word for the pride, zeal and courage with which a man defends his honour, and tura (توره), "sword", is the fighting side of it. Ethnographers disagree on whether ghayrat is a value of its own or part of nang.

Kabuli palaw: the rice of Afghan feasts, and rice in the Pashtun landsKabuli (Qabili) palaw is rice cooked in meat stock and topped with fried carrots and raisins, Afghanistan's national dish. A Qabuli rice dish is listed in Akbar's kitchen, but Peshawar's own pulao is older than the dish's arrival there in the 1980s.

Kandahar's pomegranates, grapes and the dried-fruit tradeKandahar's Arghandab orchards grow the Kandahari pomegranate, grapes dried into raisins in shaded houses, figs and almonds. The fruit has gone to India since Mughal times; in 2025 and 2026 closures of the Chaman crossing left growers with unsold crops.

Karahi and tikka: the grill and the pan of PeshawarKarahi is mutton cooked fast in its own fat in an iron pan, tikka is meat grilled on charcoal, and both are tied to the Shinwari of Landi Kotal and to Peshawar's Namak Mandi. Shinwari restaurants now fill streets in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Khamak: the counted-thread embroidery of KandaharKhamak (خامک) is the fine silk embroidery of Kandahar, stitched by women at home by counting the threads of the cloth. Its best-known use is the embroidered front of a man's long shirt, which can take three months or more to finish.

Kuchi jewellery: Pashtun silver, coins and glassKuchi jewellery is the head ornaments, nose studs, coin necklaces and amulet cases of Pashtun nomad women in Afghanistan. The pieces tested in a 2019 Prague study were mostly copper-zinc-nickel alloy, not silver.

Mahabat Khan Mosque, Peshawar: the Mughal mosque of Andar ShahrThe Mahabat Khan Mosque is Peshawar's largest Mughal mosque, in the old city's Andar Shahr bazaar, built in the 1660s or 1670s by a Mughal governor. Its minarets were used as gallows under the Sikhs, by the gazetteer's account.

Melmastia: Pashtun hospitality and the guest's protectionMelmastia (مېلمستیا) is the Pashtun duty to feed, house and protect any guest, even an enemy. The host's protection held only on his own land, so travellers once needed an escort, the badragga, to pass from one tribe's country to the next.

Namkeen, rosh and dumpukht: salted meat of the PashtunsNamkeen, dumpukht and landi are the plain meat dishes of Peshawar's Namak Mandi and the winter larders of Zhob and Kabul: mutton in its own fat with salt, and sheep dried on poles. Rosh is its Baloch neighbour.

Namus: the honour of women and land in PashtunwaliNamus (ناموس) is the Pashtun honour of a man's women and household, glossed by Raverty in 1867 as "the female part of a family". Ethnographers tie it to land through the saying "women, gold, land", and Pakistan has punished honour killing by statute since 2016.

Nanawatai: refuge and forgiveness in Pashtun customNanawatai (ننواتې), "going in", is the Pashtun custom of going to another man's house to ask shelter or pardon, which the householder is bound to honour. It sheltered fugitives and ended feuds.

Nang (ننګ): Pashtun honour and the nang and qalang divideNang (ننګ) is the Pashto word for honour and also for its loss: Raverty's dictionary of 1867 gives "honor, reputation" and "disgrace, infamy" in one entry. Akbar S. Ahmed (1980) used it to sort Pashtun societies into nang hill tribes and qalang plains societies.

Pakol: the rolled wool cap of the northern hillsThe pakol is a flat-topped, rolled-brim woollen cap that comes from Gilgit, Chitral and Nuristan, not the Pashtun plains. It became common in eastern Afghanistan through the war against the Soviet army and Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Pashtun dress: shirts, turbans, caps and sandalsPashtun men and women wear the partug (wide drawstring trousers) under a long kamis shirt, with the turban (patkay or lungai) and cap (khwalay) as the clearest marks of region and tribe; Kandahar is known for khamak whitework and gold-thread caps, Peshawar for the chappal.

Pashtun embroidery: a documented Barech dressA twentieth-century woman's dress of pink velvet in the British Museum (2008,6039.2), sold in 2008 as a "Barech Pathan dress" and bought in Karachi in 1990, carries a full-length embroidered pocket, mirror-work and breastfeeding slits that tie it closely to the Baluch dress of southern Afghanistan.

Pashtun folk beliefsPashtun folklore tells of jinn and pêrai (پیری), the giant dêw, the fairy ṣ̌āpêrai, the night-hag khapasa (خپسه) that causes sleep paralysis, and the ghol of the waste described to Elphinstone; amulets, iron and saints' shrines are the usual protection.

Pashtun food and the table of hospitalityEveryday Pashtun food is bread, dairy and tea, with meat kept for guests and feasts, and a stranger is fed in the village hujra. The best-known Pashtun dishes today include chapli kabab from Takht Bhai and Peshawar, Kabuli palaw and winter landi.

Pashtun women's dress: the long dress, chadar and burqaPashtun women wear a long dress over gathered trousers with a head cloth, and embroidery, beads, mirrors and coins vary by place. The state pressed women to unveil in 1928 and 1959, and the Taliban ordered the chadari in 1996 and May 2022.

Pashtunwali: the Pashtun code of honour and conductPashtunwali (پښتونولي), "the way of the Pashtuns", is the unwritten code by which Pashtuns judge conduct: guarding honour (nang), feeding guests, sheltering a suppliant (nanawatai) and answering injury (badal), with disputes settled by a jirga.

