The Duranni Empire (1747-1826 CE) was a political entity that lasted 79 years by plundering its higher populated and wealthier neighbors.
[1]
Founded by a former soldier of the Afsharid Kingdom named Ahmad Shah Durrani, at its maximum extent it covered over 1.5 million KM2 of territory surrounding modern-day Afganistan.
[1]
Ahmad Shah Durrani had been elected to the monarchy by an inter-tribal assembly called the Loya Jirga.
[1]
Following his death in 1772 CE , rebellion and internal strife led to a loss of power so that by 1818 CE, the Durrani controlled a small territory surrounding the capital of Kabul.
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The regime was finally extinguished when Afghanistan fell into a period of sustained civil war. The eventual victors were members of the Barkzai dynasty, who came to power in 1837 CE .
[2]
The Durrani state was an empire sustained and governed through the maintenance of a large number of armed horseman primarily recruited from the Pashtun peoples, although conquests in the period of 1747-1752 CE added horsemen from the Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara tribes to the King’s army.
[2]
The army was organized under a hierarchical tribal confederacy.
[3]
As a loose confederation of tribes there was not much in the way of an administration except for that possessed by conquered elites, who were largely left alone if they made their tribute payments. What short term central administrative posts that did exist were given to members of the governing tribes.
[4]
Soldiers received almost all the money: paid through generous land grants called Jegeirs, while the remaining revenue was spent on meeting the costs of the large army
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which expanded rapidly from 16,000 in 1747 to about 120,000 in 1761 CE.
[1]
[1]: (Barfield 2010, 97-109) Thomas Barfield. 2010. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press.
[2]: (Runion 2007, 69-73) Meredith L Runion. 2007. The history of Afghanistan. Greenwood Publishing Group.
[3]: (Barfield 2010, 100) Thomas Barfield. 2010. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press.
[4]: (Saikal 2006, 22-24) Amin Saikal. 2006 Modern Afghanistan: A struggle for Survival. I.B. Tauris.
[5]: Lothar Brock. Hans-Henrik Holm. Georg Sørensen. Michael Stohl. 2011. Fragile states. polity, 2011 comments on the problems of governing such a loose confederation; for a brief look at the decline, see http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7798/Afghanistan/21395/Nadir-Shah
| 1,792,000 km2 | 1772 CE |
| [1,790,000 to 490,000] km2 | 1800 CE |
| 489,000 km2 | 1819 CE |
| unknown |
| unknown |
| inferred present |
| inferred present |
| present |
| inferred present |
| present |
| present |
| unknown |
| present |
| absent |
| Year Range | Durrani Empire (af_durrani_emp) was in: |
|---|---|
| (1748 CE 1826 CE) | Kachi Plain |
Kabul: 1747-1776 CE; Peshwar 1776-1818 CE; Herat 1818-1826 CE [1] [2]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press, 2010. pp. 97-109
[2]: Runion, Meredith L. The history of Afghanistan. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.pp. 69-73
Kabul: 1747-1776 CE; Peshwar 1776-1818 CE; Herat 1818-1826 CE [1] [2]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press, 2010. pp. 97-109
[2]: Runion, Meredith L. The history of Afghanistan. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.pp. 69-73
The Dynasty was founded by a former soldier of the Afsharid kindgom, and eventual emir of Khorasan who conquered a large swath of territory. The Durrani dynasty was extinguished when Afghanistan fell into a period of sustained civil war in the period between 1818 CE-1826 CE. The British attempted to install a puppet from the family line but this was not successful. The eventual victor was the the Barkzai dynasty, which came to power in 1837. [1]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press, 2010. pp. 97-109
The Durrani Empire was independent of other kingdoms and empires, although there were attempts to bring Afghanistan under control of external power e.g. the British. [1]
[1]: Dani, Ahmad Hasan, V. M Masson, J Harmatta, Baij Nath Puri, G. F Etemadi, Boris Anatolʹevich Litvinskiĭ, Guangda Zhang, et al. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. V The Sixteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries. Paris: Unesco, 1992., pp.288-301.
