Durrani Empire

The Durrani Empire was the first major independent Afghan state and is often regarded as the foundation of the modern nation of Afghanistan. It was founded in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, a young Pashtun military commander who had served the Persian conqueror Nader Shah.

When Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747 and his Afsharid empire collapsed, Ahmad Shah was chosen as leader by a council (loya jirga) of Pashtun chiefs at Kandahar and crowned king, taking the title Durr-i-Durran ('Pearl of Pearls'), from which the dynasty took its name. A capable and energetic ruler, Ahmad Shah unified the Pashtun tribes and rapidly built a large empire through a series of campaigns. At its height his domain stretched from Khorasan in eastern Iran across all of present-day Afghanistan and into the Indian subcontinent, encompassing the Punjab, Kashmir, and Sindh, making it one of the largest Muslim empires of the later eighteenth century. Ahmad Shah repeatedly invaded northern India, most famously defeating the Maratha Confederacy at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, a decisive engagement that checked Maratha expansion and reshaped the balance of power in the subcontinent. The empire's strength, however, rested heavily on Ahmad Shah's personal leadership and the loyalty of fractious tribal coalitions. After his death the empire was weakened by recurring succession disputes, civil wars, and rebellions among his descendants and the tribes. Under his less capable successors, including Timur Shah and Zaman Shah, central authority eroded and outlying territories were lost, including the Punjab to the rising Sikh Empire. The empire fragmented into rival principalities centred on Kabul, Kandahar, Peshawar, and Herat, and by 1823 the Durrani state had effectively collapsed, giving way to the Barakzai dynasty, which would rule Afghanistan into the modern era.

Key figures