BUSINESSPEOPLE from Afghanistan

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Afghan Businesspeople of all time. This list of famous Afghan Businesspeople is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Zablon Simintov (b. 1960)

With an HPI of 40.56, Zablon Simintov is the most famous Afghan Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages on wikipedia.

Zablon Simintov or Zebulon Simentov (Dari/Pashto: زابلون سیمینتوف; Hebrew: זבולון סימן-טוב; born 1959) is an Afghan-born Israeli former carpet trader and restaurateur. Between 2005 and his evacuation to Israel in 2021, he was widely believed to be the only Jew still living in Afghanistan. He was also the caretaker of and lived in the Kabul synagogue, the only synagogue in the Afghan capital city Kabul. On 7 September 2021, shortly after the Taliban takeover, he left Afghanistan with the help of a private security company that had been organized by Israeli-American businessman Mordechai Kahana and American rabbi Moshe Margaretten from the Tzedek Association. A month later, it was discovered that Simentov may not have been the last Jew living in Afghanistan; Tova Moradi, a distant relative of Simintov, fled to Albania with her 20 grandchildren in October 2021.

2. Ahmed Wali Karzai (1961 - 2011)

With an HPI of 37.63, Ahmed Wali Karzai is the 2nd most famous Afghan Businessperson.  Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Ahmed Wali Karzai (Pashto: احمد ولي کرزی, Aḥmad Walī Karzay, 1961 – 12 July 2011) was an Afghan politician who served as Chairman of the Kandahar Provincial Council from 2005 until his assassination. He was the younger paternal half-brother of former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and an elder of the Popalzai tribe. Wali Karzai had formerly lived in the United States, where he managed a restaurant owned by his family. He returned to Afghanistan following the removal of the Taliban government in late 2001. He had been accused of political corruption and was allegedly on the CIA payroll. He was assassinated at his residence by one of his close bodyguards, Sardar Mohammad, on 12 July 2011.