Rais

The Rais were the ruling house of Chitral between the old pre-Islamic order and the rise of the Kator mehtars. Tradition says the line began in 1320, when Shah Nadir Rais, said to have come from Turkestan and perhaps belonging to the Trakhan dynasty of Gilgit, conquered the Hindu Kush valley and displaced the Kalasha rulers.

Nine Rais chiefs are listed; the eighth, Shah Nasir, was followed by his son Shah Mahmud Rais, whose unpopular rule gave the Kator leader Mohtaram Shah his opening. Shah Mahmud's defeat by Mohtaram's son Sangin Ali II in 1660 ended the Rais period and set the Kator dynasty on Chitral's throne for the following centuries.