Khyber Pass in the context of "Nangarhar Province"

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, commonly abbreviated KP or KPK and formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a province of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the fourth largest province of Pakistan by land area and the third-largest province by population. It is bordered by Balochistan to the south; Punjab, Islamabad Capital Territory, and Azad Kashmir to the east; and Gilgit-Baltistan to the north and northeast. It shares an international border with Afghanistan to the west. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has a varied geography of rugged mountain ranges, valleys, rolling foothills, and dense agricultural farms.

The history of the present province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is characterized by frequent invasions by various empires, largely due to its geographical proximity to the historically important Khyber Pass. It was the site of the ancient Gandhara, and was historically a stronghold of Buddhism. Islam became dominant in the region after the 11th-century conquest of the Hindu Shahi kingdom by the Ghaznavids. The predecessor of the present province was constituted in 1901, under the British Raj, when the North-West Frontier Province was created by bifurcating the northwestern districts of the erstwhile Punjab Province.

The Punjab Province, officially the Province of the Punjab, was a province of British India, with its capital in Lahore and summer capitals in Murree and Simla. At its greatest extent, it stretched from the Khyber Pass to Delhi; and from the Babusar Pass and the borders of Tibet to the borders of Sind. Established in 1849 following Punjab's annexation, the province was partitioned in 1947 into West and East Punjab; and incorporated into Pakistan and India, respectively.

Most of the Punjab region was annexed by the East India Company on 29 March 1849 following the company's victory against the Sikh Empire's army at the battle of Gujrat in northern Punjab, a month prior. The Punjab was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to fall to British imperialism.

The Valley of Peshawar (Pashto: د لوی پېښور وادي; Urdu: وادئ پشاور) is a broad area situated in the central part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The valley is 7,176 km (2,771 sq mi) in area, and is traversed by the Kabul River. It has a mean elevation of 345 metres (1,132 ft). The valley takes its name from the city of Peshawar, which is situated at the western part of the valley close to Warsak Dam. To the west of the valley lies the Khyber Pass. The five most populous cities in the valley are Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi, Charsadda, and Nowshera.

Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam (Persian: معز الدین محمد بن سام, romanized: Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām; c. 1144 – 15 March 1206), also known as Muhammad of Ghor or Muhammad Ghori, was a ruler from the Ghurid dynasty based in the Ghor region of what is today central Afghanistan who ruled from 1173 to 1206. Muhammad and his elder brother Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad ruled in a dyarchy until the latter's death in 1203. Ghiyath al-Din, the senior partner, governed the western Ghurid regions from his capital at Firozkoh whereas Muhammad extended Ghurid rule eastwards into South Asia, laying the foundation of Islamic rule in South Asia, which lasted after him for nearly half a millennium under evolving Muslim dynasties.

During his early career as governor of the southern tract of Ghurid Empire, Muhammad subjugated the Oghuz Turks after a series of forays and annexed Ghazni where he was installed by Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad as an independent sovereign. Expanding the Ghurid dominion east of the Indus Delta from his base in Ghazni, Muhammad crossed the river Indus in 1175, approaching it through the Gomal Pass and captured Multan and Uch from the Carmathians within a year. Afterwards, Muhammad took his army by the way of lower Sindh, endeavouring to penetrate into present-day Gujarat through the Thar Desert. However, he was wounded and his forces were routed near Mount Abu at Kasahrada by a coalition of Rajput chiefs led by the Chaulukya king Mularaja. This setback forced him to change his route for future inroads into the Indian Plains. Hence, Muhammad pressed his forces against the Ghaznavids and uprooted them by 1186, conquering the upper Indus Plain along with most of the Punjab. After expelling the Ghaznavids from their last bastion, Muhammad secured the Khyber Pass, the traditional route of entry for invading armies into northern India.

The Sikh Empire was a regional power based in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. It existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, to 1849, when it was defeated and conquered by the British East India Company following the Second Anglo-Sikh War. At its peak in the mid-19th century the empire extended from Gilgit and Tibet in the north to the deserts of Sindh in the south and from the Khyber Pass in the west to the Sutlej in the east, and was divided into eight provinces. Religiously diverse, with an estimated population of 4.5 million in 1831 (making it the 19th most populous state at the time), it was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to be annexed by the British Empire.

