CHAR AIMAK. Aimak is a Mongolian, Manchu, and Turki word, meaning a tribe. Of these, there are in Kabul and Persia four, the Char Aimak. They dwell to the north of Herat and Kabul, in the undulating country, which in some places assumes a mountainous, in others a hilly character ; in some parts is well watered, in others bleak and rough, forming a watershed of two natural divisions, from the western of which flows the Murghab, the Tajend, and the Farrah-Rud, and from the eastern, the Helmand, the south-eastern feeders of the Oxus, and the north-western feeders of the Kabul river. It is said that Timur, ex asperated at the depredations committed by the people inhabiting Mazanderan, south of the Caspian, transported the whole of them into the mountains situated between India and Persia. The descend ants of that people form the four tribes or Aimak.
They are also called Firoz Kohi, after the city of that name (situated about 63 miles from Teheran), where they were defeated and taken captives by Timur. According to Latham, the four Aimak are the Timuni, Hazara, Zuri, and Timuri. Vam bery says the four tribes are the Timuri, Teimeni, Firoz Kohi, and Jamshidi, and of Iranian origin, who speak Persian. The Timuri dwell about Gorian and Kah'san, the Teime,ni from Karrukh to Sabzwar, the Firoz Kohi near tCala-i-No, and the Jamshidi on the shores of the Murg ab. In their reverence for fire, and their respect o the east, to which their tent doors look, they ret_ , many of the fire-worshipping views. Their namber is estimated at 400,000. — Latham's Ethnology; Ferrier's Hist. of Afghan, p. 3; Vambery, Sketches of Central Asia. See Aimak ; Mongols.