Ahmad Sh¯ah Durr¯an¯ı, Tim¯ ur Sh¯ah and later kings ruled through uniting the tribal groups in Afghanistan under them. However, there were internal rebellions from tribal chiefs and other ethnic groups. The kings after Tim¯ ur Sh¯ah were much less successful in holding the tribes together. [1]
[1]: Dani, Ahmad Hasan, V. M Masson, J Harmatta, Baij Nath Puri, G. F Etemadi, Boris Anatolʹevich Litvinskiĭ, Guangda Zhang, et al. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. V The Sixteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries. Paris: Unesco, 1992., pp.288-301.
squared kilometers. 1,792,327: 1772 CE; 489,172: 1819 CE Inferred: the 1772 CE estimate is an approximation based on the modern day territory of the component territories of Pakistan, Indian Kashmir, and the former Iranian province of Khorasan. The second date reflects the loss of external territories by the beginning of the nineteenth century.
[1]
Conquests including former territory of the Mughal and Maratha Empires in India, the Afsharid Empire of Persia, and the Khanate of Bukhara.
[2]
In 1757 CE, the Durrani sacked Delhi and dealt a deathblow to the formerly powerful Moghul Empire. This resulted in the conquest of Punjab, the Sindh, and the Kachi plains.
[3]
After 1809 CE, the East India company signed the Treaty of Amritsar with a Sikh Maharaja named Ranjit Singh. Following an agreement to halt expansion southward, Singh conquered Multan and the Kachi plains in 1818 CE, Kashmir in 1819 CE, and finally Peshawar in 1823 CE.
[3]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. pp. 99-100
[2]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press, 2010. pp. 97-109
[3]: Qassem, Ahmad Shayeq. Afghanistan’s political stability: a dream unrealised. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009. p. 24
squared kilometers. 1,792,327: 1772 CE; 489,172: 1819 CE Inferred: the 1772 CE estimate is an approximation based on the modern day territory of the component territories of Pakistan, Indian Kashmir, and the former Iranian province of Khorasan. The second date reflects the loss of external territories by the beginning of the nineteenth century.
[1]
Conquests including former territory of the Mughal and Maratha Empires in India, the Afsharid Empire of Persia, and the Khanate of Bukhara.
[2]
In 1757 CE, the Durrani sacked Delhi and dealt a deathblow to the formerly powerful Moghul Empire. This resulted in the conquest of Punjab, the Sindh, and the Kachi plains.
[3]
After 1809 CE, the East India company signed the Treaty of Amritsar with a Sikh Maharaja named Ranjit Singh. Following an agreement to halt expansion southward, Singh conquered Multan and the Kachi plains in 1818 CE, Kashmir in 1819 CE, and finally Peshawar in 1823 CE.
[3]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. pp. 99-100
[2]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press, 2010. pp. 97-109
[3]: Qassem, Ahmad Shayeq. Afghanistan’s political stability: a dream unrealised. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009. p. 24
squared kilometers. 1,792,327: 1772 CE; 489,172: 1819 CE Inferred: the 1772 CE estimate is an approximation based on the modern day territory of the component territories of Pakistan, Indian Kashmir, and the former Iranian province of Khorasan. The second date reflects the loss of external territories by the beginning of the nineteenth century.
[1]
Conquests including former territory of the Mughal and Maratha Empires in India, the Afsharid Empire of Persia, and the Khanate of Bukhara.
[2]
In 1757 CE, the Durrani sacked Delhi and dealt a deathblow to the formerly powerful Moghul Empire. This resulted in the conquest of Punjab, the Sindh, and the Kachi plains.
[3]
After 1809 CE, the East India company signed the Treaty of Amritsar with a Sikh Maharaja named Ranjit Singh. Following an agreement to halt expansion southward, Singh conquered Multan and the Kachi plains in 1818 CE, Kashmir in 1819 CE, and finally Peshawar in 1823 CE.
