In the winter of 1895, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan conquered Kafiristan as part of his campaign to consolidate Afghan territorial control. The region was later renamed "Nuristan (Land of Light)" to reflect the population's conversion to Islam. Pre-Islamic shrines, idols, and ritual structures were destroyed, and religious leaders were either executed, marginalised, or co-opted.
George Scott Robertson, medical officer during the Second Anglo-Afghan War and later British political officer in the princely state of Chitral, was given permission to explore the country of the Kafirs in 1890âÂÂ91. He was the last outsider to visit the area and observe these people's polytheistic culture before their conversion to Islam. Robertson's 1896 account was entitled The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Though some sub-groups such as the Kom paid tribute to Chitral, the majority of Kafiristan was left on the Afghan side of the frontier in 1893, when large areas of tribal lands between Afghanistan and British India were divided into zones of control by the Durand Line.
The territory between Afghanistan and British India was demarcated between 1894 and 1896. Part of the frontier lying between Nawa Kotal in the outskirts of Mohmand country and Bashgal Valley on the outskirts of Kafiristan was demarcated by 1895 in an agreement reached on 9 April 1895. Emir Abdur Rahman Khan wanted to force every community and tribal confederation to accept his single interpretation of Islam due to it being the only uniting factor. After the subjugation of Hazaras in 1892âÂÂ93, Kafiristan was the last remaining autonomous part.
A few years after Robertson's visit, in the winter of 1895âÂÂ96, Abdur Rahman Khan's forces invaded Kafiristan as a symbolic climax to his campaigns to bring the country under a centralised Afghan government. His forces captured the region in 40 days according to his autobiography. Columns invaded it from the west through Panjshir to Kullum, the strongest fort of the region. The columns from the north came through Badakhshan and from the east through Asmar. A small column also came from south-west through Laghman. The Kafirs were resettled in Laghman while the region was settled by veteran soldiers and other Afghans. Most of the Kafirs were converted by force and some also converted to avoid the jizya.
In 1896 Abdur Rahman Khan, who had thus conquered the region for Islam, renamed the people the Nuristani ("Enlightened Ones" in Persian) and the land as Nuristan ("Land of the Enlightened").