Pashtunwali

[3][4] The native Pashtun tribes, often described as fiercely independent people,[5] have inhabited the Pashtunistan region (eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan) since at least the 1st millennium BC.

[2]Ideal Pukhtun behaviour approximates the features of Pukhtunwali, the code of the Pukhtuns, which includes the following traditional features: courage (tora), revenge (badal), hospitality (melmestia), generosity to a defeated...[9]Pashtuns embrace an ancient traditional, spiritual, and communal identity tied to a set of moral codes and rules of behaviour, as well as to a record of history spanning some seventeen hundred years.

Pashtunwali promotes self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, love, forgiveness, revenge and tolerance toward all (especially to strangers or guests).

Disputes within clans are settled by a jirga (traditionally a tribal assembly involving all adult males).

[13] In times of foreign invasion, Pashtuns have been known to unite under Pashtun religious leaders such as Saidullah Baba in the Siege of Malakand[14] and even under Pashtána female leaders such as Malalai of Maiwand in the Battle of Maiwand.