Nuristani People

The Nuristani people are an ethnic group native to the Nuristan region of eastern Afghanistan. The Nuristanis are a people whose ancestors practised what was apparently an ancient Indo-Iranian polytheistic Vedic religion until they were conquered and converted to Islam in the late 19th century by Emir Abdur Rahman Khan. In the mid 1890s, he conducted a campaign in Kafiristan and followed up his conquest with forced religious conversions, the region thenceforth being known as Nuristan, the "Land of Light". Non-Muslim religious practices endure today to some degree as folk customs. In their native rural areas, which was referred to by the local Muslims as Kafiristan before the 19th century, they are often farmers, herders, and dairymen.

The Nuristani are distinguished from the Kalash of Chitral by their adoption of Islam and territory within Afghanistan.