Khorasan (200s- ) or Khurasan, also known as خراسان in Arabic and Persian, 烏萇國 or Wūcháng in Chinese, is a historical region of Central Asia. It takes in Tajikistan, most of Afghanistan, half of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and north-eastern Iran. In Persian it means “The Land of the Sun”, meaning the east where the sun rises, and was long the name of the eastern-most part of the Persian and then Arab Empires.
Maps: The name appears on maps of both the original Caliphate (the Arab Empire), and of ISIS’s proposed future Caliphate:
The name made the news this week after a grisly bombing at the Kabul airport where thousands are trying to flee Afghanistan after its fall to the Taliban. The bombing was claimed by ISIS-K or ISKP: Islamic State, Khorasan Province.
Osama bin Laden also called the place Khorasan. In 1996 he announced he had found:
“a safe base … in the high Hindu Kush mountains in Khorasan.”
According to Peter Neumann, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization:
“Jihadists deny the legitimacy of most modern nation states; they prefer using historical terms, typically the ones that were used during the time of the great Caliphates (which is obviously what they want to go back to).”
But it is way more than just that:
The prophecy: The Prophet Muhammad in the Hadith says of the end times:
“If you see the black banners coming from Khurasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them. And they will finally reach Baitul Maqdis [Jerusalem], where they will erect their flags.”
Some dispute that he actually said that, but pious Muslims presumably believe it.
The Black Flags of Khorasan: in chronological order:
- The Abbasids, who took over the Arab Empire from the Arabs in 132 AH (750 AD), began in Khorasan – with black flags.
- The mujahideen who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s flew black flags.
- Al Qaeda started in Afghanistan with a black flag.
- Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber, had on his YouTube playlist “The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags of Khorasan”.
- ISIS has a black flag.
And no doubt there have been others. The thing becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Taliban uses a white flag and does not have clear designs of uniting the Muslim world in a new Caliphate as the Arab Empire did of old.
ISKP or ISIS-K sees the Taliban as namby-pamby even if the Taliban is, for now, the much stronger fighting force.
A bit of history, etc: Khorasan in time broke away from the Arab Empire and was independent from 821 to 999. Later it fell under Ghaznavid, Seljuq, and then Khwarezm-Shah rule. Genghis Khan took it over in 1200, Tamerlane in 1383. Marco Polo travelled there in 1271, Ibn Batuta in 1333 – when Herat (now in western Afghanistan) was its main city. The Silk Road ran right through Khorasan.
- poets: Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), Rumi (1207-1273), and Navoi (1441-1501).
- non-poets: Avicenna, al-Khwarizmi (father of algebra).
- languages: Persian, Kurdish and Turkish languages,
- religion: Sunni Islam.
- cities: Herat, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Samarkhand, Mashhad, Merv, Nishapur, Balkh, and Bukhara.
– Abagond, 2021.
Sources: Google Images and my last free articles at Time, Washington Post, Encyclopedia Britannica.
See also:
- Afghanistan (افغانستان)
- jihad
- al Qaeda
- Islamic State (ISIS)
- ISKP
- Muhammad
- Ibn Batuta (ابن بطوطة)
- Genghis Khan
- Tamerlane
- Navoi
- A Guide to Turks
- A Guide to Persians
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Abagond 
History and culture
but what are the simple explanation’s for why they are so violent?
europeans and russians are the same
just not as repressive to females.
I think its cause of the albinic vs melenin conflict
but its probably more complex than that.
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This is really informative. Thank you.
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My supermarket has black flags, black flag ant and roach killer that is. Pretty violent, I say.
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Very informative–thankyou
If I could add a perspective….
“Pious” might not be the most appropriate term to use—the people who promoted such concepts were generally referred to as “Purists” and developed them as a counter-narrative to colonialism. They use revisionist history as a tool to create a narrative….
Caliphate—Islam does not have a doctrine of “Divine right of kings”– Thus, the first 4 (Rightfully Guided) Caliphs were elected. (Because the Prophet was also elected—This is where the Sunni/Shia split happens—the Shia believe in inherited leadership of the family of the Prophet.) The Umayyad Dynasty lacked some legitimacy because the son–Yazid, succeeded the father and killed the Grandson of the Prophet. For this reason, the Abbasids claimed they were decedents of the family of the Prophet to give themselves some narrative to legitimacy….
Khorasan—I think Persians also used Sind and Hind for “the East”?
If one were to think of “Modern Nation-States” (Boundaries and Names) as a legacy of colonialism—then a “Purists” narrative would perhaps want to undo it to fit with its overall theme/concept….?….
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Abagond, thank you for reminding us that empires come and go. They all rise in the same fashion and fall in the same fashion—decaying and imploding from within.
It seems “The Center Of The World” shifts to epoch to epoch.
Someday the USA will be a backwater territory.
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