[3]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. pp. 99-100
[2]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press, 2010. pp. 97-109
[3]: Qassem, Ahmad Shayeq. Afghanistan’s political stability: a dream unrealised. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009. p. 24
3: 1766 CE; 1: 1779 CE. The Durrani ruled from the sparsely populated and rural Pashtun region of Afghanistan. As such, the settlement hierarchy was inverse to the majority of empires in that the large populated cities were underneath the power of a much smaller and extractive rural elite. After the death of the first Shah, internal conflict meant that effective control was limited to the city of Kabul and the surrounding countryside.
[1]
1766 CE
1. Kandahār(capital)
2. Provincial capitals (Sind, Punjab, Kashmir, Khosasan, Turkistan)
3. towns
4. Villages
1779 CE
1. Kabul
[1]: Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton University Press, 2010. pp. 97-109
1. Caliphate
2. All Muslims
In theory the Caliphate and governors were the head of the Sunni faith, but in practice local religious scholars (ulama) attracted the wider populace as definers of doctrine. Unlike the Orthodox or Catholic faith, the structure of the Islamic faiths were not clearly hierarchical as all were theoretically equal before Allah.
[1]
1. Ruler
2. Imam
[1]: Lapidus 2002, p. 82, p. 215
The Army of the Durrani was organized under a hierarchical tribal confederacy. One third were regular troops largely made up of cavalry and some supporting artillery, with the remaining two thirds made up of irregular seasonal troops serving for a campaign. The standing army hierarchy is reflected below. They were paid in cash or with military fiefs in the rich provinces in India. Irregular troops were raised via a coercive levy imposed on subjected tribes, districts and chieftains, and these areas were required to equip the troops themselves.
[1]
1. Shah
2. Tribal commanders
3. Permanent soldiers (cavalry and artillery)
4. Irregular seasonal levies (calvary and infantry)
The Army of the Durrani was organized under a hierarchical tribal confederacy. one third were regular troops largely made up of cavalry and some supporting artillery, with the remaining two thirds made up of seasonal irregulars serving for a campaign.
[1]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History p. 100
The Durrani empire was a loose confederation of tribes and principalities that evaded attempts to create or maintain central control. Military service was rewarded with the granting of autonomous land grants called Jegeirs that skimmed up to sixty percent of state revenues, with the remainder going to the maintenance of a large army. The local elites were mantained and largely autonomous if appropriate tribute was paid to the tribal elites.
[1]
1. Shah
2. Immediate dynastic family and tribe
3. Tribal chieftains and holders of Jageirs (land grants)
4. Subjugated provincial elites
5. Local administrations of conquered territory
[1]: Brock, Lothar, Hans-Henrik Holm, Georg Sørensen, and Michael Stohl. Fragile states. polity, 2011 comments on the problems of governing such a loose confederation; for a brief look at the decline, see http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7798/Afghanistan/21395/Nadir-Shah
Sunni Islam did not have the equivalent of a professional priest. The leader of the daily prayers was given a special title and a person widely thought to be learned would be awarded a title of Imam, but this did not connote a hierarchy of belief. Certain originators of judiciary schools were awarded special titles, but these rare individuals were not the equivalent of saints. The increasing fractured nature of Sunni and Shiite religious controversy led to a divergence in the use of titles to members of the umma. In Afghanistan, local practice could be widely divergent from mainstream Islam. [1]
[1]: Lapidus, 2002, pp. 133-155
The founder of the Dynasty himself had originally been the head officer of Nadir Shah’s personal bodyguard and took the four thousand-strong horse cavalry he had commanded with him when he defected to Afghanistan. He also had access to the Turkish Shiite Qizilbash. [1]
[1]: Barfield, Thomas, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History pp. 98-99
The Duranni empire was based on the accretion of political power with-in a pre-existing authoritarian-tribal rule of the Abdali Pashtuns and the Shah as its unchallenged leader. It was not based on a defined permanent theory of statecraft, but rather a synthesis of of Islamic concepts of kingship. Governance took place in part through a loose council of Durrani Sadozai Chieftans. What short term Administrative post that did exist were given to members of the governing tribes. The Duranni were a nation in arms rather than bureaucrats. [1]
[1]: Saikal, Amin, Modern Afghanistan: A struggle for Survival pp. 22-24
The code of Patshtunwali was a personal code of honor rather than a formalized code, with justice taking place between clans and individuals. [1]
[1]: Rosman, Abraham, Paula G. Rubel, and Maxine Weisgrau. The tapestry of culture: An introduction to cultural anthropology. Rowman Altamira, 2009. p.349
A legal code was inherited from conquered areas, but it is unclear if this was actually practiced.
