Mohammadzai
Subtribe of the Barakzai Durrani Pashtuns
Mohammadzai (Pashto: محمدزی), also spelled Moḥammadzay (meaning "descendants of Mohammad"), is a Pashtun sub-tribe or clan of the Barakzai which is part of the Durrani confederacy of tribes. They are primarily centered on Kandahar, Kabul and Ghazni in Afghanistan as well as in the city of Charsadda in neighbouring Pakistan. The Mohammadzai ruled Afghanistan from 1823 to 1978, for a total of 155 years. Their rule ended under Daoud Khan when the Communists took power via a Soviet-backed coup.
Distribution
Mohammadzai are the most prominent and powerful branch of the Durrani confederacy, and are primarily centered on Kandahar. They can also be found in other provinces throughout Afghanistan as well as across the border in present-day Pakistan.
Musahiban are the descendants of Sultan Mohammad Khan, also known as "Telai". Telai means Gold in Dari. He was the elder brother of Dost Mohammed Khan.
Language
The principal language of the Mohammadzai is Pashto, more specifically the Southern (Kandahari) dialect of Pashto.
“Mohammadzai” enters the record as subtribe of the Barakzai Durrani Pashtuns. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mohammadzai, Subtribe and Barakzai can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Mohammadzai” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mohammadzai, Subtribe and Barakzai provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2918737. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1823 and 1978.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mohammadzai” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.