Pashtuns, ethnic group living in southeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. Pashtuns are also known as Pushtuns or Pakhtuns. Until the term Afghan came to mean any native of Afghanistan, Pashtuns were called Afghans. Pashtuns are the majority of the population in Afghanistan and the largest ethnic minority in Pakistan.

Traditionally, Pashtuns have been organized into tribes, each divided into subtribes, clans, and subclans. The leaders of tribes, known as khans, have limited power. Important matters are usually settled by subtribe and clan chiefs, or by a tribal council. While some clans embrace the Shia sect of Islam, the overwhelming majority of Pashtuns are Sunnis, the largest branch of Islam. Pashtuns have always resisted efforts to impose government control on their society. Traditionally, a social code known as the Pashtunwali (“Pashtun Way”) regulated the behavior of Pashtun men. The key principles of this code are honor, courage, and hospitality. Vendettas, or feuds, between families or whole clans are common among the Pashtuns. Unless a vendetta is settled by a gathering of chiefs, the descendants of those who started the dispute may inherit the vendetta.

The Pashtun language, Pashto, belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages. It has two main dialects, Kandahari Pashto and Peshwari Pashto, identified with the cities of Kandahār and Peshāwar, respectively. Pashto is written in an Arabic script, modified to include certain sounds not found in Arabic speech. The Pashtuns’ main modes of livelihood are farming, especially the cultivation of cereal crops, and livestock-raising. A minority of Pashtuns live as nomadic pastoralists, seasonally migrating with their herds in search of pasture (see Pastoralism). Pashtuns are generally strict in their observance of the Islamic custom of purdah—the seclusion and veiling of women—and women are usually restricted to the home.

Pashtun tradition holds that they are descended from a common ancestor named Afghana who lived in what is now Afghanistan in ancient times. According to some traditional beliefs, Afghana was a grandson of Saul, the first king of ancient Israel.

Between the 13th and 16th centuries, several Pashtun tribes migrated from Afghanistan to Pakistan, where they established kingdoms. In Pakistan the death of a king frequently led to fighting between the supporters of different potential heirs.

The Pashtun chieftain Ahmad Shah, who extended his rule from Kandahār, unified the Pashtuns under one government for the first time in 1747. Although Pashtuns dominated the monarchy of Afghanistan from its beginnings until its abolition in 1973, foreign intervention and political intrigue weakened the kingdom of Ahmad Shah’s successors.

In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state between the British Empire, seeking to protect its colonial possessions in Pakistan and India to the southeast, and the expanding Russian Empire to the north (see Russia). In 1893 the British secured the agreement of the Afghan shah (king) to delineate a new border between Afghanistan and present-day Pakistan (then part of British-controlled India). The new border divided Pashtun territory between Afghan and British areas of control.

After Pakistan became an independent nation in 1947, the legitimacy of the border was called into question periodically by the Afghan government and by Pashtun tribes whose territories straddled the border. The issue caused tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which insisted on the permanence of the boundary.

During the Afghan-Soviet War (1979-1989) Pashtuns were prominent among the members of the mujahideen, Islamic guerrilla groups that formed to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and to oppose the Soviet-backed Afghan government. During the war with the Soviets and subsequent civil war, approximately 2 million Pashtuns fled to Pakistan as refugees. The government of president Burhanuddin Rabbani, which came to power when the Soviet-backed government collapsed in 1992, tried to exclude Pashtuns from most important positions.

The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement dominated by Pashtuns, seized the Afghan capital of Kābul in 1996 and soon controlled most of the country. Opposition forces of ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras formed the Northern Alliance to fight against the Taliban regime. The Taliban also provided a haven for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The United States and other forces invaded Afghanistan as part of the war on terrorism following the September 11 attacks in 2001. The Taliban were driven from power in late 2001, and the major ethnic groups of Afghanistan agreed to form a transitional power-sharing government. A prominent Pashtun leader, Hamid Karzai, was named interim leader of Afghanistan. Karzai became the first elected president of Afghanistan in 2004.