Before and during the early years of Islam, Pakhtana were living in Badghis, Ghor, Herat, Khurassan, and Kandahar and in the mountainous terrain and small towns of eastern Afghanistan. They later moved to Ghazni, Bamyan and Takharistan. During the 12th century, they occupied areas form the Amu to the Pamirs in the north, the Arab Sea in the south, Khurassan in the west and the Ganges River in the east. This period was the peak of the first Pakhtoon nationalism