Babar (Pashtun tribe)

The Babar (Pashto: بابړ) or Babori tribe is a Pashtun tribe.

The Babar diaspora is spread across Pakistan, Afghanistan and India today.

In the First World War 78 people of the Babar tribe from Pirpiai went to the war as Indian Army men and four were killed. Hence, Pirpiai is one of the very few villages which has an official plaque commemorating its First World War contribution.

Babar, the ancestor of the Babar tribe was born at Takht-e-Sulaiman in 1175; six generations after Qais Abdur Rashid. It is interesting to note that the Babars were initially the same tribe as the Shiranis, also settled in and around the same region as the Babars. As far as the pedigrees show, Shirani was the father of Babar. The Shiranis have three sub-tribes, namely:

Maranis still refer to themselves as 'Shirani' as they are the main sub-tribe, but Babars and Mianis identify themselves as completely separate tribes. The Babars are treated by some genealogists as a section of the Shirani Tribe. They are, in fact, the latter's neighbours in the Zhob District of Pakistan, but so distinct that neither has any sense of common tribal solidarity; the Babars even collaborated with a British punitive expedition against the Sherani in 1853. Hence showing, they never speak of such a kinship.

In the 12th Century there was an initial settlement of a few Babar families in Chaudhwan, in the modern day district of Dera Ismail Khan in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. By the 14th Century, they had moved entirely from the Sulaiman Mountains. In the early 16th Century the tribe had moved to Chaudhwan and some to Zhob. In c.1534, some migrated on to Kandahar in present-day Afghanistan from Zhob. Meanwhile, in Chaudhwan, the Babars fought a battle against a local tribe and emerged victorious. In 1628, they fought another battle against the Gandapur tribe. Soon after, in 1647, the Babars fought off the Marwat tribe in order to gain full command of Chaudhwan by the mid-17th Century. Around the year 1700 or so, some Babars migrated up north to Pirpiai, which they established and held control of. In the reign of Ahmad Shah Durrani many moved east to Multan as well from Chaudhwan. By 1783, others had moved south to Shikarpur in Sindh.

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Wikipedia