The City of Balkh : The History, Archaeology, and Culture of a Great Islamicate Capital in Afghanistan 7th to 13th Century CE.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Azad, Arezou.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Islamic civilization.

Archaeology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (481 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2026.

Summary:

In the early Islamic age, the city of Balkh was one of the largest and most influential cities in the world.Situated on the northern plains of modern Afghanistan, Balkh flourished from the 7th to the 13th centuries, home to a wide variety of scholars, artists and religious leaders.

Contents:

cover

Halftitle page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Contents

Figures

General Maps

Contributors

Note on the Text

Abbreviations

Chapter 1 Introduction: Balkh, "City of the Proud"-An Oasis in Early Islamicate Central Asia Arezou Azad, Edmund Herzig, Robert Hoyland, Philippe Marquis, and Paul Wordsworth

Scholarship on medieval cities in Afghanistan and Central Asia

Balkh's late antique and medieval history

Our research context and aims

Methodology: interdisciplinarity as tool and obstacle

Organization of the book and chapter summaries

Conclusion

Notes

PART ONE Between the Hindu Kush and the A¯mu¯ Darya¯: Balkhin its Geographical Context

Chapter 2 Connecting the Early Islamic City: Balkh in Geographical Networks Paul Wordsworth

The geography of Bactria and the development of routes

The earliest connections of Balkh and the early provision of routes

Balkh in Abbasid and post-Abbasid geographical texts

Networks of itineraries

An aside on maps

Archaeological evidence for the connections of Balkh

Al-Sidra

Siyaˉhgird

Alternative crossing points on the AˉmuˉDaryaˉ -the route to Kilıˉf

Khaˉnaˉbaˉd

Yarik Sardaˉba

Routes and the urban organization of Balkh

Conclusions

Chapter 3 The City of Balkh in the Context of the Oasis Philippe Marquis (with Philippe Barthélémy, Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento, Étienne de la Vaissière, Nicolas Engel, Nader Rasouli, and Yves Ubelmann)

Resuming archaeological work in Balkh oasis: a choice or a chance?

A tale of two cities?

The oasis, an archaeological object?

New doors to open?

Chapter 4 Toward a Historical Toponymy of the Balkh Region *Munira A. Salakhetdinova† (translated from Russian by Aslisho Qurboniev)

Introduction

Translation

Comments

Notes.

PART TWO Becoming Islamic: Balkh Before, During, and After the Arab-Islamic Conquest

Chapter 5 From Bactra to Balkhvia Naw Baha¯ rÉtienne de la Vaissière

A monastic principality

The political context and the roleof Nıˉzak Tarkhan

What is a barmak?

Summary

Chapter 6 Imagining Balkh: The Chinese Perception of Central Asia duringthe Tang Dynasty Tasha Vorderstrasse

Chinese concepts of the western neighbors: Sui and Tang periods

Xuanzang and his journey to Balkh

Huichao and his unique account

Yijing and the correct behavior of monks

Duan Chengshi and strange stories

Chapter 7 Balkh in the Umayyad Period Robert G. Hoyland

Al-Ahṇ af ibn Qays al-Tam¯ım¯ı and the first conquest of Balkh

Qays ibn al-Haytham al-Sulamı¯ and the second conquest of Balkh

Qutayba ibn Muslim and the conquest of Transoxiana

Governorship of Asad ibn ʿAbdalla¯h (106-9/724-27, 734-38)

Al-Ḥa¯rith ibn Surayj and the Abbasid Revolution

PART THREE Shrines, Palaces, and Gardens: Landscapes of Balkh from the Caliphate to the Mongols

Chapter 8 How a City is Made Holy1 Arezou Azad

The source: Fad·a¯ʾil-i Balkh

Texts before and after Fad· a¯ʾil-i Balkh

The value of Fad·a¯ʾil-i Balkh as a historical source

Imagined landscape: theory and practice

The imagined landscape of Balkh in the Fad·a¯ʾil-i Balkh

Shrines as structural elements of landscape

Chapter 9 Balkh as a Capital of the Ghaznavid Sultanate during the Reign of Sultan Masʿu¯d (1030-41 CE) Hugh Kennedy

Chapter 10 An Exercise in Poetic Archaeology for the Study of Ghaznavid Ephemeral Architecture: The Case of Sultan Mahmuˉd's New Garden in Balkh Domenico Ingenito

Poetic and material gardens

Balkh and its oasis: the Ghaznavid garden

The spring/temple of Naw Bahaˉr.

Mahṃuˉd's New Garden in Farrukhıˉ's description

Masʿuˉd's Great Garden as a renovation of Mahṃ uˉd's Naw Baˉgh?

The garden's location

Dating of Farrukhıˉ's celebration of Mahṃuˉd's New Garden

PART FOUR Archaeological Evidence for the Development of Balkhin the Early Islamic Period

Chapter 11 Alfred Foucher and the DAFA Excavations at Balkh (1924-25) Rachel Mairs

Foreign travelers in the nineteenth century

The political context

The choice of Balkh

The excavations in retrospect

Chapter 12 The Ha¯ jı¯ Piya¯ da/Nuh Gunbada¯n Mosque, Balkh: A Masterpiece of Faḍl al-Barmakı¯, Constructed c. 178-79 AH/794-95 CE Chahryar Adle† (translated by Katherine Hughes)

Places and their names from the time of the monument's discovery to the present research: principal hypotheses

The building's names

From the discovery of the monument to the present works: main hypotheses

Description of the Haˉjı¯ Piyaˉda/Nuh Gunbadaˉn Mosque according to recent archaeological data

Date of the mosque

Fad·l al-Barmakı¯: builder of the Nuh Gunbada¯n Mosque in 794 CE, the future Ha¯ jı¯ Piya¯ da

The second Mecca or the second den of Satan?Confirmation of the construction of Ha¯jı¯ Piya¯da/Nuh Gunbada¯n by Fad·l al-Barmakı¯?

Chapter 13 Study of the Medieval and Modern Islamic Ceramics from Excavationsin Balkh: Ninth to Eighteenth Centuries CE Pierre Siméon and Nader Rasouli

The Tepe Zargara¯n excavations

Methodology and scope of the ceramic study

Comparative corpus overview

The early Islamic period (late eighth to ninth century CE)

The middle Islamic period (tenth to thirteenth centuries CE)

Middle Islamic unglazed pottery

Late Islamic period (fourteenth to eighteenth centuries CE)

Late Islamic unglazed pottery

Assessing the chronology of thelate Islamic ceramics.

Remarks about Balkh's workshops (eighth-eighteen centuries CE)

Concluding remarks: back to Balkh's history

Chapter 14 The Settlement Pattern of Tepe Zargara¯n in Balkh: Coin Finds in Relation to Local History Stefan Heidemann

The archaeological site (see Map 4) and the problem of stratigraphy

Local history and coin finds from Balkh

Other find spots

A note on Balkh, al-Baruˉqa¯ n, and al-Muba¯raka

Conclusion: Tepe Zargara¯n and Tall-i Gushtasp

Appendix 1D rawings of Ceramicsfrom Balkh

Appendix 2 Photographs of Ceramics from Balkh

Appendix 3 Fabrics of Ceramics from Balkh

Appendix 4 Catalog of Coins of Balkh

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

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Other Format:

Print version: Azad, Arezou The City of Balkh

ISBN:

9781786726216

OCLC:

1593362188