Bird's-eye View Of Afghanistan

We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans.
Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah (Ferishta) explains extensively about Afghans in the 16th century. For example, he writes:
The men of Kábul and Khilj also went home; and whenever they were ques­tioned about the Musulmáns of the Kohistán (the mountains), and how matters stood there, they said, "Don't call it Kohistán, but Afghánistán; for there is nothing there but Afgháns and dis­turbances." Thus it is clear that for this reason the people of the country call their home in their own language Afghánistán, and themselves Afgháns.
By the 17th century AD, it seems that some Pashtuns themselves were using the term as an ethnonym - a fact that is supported by traditional Pashto literature, for example, in the writings of the 17th-century Pashto poet Khushal Khan Khattak: