About Malakand

 Malakand


Malakand is a region in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Named after Malakand Agency, a part of this region, it covers one third of the total area of the province. The region is further divided into several other Districts, namely Chitral, Dir, Swat, Buner, Shangla and Agenies like Malakand Agency, Muhmand Agency.


The region became recently known by a militant Islamist group Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi that has been an active force in Malakand particularly in 2007


Malakand :having an area of about 952 square kilometres and a population of over 4.5 lakhs as per population census of 1998 is situated in the lower reaches of the Swat region. Its limits start when the last boundary of Shergarh village in Mardan District touches the outskirts of Sakhakot village as one travels from Peshawar to Swat on the main highway. At the meeting point between Shergarh and Sakhakot, police and custom check posts are functioning and the point is known as Sakhakot Board. Travelling through Sakhakot one enters Dargai village, which is followed by the mountainous terrain of about 15 kilometres known as Malakand Pass or Darrah Malakand much less difficult to cross than before because of a mattled road in it now. Crossing through the same hilly pass you will enter the country's largest Batkhela Bazar. You proceed onwards till Landakay village where the limits of District Malakand end and District Swat welcomes you. In ancient history the name of Malakand has appeared as Mala Kund or Mullah Kandao. There exist different versions vis a vis its genesis as "Malakand". Some historians say that the word Malakand is a combination of two Persian words i.e mala and kund. In Pushto mala means aamail (garland) and kund means ubo (water). They give the impression that when anyone crosses the Malakand Pass the river Swat looks like a mala (aamail). Another concept is that the name Malakand has been derived from the words Mullah Kandao. Those who believe on this concept take it as combination of two words---Mullah and Kandao. Mullah means a religious saint and Kandao means a lofty place. Some people term the name Malakand as "Mlakandao" which means curved like the backbone of the body. The version that looks more convincing is based on the premise that due to the very steep nature of the pass, travellers after reaching its top, would complain of backache and thus ask for "kund" which in Pashto is a tonic for restoration of normalcy, and "Mala" in Pashto means "for me" and thus "Mala Kund that is "tonic for me" gave the name Malakand to the small hamlet on the top. All the notions about the name of Malakand have one point similar and that is the characteristic of being a difficult territory or place to climb on. In fact it is situated on a curved line almost in a zig zag position. Many poets in the past have also termed the mountainous terrain very difficult to negotiate. Khushal Khan Khattak describes in one of his couplets that the pony riders will find it more difficult to climb on the path going to Malakand and cautions those having lamb feet not to think of climbing on the Malakand pass. Any how the name Malakand is now-a-days an important and well-known name and has been adopted in the same form by many other villages in the Swat and Dir districts.The area surrounded by Malakand--- on the south till Sakhakot Board, on the north Pull Chawki or Chakdara Bridge, towards the east till Landakay and to the west till Kot Agra comes in the limits of Malakand District. In addition to the above clarification Malakand is bounded on the north by Lower Dir district, on the east by the district of Buner, on the south-east by Mardan district and south-west by Charsadda district and Mohmand Agency. It is also bounded by a range of mountains on the north-east separating it from district Swat and another range of mountains to the west separating it from Bajaur and Mohmand agencies. In papers the area is still an agency known as Malakand Agency or Malakand Protected Area but in 2001, after implementation of the Devolution Plan, a full-pledged district government has been established in it headed by the District Nazim who is assisted by a District Naib Nazim, District Coordination Officer (DCO), Commandant Malakand Levies, Tehsil Nazimeen, Union Council Nanzimeen and heads of all the district departments. Administratively, Malakand has been divided into Swat Ranizai and Sum Ranizai tehsils. These tehsils are Batkhela and Dargai where Tehsil Municipal Administrations have been established. A part of Malakand is occupied by the Uthmankhel clan of Pukhtoons (Pathans), while towards the south, at the bottom of Malakand Pass, live the Ranizai known as Sam Ranizai. Those living beyond the pass towards Swat are Swat Ranizai. The road in the pass has many turns and zigzags and appears to have been scientifically designed. Before partition the road in this hilly pass was very narrow and at the turning edges, vehicles from the upper side would have to stop to give way to those coming from the lower side. Near the lowest point due to difficulty in cutting down the road edges at the time of construction of the hilly road, a 100 feet (30 m) tunnel has been dug out. Now few years ago, the NWFP government allocated funds for widening of the road and now two vehicles can easily pass through it without interrupting the vehicles coming from the opposite direction. The tunnel has also been widened and the rocks on the outer south side were cut down that enabled the construction company to establish a bypass road. Though, that road has now been abandoned by the traffic, however, in case of emergency the same road would be available for keeping flow of the traffic smooth. Being a key route to Swat, Dir, Buner, Shangla and Chitral districts, the Malakand Pass has remained for years the target of foreign invasions. The ancient route between Central Asia and India passes through it. Before the British occupation, it represented Pukhtoon grandeur. Prominent Pukhtoon Sardars particularly Ranizai--a division of the Yousafzai Pathans inhabited it. The chief town of swat Ranizai are Thana, Batkhela, Malakand, Dargai and Sakhakot are important towns of Malakand. Malakand is about 2,705 feet (824 m) above sea level. Geological surveys identifies that the northern part of Malakand is occupied by the main mineral thrust material also known as Melange Zone rocks. Composed of volcanic, phyllites, slates, green schist, quartzite and other oceanic metasediments. The middle part of the Malakand Protected Area comprised metasediments and granitic rocks. The granitic rocks are named as Malakand granite and Chakdara and Bazdara granite. The Malakand Power House tunnel or Benton Tunnel passes through these rock formations. In the south near Dargai is the ophite rocks, known as Dargai ophiolite. These ophite rocks contains chromite, soapstone, asbestos, manganese and magnesite. Batkhela is tehsil and capital of Malakand Agency. On west side of batkhela along the swat river the following village khar, Dehri-jolagram. After the mountain & Thray pass the next village name is Matkani. The village of Haji Abdul Majid khan. As one passes down the Main town is Totakan. The most famous school in this area is Malakand Model School Totakan. Other villages in the surrounding area are Hisarbab, Bakht Rajee, SraShah, Qulangai, Agra, Barawal, Pirkhail and Maikhband.


