Afghanistan, Herat, Afghanistan

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Of all the cities in Afghanistan, Herat has the most glorious history. With its tradition as a centre of Persian culture Herat has always had a strongly independent air, which it maintains to this day.

Herat's recorded history starts as the satrapy of Aria as part of the Achaemenid Empire of Darius the Great, later conquered by Alexander in 330BC and renamed Alexander Arian. Herat grew as a trading centre under the Kushans and Sassanids, up to its occupation in 650AD by the Arabs, during their great eastward expansion. While the Arabs brought Islam, they stayed only as occupiers, and for several centuries Herat survived as an independent city-state, with each successive dynasty increasingly influenced by the Persian culture to the east. Only the depredations of Genghis Khan could check the expansion of Herat- the city initially surrendered in 1221, but when it later rebelled against Mongol rule the entire population was executed over a period of seven days.

The explosion of the forces of Timur from the central Asian steppe in the late 14th century ushered in the most dazzling period of Herati history. Under Timur's son, Shah Rukh the city became one of the greatest centres of mediaeval Islamic culture and learning. As a patron of the arts, Shah Rukh's court was home to the poet Jami, and a flourishing of the painted book under miniaturists such as Bihzad. The sultan's mother, Gohar Shad commissioned many great buildings, including her famous (and destroyed) Musalla. Herat's golden period lasted until the decline of the Timurid, when the city was captured by that dynasty's successor, Babur in 1507. The new Moghul power turned its face west to the Indian subcontinent, and Herat spent the next two hundred years under the rule of Safavid Persia, before freeing itself and re-establishing its independent city status, albeit ruled by a Pashtun minority.

Herat was destined to spend most of the 19th Century being fought over by the great regional powers. At first it was unsuccessfully laid siege to by Persian forces, with the support of Russia from 1837-8, then finally captured by Dost Mohammed in 1863 and incorporated for the first time in to the Afghan state. Afghanistan's foreign policy at this time was controlled by Great Britain, who sought to protect the city from the designs of Imperial Russia, then advancing through Central Asia. A joint boundary commission between the two powers settled the Afghan border in 1887-8, but not before the Russian seizure of an Afghan garrison north of Herat nearly prompted war. The British fear of Russian designs on Herat prompted the destruction of the Musalla on the north of the city to give free range for their artillery, a tragic loss for Afghan- and world- culture. More on www.kabulcaravan.com

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General Tips about Afghanistan

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