The Kalash Valley or Kalasha Valleys are valleys in Chitral District in northern Pakistan. The valleys are surrounded by the Hindu Kush mountain range.
The Kalash are the only pagan minority residing in the Chitral district of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhua. They form the smallest minority community in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
The Kalashas live in three valleys of Chitral namely, Rumbur, Brumbret and Birir. The distance from Chitral to Kalash Valley is approximately 25 km. It takes about an hour to reach and the road is quite narrow at certain points.
Though the people of Kalash were once in a large number, around 200,000, the number has dwindled so much so that only a handful of Kalashas remain— about 3000 to 4000.
The origins of Kalashas still remain unresolved as their history is shrouded behind a number of theories, mysteries and controversies.
Of these many theories, three carry with them great significance and are considered closest to reality. The grandest of all is that the Kalashas carry a romantic view of being the descendants of Alexander the Great.
On the other hand, many historians believe that they are indigenous tribe of the neighboring area of Nuristan also called Kafiristan (the land of Kafirs).
In 1895 Amir Abdul Rahman, King of Afghanistan, conquered the area of Nursitan and forced the inhabitants to convert to Islam. It was during that time that many people fled to Chitral to avoid conversion.
The third theory claims that the ancestors of Kalashas migrated from a distant place in South Asia called Tsiam. The Tsiam is considered to be the traditional home of these people.
The language of the Kalash is the Kalasha and is a Dardic language (sub group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in Northern Pakistan, eastern Afghanistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir).