Durrani
The Durrani (درانی Durrānī ) or Abdali (ابدالی Abdālī ) are a large Pashtun tribal confederation . Originally named Abdali known their names since Ahmad Shah Durrani , the founder of the Durrani Empire , and Durrani . It is estimated that they now make up 16 percent of the population of Afghanistan and number around five million. They are also found in large numbers in West Pakistan . The Durrani are bilingual, they speak Dari (Persian) and Pashto . They are arguably the most urban and most educated Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan.
The Durrani made and continue to provide many famous leaders such as the Afghan Royal Family, bureaucrats and clerks, as well as traders and merchants. The Pashto dialect they speak has a slight Persian influence and is perceived by many Pashtuns as more elegant, more urban and thus also as purer than the rougher Pashto, the so-called Puchtu in northern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Like most Pashtuns, the Durrani are Muslims, belong to the Hanafi school and follow the Pashtunwali code of honor .
history
The Durrani, like other Pashtuns and neighboring peoples, speak Iranian and are considered to be the descendants of Qais Abd ar-Raschid. Presumably they originated in what is now southern Afghanistan near the Suleimane Mountains. The Durrani were known as Abdali from around the 7th to the 18th century and, like their neighboring peoples, initially belonged to various religions such as Zoroastrianism , Judaism , Buddhism and Hinduism . They spread with other Pashtun tribes in the early Middle Ages and inhabited most of what is now Afghanistan, where they often lived under Persian rule until the emergence of the Durrani Empire.
The name Durrani is derived from the Persian title Durr-i Durrān ("pearl of pearls"), which was adopted in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Abdali, who united the Pashtuns, on a Loja Jirga and then transferred to his dynasty and the entire tribal confederation . Since then, the kings and emirs of Afghanistan have been Durrani rulers, more precisely monarchs from the Popalzai - (1747–1843) or Barakzai tribe (1843–1973). During the rule of the Taliban , whose dominant part was the Ghilzai , the Durrani were the most divided tribe when it came to attitudes towards Taliban rule. Even today, the Durrani are the politically dominant Pashtun group in Afghanistan. The former President Hamid Karzai is a Popalzai and had strong ties to the then King Zahir Shah .
Departments and individual tribes
The Durrani tribal confederation consists of two departments with 5 individual tribes each, which in turn are divided into numerous clans. The Durrani tribes of the Zirak department can be found particularly in the region around Kandahar and include the Popalsai , the Alikozai , the Barakzai and the Achekzai . The Panjpaou division lives west of Kandahar in Helmand and Farah and includes the Nurzai, Alizai and Eshaqzai.
The literacy rate of the Durrani is the highest among the Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan and is around 25%. The Durrani tribes are considered the most liberal among the Pashtuns. You live in close proximity to other peoples of Afghanistan. This leads to cultural overlaps, e.g. B. with the Tajiks , with whom they share more cultural and socio-economic characteristics than with other Pashtun tribes such as the Ghilzai. The Durrani are part of the Sarbans of a Pashtun tribal union.