Hazarajat


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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Hazarajat

 

mountains in the eastern part of the Iranian Plateau in Afghanistan, located primarily in the basins of two rivers, the Hari Rud and the Farah Rud. The Hazarajat, a system of desolate ranges of primarily moderate elevation, measures approximately 600 km in length and up to 300 km in width. It rises to a maximum elevation of 4,182 m in the Koh-i-Hesar. The ranges, which are composed mainly of limestones and shales, fan out from the western extremity of the Hindu Kush, gradually becoming lower toward the west and southwest. Semidesert with ephemeral sagebrush predominates to elevations of 2,400 m, with occasional thin forests of pistachio. Higher there is frigana (xerophytic shrub and semishrub vegetation) with groves of juniper; dry steppes occur on leveled segments. There are oases at the foot of the mountains.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
It is also a gateway into the mountainous central province of Hazarajat, also home mainly to Shia Hazara people.
A persecuted Shia community from the highland region of Hazarajat in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hazaras are identified by their facial features.
They may have held this time, but as we've learnt from Karachi, the Hazarajat and Punjab, strongholds ultimately fall.
The Hazara community are an ethnic group native to the region of Hazarajat in central Afghanistan, but their significant minority resides in Pakistan.
When the Taliban destroyed the ancient statues of Buddha, carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in Hazarajat, central Afghanistan, in March 2001, Al Qaradawi did not lift a finger to stop them and of course, nor did any of his Qatari sponsors, who were friends with the Taliban and still operate an embassy for the terrorist group in Doha 16 years after its fall in Kabul.
The other part of the Hazaras that remained in Afghanistan fled the cities and escaped to the mountains of the central highlands of Afghanistan that is known today as Hazarajat or Hazaristan.
Hizb-e-Wahdat is Hazara organization and is based in Hazarajat. Jumbish- e-Milli is an Uzbek political grouping.
They have reportedly fled to Hazarajat to join a warlord.
Notably, for one of his vice-president, he has Mohammad Mohaqiq as candidate, who is a warlord entrenched among his own large ethnic Hazara community dominating the Hazarajat region of Afghanistan.
They comprise of 7% of the total population, settled in Hazarajat and have adopted Dari or Persian as their language.
For nearly 1600 years, the monumental statues of the standing Buddha, carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan Valley in the Hazarajat region of Afghanistan, stood supremely harmless, threatening none.