South Asia State of Minorities Report 2019 against Hazaras continues to date. Ismaili Shias have also faced discrimination throughout their history. In particular, they were massacred and forced into exile during the reign of King Abdul Rahman and even later under the Taliban regime.14 Unlike other religious minorities, the Hindu-Sikhs have been able to live rather harmoniously with other groups. Even during the reign of King Abdul Rahman, which was marked by despotism and repression of minorities, Hindu-Sikhs remained safe. However, discrimination persisted as they were subjected to an annual Jizya, a separate tax for non-Muslims living under Muslim authority. With the takeover of power by the Mujaheddin and the orthodox Taliban, the Hindu-Sikhs joined the rank of persecuted religious minorities in Afghanistan. Shia Hazara15 The persecution of Shia Hazara can be traced back to the 1890s, during the reign of King Abdul Rahman, whose crackdown of nonPashtuns, in particular the Hazaras, is emblematic. The persecution of Hazaras took the form of mass killings, enslavement, and displacement of thousands. As one source puts it: ‘[T]housands of Hazara men, women, and children were sold as slaves in the markets of Kabul and Kandahar, while numerous towers of human heads were made from the defeated rebels as a warning to others who might challenge the rule of the Amir.’16 Religion was an important contributing factor toward the crackdown of the Hazaras. The king had ordered the religious leaders of the country to issue a fatwa17 against Hazaras and pronounce them kafir.18 He then ordered that the Hazaras be Equilibrium’, euroasianet, October 12, 2012, accessed February 22, 2020, https:// eurasianet.org/afghanistan-still-searching-for-inter-ethnic-equilibrium. 14 ‘Afghanistan: The Massacre in Mazar-i Sharif’, Human Rights Watch, November 01, 1998, accessed February 22, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/ report/1998/11/01/afghanistan-massacre-mazar-i-sharif. 15 Majority of Hazara ethnic group are Shia (both Imami and Ismaili) Muslim while a large number of Hazaras are Sunni Muslim. However, some of those Sunni Hazaras call themselves Tajik. 16 Sayed Askar Mousavi, The Hazaras of Afghanistan: A Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 126. 17 Islamic religious order. 18 Infidels (non-believers). 6