The German historian Marquart, proposed the word, including its uncommon Medieval variant Jāwulistān (Persian: جابلستان) as being a variation of the Sanskrit term.

[5] Others have speculated that the word zābul might be an abbreviation of zūnbīl, a supposed royal title of the region known from Arabic sources, earlier read as rutbīl, and now used to refer to a local dynasty of Zamindawar now called the Zunbils.

The earliest detailed description of Zabulistan comes from the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, written by the travelling monk Xuanzang in the early seventh century.

[9] The region is likewise described by Zahir ud-Din Babur in the early sixteenth century in his memoirs the Baburnama, which he roughly equates with the Timurid province of Ghazni.

According to Andre Wink: It is clear however that in the seventh to ninth centuries the Zunbils and their kinsmen the Kabulshahs ruled over a predominantly Indian rather than a Persianate realm.

[citation needed] Following the collapse of Sasanid control in Tokharistan in 484 CE, and with Alkhan coinage expanding into the Indian subcontinent, numismatic evidence accounts for the consolidation of a new dynasty in Kapisa and Zabul.

Later, they managed to also consolidate their rule over Kāpiśī, where they overtook the local mint around the first quarter of the 6th-century CE (whose coins are identified by Göbl as the ā-group).

Unlike the contemporary Hephthalites and Alkhan, they did not use a tamga, but instead donned a golden winged bull-headed crown as their primary signifier.

[3] Sometime after 532 CE, after Mihrakulas devastating defeat against Yasodharman at Mawla, Alkhan power is understood to have subsequently returned to the Gandhara and the Kāpiśī valleys, thereby having to confront the Nezaks.

[15] According André Wink: "In southern and eastern Afghanistan, the regions of Zamindawar (Zamin I Datbar or land of the justice giver, the classical Archosia) and Zabulistan or Zabul (Jabala, Kapisha, Kia pi shi) and Kabul, the Arabs were effectively opposed for more than two centuries, from 643 to 870 AD, by the indigenous rulers the Zunbils and the related Kabul-Shahs of the dynasty which became known as the Buddhist-Shahi.

With Makran and Baluchistan and much of Sindh this area can be reckoned to belong to the cultural and political frontier zone between India and Persia.

It is clear however that in the seventh to the ninth centuries the Zunbils and their kinsmen the Kabulshahs ruled over a predominantly Indian rather than a Persian realm.

The Zunbils were linked with the Kabul-Shahs of the Shahi dynasty; the whole river valley was at this time culturally and religiously an outpost of the Indian world, as of course it had been in the earlier centuries during the heyday of the Buddhist Gandhara civilization.

"We are told that it was only in 870 AD that Zabulistan was finally conquered by one Yakub who was the virtual ruler of the neighbouring Iranian province of Siestan.

"[22]The Hindu Shahis under Jayapala, is known for his struggles in defending his kingdom against the Ghaznavids for the control over Zabulistan and the surrounding region.

During Buddhist period Zabulistan is known to have been a place of various religious cults and practices, with Ghazni being an old stop on the silk and spice trade flowing between Tokharistan and Afghanistan.

Chinese monk Xuanzang recorded numerous Buddhist stupas and monasteries supposedly built by Ashoka and several dozen Hindu temples, which were demolished by Islamic invaders around 653/54 CE.

[25] Xuanzang also made an account of Zabul (which he called by its Sanskrit name Jaguda), which he describes as animists and adherants of Mahayana Buddhism, which although in the minority had the support of its royals.

Their disciples are extremely numerous, and they worship the god Śuna.- Xuanzang, The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, 644 CE[7]He goes on to describe the god as residing on top of a mountain in Zabul called the Śunāsīra mountain, where people came "from far and near and high and low", even attracting kings, ministers, officials and common people of regions where different customs were observed, to pay homage and make donations.

[7] They either offer gold, silver, and rare gems or present sheep, horses, and other domestic animals to the god in competition with each other to show their piety and sincerity.

"[29]"Fardaghan, the governor of Zabulistan region around Ghazni under Amr ibn Layth, plundered Sakawand, a place of pilgrimage to God Zhun, which was within the kingdom of the Shahis.

"[30]"The activities of the Saffarid brothers on the Indian frontier attracted special attention in the Caliphate thanks to the care they took to send exotic presents from the plunder to the Abbasid court.

Yaqub, for instance, at one time sent fifty gold and silver idols from Kabul to the caliph Al-Mutamid who dispatched them to Mecca.

Another set of Idols lavishly decorated with jewels and silver, sent by him, Amr in 896 from Sakawand (a place in the Logar valley between Ghazni and Kabul which the sources describe as a pilgrimage centre dedicated to God Zhun), caused a sensation in Baghdad on account of their strangeness.