In 1799, Ranjit Singh of Sukerchakia Misl captured Lahore from the Sikh triumvirate which had been ruling it since 1765, and was confirmed on the possession of Lahore by the Durrani ruler, Zaman Shah. He was formally crowned on 12 April 1801 by Sahib Singh Bedi, a descendant of Guru Nanak. Ranjit Singh rose to power in a very short period, from a leader of a single misl to finally becoming the Maharaja of Punjab. By 1813 all the remaining Sikh misls had been annexed by Ranjit Singh, and the following years saw progressive expulsion of the Afghans from Punjab; the Afghan influence east of Indus ended after the fall of Multan in 1818. In the subsequent decades Durrani Afghans lost Kashmir and Peshawar to the Sikhs as well. By 1840 Ladakh and Baltistan had been brought under Sikh suzerainty by Gulab Singh. Ranjit Singh modernised his army using the latest training as well as weapons and artillery.

Peshawar is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the eighth-most populous Pakistani city, with a population of over 1.9 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, lying in the Valley of Peshawar, a broad area situated east of the Khyber Pass.

Peshawar's recorded history dates back to at least sixth century BC, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in South Asia. One of the principal cities of the ancient Gandhara, Peshawar served as the capital of the Kushan Empire during the rule of Kanishka the Great, in the second century CE. A variety of Muslim empires ruled the city following the conquest of Peshawar by the Ghaznavids from the Hindu Shahis, in 1001 CE. It was an important trading centre in the Mughal Empire, later serving as the winter capital of the Durrani Empire from 1776 until the capture of the city by the Sikh Empire in 1823. In 1849, the city was captured by the East India Company and subsequently became part of British Raj. In 1901, Peshawar became capital of the North-West Frontier Province after it was created from the northwestern districts of Punjab Province. Following the Partition of British India it became part of Pakistan, in 1947.

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.

Jalalabad, previously known as Tarunshahr, and historically known as Nagarahara or Adinapur, is the fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 200,331, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country, about 130 kilometres (80 mi) from the capital Kabul. Jalalabad is located at the junction of the Kabul River and the Kunar River in a plateau to the south of the Hindu Kush mountains. It is linked by the Kabul-Jalalabad Road to the west and Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, to the east through Torkham and the Khyber Pass.

Jalalabad is a leading center of social and trade activity because of its proximity with the Torkham border checkpoint and border crossing, 65 km (40 mi) away. Major industries include papermaking, as well as agricultural products including oranges, lemon, rice, and sugarcane, helped by its warm climate. It hosts Afghanistan's second largest educational institute, Nangarhar University. For centuries the city was favored by Afghan kings and it has a cultural significance in Afghan poetry. During Timur Shah's reign of the Durrani Empire, Jalalabad served as the Afghan winter capital.

Hunas or Huna (Middle Brahmi script: Hūṇā) was the name given by the ancient Indians to a group of Central Asian tribes who, via the Khyber Pass, entered the Indian subcontinent at the end of the 5th or early 6th century. The Hunas occupied areas as far south as Eran and Kausambi, greatly weakening the Gupta Empire. The Hunas were ultimately defeated by a coalition of Indian princes that included an Indian king Yasodharman and the Gupta emperor, Narasimhagupta. They defeated a Huna army and their ruler Mihirakula in 528 CE and drove them out of India. The Guptas are thought to have played only a minor role in this campaign.

The Hunas are thought to have included the Xionite and/or Hephthalite, the Kidarites, the Alchon Huns (also known as the Alxon, Alakhana, Walxon etc.) and the Nezak Huns. Such names, along with that of the Harahunas (also known as the Halahunas or Harahuras) mentioned in Hindu texts, have sometimes been used for the Hunas in general; while these groups (and the Iranian Huns) appear to have been a component of the Hunas, such names were not necessarily synonymous. Some authors suggest that the Hunas were Hephthalite Huns from Central Asia. The relationship, of the Hunas to the Huns, a Central Asian people who invaded Europe during the same period, is under research.