Ghor Province
Ghōr, also spelled Ghowr or Ghur, is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. It is located in Hazarajat region in central Afghanistan, towards the north-west. The province contains ten districts, encompassing hundreds of villages, and approximately 657,200 settled people. Firuzkoh, serves as the capital of the province.
Etymology
The name "Ghor" is a cognate to Avestan gairi-, Sanskrit giri- and Middle Persian gar, in modern Persian koh-, Sogdian gor-/gur-, in later developed Bactrian language as g´wrao-, meaning "mountain", in modern Pashto as ghar-, in Pamir languages as gar- and ghalcca-.The ancient Indo-European, Sogdian gor-/gur- is well preserved in all Slavic gor-/gór- , e.g.: Gorals, Goran, Goranci, Góra, Gora…, in Iranian languages, e.g: Gorani language, Guran … and even in India and Nepal, e.g.: Gurkha. The Polish notation using gór- instead of the popular gur- or ghur- preserves the ancient orthography.
History
The inhabitants of Ghor were completely Islamized during the Ghurids era. Before the 12th century, the area was home to Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and a small number of Jews. Remains of the oldest settlements discovered by Lithuanian archaeologists in 2007 and 2008 in Ghor date back to 5000 BC. Ruins of a few castles and other defense fortifications were also discovered in the environs of Chaghcharan. A Buddhist monastery hand-carved in the bluff of the river Harirud existed in the first centuries during the prevalence of Buddhism. The artificial caves revealed testimony of daily life of the Buddhist monks.Various scholars and historians such as John McLeod attribute the conversion of the Ghauris to Islam at the hands of Mahmud Ghazni who converted them to Islam after his conquest of Ghor: a people from central Afghanistan who had been converted to Islam by Mahmud.
Traditional Muslim historians such as Istakhri and Ibn Haukal attest to the existence of the non-Islamic enclave of Ghor prior to the time of Ghazni, who is attributed with converting its population to Islam.
Minhaju-S-Siraj records the strife between the non-Muslim and Muslim populations.
According to Minhahu-S Siraj, Amir Suri was captured by Mahmud of Ghazni, made prisoner along with his son and taken to Ghazni, where Amir Suri died.
built by the Ghurid Dynasty
In 1011, 1015 and 1020, both Mahmud and Mas'ud I led expeditions into Ghur and established Islam in place of the indigenous paganism. After this, Ghur was considered a vassal state of the Ghaznavid empire. During the reign of 'Abd ar Rashi and the usurper Toghrul, Ghur and Gharchistan gained autonomy.
Ghor was also the centre of the Ghurid dynasty in the 12th and 13th century. The remains of their capital Firozkoh, which was sacked and destroyed by the Mongols in 1222, includes the Minaret of Jam, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Karzai and Ghani administrations
In June 2004, hundreds of troops of Abdul Salaam Khan, who had rejected the Afghan government's plan to disarm regional militias, attacked Chaghcharan and took over the city in an afternoon-long siege. Eighteen people were killed or wounded in the fighting, at which point Governor Mohammed Ibrahim fled. Three days later the Afghan government announced that it would not retake Chaghcharan. Khan and Ibrahim began negotiations soon after, but reached no agreements. Khan's troops left Chaghcharan on June 23, a day ahead of when an Afghan National Army battalion, led by Lieutenant-General Aminullah Paktiyanai, arrived with the support of about twenty U.S. soldiers.Politics and governance
Since the fall of the Taliban regime in the country, the first governor was Ibrahim Malikzada and after Malikzada Abdul Qadir Alam was appointed as governor and then Shah Abdul Ahad AfzaliThe former governor of the province is Sima Joinda. Her predecessor was Sayed Anwar Rahmati. She is the first woman appointed as governor of Ghor and the third woman in the country holding a position of governor. She was replaced by the current governor Ghulam Nasir Khaze on December 21, 2015. The town of Firozkoh is the capital of Ghor province. All law enforcement activities throughout the province are controlled by the Afghan National Police. The police chief represents the Ministry of the Interior in Kabul. The ANP is backed by other Afghan National Security Forces, including the NATO-led forces.
Transportation
As of September 2014, Chaghcharan Airport, located at the provincial capital of Chaghcharan, had regularly scheduled flights to Kabul and Herat.Ghor province has a significant number of female drivers compared to the other provinces.
As of 2013, roads in the province remained largely undeveloped, unpaved and often lacked bridges over rivers.
Economy
and animal husbandry are the primary economic activities in Ghor Province. According to the United Nations, many young men were forced to leave the province to find work in Herat or Iran and a small percentage of the population were teachers, government officials, carpet weavers, carpenters and tailors. Over half of the population could not cover their basic needs with their level of income. Opium production had returned to the region following the Taliban's departure as locals attempted to increase their incomes by farming a more economically lucrative crop.Healthcare
The percentage of households with clean drinking water fell from 14% in 2005 to 9% in 2011.The percentage of births attended to by a skilled birth attendant fell from 9% in 2005 to 3% in 2011.
Education
The overall literacy rate increased from 19% in 2005 to 25% in 2011. The overall net enrolment rate increased from 28% in 2005 to 47% in 2011.Ghor University that first established as Ghor Higher Education Institute then promoted to Ghor University has around 500 students with a significant number of girls. There are also a number of Teacher Training Institutes in Firuzkoh, Taywara and Lal districts. The number of high schools increased in last the 10 years and attendance in university entrance exams jumped from hundreds to thousands of students. Several agriculture and mechanical schools were also established. There is only one nursing school that train young female high school graduates for midwifery and nursing that is part of Ministry of Public Health and run by a NGO in association with Ghor provincial hospital.
Demographics
The population of Ghor today is about 690,296 people.Geography
Ghor occupies the end of the Hindu Kush mountains. Ghor is 2,500 metres above sea level and heavy snowfalls often block many of its rugged passes from November to April. It is also a drought-prone area in the summer.Districts
| District | Capital | Population | Area | Notes |
| Firozkooh | 131,800 | Hazaras, Tajiks | ||
| Marghab | 40,000 | Tajiks | ||
| Charsada | 26,600 | |||
| Dawlat Yar | 31,800 | |||
| Du Layna | 35,100 | |||
| Lal wa Sarjangal | 250,000 | Hazaras | ||
| Pasaband | 92,200 | Tajiks, Hazaras, Pashtuns | ||
| Saghar | 33,700 | |||
| Shahrak | 58,200 | |||
| Taywara | 88,900 | |||
| Tulak | 50,000 | Hazaras |