Achakzai

Identity

The Achakzai are a tribe of Pashtuns, and a section of the larger Zirak Durrani tribe. They comprise the agnatic (patrilineal) descendants of a certain Achak Khan, and are therefore known as 'Achakzai.' Achak Khan was himself the paternal grandson of Barak Khan, from whom are descended the Barakzai tribe of Pashtuns; thus, the Achakzai are a branch or Sept of the Barakzai, who are themselves a branch of the Zirak Durrani tribe. The Achakzai are said to have been separated from their Barakzai cousins by Ahmad Shah Durrani, to reduce the formidable numbers of the latter.

Regarding the internal divisions and clan organization of the tribe, they are mainly divided into two sub-tribes, namely:

A more comprehensive description of their lineage and internal clan organization is given in a later section.

Territory

According to Elphinstone's 1814 work, the territory of the Achakzai tribe comprises the western half of Toba, almost the whole of the Khwaja Amran range, with territory in the Kadanai plain and adjacent desert. Towards the north-west direction, they extend into the Mel valley and Takhta Pul, and in scattered portions as far beyond Kandahar as Khakrez. To the south, they march with the Barechis, going as far down the Lora defiles as Sili Kach, and on the other side of the range to the Khurma hills. In the Kadanai plain, they occupy the Kunchai and Baldak districts, as well as the whole skirt of the range up to the Narin hills beyond Margha Chaman. They are also found in the Farah and Herat provinces. There are solitary families in Jammu and Kashmir and other regions of South Asia who claim an Achakzai descent.

Culture and habits

A description of the specific culture and habits of the Achakzai Pashtuns is provided in an 1814 work on Pashtun tribes by Elphinstone, who is still an authority on the subject of Pashtuns. He wrote the following account of the Achakzais in 1814 which, though not strictly correct, gives a good idea of the estimation in which they are held by their own countrymen:

Achakzai people of chaman (balochistan pakistan) mostly do business or smuggling through pak afghan boarder most of the achakzai from chaman are rich almost everybody owns a car bigger cars are preferred and seen. Most of chaman population consists of ashazai tribe of achakzai.

Lineage and clan organization

Achak Khan was a grandson of Barak Khan, the progenitor of the Barakzais. He had, it appears, two sons, Gujan and Badin, and the tribe has thus two well-defined divisions composed of their descendants, and called respectively Gujanzais and Badinzais. Each of these divisions has numerous sub-divisions or sections. There are also some sections descended from brothers or near relations of Achak Khan, but now incorporated with the tribe and generally accounted Achakzais. Gujan is said to have had five sons, viz.: Ahmad, Sawal, Nasrat, Mali, and Usman. Asha was the wife of Sawal, and the Ashazais are said to have been named after Asha instead of after Sawal on account of Asha's superior intelligence. This account does not quite agree with MacMahon's genealogical table given in Appendix A. Nasrat being shown there as a grandson of Achak Khan. According to the same table, Nasrat had eight sons: Ado, Ali, Matak, Arzu or Hardo, Ahmad Khan. Saleh, Musa, and Kat or Kutu. Most of these gave their respective names to a section and there are other sections. mostly small and insignificant, who are either offshoots of the others, or are of collateral descent.

The Badinzais, according to MacMahon, have the following sections:

The subjoined table compiled by the Political Agent, Quetta, 1895, will give a clearer idea of the organization of the tribe:

Major Clifford estimated the Gujanzais at 4,995 families, and the Badinzais at 2,050 families, while the 1884 edition further states that "taken in fighting men, the whole strength of the Gujanzais appears to be some what less than 1,000 and that of the Badinzais not far short of 500." The tribe, however, is not only disunited, but very widely scattered: about one-fourth of it is more or less directly connected with Pishin. The Achakzais are poorly armed; it is doubtful whether there are more than 4,000 match locks in the tribe. In a memorandum on the Achakzai clan, written in the spring of 1879 by Major St. John, Political Officer at Kandahar, he says: "As usual in Afghanistan, the Achakzais have no recognised chief among themselves; but it appears to have been usual for the last two or three generations at least, to appoint one of a particular family heads of the Ahmadzai or Hamidzai section, to supervise the tribe on the part of the Government, and probably to be responsible that their notoriously predatory propensities where kept within moderate bounds." Fateh Khan, the representative of the elder branch, is universally acknowledged in Kandahar to be without comparison the principal man of the tribe. He was for five years Revenue Commissioner of the province with the title of Halum. He is now in confinement at Kabul (6 April 1879), and was not released with the other political prisoners for fear of his taking an active part in our (British) favour at Kandahar. Of the junior branch there appear to be three principal sub divisions, descended from three of the numerous sons of Shadi Khan Arzbegi, a nobleman of high rank at the old Durani court. About 60 years since a quarrel took place between the eldest and the youngest of these three, in which Yar Muhammad Khan Achakzai son of Shadi Khan Achakzai and his sons lost his life at the hands of Abdulla Khan Achakzai, his younger brother. (It wouldappear from the genealogical table given in Appendix A that Abdulla Khan Achakzai was the elder brother of Yar Muhammad Khan.) Haji Sar Buland Khan, his son, and Saleh Muhammad Khan, his other brother (nephew?), were in Kandahar in 1839, and espoused the cause of the restored Sadozai dynasty, of which Shadi Khan Achakzai (Arzbaigi) had been the faithful servant, and were true to the British to the end of the war.

Fateh Muhammad Khan has shown me the sanad granted to his father by General Nott and Sir Henry Rawlinson, bearing their official signatures, appointing him chief of the Achakzais from Pishin to Kandahar, at a salary of Rs. 2,000 a month, with 300 sowars. Both he and Haji Sar Buland Khan Achakzai were wounded fighting on the English side. Abdulla Khan Achakzai, murderer of Haji Sar Buland Khan's father and builder of the fort in Pishin which bears his name took the Barakzai side and was one of the most vehement opponents of the British at Kabul. He was killed with two of his sons at the battle of 23 November 1841, while commanding the Afghan cavalry, and Sir John Kaye states that there was a whisper he was shot by one of his own men, i. e., that his head was of sufficient importance to make it worth a price. After the return of Dost Muhammad Khan to power in Afghanistan, Abdullah Khan Achakzai son of Shadi Khan Arzbaigi sons reaped the reward of their father's services in being held chiefs of the Achakzais to the exclusion of their cousins, who had been on the opposite side. Fateh Khan, however, the representative of the elder branch came at last into temporary favor, and was made Hakim of Kandahar (as before stated)."

The sons of Abdulla Khan, mentioned above, were Muhammad Aslam. Muhammad Akram, Ghulam Rasul and Fakir Muhammad. The first named two quarelled violently over the chiefship and after Muhammad Akram was murdered the quarrel was continued between Muhammad Aslam and Fakir Muhammad. Muhammad Aslam, however, seems to have been officially considered chief of the Achakzais for some years previous to the British occupation of 1878. Haji Sar Buland Khan Achakzai and Fateh Muhammad Khan Achakzai, son of Saleh Muhammad Khan Achakzai, meanwhile resided at Kandahar, where they had small salaries and allowances to keep up a certain number of sowars. In pursuance of our general policy of maintaining as far as might be consistent with justice and the preservation of order, the existing state of affairs in such portions of Afghanistan as came under our rule, Muhammad Aslam Khan was recognised as head of the Achakzais by the local British authorities. He himself, however, was unwilling to accept any responsibility on account of the tribe, alleging, what was no doubt the fact, that he had no influence over them. It was then arranged that one of his sons should be working chief, and all the sections more particularly connected with Pishin were brought to acquiesce in the arrangement.

On the other hand, Haji Sar Buland Khan and Fateh Muhammad Khan were undoubtedly popular among the Achakzais, and possessed of a certain amount of power. "Testimony being unanimous in Kandahar as to the impossibility of coming to any satisfactory arrangement with the Achakzais on this side of the Kojak without Haji Sar Buland Khan Achakzai," the Kandahar authorities decided that the latter should be considered chief of the Achakzais beyond Pishin. Haji SarBuland Khan Achakzai, however, "did not care for service himself, but preferred the renewal of the old (British) sanad in Fateh Muhammad Khan's favour. To this effect Fateh Muhammad Khan was appointed chief of the Achakzais on the Kandahar side of Chaman, and placed in charge of the road with pay at the rate of R 300 a month and allowance for 30 sowars."

