Hindu Kush

"But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow; Winding so high, that, as they mount, they pass Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, Chok’d by the air, and scarce can they themselves Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries— In single file they move, and stop their breath, For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows— So the pale Persians held their breath with fear."

"After this I proceeded to the city of Barwan, in the road to which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, that is Hindu-slayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold."

"It is entirely likely that the name Hindu Kush came about as a sarcastic twist on the older name Hindu Koh, viz. on the occasion of an actual mass-killing."

"That Muslims enslaved Hindus and drove them to their death in the Hindu Kush is a solidly documented historical fact, never refuted, and only a “highly contested claim” in the Nehruvian-secularist world of fact-free political polemic."