The Yaghnobi people, who have inhabited the high mountain valley of Yaghnob in west-central Tajikistan for centuries, have been identified as descendants of the ancient Sogdians. The kingdom of Sogdiana existed from before the sixth century BCE until the Arab conquests of the eighth century CE. The Sogdian territory occupied what is now northern Tajikistan and southern Uzbekistan. From the fifth to the eighth centuries, the Sogdians were the main caravan merchants of the Silk Road. The Sogdians also established extensive colonies in what is now western China. Their influence was so extensive that Sogdian, an east-Iranian language, was the lingua franca of Central Asia during the seventh century. After the Sogdians were defeated by Arab invaders at the battle of Mount Mugh in 722 CE, many of them fled Arab domination to live in the high mountain valleys. The Yaghnobi people are Sunni Muslims, and some elements of pre-Islamic religion (probably, Zoroastrianism) are still preserved.
Until the 20th century Yagnobians lived through their natural economy and some still do, as the area they originally inhabited is still remote from roads and electrical lines. The first contact with Soviet Union in the 1930s during the Great Purge, led to many Yagnobians being exiled. During 1970 and 1971 the Soviet authorities forcibly deported the entire population of the Yaghnob valley to the cotton plantations in the area of Zafarbod on the northwest border between the Tajik and Uzbek SSRs. The deportation was both politically and economically motivated. The fact that the Yaghnobis’ remote location had allowed them to effectively resist Soviet authority, coupled with the pressing economic need for laborers in the cotton fields motivated the government to force the Yaghnobi people from their mountain homes at gunpoint and fly them by helicopter to grow cotton in irrigated desert land. The population of the Yaghnob valley at that time numbered between three and four thousand. Due to the harsh desert climate with temperatures over 105 degrees Fahrenheit, inadequate housing, lack of sanitary drinking water, and exposure to tuberculosis, between 400 and 700 Yaghnobis died during their first year in Zafarabod. Since 1983, families have begun to return to the Yaghnob Valley. The returnees live through the natural economy, and the majority remain without roads and electricity. The estimated number of Yagnobi people is approximately 25,000.