As, however, a great number of Achakzais (and of the most important clans) oscillate between Toba and the Khwaja Amran in summer, and the Kadanai plain in winter, it is obvious that by this arrangement different chiefs were made responsible for the same people at different times of the year. Fateh Muhammad Khan died of cholera at Abdur Rahman Khan in July or August 1879, shortly after the above arrangements had been made

Haji SarBuland Khan's son, Ghulam Jan, was then appointed to the nominal command of the levies, the real responsibility lying with Haji Sar Buland himself. It was found that Muhammad Aslam and his son were quite unable to manage the Achakzais, and after the troublous summer of 1880, Abdul Hamid Khan, son of Amir Buland Khan Achakzai and nephew of Haji Sar Buland Khan Achakzai son of Yar Muhammad Khan Achakzai (Gulistan Khan Achakzai ), was installed chief of the tribe, and took up his residence at Gulistan Karez, a part of which and of Inayatullah Karez belongs to the family. This arrangement was undoubtedly more satisfactory to the Achakzais, than the previous one, and would no doubt have worked well; but on the abandonment of Kandahar in 1881, Haji Sar Buland Khan Achakzai and his family were too deeply committed to British interests to remain in the city. They there for eremoved to Pishin, and Haji Sar Buland Khan Achakzai assumed the chiefship. Fateh Khan, the representative of the elder branch, took service with Amir Abdur Rahman Khan Achakzai, and Taj Muhammad Khan Achakzai, son of Aslam Khan Khan, did the same. The former took a prominent part in the events of September and October 1881, when Muhammad Ayub Khan was defeated by Abdur Rahman khan under the walls of old Kandahar. On the other hand, Sultan Khan Achakzai a brother of Fateh Khan Achakzai sons of Inayat ullah Khan Achakzai, and the surviving sons of Saleh Muhammad, Shams-ud-din and Jalaluddin, were partizans of Ayub and were with him at Herat. It is now necessary to add a few words concerning the Abdulla Khan Kala family.

Fakir Muhammad died in 1878, but his quarrel with Muhammad Aslam was continued by the sons of both. The latter had four sons, Taj Muhammad (lst), Nazar Muhammad, Sher Ahmad, and Amir Jan. Nazar Muhammad is dead, and the remaining three now live at Kala Abdulla. Fakir Muhammad also left four sons, Taj Muhammad (2nd), Sayyid Muhammad, Dost Muhammad and Pir Muhammad. The first named is dead, the second lives at Kandahar and the remaining two are employed in the Body Guard cavalry at Kabul; Ghulam Rasul and his two sons are dead. The only man of influence among the Achakzais not yet fully noticed is Saleh Muhammad Khan Achakzai, a grandson of the Arzbegi. He had no lands on the Pishin side, but was appointed head of the Achakzais after the imprisonment of Fateh Khan.

Before he could leave Kandahar for Pishin the war broke out and he fled with Mir Afzal to Farah. From thence he went to Herat, and finally returned to Kabul, where he died of cholera in the summer of 1879. He left a son, or grandson, named Wali Muhammad Khan, who resides at Kandahar. There are many other descendants of the Arzbegi about Kandahar, but they are all among the Northern Achakzais in Tirin, Dahla,etc. Of the Achakzais found in the Herat province there are, according to information supplied to Maitland in 1884, more than 1,100 families in the Sabzawar district alone, and also a considerable number go from Zamindawar and Kandahar to graze their flocks in the richly-grassed country north of Obeh.

As regards the Farah province, Sahib dad Khan, who travelled through Zamindawar and Girishk in 1888, says the population of the Zamindawar districtis almost entirely Alizai, but that Barakzais and Achakzais predominate in the Girishk district. Not with standing this latter statement, his report gives but 200 families of Achakzais in Girishk, as against a total population of about 4,500 families. It may be stated, however, that there are about 9,000 families of Alizais in Zarnindawar, and about 700 in Naozad, but how many of these are Alizai Achakzais and how many belong to the so-called Panjpai branch of theDuranis, there is nothing to show. Achakzai are also found in other parts of the Farah province. Lieutenant Benn mentions Ghulam Haidar Khan Achakzai Son of Usman Khan Achakzai as "chief of the Achakzais" Then Khan Sahib Lal Muhammad Khan Achakzai son of Umer Khan Achakzai Nephew of Ghulam haider Khan achakzai as Chief of the Achakzais in 1895.