ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Durrani Pashtun response to disorder and affliction in terms of their notions of the self, personhood, moral responsibility and social order. Durrani attribute personal afflictions such as injury or ill-health either to God acting directly but for unknowable reasons or in response to human sin or to intermediate supernatural agencies such as spirits or the evil eye, in which case the victim is not held morally responsible for the affliction. Around two million Durrani Pashtun, all claiming common descent, are scattered around Afghanistan, particularly in the south-west of the country. Durrani ideas of the constitution of the self, of the nature of the body and its organs, of health and illness, and of soul, spirit and intelligence, are related to the Islamic-Galenic system. The gender distinction is developed as a way of justifying and explaining, through the idiom of honour and shame, the control of resources of all kinds, whether people, land, animals or other property.
