Durrani Empire

"Afghan Empire" redirects here. For the 14th century state, see Delhi Sultanate.
For the Durrani dynasty, see Durrani dynasty. For other uses, see Durrani (disambiguation).

Durrani Empire
د درانیانو ټولواکمني (Pashto)
امپراتوری درانیان (Persian)
  • 1747–1823 (Empire)
  • 1793–1863 (Herat)
  • 1839–1842 (Shuja's Kingdom)
Flag of Durrani Empire
Status
Capital
Common languages
Religion
Sunni Islam
GovernmentElective monarchy
Shah 
• 1747–1772
Ahmad Shah Durrani
• 1772
Humayun Mirza
  (Disputed with Timur Shah)
• 1772–1793
Timur Shah Durrani
• 1793–1801
Zaman Shah Durrani
• 1801–1803
Mahmud Shah Durrani
• 1803–1809
Shujah Shah Durrani
• 1809–1818
  (Disputed in 1810)
Mahmud Shah Durrani
• 1810–1810 (Disputed)
Abbas Mirza Durrani
• 1818–1819
Ali Shah Durrani
• 1819–1823
Ayub Shah Durrani
• 1839–1842
Shujah Shah Durrani
Historical eraEarly modern period
• Dynasty established by Ahmad Shah Durrani
June 1747
1839
• Disestablished
1863
Population
• 
14 million[8]
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Afsharid Iran
Mughal Empire
Bukhara Khanate
Emirate of Afghanistan
Sikh Confederacy
Mughal Empire
Principality of Qandahar
Maimana Khanate

The Durrani Empire,[b] colloquially known as the Afghan Empire,[c][9] or the Sadozai Kingdom,[d][10] was an Afghan empire founded by the Durrani tribe of Pashtuns under Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747, which spanned parts of Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, and the Indian subcontinent. At its peak, it ruled over present-day Afghanistan, much of Pakistan, parts of northeastern and southeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan, and northwestern India.[11][10]: 190  Next to the Ottoman Empire, the Durrani Empire is considered to be among the most significant Islamic empires of the second half of the 18th century.[12]

Ahmad was the son of Muhammad Zaman Khan (an Afghan chieftain of the Abdali tribe) and the commander of Nader Shah Afshar. Following Afshar's death in June 1747, Ahmad secured Afghanistan by taking Kandahar, Ghazni, Kabul, and Peshawar. After his accession as the nation's king, he changed his tribal name from Abdali to Durrani. In 1749, the Mughal Empire had ceded sovereignty over much of northwestern India to the Afghans; Ahmad then set out westward to take possession of Mashhad, which was ruled by the Afsharid dynasty under Shahrokh Shah, who also acknowledged Afghan suzerainty.[13] Subsequently, Ahmad sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush down to the Amu Darya, and in short order, all of the different Afghan tribes began to join his cause. Under Ahmad, the Afghans invaded India on eight occasions, subjugating parts of Kashmir and the majority of Punjab. In early 1757, he sacked Delhi, but permitted Mughal emperor Alamgir II to remain in nominal control as long as he acknowledged Afghan suzerainty over the regions south of the Indus River, till Sutlej river.

Following Ahmad's death in 1772, his son Timur Shah Durrani became the next ruler of the Durrani dynasty. Under Timur, the city of Kabul became the new capital of the Durrani Empire while Peshawar served as its winter capital. However, the empire had begun to crumble by this time,[14] and faced territorial losses of Peshawar, Multan and Kashmir to the Sikh Empire in the early 19th century.[15] The dynasty would become heirs of Afghanistan for generations, up until Dost Muhammad Khan and the Barakzai dynasty deposed the Durrani dynasty in Kabul, leading to its supersession by the Emirate of Afghanistan. The Durrani Empire is considered to be the foundational polity of the modern nation-state of Afghanistan, with Ahmad being credited as its Father of the Nation.[16]

  1. ^ Hanifi, Shah Mahmoud (2011). Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier. Stanford University Press. p. 185. ISBN 9780804777773. Archived from the original on 15 August 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2012. Timur Shah transferred the Durrani capital from Qandahar in 1775–76. Kabul and Peshawar then shared time as the dual Durrani capital cities, the former during the summer and the latter during the winter season.
  2. ^ Singh, Sarina (2008). Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway. Lonely Planet. p. 191. ISBN 9781741045420. Archived from the original on 25 November 2016. Retrieved 10 August 2012. Like the Kushans, the Afghan kings favoured Peshawar as a winter residence, and were aggrieved when the upstart Sikh kingdom snatched it in 1818 and levelled its buildings.
  3. ^ L. Lee, Jonathan (1996). The Ancient Supremacy: Bukhara, Afghanistan and the Battle for Balkh, 1731–1901 (illustrated ed.). BRILL. p. 116. ISBN 9004103996. Retrieved 8 March 2013. [The Sadozai kingdom] continued to exist in Herat until the city finally fell to Dost Muhammad Khan in 1862.
  4. ^ a b Schimmel 1975, p. 12.
  5. ^ a b Green, Nile (2019). "The Rise of New Imperial and National Languages (ca. 1800 – ca. 1930)". In Green, Nile (ed.). The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca. University of California Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0520972100. Despite Ahmad Shah Durrani's flirtations with founding a Pashto-based bureaucracy, when the capital moved from Qandahar to Kabul in 1772, Durrani and post-Durrani Afghanistan retained Persian as its chancery and chief court language.
  6. ^ Archambault, H. (2023, April 19). Afghan Circulations in the Persianate World, c. 1000–1800. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2023, from https://oxfordre.com/asianhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-700
  7. ^ Hanifi, S. (2022, August 15). Deciphering the History of Modern Afghanistan. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2023, from https://oxfordre-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/asianhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-321.
  8. ^ Noelle, Christine (1997). State and Tribe in Nineteenth Century Afghanistan The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826–1863). Psychology Press. p. 15. ISBN 9781138982871.
  9. ^ Hatch Dupree, Nancy (2010). "Last Afghan empire". In Dupree, Louis; et al. (eds.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 30 November 2010. Retrieved 25 August 2010.
  10. ^ a b Lee, Jonathan L. (1 January 1996). The "Ancient Supremacy": Bukhara, Afghanistan and the Battle for Balkh, 1731–1901. BRILL. ISBN 9789004103993. Archived from the original on 26 August 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  11. ^ Singh, Ganda (1959). Ahmad Shah Durrani: Father of Modern Afghanistan (PDF). Asia Publishing House. Archived from the original on 7 February 2013. Retrieved 7 February 2013.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  12. ^ Dupree, Louis (1980). Afghanistan. Princeton University Press. p. 334. ISBN 0-691-03006-5. Next to the Ottoman Empire, the Durrani Empire was the greatest Muslim empire of the second half of the eighteenth century.
  13. ^ Mojtahed-Zadeh, Pirouz (2007). Boundary Politics and International Boundaries of Iran. Universal-Publishers. ISBN 9781581129335. Archived from the original on 4 August 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  14. ^ Malleson, George (1878). History of Afghanistan: From the Earliest Period to the Outbreak of the War of 1878. p. 298. ISBN 0343739771. Archived from the original on 2 October 2022. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  15. ^ Siddique, Abubakar (2014). The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hurst. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-84904-292-5.
  16. ^ "Afghanistan". The World Factbook (2024 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 25 August 2010. (Archived 2010 edition.)


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