Ahmad Shah Durrani in the context of "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan"

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief, as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take complete control of Bengal in 1773. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent and Burma.

The battle took place at Palashi (Anglicised version: Plassey) on the banks of the Hooghly River, about 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and south of Murshidabad in West Bengal, then capital of Bengal State. The belligerents were the British East India Company, and the Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. He succeeded Alivardi Khan (his maternal grandfather). Siraj-ud-Daulah had become the Nawab of Bengal the year before, and he had ordered the English to stop the extension of their fortification. Robert Clive bribed Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the Nawab's army, and also promised to make him Nawab of Bengal. Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at Plassey in 1757 and captured Calcutta.

The Durrani Empire, colloquially known as the Kingdom of Afghanistan, Afghan Empire or the Sadozai Kingdom, was an Afghan empire founded by the Durrani tribe of Pashtuns under Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747, which spanned parts of Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, and the Indian subcontinent. At its peak, it ruled over present-day Afghanistan, much of Pakistan, parts of northeastern and southeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan, and northwestern India. Next to the Ottoman Empire, the Durrani Empire is considered to be among the most significant Islamic empires of the second half of the 18th century.

Ahmad was the son of Muhammad Zaman Khan (an Afghan chieftain of the Abdali tribe) and the commander of Nader Shah Afshar. Following Afshar's death in June 1747, Ahmad secured Afghanistan by taking Kandahar, Ghazni, Kabul, and Peshawar. After his accession as the nation's king, he changed his tribal name from Abdali to Durrani. In 1749, the Mughal Empire had ceded sovereignty over much of northwestern India to the Afghans; Ahmad then set out westward to take possession of Mashhad, which was ruled by the Afsharid dynasty under Shahrokh Shah, who also acknowledged Afghan suzerainty. Subsequently, Ahmad sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush down to the Amu Darya, and in short order, all of the different Afghan tribes began to join his cause. Under Ahmad, the Afghans invaded India on eight occasions, subjugating parts of Kashmir and the majority of Punjab. In early 1757, he sacked Delhi, but permitted Mughal emperor Alamgir II to remain in nominal control as long as he acknowledged Afghan suzerainty over the regions south of the Indus River, till Sutlej river.

The sack of Delhi occurred from 28 January to 22 February 1757, carried out by the Durrani Empire under the Afghan king Ahmad Shah Durrani. Delhi, the capital of the Mughal Empire, experienced multiple invasions by the Afghans during the 18th century.

The decline of the Mughal Empire began with the death of Emperor Aurangzeb on 3 March 1707. The Mughals faced numerous invasions from the Maratha Confederacy and internal conflicts over succession. The Mughals continued declining under Muhammad Shah, allowing adventurers such as Nader Shah to invade Mughal territories and sack Delhi. Following Nader Shah's death, his eastern domains were taken over by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who formed the Durrani Empire and centered his power base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. After three invasions by the Afghans, the Mughals lost numerous territories including Kashmir, Punjab, and Sindh.

The Durrānī (Pashto: دراني, pronounced [durɑˈni]), formerly known as Abdālī (ابدالي), are one of the largest tribal confederation 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.

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 his Tareen Abdali tribe to "Durrani" after himself.

Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of 1,010 m (3,310 ft). It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Province and the centre of the larger cultural region called Loy Kandahar.

The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known areas of human settlement. A major fortified city existed at the site of Kandahar, probably as early as c. 1000–750 BC, and it became an important outpost of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC. Alexander the Great laid the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar (in the southern section of the city) in the 4th century BC and named it Alexandria Arachosia. Many empires have long fought over the city due to its strategic location along the trade routes of southern, central and western Asia. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom and made Kandahar the capital of the Hotak dynasty. In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani dynasty, made Kandahar the capital of the Afghan Empire.

The Indian campaign of Ahmad Shah Durrani (1748–1769) was a series of invasions by the Afghan Emperor, Ahmad Shah Durrani against the declining Mughal Empire, the Maratha Empire, Sikh Confederacy, Jat Kingdom and numerous other Indian kingdoms. The primary basis of the invasions originated after the political independence of the Afghan Empire following the end of the Naderian Wars and persisted until Durrani's last invasion in 1769. The campaign is categorised into Four wars: Afghan–Mughal War, Afghan–Maratha War, Afghan–Sikh War, Afghan–Jat war and an array of local conflicts aimed at the subjugation of politically independent states such as Kalat and Kashmir.

Ahmad Shah led a total of nine invasions into India between 1748 and 1769. His objectives were met through the raids (taking the wealth and destroying sacred places belonging to the Indians) and deepening the political crisis in India. Of the invasions, the most significant attacks were in 1757 and 1761; sacking the city of Delhi in 1757, and defeating the Maratha confederacy at the decisive Third Battle of Panipat. His later invasions focused on conflicts with the Sikhs and stability of Durrani domains in Punjab.

The Barakzai dynasty, also known as the Muhammadzai dynasty ("the ruling sub-clan of the Barakzai"), ruled what is now Afghanistan from 1823 to 1978, when the monarchy ended de jure under Musahiban Mohammad Zahir Shah and de facto under his cousin Mohammad Daoud Khan. The Barakzai dynasty was established by Dost Mohammad Khan after the Durrani Empire of Ahmad Shah Durrani was removed from power. The Muhammadzai era was known for its progressivist modernity, practice of Sufism, peaceful security and neutrality, in which Afghanistan was referred to as the "Switzerland of Asia".

The Durrani dynasty, also called the Sadozai dynasty, was founded in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani at Kandahar, Afghanistan. He united all Pashtun tribes and created the Durrani Empire. which at its peak included the modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, as well as some parts of northeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan, and northwestern India, including the Kashmir Valley. The Durranis were replaced by the Barakzai dynasty in 1823.

Ahmad Shah and his descendants were from the Sadozai subclan of Popalzai line of the Durranis (formerly known as Abdalis), making them the second Pashtun rulers of Kandahar after the Hotak dynasty. The Durranis were notable in the second half of the 18th century mainly due to the leadership of Ahmad Shah Durrani.

Zaman Shah Durrani, or Zaman Shah Abdali (Pashto: زمان شاه دراني; Persian: زمان شاہ درانی, 1767 – 1845) was the third King of the Durrani Empire from 1793 until 1801. An ethnic Pashtun of the Sadozai clan, Zaman Shah was the grandson of Ahmad Shah Durrani and the fifth son of Timur Shah Durrani.