Mastung, Pakistan
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Mastung ( Balochi and
Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
: ), is a town in the
Balochistan Balochistan ( ; , ), also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region o ...
province and serves as headquarters of
Mastung District Mastung District (; Brahui and ) is a district located in the northwest of Balochistan province, Pakistan. Prior to its creation as a separate district in 1991, Mastung was part of Kalat District. District Mastung published its Gazetteer in t ...
. It sits at an altitude of 1,701 metres (5583 feet). and is also the administrative centre for Mastung Tehsil, a subdivision of the district. The town is further divided into two Union Councils. Mastung is part of Sarawan, which was a division of the former princely state of
Kalat Qalat, Qelat, Kalat, Kalaat, Kalut, or Kelat, may refer to: * Qalat (fortress), a fortified place or fortified village Afghanistan * Qalat, Afghanistan, capital of Zabul Province * Kalat, Badakhshan, a small village in the Kuran wa Munjan Dist ...
. The primary languages spoken by the people in Mastung are Brahui and Balochi.


History

Mastung was known to the 10th-century geographers
al-Muqaddasi Shams al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr, commonly known by the '' nisba'' al-Maqdisi or al-Muqaddasī, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of ''The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions'' and ''Description of Syri ...
and
Istakhri Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al-Istakhri () (also ''Estakhri'', , i.e. from the Iranian city of Istakhr, b. – d. 346 AH/AD 957) was a 10th-century travel author and Islamic geographer who wrote valuable accounts in Arabic of ...
, who both listed it among the towns in the province of ''Bālis'', also called ''Bālish'' or ''Wālishtān'', whose capital was
Sibi Sibi (; ;) is a city situated in the Balochistan (Pakistan), Balochistan Subdivisions of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. The city serves as the administrative headquarters of the Sibi District, district and Sibi Tehsil, tehsil of the same name ...
. The
Ain-i-Akbari The ''Ain-i-Akbari'' (), or the "Administration of Akbar", is a 16th-century detailed document regarding the administration of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, written by his court historian, Abu'l Fazl, in the Persian language. It forms ...
, written during the reign of the
Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...
emperor
Akbar Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...
in the late 1500s, lists Mastung as one of the 24 mahals included in the Sarkar of
Kandahar Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...
. At that time, Mastung was defended by a
mud brick Mudbrick or mud-brick, also known as unfired brick, is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of mud (containing loam, clay, sand and water) mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE. From ...
fort and produced a yearly revenue of 10 '' tumans'' and 8,000
dinar The dinar () is the name of the principal currency unit in several countries near the Mediterranean Sea, with a more widespread historical use. The English word "dinar" is the transliteration of the Arabic دينار (''dīnār''), which was bor ...
s in cash alongside 470 '' kharwars'' of grain. Its population was a mixture of
Afghans Afghans (; ) are the citizens and nationals of Afghanistan, as well as their descendants in the Afghan diaspora. The country is made up of various ethnic groups, of which Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks are the largest. The three main lan ...
and Balochs.'''' The 2017 Mastung suicide bombing killed 28 and injured 40. A 2018 suicide bombing killed 149 and injured 186. The town was once again the site of a suicide bombing in 2023.


Demographics


Population

As of the 2023 census, Mastung had a population of 40,374. There are numerous Baloch as well as Pashtun tribes populated in Mastung, the tribes include Bangulzai, Shahwani, Pirkani, Sarpara, Raisani (Tareen) and Muhammad Shahi Khilji, which are the most common tribes and are politically active and leading in the area other tribes include
Dehwar The Dehwar are an ethnic group of the Balochistan region of Pakistan and Iran. They have traditionally been settled agriculturalists (in contrast to the nomadic Baloch). They speak Dehwari, a variety of Persian close to Dari Dari (; endony ...
, Lehri, Satakzai, Bangulzai,
Tareen The Tareen (or Tarin) () is a Pashtun tribe inhabiting southern Afghanistan, and western region of Pakistan.Caroe O. ''The Pathans 550 B.C.- A.D. 1957'' Oxford University Press . Page 521.Muhammad Hyat Khan, "Hayat i Afghan" (Orig. in Persian 186 ...
, Ali Zai and several more.


Religion


See also

* Mastung Valley * Khwaja Ibrahim Yukpasi *
Baluchistan Agency The Baluchistan Agency (also spelt Balochistan Agency) was one of the agencies of British India during the colonial era. It was located in the present-day Balochistan province of Pakistan.Administration report of the Balochistan Agency for 1888 ...


References


Notes

* {{Authority control Populated places in Mastung District