Jalalabad in the context of "Amanullah Khan"

The Third Anglo-Afghan War was a short war which began on 3 May and ended on 8 August 1919. The new Amir of the Emirate of Afghanistan Amanullah Khan declared a Jihad against the British in the hope to proclaim full independence, as well as to strengthen his own legitimacy. Amanullah's forces invaded British India on three fronts taking advantage of the unrest in India, in an effort to seize the old Afghan provinces west of the River Indus.

Initial victories saw the Afghans invade across the border, defeating the British and occupying Bagh. The British retaliated, leading a counterattack that routed the Afghans. Conflict continued in Kurram, which saw the British overwhelmed. Taking their own initiative, the British seized Spin Boldak in the south, while an Afghan offensive in Thal was contained, with the British occupying Dacca in turn by the end of May. The Royal Air Force were also used in bombing and strafing attacks on the frontier tribes as well as targets within Afghanistan, including Kabul and Jalalabad. Although small in scale, it was a contributing force for Amanullah to call for an armistice in June.

Hinduism in Afghanistan is practiced by a very small minority of Afghans, about 30–40 individuals as of 2021, who live mostly in the cities of Kabul and Jalalabad. Afghan Hindus are ethnically Pashtun, Hindkowan (Hindki), Punjabi, or Sindhi and primarily speak Dari, Pashto, Hindko, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu).

Before the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, the Afghan people were multi-religious. Religious persecution, discrimination, and religious conversions of Hindus in Afghanistan perpetrated by Muslims, has caused the Afghan Hindus, along with Buddhist and Sikh population, to dwindle from Afghanistan.

Buddhism, a religion founded by Gautama Buddha, first arrived in modern-day Afghanistan through the conquests of Ashoka (r. 268–232 BCE), the third emperor of the Maurya Empire. Among the earliest notable sites of Buddhist influence in the country is a bilingual mountainside inscription in Greek and Aramaic that dates back to 260 BCE and was found on the rocky outcrop of Chil Zena near Kandahar.

Many prominent Buddhist monks were based in Afghanistan during this period: Menander I (r. 165–130 BCE), a Greco-Bactrian king, was a renowned patron of Buddhism and is immortalized in the Milinda Panha, a Pali-language Buddhist text; Mahadharmaraksita, a 2nd-century BCE Indo-Greek monk, is said to have led 30,000 Buddhist monks from "Alasandra, the city of the Yonas" (a colony of Alexander the Great, located approximately 150 kilometres or 93 miles to the north of modern-day Kabul) to Sri Lanka for the dedication of the Mahathupa in Anuradhapura, according to the Mahavamsa (Chap. XXIX); Lokaksema, a 2nd-century Kushan monk, travelled to the Chinese capital city of Luoyang during the reign of the Han dynasty, and was the first translator of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into the Chinese language.

The Remnants of an Army, Jellalabad, January 13, 1842, better known as Remnants of an Army, is an oil-on-canvas painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler, from 1879. It depicts William Brydon, assistant surgeon in the Bengal Army, arriving at the gates of Jalalabad in January 1842. The walls of Jalalabad loom over a desolate plain and riders from the garrison gallop from the gate to reach the solitary figure bringing the first word of the fate of the "Army of Afghanistan".

Supposedly Brydon was initially thought to be the only survivor of the approximately 16,000 soldiers and camp followers from the 1842 retreat from Kabul in the First Anglo-Afghan War, and is shown toiling the last few miles to safety on an exhausted and dying horse. A few other stragglers from the army arrived later, and larger numbers were eventually released or rescued after spending time as captives of Afghan forces.

The 1842 retreat from Kabul was the retreat of the British and East India Company forces from Kabul during the First Anglo-Afghan War. An uprising in Kabul forced the then-commander, Major-General William Elphinstone, to fall back to the British garrison at Jalalabad. In early January 1842, as the army and its numerous dependants and camp followers began their march, they came under attack from Afghan tribesmen. Many in the column died of exposure, frostbite or starvation, or were killed during the fighting.

At the beginning of the conflict, British and East India Company forces had defeated the forces of Afghan Emir Dost Mohammad Barakzai and in 1839 occupied Kabul, restoring the former ruler, Shah Shujah Durrani, as emir. However a deteriorating situation made their position more and more precarious, until an uprising in Kabul forced Maj. Gen. Elphinstone to withdraw. To this end he negotiated an agreement with Wazir Akbar Khan, one of the sons of Dost Mohammad Barakzai, by which Elphinstone’s army was to be guaranteed security as they fell back to the Jalalabad garrison, more than 140 kilometres (90 mi) away.

The Kabul Expedition was a punitive campaign undertaken by the British against the Afghans following the disastrous retreat from Kabul. Two British and East India Company armies forced through the Khyber Pass and advanced on the Afghan capital from Kandahar and Jalalabad to avenge the complete annihilation of the British-Indian military-civilian column in January 1842.

The British force defeated the Afghans twice in battle following which they were able to recover prisoners captured during the retreat. The British demolished parts of Kabul before withdrawing to India, concluding the First Anglo-Afghan War.

Gandhāran Buddhism was the Buddhist culture of ancient Gandhāra, which was a major center of Buddhism in the northwestern Indian subcontinent from the 3rd century BCE to approximately 1200 CE. Ancient Gandhāra corresponds to modern day north Pakistan, mainly the Peshawar Valley and Potohar Plateau as well as Afghanistan's Jalalabad. The region has yielded the Gandhāran Buddhist texts written in Gāndhārī Prakrit the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered (1st century CE). Gandhāra was also home to a unique Buddhist artistic and architectural culture which blended elements from Indian, Hellenistic, Roman and Parthian art. Buddhist Gandhāra was also influential as the gateway through which Buddhism spread to Central Asia and China.