The article examines the relationship between the Sunni and Shi- ite communities in the multi-religious Afghanistan in the last period of Dur- rani state (1747-1818) where the contradictions between these communities resulted in a Shiite massacre in Kabul in 1803. The Sunni population of Kabul was aroused by the total violation of moral norms by the representatives of the Ghulam-Khana - Qizilbash guards of the Afghan shahs. The Ghulam-Khana had been created supported by the Shahs, along with the Persian-speaking (Ta- jik) bureaucracy as a counterweight to the Pashtun tribal and centrifugal forces. However, unlike the Sunni Tajiks, the Qizilbashes were Shiites, and this fact had86strengthened their opposition to the bulk of Afghan society. At the same time, not Shiism itself, but the moral decay of the Qizilbash Guard and the misunder- standing of this danger by the ruling circles became the real causes of the anti- Shiite outrage