Religion

About 99 percent of the people of Afghanistan are Muslims, of whom some three-fourths are members of the Sunnite sect (Hanafi branch). The others, particularly the Hazaras, Kizilbash, and a few Isma'ilis, follow Shi'ite Islam. The Nuristanis are descendants of a large ethnic group, the Kafirs, who were forcibly converted to Islam in 1895; the name of their region was then changed from Kafiristan ("Land of the Infidels") to Nuristan ("Land of Light"). There are also a few thousand Hindus and Sikhs.

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