Achakzai

Elphinstone in 1815 and Encyclopaedia Iranica both count the Achakzai among the four Zirak clans of the Durrani, with the Popalzai, Alikozai and Barakzai. Iranica gives their eponym as Achak, son of Zirak, son of Abdal, son of Tarin. The Makhzan-i Afghani does not name Achak among Abdal's sons.

The sources agree that the Achakzai were once part of the Barakzai. Elphinstone wrote that they "were a branch of the Baurikzyes, but were separated by Ahmed Shauh to reduce the formidable numbers of that clan", and that they had their own chief. Bellew (1891) says the same, and adds that the Durrani themselves held the Achakzai to be distinct from the other clans. Iranica's article on the Barakzai places the Achakzai, with the royal Muhammadzai, in the Nur-al-Dinzai subtribe, and says all Achakzai traditions point to an old Barakzai section raised to a tribe by Ahmad Shah. The Loralai gazetteer (1907) adds that the old name Abdal was still used, sparingly, for the Achakzai of Quetta-Pishin, who were treated as a political unit separate from the other Tarin.^{1,4,5,7,2,8,6,3}

Elphinstone placed the Achakzai on the Khwaja Amran range, from the Lora to the Kadanai, with flocks on the high country of Toba and camel herds in the sands north-east of Shorawak. Bellew put them in the Kadanai valley and on the northern slopes of the Khwaja Amran up to the Toba plateau, with seasonal movement as far as Herat, Badghis and Ghor. He divided them into two branches, Bahadur and Gajan.

Iranica records that Ahmad Shah (r. 1747–1772) spent the hottest weeks of summer on the Toba heights among the Achakzai. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1908 describes Toba, west of the Kand peak, as inhabited chiefly by Achakzai, and places the Achakzai of British territory in the Chaman subdivision and part of Pishin.^7,8,5,9

Kaye's history of the First Anglo-Afghan War names Abdullah Khan Achakzai as the leading figure at the chiefs' meeting held on the night of 1 November 1841 at the house of an Alikozai chief in Kabul. After Shah Shuja's restoration in 1839 Abdullah Khan had lost the chiefship of his tribe and was kept at court. Alexander Burnes had sent him an insulting message, and at the meeting he proposed that the rising begin with an attack on Burnes's house, which it did on 2 November. Barakzai, Popalzai, Achakzai and Ghilzai chiefs were all in the confederacy.

Abdullah Khan led the Afghan cavalry in the fighting on the Bemaru hills in November 1841. He was carried wounded from the field and died within a week. Kaye records that it was never settled whether a British shot or an Afghan jezail hit him.¹¹

The Army Headquarters Dictionary of the Pathan Tribes (1910) lists 4,725 Achakzai in the Khwaja Amran range and Quetta-Pishin, as the largest division of the Abdal Tarin, and names Sirdar Abdul Hamid Khan and Sirdar Bahadur Ghulam Haidar Khan among their headmen. Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, born in Gulistan in 1907, founded the Anjuman-i Watan party in 1930, allied it with the Indian National Congress in 1942 and spent a total of 33 years in prison. He was killed when grenades were thrown into his house on the night of 2 December 1973.

In Afghanistan Iranica (1983) counts about 100,000 Achakzai, living mainly between Kandahar and Spin Boldak, in Zamindawar north of Gereshk and in Kohdaman north of Kabul. Some were still herders; others were farmers, or lived in the cities. They speak the Kandahari form of Pashto.^10,12,5