As one goes along the GT road and at the end of Batkhela baazar a place called Amaandarra comes. Here a road separates and leads to twin villages called Dherai and Aladhand. This is the village(s)where the tomb of Malik Ahmed Khan Baba is situated at Gul-e-Nargis Ghardi ( called Gulingass Gardi locally ). Malik Ahmed Khan Baba was the chief of Yusufzais who led his tribe after the great Exodus of Yusufzais from Kabul, Afghanistan in the days of Mirza Ulugh Beg, the Moghul king, who brutally and coldbloodedly killed 300 of the strong elders and sardars of Yusufzais and order the tribe to flee. This was the second exodus of Yusufzais Pukhtuns after the first Great Exodus of Pukhtuns, as a Hebrew tribe, at the time of the fall of Hebrew State at Jerusalem in the hands of 'Bakhth Nasre'. The main GT road then leads to Chakdarra, a famous ancient town on the side of river Swat where the famous Churchil pique t is located and from here a road leads to Dir, Chitral, Bajaward and onward to Afghanistan and another road goes to Swat, Kohistan/Bisham, Northern Areas and ultimately to China.Another small road leads to the historic Shahkote, famous for Bhudist remains and through Shahkote pass to Katlang and Mardan. As we pass along the road towards Swat a well known historic village and now town called Thana (locally called Thandra) in located. This the place of great sophistication and civility of Yusufzais, then and now, where the chief of Yusufzai, The Khan, use to live.The clan of the khan called as 'Khankori' mean the 'Family of Khan' still is a commonly used nobility. It is still one of the highly educated and most respected people and place in NWFP. The town is located close to river Swat on one side and the famous mountain of 'Mora',a well known name in Hindu mythology and place of worship where Chandar Gupt Moria stayed and worshiped. A road tributary passes from here to Katlang and Mardan via Charat, a pass adjacent to 'Mora'. Mora is also known in the history of Yusufzai where the Moghul king Babur met Mubaraka Bibi,and got married with her. From Thana the GT road goes to Mingora and Saidu Sharif with many historic and ancient places of Pukhthun, pre-Pukhtun times. As one passes down the Malakand Pass the Swat valley starts and reaches up in the mountains to Kohistan. Though administratively separated as Malakand Agency the area along the GT road beyond Malakand is part of Swat. River Swat, in Rig Veda 8.19.37, was mentioned as the Suvastu river. Swat has been inhabited for over two thousands years and known as Udyana. In 305 BC it was under Mauryan Empire. In 327 BC Alexander the Great reached Udegrahm and Barikot and the Greeks registered these villages as Ora and Bazira. Around 2nd century BC it was under Buddhists, The Indo-Greeks and the Kushans. The Pukhtuns of the area has the genius of Jews,the tolerance of Buddhist,the valor of a Kushan and the faith of a Muslim - but all frustrated

Places of Interest in Malaknd : MUSLIMS GRAVEYARDS: Thousands of Muslim mujahideen had sacrificed their lives for the cause of the land of Malakand and during the two famous battles of Malakand a large number of Muslims were martyred by the British for their only sin that they were not ready to allow the British forces to dominate their territory. In the Malakand environs there are a lot of graveyards in which the Muslim martyrs are lying buried. On some of the graves of the Muslims there exist tombs while majority are heaps of rocks and are barely identified to be graves. A thick olive forest in the Malakand suburbs identifies the presence of the Mulsim graveyards. Two of these graveyards are located in the Malakand on the back of Zafar Market



AMANDARA HEAD WORKS: The upper Swat canal system emanates from the Swat River at Amandara Head Works and irrigates 121400 hectares of land of the Mardan and Peshawar valleys. The Head Works was completed in 1918. At this location, the Swat River has an annual flow volume of 5.44 billion cubic metres. The minimum discharge is 36.5 cusecs in winter and the summer flow peaks up to 443 cusecs. A six kilometre long canal carries water from Amandara to the foot of Malakand mountains. Here the 3.5 kilometre long "Benton Tunnel" after traversing the Malakand hills activates Jabban and Dargai power houses apart from irrigating vast areas which in the past were rain-fed waste lands. The Amandara Head Works serves as a regulation point for controlling the water flowing through the Swat River. In case of an emergency, the Swat River can be diverted on a diversion already built for the same purpose through this regulation system. The irrigation department supervises the project. A scenic rest house also exists near the head works where VIPs stay during their visits to Malakand. Standing on the veranda of the rest house, the visitors will find a most dominating view of the Head Works. The rest house is also used for holding official meetings and other functions. The irrigation department controls allotment of this famous rest house.