Pathans have a habit of over glorifying themselves and interpreting history to suit their overblown egos. A lot written by 'Afghan Prince' is based on his ethnic racism and pride and the hurt to his ego because some Pathans are marrying with Punjabis (and Balochis, Sindhis, Muhajirs).
If you look at History Pathans never ruled India 3 times. 10 years of self styled Sher Khan does not constitute a Dynasty.
If you go to original sources of history not to fairy tales you will see what happened and what is still happening. Pathans have won and have been defeated like all other communities however Pathans have made their defeats into fairy tales. Case in point when Babur pillaged and crushed the Pathans in the present tribal areas he demaded the daughter of Shah Mansur Yusufzai as submission from the tribe. However the Pathans have made that defeat into a fairy tale of Babur dressing up as a qalandar and wooing Bibi Mubaraka
which no historian agrees to. Even the modern Pathans don't agree with this.
If you start with Ghaznavi, they were 100% Turk tribes. In fact they fought against Hindu/Buddhist/Atheist/Animast Pashtun tribes to control these areas. The founder of the dynasty was Sebüktigin (ruled 977–997), a former Turkish slave who was recognized by the Samanids (a Persian Muslim dynasty) as governor of Ghazna. As the Samanid dynasty weakened, Sebüktigin consolidated his position and expanded his domains as far as the Indian border.
Muslim historians Ibn Haukal, Utbi and Alberuni are ALL unanimous that uptill the time of Mahmud Ghaznavi i.e. almost four hundred years after the death of the Prophet, most of the Afghans were still non-Muslims. Mahmud Ghaznavi 'had to fight against the infidel Afghans in the Sulaiman mountains.' Even 200 years later in the encounter between Mohammad Ghori and Prithviraj in 1192 A.D., according to Farishta, Hindu/Buddhist/Animist/Pagan/Shamanist/Zoroastrian Afghans were fighting on the side of the Rajput Chief. The cavalry flank of Prithvi Raj Chauhan was made up of Afghans.
After that Mongols invaded these lands and ravaged and pillaged Herat, Balkh and most of Afghanistan. After that the Timurid dynasty rose who was a Tatar/Mongol with strong backing of Uzbek Turks. Again nothing to do with Pashtuns. Prior to arrival of Mughals even Kandahar was ruled by Arghun who are Mongol (ILKHanate) tribe.
Afterwards you had Babur the Mughal invading. He was a Chughtai Turk and even documented the pillars of Afghan heads he created in his own book "Tuzk-e-Babri". In his own book Babur writes:
"...Marching out of Kohat, we took the Hangu-road for Bangash. Between Kohat and Hangu that road runs through a valley shut in on either hand by the mountains. When we entered this valley, the Afghans of Kohat and thereabouts who were gathered on both hill-skirts, raised their war-cry with great clamour. Our then guide, Malik Bu-sa'id Kamarl was well-acquainted with the Afghan locations ; he represented that further on there was a detached hill on our right, where, if the Afghans came down to it from the hill-skirt, we might surround and take them. God brought it right! The Afghans, on reaching the place, did come down. We ordered one party of braves to seize the neck of land between that hill and the mountains, others to move along its sides, so mat under attack made from all sides at once, the Afghans might be made to reach their doom. Against the all around assault, they could not even fight; a hundred or two were taken, some were brought in alive but of most, the heads only were brought. We had been told that when Afghans are powerless to resist, they go before their foe with grass between their teeth, this being as much as to say, " I am your cow." Here we saw this custom ; Afghans unable to make resistance, came before us with grass between their teeth. Those our men had brought in as prisoners were ordered to be beheaded and a pillar of their heads was set up in our camp..."
You can read his biography where he writes about his war on the Yusufzais, quite different from the Pashtun fairly tale of Babur dressing up as a Qalandar.
Moving on, when Babur invaded India and fought an epic battle with the Rajput Chief 'Rana Sanka' (considered a battle betweeen Muslims and Hindus) , the Rajputs had with them Mahmud Lodhi, out to avenge his father's defeat with 10,000 Afghans. Most of the Afghan perished along with the Rajputs defeat against Babur's army.
When Akbar was the emperor of the Mughal empire and this included Kabul and Kandahar there were two rebellions both were crushed by Rajput armies of the Mughals. Even in the twilight of the Mughal empire, Emperor Aurangzeb sent in Rajput chief (Raja Jaswant Singh) to punishing the Afghans for their rebellion.
Finally the favourite of Pashtuns, Ahmed abdali came on the heels of Nadir Shah Afshar Qazilbash (the Persian King). However right after the death of Ahmed Abdali the ares East of Khyber were quickly lost to the Ranjit Singh's army.
When the Sikh were fighting their 3rd and final battle against the British the Afghan king even sent a 5000 strong cavalry (hoping this alliance would help them take Peshawar), however as soon as the Sikhs were defeated the Afghan cavalry ran back to Khyber non-stop!
Later on the British even helped supported the Afghan kings in their war against Persia (First Ango-Persian war which took Herat from Persia for Afghans) and even gave money and arms to the ruling Afghan dynasty as part of their great game strategy against Tsarist Russia and Iran. Until 1910 the foreign policy of so called Afghanistan was controlled by British empire and the so called Afghan king was given a Stipend by the British every year.
However if you talk with Pakistani Pashtoons or Afghan Pashtuns they seem to claim to rule the moon and sun. Similar to Bibi Mubaraka-Babur fairy tales.
