Khalil

The Khalil belong to the Ghoria Khel, the descendants of Ghori (Ghura), with the Mohmand and the Daudzai. In the Makhzan-i Afghani (1609–11) Khalil is one of Ghura's sons, beside Daulatyar, the ancestor of the Mohmand and Daudzai. The Khulasat al-Ansab lists Ghori's sons as Khalil, Daud, Mahmand, Chamkani and Zirani, and Bellew (1891) gives the Ghoria Khel four divisions: Daulatyar, Khalil, Chamkani and Zirani. The 1910 Dictionary of the Pathan Tribes calls the Khalil "of the same origin as the Mohmands".

Ibbetson names four Khalil clans, the Matuzai, Barozai, Ishaqzai and Tilarzai, and says the Barozai was the strongest. The Khulasat gives the divisions as Baruzai, Mutizai and Saghzai.^1,2,3,11,4

Elphinstone places the Ghoria Khel in the middle of the 15th century along the Tarnak river, west of Ghazni, partly or wholly as herders. Ibbetson says they followed the Khakhai tribes and reached the western mouth of the Khyber early in the 16th century. Raverty and Caroe tell how a Khalil section, then in Ningrahar, joined the Yusufzai in Bajaur against the Dilazak chief Malik Haibu about 1517, Raverty's date. The allies then fell out. The Yusufzai beat the Khalil near Nawagai, captured the families behind their breastwork, and freed them on condition that the Khalil never again entered the northern hills.

The Khalil and Mohmand then pushed into the Peshawar valley with the help of Mirza Kamran, Babur's son, who held Kabul. Caroe brackets this between 1530 and 1545. Raverty describes Kamran sheltering among the Khalil and Mohmand in Ningrahar after his defeat by Humayun in 1550, and calls the Khalil at that time the strongest of the Ghoria Khel. The Imperial Gazetteer says Kamran was backed against Humayun by the Ghoria Khel tribes, "now first heard of in connexion with Peshawar", and that after Humayun rebuilt the Peshawar fort in 1553 the Ghoria Khel and Khakhai drove the Dilazak across the Indus. The Khalil took the south-west corner of the district facing the Khyber. The chronicles add a final defeat of the Ghoria Khel by the Yusufzai at Shaikh Tapur, dated by Raverty to 1550; Caroe finds this unconvincing, since the Khalil and Mohmand kept their lands.^6,5,7,8,9

The Khalil chiefs carry the title Arbab. Massy (1890) says Shah Jahan first gave it to Asal Khan, with a jagir in the Khalil tappa and charge of the Khyber and its tribes. Asal Khan's son Abdul Rahman ran the Khyber almost independently in Nadir Shah's time. Timur Shah sent troops to back Abdul Rahman's son Nur Muhammad Khan against a cousin, Faizullah. Under the Sikh governor Hari Singh most of the chiefs went over to Dost Muhammad Khan in Kabul. Muhammad Khan, who stayed, received the title of Nawab from Ranjit Singh and was killed fighting on the Sikh side at Jamrud in 1837.

Elphinstone counted the Khalil at 6,000 families and called the Peshawar plain tribes the most subject of all to the Durrani king, though they had twice rebelled. The Sikhs, and the British after 1849, dealt with the Afridi and other Khyber tribes through the Khalil and Mohmand Arbabs. The Imperial Gazetteer is critical of the arrangement, and Massy says it ended after the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80), when an officer was appointed to manage the Khyber tribes. The British confirmed the Arbabs' jagirs in 1849.^10,6,8,9

Ibbetson describes the Khalil holding the left bank of the Bara river and the land in front of the Khyber, with some of the tribe still at Kandahar. Massy puts the Khalil tappa at about twenty miles along the foot of the Khyber range and ten miles wide, bounded by the Kabul river and the Budni, with the leading Arbab families living at Tahkal. The Imperial Gazetteer names the Khalil and Mohmand tappas of the Peshawar tahsil after the tribes that held them. The 1910 Dictionary gives the tribe 3,600 fighting men in the Peshawar district.^4,10,9,11