Pashtunwali
traditional lifestyle
Pashtunwali (Pashto: پښتونوالی, romanized: Pəx̌tunwālay, Pashto pronunciation: [pəʂ.tun.wɑ'laɪ, pəʃ.tun.wɑ'laɪ, pəç.tun.wɑ'laɪ, pəx.tun.wɑ'le/pʊx.tun.wɑ'le]), also known as Pakhtunwali and Afghaniyat, is the traditional lifestyle or a code of honour and tribal code of the Pashtun people by which they live. Many scholars widely have interpreted it as being "the way of the Pashtuns" or "the code of life". Pashtunwali is widely practised by Pashtuns in the Pashtun-dominated regions, and dates back to ancient pre-Islamic times.
Overview
The native Pashtun tribes, often described as fiercely independent people, who inhabit the Pashtunistan region follow this traditional code of conduct that governs the social behavior and values of the Pashtuns, which is called Pashtunwali, and it is described as being ancient, which the Pashtuns follow and predates Islam. Because of that, much of their mountainous territory has remained outside government rule or control. Pashtun resistance to outside rule and the terrain they reside in is sometimes speculated to be why Indigenous Pashtuns still follow the "code of life".
Some non-Pashtun Afghans and others have also adopted its ideology or practices for their own benefit. Conversely, many urbanized Pashtuns tend to ignore the rules of Pashtunwali. Passed on from generation to generation, Pashtunwali guides both individual and communal conduct. Ideal Pukhtun behaviour approximates the features of Pukhtunwali, the code of the Pukhtuns, which includes the following traditional features: courage (tora), revenge (badal), hospitality (melmestia), generosity to a defeated...
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This entry incorporates text from “Pashtunwali” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.