Yusafzai
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The Yusafzai are a large group of Pathan tribes, originally immigrants from the neighborhood of Kandahar, now a province of Afghanistan, which includes those of the Black Mountain of Hazara, the Bunerwals, the Swatis, the people of Dir and the Panjkora valley, and also the inhabitants of the Yusafzai plain in Peshawar district of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan.
In their migration eastward, arrived at Kabul when Mirza Ulugh Beg was governor. He succeeded his father, Shah Rukh, who was a son of Timur (Taimur-e-Lang), in 1446 A.D. In the time of Babur, who first came to Kabul in 1504 A.D. the whole of the Peshawar district had already been colonized by different Afghan tribes; and, on his second visit, fourteen years later, he found the Yusafzais had spread well into Swat. The settlement of the Yusafzais in their present limits, on these data, must, therefore, have been and subsequent to the dates above-mentioned.
An account of the Yusafzais' migration from Kandahar, their wanderings, and final settlement in their present limits, is their take over on the lands from the Dilazaks, whom, without much difficulty, they drove across the Indus to the Hazara mountains (now known as the Hazara District where lies the beautiful city of Abbottabad), after a single but desperate and decisive battle fought on the plains between the villages of Gadar and Langarkot.
After settling themselves firmly in the plains, the Yusafzais pushed on into the hill country beyond and in a few years became the masters of Swat and Buner. Three sections of the tribe, the Hassanzai, Akazai and Chagharzai, inhabit the west slopes of the Black Mountain, and the Yusafzai country stretches thence to the Utman Khel territory.
The Yusafzais are said to be descended from one Mandai, who had two sons, Umar and Yusaf. Umar died, leaving one son, Mandan; from Mandan and Yusaf come the two primary divisions of the Yusafzais, which are split into numerous subdivisions, including the Isazai, Malizai, Akazai, Ranizai and Utmanzai.
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