"It is remarkable that the old Arab geographers of the 10th and 11th centuries place in the Ghilzai country" (i.e. the country now occupied by the Ghilzais, or nearly so) "a people called Khilijis, whom they call a tribe of Turks, to whom belonged a famous family of Delhi Kings. The probability of the identity of the Khilijis and Ghilzais is obvious, and the question touches others regarding the origin of the Afghans; but it does not seem to have been gone into."
Nor has the writer since ever been able to go into it. But whilst he has never regarded the suggestion as more than a probable one, he has seen no reason to reject it. He may add that on starting the idea to Sir Henry Rawlinson (to whom it seemed new), a high authority on such a question, though he would not accept it, he made a candid remark to the effect that the Ghilzais had undoubtedly a very Turk-like aspect. A belief in this identity was, as we have recently noticed, entertained by the traveller Charles Masson, as is shown in a passage quoted below. And it has also been maintained by Surgeon-Major Bellew, in his Races of Afghanistan (1880), [who (p. 100) refers the name to Khilichī, a swordsman. The folk etymology of De Guignes and D'Herbelot is Kall, 'repose,' atz, 'hungry,' given to an officer by Ogouz Khān, who delayed on the road to kill game for his sick wife].
All the accounts of the Ghilzais indicate great differences between them and the other tribes of Afghanistan; whilst there seems nothing impossible, or even unlikely, in the partial assimilation of a Turki tribe in the course of centuries to the Afghans who surround them, and the consequent assumption of a quasi-Afghan genealogy. We do not find that Mr. Elphinstone makes any explicit reference to the question now before us. But two of the notes to his History (5th ed. p. 322 and 384) seem to indicate that it was in his mind. In the latter of these he says: "The Khiljis ... though Turks by descent ... had been so long settled among the Afghans that they had almost become identified with that people; but they probably mixed more with other nations, or at least with their Turki brethren, and would be more civilized than the generality of Afghan mountaineers." The learned and eminently judicious William Erskine was also inclined to accept the identity of the two tribes, doubting (but perhaps needlessly) whether the Khiliji had been really of Turki race. We have not been able to meet with any translated author who mentions both Khiliji and Ghilzai. In the following quotations all the earlier refer to Khiliji, and the later to Ghilzai. Attention may be called to the expressions in the quotation from Zīauddīn Barnī, as indicating some great difference between the Turk proper and the Khiliji even then. The language of Baber, again, so far as it goes, seems to indicate that by his time the Ghilzais were regarded as an Afghan clan.
c. 940.—"Hajjāj had delegated 'Abdar-rahmān ibn Mahommed ibn al-Ash'ath to Sijistān, Bost and Rukhāj (Arachosia) to make war on the Turk tribes diffused in those regions, and who are known as Ghūz and Khulj...."—Maṣ'ūdī, v. 302.
c. 950.—"The Khalaj is a Turkī tribe, which in ancient times migrated into the country that lies between India and the parts of Sijistān beyond the Ghūr. They are a pastoral people and resemble the Turks in their natural characteristics, their dress and their language."—Istakhri, from De Goeje's text, p. 245.
c. 1030.—"The Afgháns and Khiljís having submitted to him (Sabaktigín), he admitted thousands of them ... into the ranks of his armies."—Al-'Utbi, in Elliot, ii. 24.
c. 1150.—"The Khilkhs (read Khilij) are people of Turk race, who, from an early date invaded this country (Dāwar, on the banks of the Helmand), and whose dwellings are spread abroad to the north of India and on the borders of Ghaur and of Western Sijistān. They possess cattle, wealth, and the various products of husbandry; they all have the aspect of Turks, whether as regards features, dress, and customs, or as regards their arms and manner of making war. They are pacific people, doing and thinking no evil."—Edrisi, i. 457.
1289.—"At the same time Jalálu-d dín (Khilji), who was 'Ariz-i-mamálik (Muster-master-general), had gone to Bahárpúr, attended by a body of his relations and friends. Here he held a muster and inspection of the forces. He came of a race different from that of the Turks, so he had no confidence in them, nor would the Turks own him as belonging to the number of their friends.... The people high and low ... were all troubled by the ambition of the Khiljis, and were strongly opposed to Jalálu-d dín's obtaining the crown.... Sultán Jalálu-d dín Fíroz Khilji ascended the throne in the ... year 688 A.H.... The people of the city (of Delhi) had for 80 years been governed by sovereigns of Turk extraction, and were averse to the succession of the Khiljis ... they were struck with admiration and amazement at seeing the Khiljis occupying the throne of the Turks, and wondered how the throne had passed from the one to the other."—Ziáu-d-dín Barní, in Elliot, iii. 134-136.
14th cent.—The continuator of Rashíduddín enumerates among the tribes occupying the country which we now call Afghanistan, Ghūris, Herawis, Nigudaris, Sejzis, Khilij, Balūch and Afghāns. See Notices et Extraits, xiv. 494.
c. 1507.—"I set out from Kábul for the purpose of plundering and beating up the quarters of the Ghiljis ... a good farsang from the Ghilji camp, we observed a blackness, which was either owing to the Ghiljis being in motion, or to smoke. The young and inexperienced men of the army all set forward full speed; I followed them for two kos, shooting arrows at their horses, and at length checked their speed. When five or six thousand men set out on a pillaging party, it is extremely difficult to maintain discipline.... A minaret of skulls was erected of the heads of these Afghans."—Baber, pp. 220-221; see also p. 225.