The Yusufzais Before Their Expulsion from the Kabul Valley Abdur Rahman and Fazal Sher
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Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXVII (2016) 185 The Yusufzais Before Their Expulsion from the Kabul Valley Abdur Rahman and Fazal Sher Abstract: This research is related to the history of the Yusaufzai branch of the Pakhtun or Pushtun tribe, who once occupied the Kabul Valley in Afghanistan. Currently they occupy a large tract of land in the plain of modern Peshawar valley but they were originally expelled from Afghanistan. Their original place and subsequent occupation of different regions have been thoroughly discussed here. Keywords: Yusufzai, Kabul, Khakhay, Mohmands The genealogical table given by Ni ‘mat Ullah ‘udzais, Mohmands and Chamkanīs, of which the Harwi shows that Qais, the alleged progenitor of last was an adopted son. The Khalīls, Dā ‘ūdzais the Afghān race, had four sons, namely, Sarbanr, and Mohmands presently live in Peshāwar and Bitan, Ghurghusht and Karrān or Karlānr. With the adjacent territories, whereas the Chamkanis respect to the last, the Harwi remarks, that he was live in Kurram and on the right bank of the Bārah not the real son of Qais but was looked upon as river near Peshāwar. such (see Harwi 1978: 416). Sarbanr, the eldest Khakhay had three sons known as Mand, Muk son, had two sons named Sharkhbūn (in some and Tarklanri. Of these the last are presently other records Sharkbūn, Shakarbūn or Sharjyūn) found in Bājaur. Muk’s descendants, the and Kharshbūn (or Krishyūn). The western Gagiānīs, occupy the Doābah of which Afgh ns are believed to have descended from ā Shabqadar is the main town. Mand had two sons, Sharkhbūn, and the Eastern Afghāns from namely Yūsuf and ‘Umr. ‘Umr’s descendants are Kharshbūn. Whatever the value of this called Mandanrs, and presently occupy Mardān genealogical table, the un-Islamic form of these and Swābi, while Yūsuf’s offspring known as names in strikingly explicit, but, what particular Yusufzais live mainly in Dīr, Swāt and Buner, language they have been derived is difficult to and partly in Mardān and Swābi. say. Bellew (1880: 23) suggested a Rājpūt origin for them but the evidence to support this view is With the growth of population, the Pusht of the lacking. Sulīmān Range became insufficient to accommodate all the sundry tribes, internecine As the genealogical table goes, Kharshbūn had fights were the upshot. From here on the three sons: Kand, Zamand and Kāsi. Kand’s sons, Tawārīkh Ḥāfiz Rahmaṭ Khāni will be our main Ghoriah and Khakhay or Khashay became guide. The original writer of this work, Khwājū, progenitors of two great tribes – the Ghoriah Khel tells us that the Yūsufzais had settled at Ghāra and and Khakhay Khel. They are first noticed in the Nūshki, and the Ghoriah Khel, particularly, the tracts from the Koh – Pāyah or hill skirts, Khalīls, at Tarnak, Muqur and Qarah Bāgh. Then immediately east of Ghazni, to the eastern slopes something went wrong and fighting flared up of the range of Mihtar Sul m n or Koh-i Siy h ī ā ā – between the two great septs. The Ghoriah Khels the Pusht or Pukht, also called Koh Shuāl – the defeated the Yūsufzais and forcibly seized their original home of the Pushtūns or Pakhtūns. Their territory. Khwāju is on the whole borne out by the descendants can be traced in the living tribes. Akhūnd, Darwezah (1960: 89-90), who, Ghoriah had four sons, namely, Khal l, D ī ā however, gives a more detailed but somewhat Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXVII (2016) 186 different account. He says: Khakhays, the Yusufzai and Mandanr branches were in the forefront in creating When the Afghāns divided the country of tumult and lawlessness in the city of Kābul Qandahār (apparently the entire tract of and in misappropriating properties land extending from Qandahār to the pusht belonging to the citizens of K bul. of the mountain is meant) among ā themselves, the share of the Tarīn tribe fell The rest of the story is nicely summarized in between those of Kand and Zamand, by Elphinstone (1992: ii, 8-11). This is cutting the two brothers off to be able to what he writes (The spellings of place share the grief and happiness of each other. names are changed by us to harmonize Of the two sections of the Kand (viz. them with the modern practice): Ghoria and Khakhay), the Khakhay, who The original seats of the Yūsufzais were lived on the banks of the river Arghastān, about Gāra and Noshki, the last of which were the nearest to the boundaries of the places at least is on the borders of the Tarīns. It so happened that enmity sprang Dasht-i Lūt (or Great Salt Desert)… their up between the Khakhay and the Tar