Nathan Punwani@npunwani
“Hindu Kush” NEEDS TO BE RETIRED from the geographic lexicon. The mountain range should be renamed because its current appellation is a traumatic and vulgar epithet against Hindus.
Kush is derived from the Persian verb "koštan" (کشتن), meaning "to kill." Thus, Hindu Kush means "Hindu killer"
The name "Hindu Kush" owes its dark reputation to the brutal conqueror Timur the Lame. During his campaigns, Timur forced vast numbers of Indian Hindus—primarily skilled artisans—across the mountain range on the way to his Central Asian entrepôts of Samarkand and Shahrisabz. There, as many as 100,000 Hindu craftsmen, tile-makers, carpenters, and masons were enslaved to construct his imposing citadels, palaces, and mosques, including the Bibi-Khanym Mosque.
The Hindu Kush serves as a stark and painful reminder that these mountains were a "Trail of Tears" for Hindus in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.