The Karlal (Urdu: کڑلال), also known as Karral, Kiraal, and Sardar are a Hindko- and/or Pahari-Pothwari-speaking tribe, dwelling mostly in the Abbottabad District of the Hazara Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Etymology and origins
The Karlal
oral tradition states that the tribe descended from Kallar Shah, who had migrated to present-day Abbottabad District from present-day
Afghanistan.
[Office of the Census Commissioner (1961). Part 2, Volume 12 of Population Census of Pakistan, 1961: District Census Report. c.HAZARA DISTRICT AT A GLANCE.][Gankovskiĭ, I. (1971). The Peoples of Pakistan: An Ethnic History]
After Pakistan's independence
In 1957, Mohammad Abdul Ghafoor Hazarvi, a Karlal, became the first recipient of the highest civilian award of Pakistan, the
Nishan-e-Imtiaz.
Most Karlals today are still living in their ancestral villages in the
Galyat and the Nilan Valley of the Abbottabad District. More recently, the Karlals, led by Baba Haider Zaman Khan along with some other tribesmen of Hazara, have engaged in a political struggle to separate the Hazara Division from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in order to form the Hazara Province.
