Between the fall of Mughal power and the rise of Ranjit Singh, the Punjab was held by a dozen Sikh confederacies, the misls. They rose in the gaps left by Ahmad Shah Abdali's invasions, met twice a year at Amritsar, fought the Afghans together and each other often, and by 1765 held Lahore.
Each time Abdali went home, the Sikhs came back out of the hills and forests and took the country again. By 1765 the misls held Lahore; Abdali's Afghan empire never kept the Punjab.
How the misls worked
A confederacy, 1748 – 1799
Where the misls were
Around 1780
Heartlands only, around 1780; borders shifted constantly, and the misls fought each other as often as the Afghans. Multan was held by the Bhangis from 1772 to 1780.