Ahmadzai (Ghilzai)

In the genealogy of the Makhzan-i Afghani, Ghilzai's son Ibrahim had a son Haijub, whose thirteen sons include Suleimankhail. The Ahmadzai are a division of the Sulaiman Khel. Robinson records a tradition that the Jabbar Khel and Abubakar Khel come from Ahmad's second wife, Khatuna, while his first wife, Aisha, was the mother of most of his other children.

Elphinstone placed the Ahmedzyes in the northern half of the Sulaiman Khail, with the Stauneezyes, and put them at 12,000 families. Robinson wrote that the Ahmadzai had long been closely connected with the Durrani rulers at Kabul, that many served in the public service, and that they were separated from the Shamal Khel of Katawaz by geography and politics, so that they were almost a distinct tribe. Encyclopaedia Iranica singles out the Ahmadzai and Jabar Khel among the Sulaiman Khel as having played important roles in the politics of Afghanistan.^1,3–5

Based on: Traditional genealogies · Colonial records · Reference works

Robinson found most Ahmadzai settled on their lands in the triangle formed by Kabul, Jalalabad and Gardez, with some spilling beyond it. Elphinstone put them in the east of Logar, at Altamoor and Speiga, driving their flocks as far east as the hills above Jalalabad. The Gazetteer of Afghanistan adds that they held the Shutur Gardan pass and spent summer in the Surkhel and Safed Koh and winter in Kurram and Tezin.

Only a fifth to a quarter of the tribe, by Robinson's estimate, was nomadic. These nomads summered in the Hazarajat, Gardez and Logar and wintered in Dera Ismail Khan District, the North Waziristan Agency between the Kaitu and the Kurram boundary, the Kurram Agency and Peshawar District. Those in North Waziristan were known as Tore Oba Ghilzais, and their claim to winter grazing led to yearly fighting with the Kabul Khel Wazirs, especially its Saifali section.

The Ahmadzai about Khurd Kabul, Surkhpul and Tezin were generally wealthy, in Robinson's account, and very few came to India to trade, though some traded between Kabul and Peshawar in winter.^1,2,4

Based on: Colonial records

Robinson counted about 1,600 families of Jabbar Khel, prosperous and settled around Qabr-i-Jabbar between Jagdalak and Khurd Kabul, and about Surkhpul and Hisarak. He called them the khan khel, the chief house of the Ahmadzai and of all the Sulaiman Khel; the leading family belonged to the Ahmad Khel section.

Encyclopaedia Iranica records that in the winter of 1842 the Jabar Khel inflicted the heaviest casualties on the retreating British army between Kabul and Jalalabad, and that some Ahmadzai chiefs figured in British operations in south-eastern Afghanistan in 1879-80. It adds that the Ahmadzai supported Mohammad Nader in taking Kabul and becoming king in 1929, and that Najibullah, a president after 1978, came from the Ahmadzai.

Robinson names Asmatullah Khan as head of the family, recognised as khan of all the Ghilzai and given the title Mir Afghan by Amir Abdur Rahman, who afterwards had him executed because he was becoming too influential. Abdur Rahman also deported about a thousand families from each leading Ahmadzai division to Afghan Turkistan and gave them large land grants. Robinson saw four aims in it: to conciliate them, to weaken them, to develop Afghan Turkistan and to set a counterweight to the Uzbeks. He also records that Taj Muhammad Khan, a grandson of Langar Khan of this family, commanded the Afghan forces at Maiwand, went into exile in India with Sardar Ayub Khan and died in Lahore.^1,3

Based on: Colonial records · Reference works