Perahan tunban: the Pashtun man's shirt and trousersThe perahan tunban, in Pashto the kamis and partug, is a long collarless shirt worn outside wide drawstring trousers. In 1884 a farmer's whole outfit in the Peshawar district cost between two and two and a half rupees.

Pir Roshan and musicBayazid Ansari (Pir Roshan, born at Jalandhar in 1525 to a Kaniguram family) founded the Roshaniyya movement and wrote Khair al-Bayan, the oldest surviving Pashto work; the Halnama credits his circle with new rabab tunes and new forms of Pashto verse.

Qurut, shlombe and the dairy of the herdersQurut is dried curd, made with yoghurt (maste), buttermilk (shlombe), butter (kuch) and ghee from the milk of Pashtun herds. In the Pashtun country of the east and south, fresh milk was not sold, but butter, cheese and qurut were.

Rahman Baba's mazar at Hazarkhwani, Peshawar: the shrine and its ursThe mazar of the Pashto poet Rahman Baba stands in a graveyard at Hazarkhwani, south of Peshawar, and has hosted poets' gatherings since the late 1930s. Its mausoleum was bombed on 5 March 2009 and reopened in 2012.

Rohtas Fort: Sher Shah Suri's fortress on the JhelumRohtas Fort, 16 km north-west of Jhelum, was begun in 1541 by the Afghan king Sher Shah Suri to hold the Gakhar hills and bar Humayun's return. Its walls run for over 4 km with 68 bastions and twelve gates, and UNESCO listed it in 1997.

Sethi House and the old houses of PeshawarSethi House is a merchant mansion of the 1880s in Peshawar's walled city, home of the Sethi family who traded to Kabul, Bukhara and Russia, restored by the provincial archaeology department and opened to visitors in 2013.

Sher Shah Suri's tomb at Sasaram, BiharThe tomb of the Afghan king Sher Shah Suri (d. 1545) stands in an artificial lake at Sasaram in Bihar, an octagonal domed building begun in his lifetime and finished under his son Islam Shah, the last great work of the Lodi tomb tradition.

Shin chai and kahwa: green tea among the PashtunsGreen tea, called qehwa or kahwa and boiled with sugar and cardamom, is the everyday cup of Peshawar and the first thing offered to a guest. Afghanistan grew no tea, so every leaf came in over the trade routes from China and, later, India.

Tarburwali: rivalry between cousinsA tarbur is a father's brother's son, and in Pashto the word also means rival. Tarburwali, the cousin rivalry over land, honour and leadership, has been argued to be the root of Pashtun feuds, though the same cousin is the first ally against outsiders.

Teega: the truce stone and how feuds are pausedA teega is a truce a jirga places between feuding sides for a set time, with fines for breaking it. Ahmed translates the word as "stone"; a Kurram agreement used it in 2023 for a one-year truce.

The hujra and the qala: Pashtun guest house and family compoundThe hujra (حجره) is the men's guest house of a Pashtun village, where travellers are fed and lodged, elders meet in council and young men learn custom; the qala or kala is the walled family compound, its women, grain stores and well kept behind mud walls that in Mohmand villages stood 18 feet high.

The jirga: the Pashtun council of eldersA jirga (جرګه) is a Pashtun assembly of elders that sits in a circle to settle feuds, land disputes and tribal questions by consensus, enforcing its rulings with fines and expulsion. Afghanistan's Loya Jirga and Wolesi Jirga take their names from it.

The karakul cap: lambskin hat of Afghanistan and the Jinnah capThe karakul cap is made from the pelt of a newborn karakul lamb, the Persian-lamb fur of Bukhara and northern Afghanistan. Jinnah made it the Jinnah cap in Pakistan, and Hamid Karzai wore one as president.

The Lodi tombs of Delhi: Sikandar's tomb, the Bara Gumbad and Bahlul's tombThe tombs and mosque of the Afghan Lodi sultans of Delhi include Sikandar Lodi's octagonal tomb in its walled garden, the Bara Gumbad mosque of 1494 and Bahlul's tomb at Chirag Delhi. Their octagonal and square plans were copied at Sasaram and in Humayun's tomb.

The Pashtun turban: pagri, lungee and kullaThe Pashtun turban, the pagri (پګړۍ) or paṭkay (پټکی), is a long cloth wound round a cap, its end left hanging as the shamla; travellers and gazetteers from 1815 describe its colours, kulla and lungee.

The patu and the men's chadar: Pashtun blanket and shawlThe patu is the thick woollen blanket a Pashtun man wears over his shoulders in winter; the chadar is its thinner sheet. Raverty's 1867 dictionary defines pattū as "a kind of woollen cloth, or blanket", and Charsadda still weaves khamta shawls by hand.

The Peshawari chappal: the leather sandal of Peshawar and CharsaddaThe Peshawari chappal (Pashto chaplay) is a hand-stitched leather sandal, often on a tyre-cut sole, made in Peshawar, Charsadda and Shabqadar. Paul Smith's £300 "Robert" sandal of March 2014 brought it into the international news.

The rabab, the attan and Pashtun musicPashtun music, tang takor (ټنګ ټکور) in Pashto, is built around the rabab (رباب), a lute carved from one piece of mulberry wood, and sung forms such as the tappa. Its best-known dance is the attan (اتڼ), and UNESCO listed the rabab in 2024.

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Khamak: the counted-thread embroidery of Kandahar

The Peshawari chappal: the leather sandal of Peshawar and Charsadda

The karakul cap: lambskin hat of Afghanistan and the Jinnah cap

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