[1]
Shari’a law functioned at a local level, but an overarching legal structure was not present given the fractured nature of the empire and the focus on coercive extraction. Legal rights seem to have been, like the late Mugals, restricted to Muslims. Unbelievers were to be kept subdued, and be made to pay the traditional poll tax.
[2]
In legitimizing their conquest, the Durrani seem to have followed the Sunni school of law of maḏāhib. The presence of Shiite practioners in Khorasan seem to have been tolerated. Pitshtunwali, a legal and moral code that determines social order and responsibilities in Pashtun culture was at odds with the formalized Islamic code, having existed before the islamic conquest of the 7th century and enduring to the present day in the Pashtun border regions.
[3]
[1]: Black, Antony. The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present. Edinburgh University Press, 2011. pp. 252-255
[2]: Black, Antony. The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present. Edinburgh University Press, 2011. p. 54
[3]: Gommans, Jos J.L. The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire: C. 1710-1780. Vol. 8. Brill, 1995. p. 54
Taxes were used to maintain a vital irrigation network in the southern part of Afganistan. Furthermore, existing networks of irrigation were present in conquered areas. [1]
[1]: Noelle, Christine. State and Tribe in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan, 1826-1863. Psychology Press, 1997.
The Duranni ’state’ was not in a position to maintain infrastructure. It was a very loose institution. What maintenance or road building that was done was at the local level. In areas that were conquered these assets had been maintained by the previous state in areas like the Sind and India. [1]
[1]: Noelle, Christine. State and Tribe in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan, 1826-1863. Psychology Press, 1997. section 4 , Dost Muhammed Khan’s Occupation of Qandahar and His Administration source is unpaginated.
These included tribute tabulations and tax receipts from India.
[1] The Durrani empire produced coins at a number of mints in territories conquered during the initial expansion. Coins made of copper, gold, and silver were issued in Kandahar, Kabul, Peshawar, Attock, Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Sind, Lahore, and other regions in the local mints, leading to a wide dispersal of coinage. Multan served as a regional trade centre, with trade links between Afghanistan and the North, and links to access Chinese silk and caravans of indigo. [1]
[1]: Hanifi, Shah. Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier. Stanford University Press, 2011. pp. 44-54
State was not providing either postal stations or a general postal service.
Mud brick palisades protected both private dwellings and larger communities. The lands conquered by the Durrani empire had long traditions of fortifications and modern fortifications were present in the Sind and Persia. [1]
[1]: Roy, Kaushik. War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740-1849. Taylor & Francis, 2011. pp. 37-45
Stone used in fortifications. [1] "Built on the grand scale by Ahmad Shah Durrani - the dashing young cavalryman who founded the great Durrani Empire - with huge walls surrounded by a moat and pierced by six massive gates, Kandahar was designed to impress the approaching traveller, friend or foe. The walls were pulled down in the 1940s..." [2]
[1]: Roy, Kaushik. War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740-1849. Taylor & Francis, 2011. pp. 30-35
[2]: (Gall 2012, 19) Sandy Gall. 2012. War Against the Taliban: Why It All Went Wrong in Afghanistan. Bloomsbury. London.
