Qais Abdul Rashid

Qais Abdur Rashīd or Qays ʿAbd ar-Rashīd (Pashto: قيس عبد الرشيد‎) is said to be the legendary founding father of the Pashtun nation. Qais is said to have traveled to Mecca and Medina in Arabia during the early days of Islam.

According to the legend, Qais had three sons: Sarbaṇ (سربڼ), Beṭ (بېټ), and Gharghax̌t (غرغښت). His sons founded three tribal confederacies named after them: Sarbani, Bettani, and Gharghashti. Qais also had an adopted son, Karlani tribe Ormur Baraki who is progenitor of the Karlani tribe . There are multiple versions of the legend, including several regional variants that mention only one, two, or three of the four legendary brothers.

Some Afghan genealogies list Qais as the 37th descendant of King Talut (or Saul, reigned c. 1050 BC–1010 BC) through Malik Afghana, a legendary grandson of Talut.

The British Indian administrator Muhammad Hayat Khan, in his book Hayāt-e Afghānī (حیات افغانی; orig 1865, English translation 1874), writes that Qais was the 101st descendant of Saul through Saul's son Yehonatan.

According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the theory of Pashtun descent from the ancient Israelites is traced to Tārīkh-e Khān Jahānī wa Makhzan-e Afghānī (تاریخ خان جهانی ومخزن افغانی), a history compiled by Nimat Allah al-Harawi during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir in the 17th century. The Makhzan-e Afghānī's Israelite theory, however, has been dismissed by modern authorities due to numerous historical and linguistic inconsistencies.

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