Barakzai Dynasty - History and Background

History and Background

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See also: Theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites and Dasht-e Yahudi

The Barakzai dynasty was the line of rulers in Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th centuries. Following the fall of the Durrani Empire in 1826, chaos reigned in the domains of Ahmed Shah Durrani's Afghan Empire as various sons of Timur Shah struggled for supremacy. The Afghan Empire ceased to exist as a single nation state, disintegrating for a brief time into a fragmented collection of small units. Dost Mohammad Khan gained preeminence in 1826 and founded the Barakzai dynasty in about 1837. Thereafter, his descendants ruled in direct succession until 1929, when King Amanullah Khan abdicated and his cousin Mohammed Nadir Shah was elected king. The most prominent & powerful sub-clan of the Barakzai Pashtun tribe is the Mohamedzai clan, of which the 1826-1978 Afghanistan ruling dynasty comes from.

According to Hyat Khan's history of Afghanistan, from their progenitor Bor Tareen, otherwise known as Abdal, are descended two main divisions: the Zirak and the Panjpai. The term Abdal, however, gradually superseded Bor Tareen and came into special prominence when Ahmad Shah Abdali, commonly known as Durrani, began his career of conquest. The Achakzi were once a branch of the large Barakzai tribe, but Ahmad Shah Durrani was worried over this large tribe as potential competition for control of Kabul’s throne and split the tribe into two separate components and since then the Achakzi have remained distinct and are a separate tribe today. Their original homeland was Maruf District, Kandahar Province.

Barakzai, are also sometimes counted to be as one of the Lost tribes of Israel and are sometimes associated with the Tribe of Benjamin (Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין, Binyamin Binyāmîn). It's said that Barakzai are the descendants of "Afghana" (born ~ 1000 BC) the grandson of King Saul of the Tribe of Benjamin is considered in Afghan folklore a tribal chief or prince of Bani Israel (Israelite) origin and a progenitor of modern-day Pashtuns (ethnic Afghans), the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and second largest in Pakistan. The ethnonym "Afghan" is believed to derive from his name.

Durrani tribe are their closest counters and then next closest to Yusuf Zi (Sons of Joseph) since Yūsuf was Binyāmîn's full brother, and Ephriti (Tribe of Ephraim) & Khattak (Tribe of Menashe) as their last closest in terms of the Lost Tribes of Israel and also in relations because Ephraim & Menashe were the sons of Yūsuf, which makes Ephraim & Menashe the nephew of Binyāmîn, who was the youngest son of Yaʿqūb with Raḥel. Even the name Barakzi and its most prominent & powerful sub tribe of Mohammadzi can be compared with the name of Ashkenazi, who are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. The term suffix - zi, the plural of Pashto zay, stands for "descendant", and in Avestan it is similar with zoi, "offspring", which is related to the English word "son". However, research towards validating such claims has been inconclusive.