Jesus In India — Page 145
CHAPTER FOUR now counted as Pathans, because they all speak the Pathan language, Pushto, they acknowledge no direct kinship, claiming themselves to be Beni Israel, the descendants of those tribes who were carried captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. All of them have, however, adopted the Pushto tongue, and all recognise the same Pathan code of common civil observances called Paktanwali, which is, in many of its provisions, curiously suggestive both of the old Mosaic dispensation and of ancient observances of the Rajput races. Thus the Pathans, with whom we have lately been so largely concerned, may be divided into two great com- munities, i. e. tribes and clans such as Waziris, Afridis, Orakzais, etc. who are of Indian origin, and those who are Afghans, who claim to be Semitic and who represent the dominant race throughout our frontier; and it seems at least to be possible that the Paktanwali, which is an unwritten code and which is acknowledged by them all alike, may be of very mixed origin indeed. We may find in it Mosaic ordinances grafted on to Rajput traditions and modified by Moslem custom. The Afghans, who call them- selves Duranis and who have done so ever since the foun- dation of the Durani Empire about a century and a half ago, say that they trace their descent from the Israelitish tribes through an ancestor named Kish (Qais), to whom the prophet Mohomet gave the name Pathan (which is Syriac for a rudder), because he was to steer his people into the currents of Islam. . . . It is difficult to account for the universal prevalence of Israelitish names amongst 135