Balkh

Province

Balkh (Persian بلخ, DMG Balh, English Balkh, ancient Greek Bactria; altiranisch also Zariaspa " Golden Horse ", Arabic also أم المدائن / Umm al - Mada ʾ in /, mother of cities ') is a city in the province of Balkh in the north of Afghanistan. Balch is an important pilgrimage site, about 20 kilometers from Mazar- e-Sharif, the largest city of northern Afghanistan. The population in 2012 calculated with 87,000. In recent years the city has grown tremendously.

History

Balch, the cradle of Iran's civilization. In ancient times, under the name of Bactria (Greek: Βακτρα ) is known, it was the capital of Bactria. In Bactria the Silk Road met another trade route that led towards following the course of the Oxus to the Caspian Sea in the north-west and south-east direction over the Khyber Pass to the Indian subcontinent.

Around the year 500 BC Bactria was the Persian Achaemenid Empire incorporated and remained until its conquest by Alexander the Great one of the most important satrapies of the empire. Darius II was himself the son of a Bactrian mother; after the death of Darius III. was the governor of Bactria, Bessus, proclaimed the new ruler; but he was defeated soon after Alexander the Great. In the winter of 329/28 BC was in Bactria also the headquarters of Alexander.

Under the rule of the Seleucids from 312 BC Bactria / Balch was almost exclusively a Greek colony. After 256 BC it was part of the now independent Greco- Bactrian kingdom before it succumbed to the onslaught of the Sakas in the 2nd century. Under the influence of Buddhism here was a Greco- Buddhist mixed culture, which originate from the destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 Buddha statues of Bamiyan among others.

In late antiquity, Bactria was under the Sassanids again part of a united Persian Empire before the city was conquered in the 7th century by the Muslim Arabs and Islamic rule over the following centuries. In the Middle Ages Balch developed into a center of Persian culture and literature, and included, among other things, to the Islamic empires of the Samanids, Ghaznavids, Seljuk, Ghurids, and Khorezm Shah, before the city was conquered by the Mongols in 1221 and completely destroyed. After the reconstruction Balch was conquered by Timur -e Lang, and developed under his descendants, the Timurids, one of the most important cities of Khorasan.

End of the 18th century, the city was conquered by the Afghans under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Durranis and the newly founded Afghanistan incorporated. After Balch came under the rule of the expanding Russia before the city mid-19th century - finally Afghanistan was awarded - in the course of the Great Game and the estimates based on agreements between the European colonial powers Russia and Britain.

Famous son of the city was the Sufi poet Jalal ad-Din and Rumi ( Maulana ). The most famous poet of the city was Rabia -e Balkhi.

Sons and daughters of the town

• Rabi'a bint Ka'b ( 10th century ), poet
• Daqiqi ( 10th century ), one of the first darisprachigen poet, possibly born in Balkh
• Unsuri ( 961 - to 1039/40 ), Persian poet
• Wasef Bakhtari (* 1942), an intellectual and a poet