DURANI, or Durrani, the dominant race of Afghans, to which the ruling family at Kabul belongs. The Duranis number 100,000 fighting men, and have two branches, the Zirak and the Panjpai. To the former section belong the Popalzai, Alikozai, Barakzai and Achakzai; and to the latter the Nurzai, Alizai, Isakzai, Khokani and Maku tribes. The Saddozai clan of the Popalzai Duranis furnished the first independent shahs of the Durani dynasty (A.D. 1747), the Barakzais furnishing the amirs. The line of the shahs was overthrown in the third generation (A.D. 1834), after a protracted period of anarchy and dissension, which broke out on the death in A.D. 1773 of Ahmad Shah Durani, the founder of Afghan national independence.
Bar Durani is a name sometimes applied to the independent Pathan tribes who inhabit the hill districts south of the Hindu Kush, parts of the Indus valley, the Salt Range, and the range of Suliman, which were first conceded to them by Ahmad Shah. Bar Durani includes the Yusafzai, Utman Khel, Tarkanis, Mohmands, Afridis, Orakzais and Shinwaris, as well as the Pathan tribes of the plains of Peshawar and those of Bangash and Khattak, although the derivation of some of these tribes from the true Durani stock is doubtful.