Lodi (Pashtun tribe)

This article is about the tribe. For the agricultural caste in India with the same name, see Lodhi (caste). For other uses, see Lodi.

Lodi (Pashto: لودهی) is a Pashtun tribe of the Bettani Pashtun confederacy.^[1][2][3] It consists of a number of sub-tribes, most of which are settled in the Tank, Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with smaller population found in Punjab and Azad Kashmir.^[4] These tribes were nomadic for most of their history and migrated to their present-day locations by crossing the Gomal Pass throughout different times.^[3]

Lodi
The list of Lodi sub-tribes

Two sub-tribes among the Lodi established their own empires: the Sur tribe established the Sur dynasty^[5] and the Prangi tribe established the Lodi dynasty.^[3]

Sub-tribes

Lohani, also known as Nuhani, is the largest sub-group among the Lodi tribe.^[6][7] The Lohani migrated and crossed the Gomal Pass en masse during the late 1500s, into present-day Lodi territory and displaced other Lodi tribes such as Sur and Prangi that had settled in the region in prior times.^[8] Other Lohani tribes had also made earlier deeper incursions into India, as far as Bihar, and settled therein during the days of the Lodi dynasty.^[9][10]

The earliest mention of the Lohani tribes comes in the form of an inscription written on a tablet from 1496 in Bihar during the days of the Lodi dynasty.^[9] The inscription records the construction of a certain gate by Darya Khan Nuhani who is thereafter mentioned as one of the ''governors of the kingdom". The Lohani tribes were also mentioned by the Mughal Emperor Babur in his memoirs, the Baburnama, as Nuhani Afghans around 1529.^[10] The earliest records mentions them as Nuhani rather than Lohani, which is the primary designation by which they are currently known today.