balkh was once a desirable region sought by the high & mighty: alexander the great, for example, praised the city, chosing it for his base for a few years & marrying a princess from the region. it hosted a variety of rich religious eras: zoroaster preached his beliefs a few hundred years BC; buddhist pilgrims flocked to worship at the many buddhist temples found in the region; islam entered with the arabs in the seventh century AD. it was also an intellectual centre, & many great persian writers & poets stem from the region, including rabi'a balkhi (see below).
tragically, as with many other places in afghanistan, denghis khan ravished the city in 1220, which marked the end of its glorious era. it did regain its foothold & slowly rose to some semblance of importance due to its strategic position. however, it was finally stripped of its capital status in the mid1800s after a series of particularly harsh outbreaks of cholera & malaria, & was replaced by the flourishing mazar-e-sharif, just 20 minutes down the road.
below are some pictures from this fascinating town:
rabi'a balkhi was the first woman of the islamic period to write poems in persian. her tale is tragic: she fell in love with a slave, & because of poems written to this lover she was cast in a dungeon to die by her brother. with blood from her slashed wrists she wrote her last poems on the walls of what became her grave. her tomb is now visited by girls & women who come to pray & seek inspiration for lovers problems.
the ancient walls which once protected balkh hint at the power that was; their crumbling remains now line the southern part of the town. climbing up the rise & onto these walls i soak in the marvelous view of the surrounding region of the balkh province, where the sun is setting over trees & fields just starting to prepare for the coming of spring.
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