Empire · 1747–1823 · Middle East & South Asia
Durrani Empire (Afghanistan)
Also known as Afghanistan
When Nader Shah of Iran was assassinated in 1747, Ahmad Khan Abdali, a commander of his Afghan cavalry, was chosen king by a tribal council near Kandahar and took the title Durr-i-Durran, Pearl of Pearls. Uniting the Pashtun tribes, he built an empire stretching from Mashhad to Kashmir and Punjab, raiding Mughal India repeatedly and crushing the Marathas at Panipat in 1761.
His son Timur Shah moved the capital to Kabul. Rivalry among Ahmad Shah's grandsons broke the empire apart in the early 1800s, as the Sikhs took Punjab and Kashmir, and power passed to the Barakzai family under Dost Mohammad Khan. Afghanistan survived two wars with Britain and became a buffer between the British and Russian empires, which fixed its borders in the 1880s and 1890s.
- Years
- 1747–1823
- Capital
- Kandahar; Kabul from 1776
- Greatest extent
- 1762, about 2.00 million km²
- Region
- Middle East & South Asia
c. 2.0M km² (Bosin 2009, cited by Wikipedia); from eastern Iran to Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh
Legacy
Ahmad Shah Durrani is honoured as the father of modern Afghanistan, and his empire defined the Pashtun-led state that followed.
Rulers
- Ahmad Shah Durrani 1747–1772
Founder, victor at the third battle of Panipat
- Timur Shah 1772–1793
Moved the capital to Kabul
- Zaman Shah 1793–1801
Deposed and blinded by his brother
- Shah Shuja 1803–1809, 1839–1842
Restored by the British in the First Anglo-Afghan War
- Dost Mohammad Khan 1826–1839, 1843–1863
Founder of Barakzai rule
- Abdur Rahman Khan 1880–1901
The Iron Amir who centralised Afghanistan
Realms on the map
- Durrani Empire 1748–1827
- Durrani Dynasty 1840–1845
- Emirate of Afghanistan 1828–1925
- Kingdom of Afghanistan 1926–1972
- Republic of Afghanistan 1973–1978
- Afghanistan since 1979
Wars
- Soviet–Afghan War 24 December 1979 – 15 February 1989
- War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) 7 October 2001 – 30 August 2021
Sources
- Wikipedia: Durrani Empire
- Wikipedia: Dost Mohammad Khan
- Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, Mughal disintegration and the rise of regional powers, 1707-1766
- Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. IX: British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part I (Internet Archive)