Karokh

Karokh, northeast of Herat, formed part of the network of valleys and local chiefships through which rulers of western Afghanistan exercised authority. Its early nineteenth-century history is closely associated with a Jamshedi family whose power depended on relations with Herat. Later local accounts credit Ibrahim Khan with obtaining Karokh as a jagir, or revenue grant, from Shah Mahmud in reward for his service.

Ibrahim is also said to have brought Jamshedi households from Kushk to settle at Karokh, establishing a local following distinct from the main body of the tribe. His death is put at about 1835, and his son Ahmad Khan succeeded him. Such land grants, migration and hereditary leadership connected a relatively small locality to the politics of Herat in the decades before 1837.