Theories of Pashtun origin

The Pashtun people are classified as an Iranian ethnic group. They are indigenous to southern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. Although a number of theories attempting to explain their ethnogenesis have been put forward, the exact origin of the Pashtun tribes is acknowledged as being obscure. Modern scholars have suggested that a common and singular origin is highly unlikely due to the Pashtuns' historical existence as a tribal confederation, and there is, in fact, no evidence attesting such an origin for the ethnicity. The early ancestors of modern-day Pashtuns may have belonged to the old Iranian tribes that spread throughout the easternmost Iranian plateau.

Varying in their degree of credibility, the most prominent Pashtun ethnogenesis theories propose:

1. Descent from the Pakhtas (or Pactyans, per Herodotus), who are referenced in contemporary sources in Sanskrit and Greek as having lived in the easternmost territories of the Achaemenid Empire;
2. Descent from the Saka, a group of nomadic Eastern Iranian peoples who historically inhabited the Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin;
3. Descent from the Hephthalites, an Iranian nomadic confederation that inhabited Central Asia during late antiquity;
4. Descent from Greek-admixed Rajputs, recalling the strengthening of ancient Indo-Greek relations during and after the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great.

Additionally, a popular theory of origin that has prevailed in Pashtun folklore since the time of the Mughal Empire asserts that the Pashtun people are descended from the Israelites, an ancient Semitic-speaking people who inhabited Canaan during the Iron Age, through the Ten Lost Tribes. However, the lack of historical evidence for this theory has complicated the scholarly debate on whether the Ten Lost Tribes relocated to modern-day Afghanistan after the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.