"Built on the grand scale by Ahmad Shah Durrani - the dashing young cavalryman who founded the great Durrani Empire - with huge walls surrounded by a moat and pierced by six massive gates, Kandahar was designed to impress the approaching traveller, friend or foe. The walls were pulled down in the 1940s..." [1] Inferred because this is not a specialist source.
[1]: (Gall 2012, 19) Sandy Gall. 2012. War Against the Taliban: Why It All Went Wrong in Afghanistan. Bloomsbury. London.
Uzbek contingents and others tribal groups equipped with spears. [1] The Durrani was a gunpowder empire. The other weapons listed below were available, but not a major component to battle. The Persian influx of ḵompāra pistols, the tapānča and żarbza cannons, the bādlīj and ṣaff-pūzan show the presence of antiquated firearms by European standards, but these weapons were sufficient for conquest in the region. High quality firearms were also taken from the Sind and Mughal territories. However, common soldiers and levies could be equipped with the small caliber Snaphance hunting rifle or more primitive arms. Uzbek contingents and others tribal groups went into battle equipped with spears, battle axes, bows and arrows, or a single pistol during the period. [1]
[1]: J. Hanway, An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, 4 vols., London, 1753 p. 252-4
Primarily matchlocks, made in Kabul, the Sind and other areas. Domestic manufacture was possible, as well as importation of barrels from Constantinople. [1] The elite corps brought in from Persia by the founding Shah of the Durrani were equipped with flintlocks, as the wakīl personal body guard were armed with flintlocks. [2]
[1]: Elgood, Robert, ed. Firearms of the Islamic World: In the Tared Rajab Museum, Kuwait. IB Tauris Publishers, 1995. p. 161-181
[2]: J. Perry, Karim Khan Zand: A History of Iran, 1747-1779, Chicago, 1979. p. 280
[1] The Durrani state was an empire sustained and governed through the maintenance of a large number of armed horseman primarily recruited from the Pashtun peoples, a diverse group of ethnic groups linked through the use of the Pashto language. [2] Quick conquest in the period of 1747 CE-1752 CE added Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara tribes to the growing number of horsemen in the King’s army. [2]
[1]: Indian Warfare and Afghan Innovation During the Eighteenth Century Studies in History August 1995 11: 261-280
[2]: Runion, Meredith L. The history of Afghanistan. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.pp. 69-73
zanbūrak (little bee), was a type of swivel gun mounted on the back of a camel (Plate I). Zanbūraks were often fired from a kneeling camel, but could be employed from a trotting one as well [1] Two musketeers armed with zamburaq (swivel gun) were mounted on the back of a camels. More often, shutrnals (what were they?) were mounted on camels. [2]
[1]: A. Dupré, Voyage en Perse fait dans les années 1807, 1808, 1809, en traversant la Natolie [sic] et la Mésopotamie, 2 vols., Paris, 1819. p. 297
[2]: (Egerton 2002, 28-29) Lord Egerton of Tatton. 2002 (1896). Indian and Oriental Arms and Armour. Dover Publications, Inc. Mineola.
e.g. for shields. [1] From the late seventeenth century all armies in the region used varying amounts of personal protection. The infantry were armed with swords, spears and matchlocks, whereas the cavalry was equipped with steel Armour and steel armour. Plate was increasingly replaced with chain-mail and armoured helmets and was available for purchase of as booty. Poorer tribesmen would have been armored with looted materials or the cloth turbans and clothes on their backs. [2]
[1]: Roy, Kaushik. War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740-1849. Taylor & Francis, 2011. pp. 30-35
[2]: Roy, Kaushik. War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740-1849. Taylor & Francis, 2011. p.
The Durrani were a land based power, at most using river craft for logistical purposes. [1] As the Durrani were a land based power, coded absent. [2]
[1]: Indian Warfare and Afghan Innovation During the Eighteenth Century Studies in History August 1995 11: 261-280
[2]: Roy, Kaushik. War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740-1849. Taylor & Francis, 2011. pp. 30-35