The Durrānī (, ), formerly known as Abdālī (), are one of the largest tribes of Pashtuns. Their traditional homeland is in southern Afghanistan (Loy Kandahar region), straddling into Toba Achakzai in Balochistan, Pakistan, but they are also settled in other parts of Afghanistan and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. Ahmad Shah Durrani, who is considered the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan, belonged to the Abdali tribe. In 1747, after establishing the Durrani Empire based in Kandahar, he adopted the epithet Shāh Durr-i-Durrān, "King, Pearl of Pearls," and changed the name of the tribe to "Durrani" after himself... Descent and origin In the early modern period, the Abdali tribe of Pashtuns was first explicitly mentioned in Mughal and Safavid sources. For example, in the 1595 Mughal account Ain-i-Akbari, the Abdali were mentioned as one of the "Afghan ulūs" (Pashtun tribal confederacies) settled in Kandahar area, along with Tarīn, Paṇī, and Kākaṛ. Some scholars have postulated that the Abdali descended from Hephthalite tribes, who settled in present-day Afghanistan in ancient times and were known as ηβοδαλο (Ebodalo) in Bactrian language. According to linguist Georg Morgenstierne, the tribal name Abdālī may have "something to do with" the Hephthalite. This hypothesis was endorsed by historian Aydogdy Kurbanov, who indicated that after the collapse of the Hephthalite confederacy, they likely assimilated into different local populations and that the Abdali may be one of the tribes of Hephthalite origin. 19th-century British Indian explorers, Charles Masson and Henry W. Bellew, also suggested that there was a direct relationship between Abdalis and Hephthalites. Joseph T. Arlinghaus referred to a Syriac chronicle from c. 555 CE, which mentions Khulas, Abdel, and Ephthalite as three of the nomadic tribes from the "lands of the Huns." Arlinghaus linked the "Khulas" and the "Abdel" to the Khalaj (modern Ghilji) and the Abdali (modern Durrani), respectively, arguing that the relationship between the Hephthalite, the Khalaj, and the Abdali may date back as far as the sixth century. Yu. V. Gankovsky, a Soviet historian on Afghanistan, also asserted that the Hephthalite contributed to the ethnogenesis of Durrani Pashtuns: Mythical genealogy According to a popular mythical genealogy, recorded by 17th-century Mughal courtier Nimat Allah al-Harawi in his book Tārīkh-i Khān Jahānī wa Makhzan-i Afghānī, the Abdali tribe descended from their eponymous ancestor Abdāl (or Awdāl), who was son of Tarīn, who was son of Sharkhbūn, who was son of Saṛban (progenitor