ABSTRACT
The land of Afghanistan was a buffer state between the Safavid and the Moghul dynasties and its territories exchanged hands between them. This chapter discusses how the assassination of the Persian king Nadir Shah by his Qizilbash officers created an opportunity for the Afghans to realize the dream of a country of their own which was to be free of foreign hegemony. This chapter provides detailed information about Nadir Shah’s erstwhile general, Ahmad Khan Sadozai, as to how he was elected the leader by the Popalzai and Barakzai tribes and was accepted by the Ghilzai tribe who had become weak due to their defeat by Nadir Shah, how Ahmad Khan Sadozai became Ahmad Shah Durrani by laying the foundation of an independent country of Afghanistan and establishing the Durrani dynasty, and how the kingdom of Durrani dynasty stretched from the territories of Iran to India. The chapter further discusses how the practices of polygamy, fratricide, and patricide weakened the Durrani dynasty of the Sadozais and finally led to its fall in the hands of the Barakzai tribe.