ns. ī numbers at the time must have been very Daily skirmishes eventually developed inferior to what they are now, as they only into a well contested battle in which the formed a branch of the tribe of Khakhay; Tar ns carried the day. A number of the ī the other branches of which were the Khakhays were slain while the rest were Gagiānis, the Tarklānris, and the dispossessed of their lands; none of their Muḥammadzais. They were expelled from cousins, the Ghoria and the Zamand, came Gāra and Noshki, about the end of the to their help. Having been thrown out of thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth Arghast n, the Khakhay besought the ā century of the Christian era, and soon after Ghoriakhels for a piece of land. They were settled in the neighbourhood of Kābul. treated as the rich treat the beggars and Before they had been long there, they given a barren tract of land. But later on afforded their protection to Mirzā Ulugh when the Ghoriakhels were themselves hit Beg, the son of Mirzā Abu Sa‘īd, of the by a severe drought, they took up arms and house of Tīmūr, and were very ousted the Khakhay from the lands allotted instrumental in raising him to the throne of to them. Having been evicted the Khakhay Kābul, which had before been held by his shifted to a place called “Karobantky”, ancestors, but which probably was lost in (obviously a clerical error for G ra and ā consequence of the calamities which befell Neshki). With the lapse of time they had to the house of Tīmūr, on the death of Mirzā abandon that place as well, and slowly Abū Sa‘īd. Ulugh Beg, on his first drifted to the environs of Kābul where they accession, treated the Yūsufzais with the became allies of the Utm nkhels and ā greatest distinction; he was indeed wandered with them to T nk and Gomal. ā dependent on their assistance for the In their new habitat they found fertile support of his throne; but the turbulent grazing grounds for their cattle and made independence of the Yūsufzais was not rapid increase in their numbers. They grew suited to an intimate connection with a rich and powerful and looked down upon sovereign, and their insolence increasing other less powerful people. Of these with their prosperity, they insulted Ulugh Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXVII (2016) 187 Beg’s authority, plundered his villages, named Maḥmūd b. Muhammaḍ Chagharzai and even filled his capital with tumult and succeeded in bringing a knife (kārd) hidden in his confusion. Ulugh Beg whose power was shoe and told his companians that, if they thought now strengthened by the accession of it was in their interest, he was in a position to kill many Mughals, who flocked to his the king. But nobody agreed with him thinking standard, resolved to rid himself of his that it was against the laws of hospitality. Even troublesome allies; he began by fomenting the Mirzā, the Akhūnd says, did not intend to do dissensions between the Yūsufzais and them any harm. But Janki, the Gagiāni, who was Gagiānis and soon after attacked them at not a well-wisher of the Yūsufzais, prevailed the head of that tribe (Gagiānis) and his upon the Mirzā not to let the opportunity slip from own army at Ghwaṛa Marghah. He was his hands, for, the Yūsufzais, he argued, were not defeated at first, but having cut off the likely to assemble again in such large numbers, chiefs of the tribe at a banquet, during an and to kill the whole lot. The Mirzā at last agreed insidious peace which he had the art to to avail himself of the opportunity and did as conclude with them, he plundered the advised. One by one the Yūsufzais were blind- Yūsufzais of all their possessions, and folded and murdered. (Khwāju says that the drove them out of Kābul. Yūsufzais were invited to partake of a banquet, then disarmed and blind-folded, and handed over Elphinstone follows Khwāju; Akhūnd to Gagiāni chiefs who were present at this Darwezah’s account (pp. 91-95) is somewhat occasion). different. When the Yūsufzais and Mandanrs had crossed all limits of violence, he records, the It so happened, Khwāju says, that during the time prince Mirzā Quli Beg (same as Ulugh Beg of when preparations were being made for the Khwāju; Ulugh, correctly Aūlūgh, meaning enactment of this tragic scene, five individuals of “tall”, being a nickname), resolved to take up the Rānizai section of the Yūsufzais including the arms against them. Consequently, a few of them Mullāh Ḥusain Utmānzai’s son Kauthar, were killed and (the settlements of) some others unknowing of what was going to happen, entered were invaded and plundered. The Yūsufzais took the court of the Mirzā, and were put together with flight and went to one of the valleys of Kābul. the condemned lot.