Ahmad Shah Durrani

Who is Ahmad Shah Durrani?

Ahmad Shah Durrani, born Ahmad Khan Abdali, was a Pashtun military commander who founded the Durrani Empire in 1747 and is widely regarded as the father of modern Afghanistan. He rose to prominence as a commander in the army of the Persian conqueror Nader Shah, and after Nader Shah's assassination in 1747, Ahmad Shah was chosen by a tribal council (jirga) near Kandahar to lead the Afghan tribes. Over the following twenty-five years he led repeated military campaigns across what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, eastern Iran, and northern India, building one of the largest Islamic empires of the eighteenth century, stretching from Khorasan to Kashmir and Delhi. He organized the disparate Pashtun tribes and other ethnic groups into a unified state centered on Kandahar, later moved to Kabul, laying the territorial and political foundation for the modern Afghan nation. He was also a poet in his native Pashto. Ahmad Shah died in 1772, and his Durrani dynasty continued to rule Afghanistan, in various forms, for generations afterward.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ahmad Shah Durrani" · Ganda Singh, Ahmad Shah Durrani: Father of Modern Afghanistan (1959) · Countries of the World / Library of Congress Country Study: Afghanistan, "Ahmad Shah and the Durrani Empire"