Balkh (city)

Ancient Balkh

Near the modern Balkh was the ancient city of Bactra , Bactra ( dr. Greek Βάκτρα ). Bactra is one of the oldest cities in the world, it is considered the first city founded by the Aryans during the movement because of the Amu Darya ^[8] . The settlement arose in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. e. ^[9] when Bactria entered the Achaemenid state . Bactra was the main city of satrapy ^[10] . Then Bactria entered the empire of Alexander the Great . In the III – II centuries. BC e. Bactra was the capital of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom , and then the Kushan kingdom . According to legend, the city was the original center of Zoroastrianism and was considered the birthplace of Zarathustra ^[7] . During antiquity, the city ​​or part of it was also called Zariaspa ( Ζαρίασπα ), which, apparently, came from the name of the Zoroastrian temple of fire Azar-i-Asp.

The construction of Balkh is attributed to Lokhrasp , the 14th of the legendary kings of Iran. In Balkh he, having abandoned the throne in favor of his son Vishtasp , ended his life by retiring to ^[11] . Legend connects Lochrasp with the famous Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II , who in 586 BC. e. when they took Judah, he destroyed Jerusalem ^[12] .

In the late Antique period, Bactra became an important center of Buddhism - Hinayana in Central Asia ^[7] . According to Xuanzan , in the 7th century there were about a hundred Buddhist monasteries ( vihara ) in the city, in which 30,000 monks lived. The largest of the monasteries was ( Skt. नवविहार - “new monastery”), in which was a giant Buddha statue.

Arab invasion

Judging by fragmentary information from written sources, Balkh was a large comfortable city even in the pre-Islamic period. On the eve of the invasion of the Arabs, it was a fortified city with six gates: Setmend, Behi, Bab al-Hind, Yahudiya, Bab at-Turk and Bab-i Chin ^[13] .

Arabs first appeared in Balkh in 645, but left only after looting it in 709 (according to other sources in 715), under caliph Umayyad Al- Valid I (705-715), after a long bloody struggle, they finally captured him . They destroyed and plundered the city, and the inhabitants were relocated to the village of Barukan . Then Navbahar was destroyed. Arabs killed about 400 brahmanas and monks. Balkh lost the status of the capital of the region briefly passing it to Barukan ^[14] .

The capital of Khorasan

In 736, Balkh began to restore the Khorasan governor of the Arabs, Asad ibn Abdallah (735-738), and with the permission of Caliph Hisham ibn Abdul-Malik (723-743) moved his capital from Nishapur to Balkh. Along with many Muslim religious institutions, Navbahar was restored in the city ^[14] . All Khorasan governors of the Umayyads and Abbasids , starting from Asad ibn Abdallah, lived in Balkh and from there ruled over the entire Khorasan ^[14] .

The Age of Muslim Renaissance

Under the Abbasids and Samanids, he was famous as the “mother of cities” as the center of the historical region of Khorasan . It was a center of international trade through which goods were transported from the East to the Caspian , and from there along the Volga to the Bulgar and then to Novgorod and Scandinavia , as well as through the Caucasus to the cities of the Black Sea coast . In the XI-XII centuries. included in the Gaznevid state , the state of the Seljukids and the Gurid Sultanate .

Yakut al-Hamawi wrote the following in his famous geographical dictionary: “Balkh is one of the largest cities of Khorasan, the most illustrious and abundant in wealth, the most extensive in grain harvests; he supplies bread to the whole of Khorasan and Khorezm . It is said that the first who built it was King Luhrasf when his comrade Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem . They say: on the contrary, Alexander built it and in ancient times it was called Alexandria. There are 12 farces between him and Termez . And they say that Ceyhun is the Balkha River, and between them there are about 10 farcians. conquered it, acting on behalf of during Osman ibn Affan . ” ^[12]

Mongol invasion

In the spring of 1221, the well-fortified Balkh was captured and destroyed by the hordes of Genghis Khan . According to the Mongols, sources say different things about the capture and destruction of Balkh. According to Ibn al-Asir , the city surrendered voluntarily and therefore Genghis Khan spared him. Juvaini notes that the Mongol khan, not keeping his promise to the dignitaries who surrendered the city, destroyed it, and Rashid ad-Din writes the following about this:

According to Sayfi Hiravi , the Balkhians fiercely resisted the Mongols for thirty-seven days. Only on the thirty-eighth day of the siege, having suffered heavy losses, the enemy captured Balkh. "Then the entire population of the city was slaughtered to a single" ^[16] . Mirza Ulugbek and his dependent Mahmoud bin Emir-Vali provide interesting details about this. Genghis Khan rejected the request of dignitaries of Balkh for mercy and pardon, remembering that they harbored in the city of the last Khorezmshah Jalal ad-Din Manguberdi and his people. Mirza Ulugbek has another interesting detail: in vain trying to take Balkh by force, the Mongols destroyed the famous Band-i Amir dam on the Balkhab River and flooded the whole city. Residents who were saved from the flood were destroyed, the city was sacked, magnificent buildings, numerous religious and public buildings were transferred to the fire ^[17] .

Balkh did not lie in ruins for long, approximately from the 30s of the XIII century its restoration began. Marco Polo , who saw Balkh in 1262, described it as “worthy and great” and as a big city that used to be even bigger and better, where “there were many beautiful palaces, many beautiful marble houses”. Nevertheless, the defensive fortifications of the city were not yet restored. ^[18] .

Balkh in the Chagataid era

Under the Chagatayahs, Balkh remained the capital of specific ownership, where the heir to the throne of the Chagatai ulus was located ^[19] .

Balkh in the Timurid era

Balkh was included along with Kandahar , Kabul , Zabul , Tokharistan and Huttalyan in the specific ownership created by Timur in 1392 for the grandson of Pir-Mohammed . The center of ownership was originally Kandahar, then Ghazni , and in 1405 Pir-Mohammed moved to Balkh and made it his capital ^[20] .

During his reign, Shahrukh devoted great attention to Balkh, as one of the important centers of his empire in the East economically and politically-politically ^[20] .

The capital of the Balkh Khanate

In the XVI-XIX centuries, the city was a battlefield between the Bukhara Khanate , Persia and the Afghans , until it was finally captured by the Emir of Afghanistan in 1850 ^{[7] [21]}

Balkh gradually fell into decline and therefore the Afghans after 1850 chose to found their administration of the governor of Turkestan in Takhta Pole near Mazar-i-Sharif, and in 1866 she moved to neighboring Mazar-i-Sharif ^{[22] [21]}

By the XV — XVI centuries. includes a number of architectural monuments: the remains of the Bala Hissar fortress, city walls, mosques, madrassas, baths; ^[7] .

• The tomb of Khoja Parsa , also known as the Green Mosque, is the mazar of the theologian who died in Balkh in 1460. Decorated with a ribbed turquoise dome, minarets are located on the sides of the facade.
• Sayid Subhankulikhan's Madrasah , built in the 17th century, pieces of walls and an arch have survived to this day.
• The grave of Robia Balkhi , the first poet of the Islamic period, who wrote in Persian.
• On the northeastern outskirts are the remains of the ancient city, “ Bala Hissar ”, dating to the beginning of the 1st millennium .
• Masjidi Nuh Gumbad (“ The Mosque of Nine Domes ”) - possibly built in 794 on the site of a Buddhist monastery. ^[23]

• Akhmedov B.A. History of Balkh (XVI — first half of the XVIII century) / Gankovsky Yu. V. .. - Tashkent: “FAN” of the Uzbek SSR, 1982. - 295 p.
• per. Smirnova O. I. Rashid ad-Din. Collection of annals, // Collection of annals / ed. Semenov A. A. .. - Moscow-Leningrad, 1952. - T. 1, Prince. 2. - 317 s.
• per. Bogdanova-Berezovskaya S.M. VII-XV centuries Arab and Persian sources. // Materials on the history of Turkmen and Turkmenistan . - Moscow-Leningrad: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1939. - T. 1. -? p.
• Instructions for the Russian transfer of geographical names of Afghanistan . - Moscow: Nauka, 1984. - 117 p.
• Nancy Hatch Dupree. An Historical Guide to Afghanistan: [ eng. ] . - Kabul, 1977 .-- 492 p.
• al-Haravī Sayf ibn Muhammad ibn Yaʻqūb. The Ta'ríkh náma-i-Harát: the history of Harát of Sayf ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʻqúb al-Harawī: [ eng. ] / Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi. - Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1944. -? p.