Quetta

Quetta was known as Shal, a high valley ringed by mountains. The name Quetta comes from the Pashto word for 'fort', after the mud-walled citadel of Miri that watched over the early settlement. The valley lay near the Bolan Pass, on the road between Kandahar and the Indus country, and was held by Pashtun tribes, chiefly the Kasi, who were its cultivators and landholders and ran its irrigation through underground karez channels. In 1543 the Mughal emperor Humayun passed through the region fleeing to Safavid Iran after his defeat by Sher Shah Suri.

In 1709 the valley passed to the Afghan Hotak dynasty, and in 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani incorporated Quetta into his empire. In return for Baloch help in the Durrani campaigns, he gave its administration and revenue to Nasir Khan I of Kalat. In the mid-18th century Nasir Khan confirmed the proprietary rights of the Kasi chiefs over Shal in a formal sanad, fixing the valley's boundaries and its land and water.