The Shirani (Pashto: شيراني), also spelled Sherani, are a Pashtun tribe, from the Sarbani tribal confederacy, who live in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to Syed Amin Amirzai, an elder of Frontier Region Dera Ismail Khan, Sherani was the name of the forefather of the tribe.
[citation needed] Another tradition, substantiated by the Gazetteer, says that about four hundred years ago Bargha lands were laying waste for fear of the Wazir, and the Sherani were in constant and protracted war with the Bettani.
All Sheranis, irrespective of their geography, out of courtesy call a Harifal tribe Neeka, meaning grandfather.
When Mountstuart Elphinstone visited this region in the early 19th century, he recorded that the Sherani were led by a "Neeka" who was supported by an annual tax of one lamb and one calf on all those who raised those animals.
Until recently he and his family's leading members used to make periodic visit to Harifal country to pay homage and seek blessings.
During the 19th century, the tribal group known as the Sherani was recorded as living on the northwest Punjab border in what became the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of British India.
The Sherani occupied the principal portion of the mountain known as the Takht-e-Sulaiman, and the country southeast from there to the border of Dera Ismail Khan district,[2] close to Balochistan.
[2] In June 1891, the first Political Agent of Zhob, Captain I. MacIver (in office 22 January 1890 to 14 March 1898), and Sir Henry[clarification needed] visited the area of Takht-e-Sulaiman.
In the northeast of the Balochistan plateau, the Zhob and Sherani basins form a lobe surrounded on all side by mountains.
During the monsoon, from July to September, the district receives heavy rainfall, with rain clouds coming from the Gulf of Bengal.
It is bounded by Zhob on the west and north, on the south by Musakhil (Zimri), on the east the contiguous district is DIK (for 225 kilometres (140 mi)).
Besides the populations living in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is Sherani Abad village in the Nagaur district of Rajasthan, India.
His father Hafiz Mehmood Khan Sherani was a noted author, and it was in his name that the Rajasthan Urdu Academy award was given.
During the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (son of Humayun), the Sherani Pathans migrated to Kaligam, near Ahemdabad, Gujarat.
During the era of Amir Amanullah Khan, many Harifal families migrated to Afghanistan under the British Raj and are still settled there in Loghar, Makwar, and Kabul.
Dr. Ghouse Khan Sherani, Dewan of Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, King of Mysore, settled in Tumkur district, Karnataka.