The Nuristanis are an ethnic group native to the Nuristan region of eastern Afghanistan, who speak Indo-Iranian languages, including Nuristani. In the mid-1890s, after the establishment of the Durand Line when Afghanistan ceded various frontier areas to the British Empire, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan conducted a military campaign in Nuristan (then known as Kafiristan) and followed up his conquest with conversion of the Nuristanis to Islam; the region thenceforth being known as Nuristan, the "Land of Light". Before their conversion, the Nuristanis (then known as "Kafiristanis") practiced an Indo-Iranian polytheistic Rigvedic religion. Non-Muslim religious practices endure in Nuristan today to some degree as folk customs. In their native rural areas, they are often farmers, herders, and dairymen.