Turkic people in Afghanistan

{{Short description|Turkic people of modern Afghanistan}}

{{Infobox ethnic group

| group = Turkic people in Afghanistan

| image =

| caption =

| popplace = Afghan Turkestan

| langs = Uzbek, Turkmen, Persian

| rels = Islam

| poptime =

}}

The Turkic people in Afghanistan are Turkic people from modern day Afghanistan. The major Turkic tribes are the Qizilbash, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, and Turkmens. The Qizilbash came to Afghanistan during the Afsharid and Durrani rule in Afghanistan and since they worked at high government jobs, but also made up parts of the army, especially when Timur Shah Durrani wanted to get rid of the dependency on Pashtun tribes and expanded his army by 12.000 Qizilbash soldier. Zaman Shah Durranis cavalry consisted of 100.000 men, who were mostly Qizilbashs.{{Cite book |last1=Noelle |first1=Christine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ylTi-e2C_0IC&q=timur+shah+durrani+12.000+qizilbash&pg=PA26 |title=State and Tribe in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826-1863) |date=25 June 2012 |isbn=9781136603174}} Today they live in big cities like Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar. Currently they speak mainly Persian as their language, however in some regions, as in Kandahar, they also speak Pashto.{{cn|date=March 2024}} They speak the same language as their ethnic equivalents in Central Asia. In addition to that the Afghan Tatars are scattered across much of northern Afghanistan and live in isolated rural areas. Kyrgyz people settle the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan and are also really isolated there. The number of them was 1,130 in 2003, all from eastern Wakhan District in the Badakhshan Province of northeastern Afghanistan.{{cite web |title=Wak.p65 |url=http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/WCR.pdf |accessdate=2013-02-28}} {{verify source|date=September 2019|reason=This ref was deleted Special:Diff/893922619 by a bug in VisualEditor and later restored by a bot from the original cite located at Special:Permalink/893498039 cite #8 - verify the cite is accurate and delete this template. User:GreenC bot/Job 18}} They still lead a nomadic lifestyle and are led by a khan or tekin.{{cn|date=October 2023}}