Nuristan

Nuristan (nʊrĭstăn') [Persian,=land of light or the enlightened], region on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush, NE Afghanistan, bordered on the E by Pakistan. Formerly called Kafiristan [land of the infidels], it is inhabited by an ethnically distinctive people (numbering about 60,000), who practiced animism until their forcible conversion to Islam in 1895-96. Inhabiting relatively isolated villages in deep, narrow mountain valleys, they grow wheat, barley, millet, peas, wine grapes, and other fruit and raise livestock (chiefly goats). A special artisan caste specializes in woodcarving, pottery making, weaving, and metalwork. The Nuristanis, divided into several tribes, speak Dardic dialects (often mutually unintelligible) belonging to a distinct branch of the Indo-European language family. Nuristan was the scene of some of the heaviest guerrilla fighting during the 1979-89 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet forces.