What religions have been practiced in the Afghan-Patthan areas of South Asia (comprising what are now 1) the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and 2) the North-west Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan)?
Currently, Sunni Islam is dominant. Prior to the Taliban regime, Sufi Islam was dominant in Afghanistan. Prior to Islam what religion was there? Segments of the area have been known to practice Judaism or contain descendants of Jews. From Bamiyan, we know that Buddhism flourished there in the past. What was there before Buddhism? How long did Buddhism last? Did Zoroastrianism or the Vedic religion ever have a hold there? Mongol shamanism?
Or was there never any authentic, indigenous religious tradition, what with Aryans, Greeks, Mongols, and others sweeping through the region?
WRS - so far we have Sunni Islam, Sufi Islam, Judaism (limited), and Buddhism.
Also, there was the Parthian Empire, so Mithraism was there too. Maybe Zoroastrianism too?
WRS
Okay, first of all Sufism and Sunnism are not “either or” propositions. One can be both a Sufi and be a Sunni, in fact Sufism properly speaking is not a sect at all but just a way of approaching Islam. One is simultaneously Shi’a or Sunni AND a Sufi.
Second while the general western view is to regard Sufism as a more moderate, gentler version of Islam, and there is in fact a grain of truth in this view, it is not necessarily the case. Sufism was and still is an important facet of Central Asian and Afghan Islam and that probably never changed. The Taliban leader Mullah Omar himself was ( at least at one point ) a Naqshbandi and generally of the four major brotherhoods in the area apparently only the Chishtiya were seriously suppressed under the Taliban ( due to their use of music in ceremonies ). The Deobandism of the Taliban is generally not as unremittingly hostile to Sufism as Wahabism is.
As you mentioned Buddhism was important, at least as late as the 9th century. But by then it was limited to the Bamiyan area and had long been in retreat to a resurgent Hinduism ( mostly Saivaism ) in the lowlands from at least the 7th century. In addition many local cults of mysterious affiliation appear to have appeared and disappeared, like that of the god Zun in Ghazna. In general Indian influences seem to have been much more pronounced than Iranian, and there is little record of Manichaeism or Zoroastrianism in the area, though further north in Sogdiana/Transoxania both were definitely to be found.
Afghanistan was a tough nut, as it always has been, and fell only gradually to Islam. A Hindu state survived until late in the 10th century ( to at least 974 ) in eastern Afghanistan, long after India had been penetrated and areas like the Sind conquered.
Mithraism per se was really more a western mystery cult. It really wasn’t a major seperate faith from Zoroastrianism in the Persian state and it didn’t take off in the west until about the time the Sassanids were displacing the Parthians. In the Persian east the more significant heresies were Manichaeism and Mazdaism ( and Zoroastrianism itself seems to have had a somewhat different character in the far east of its range than in the west ).