The Durrani tribe

The Durrani were known until the mid-eighteenth century as the Abdali, a tribe of the Sarbani branch of the Afghans. The encyclopaedia's entry "ABDALI", signed by L. Lockhart, records the older name and the tribe's own tradition of its origin. ¹

According to the tribe's tradition, the name came from Abdal (or Awdal) b. Tarin, who served an abdal, a saint of the Chishtiyya order named Khwaja Abu Ahmad. The Abdali lived for a long time in the province of Kandahar, but early in the reign of Shah Abbas I pressure from the Ghalzay forced them into the province of Herat. Shah Abbas made Sado of the Popalzay clan the head of the tribe with the title Mir-i Afaghina. ¹

Nadir Shah later subdued the Abdali but dealt with them leniently. Ahmad Khan, son of Muhammad Zaman Khan Sadozay, served Nadir well, and Nadir restored the tribe to its former territory of Kandahar. After Nadir's assassination in 1747 Ahmad Khan was crowned at Kandahar, and he took the title Durr-i Durrani, "the Pearl of Pearls", so the tribe came to be called the Durrani. The two principal clans were the Popalzay and the Barakzay, and the royal family of Afghanistan belonged to the Barakzay. ¹