These four tribes together are called by the other Hazaras as "Char Aimaq" which means "four western tribes". They speak Hazaragi, and have the same ethnic traditions, including dress, food and names, as the other Hazaras. The only difference is that they are all Sunni Muslims, while the majority of Hazaras are Shia Muslims. Only Timuris have some Shias among them.
Playing on this sectarian divide the Afghan government (dominated by the ethnic Pushtuns) divided them politically also. The Afghan government listed them as a separate nationality in the list of the ethnic groups of Afghanistan, thereby reducing the Hazara population in the national percentage. Despite all this, even then, the aimaqs are racially discriminated against, because of their ethnicity.
External links
Aimaq Sample at Language Museum (http://www.language-museum.com/a/aimaq.php)
The tribes of the Char Aimaq are ethnic formations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In Afghanistan all of the estimated 800,000-1,000,000 Aimaq (3.4 percent of the population) are Sunni (Hanafi school) Muslims, in contrast to the Shia Persian majority in Iran.
During spring and summer, the herds graze on pastures near the village, cared for by one of the brothers in an extended family, the social and economic core of all the Aimaq.
Feeds |
Contact