Historical Reference

Balkh Afghanistan

Balkh in ancient times was known as Zariaspa. Antiochus In Parthia, B.C. 209-5. by Polybius

The History of the Barmakids:
Khalid bin Barmak, who was born in A.H. 87/A.D. 705, was believed to be the son of an Arab commander. His mother, a Persian slave girl, had been taken into the harem after the seizure of Balkh by the Arab armies, and the boy was later to be integrated into the Abbasid court and "adopted" by the Caliphal family.

Balkh was the seat of the Janid or Astrakhanid dynasty three times:

• Wali Muhammad, Khan at Balkh, Afghanistan 1599-1608 and at Bukhara 1605-1608,

• Sayyid Subhan Quli Muhammad Bahadur, Khan at Balkh, Afghanistan 1657-1701 or 1702 and at Bukhara 1680-1701 or 1702. Grandfather of:

• Muhammad Makim Khan, Khan at Balkh, Afghanistan 1701 or 1702-1706 or 1707,

Jalal-Ud-Din Rumi was born at Balkh, in Khorasan in 1207 AD.

From The Imperial Gazetteer of India:
"Balkh.—Town in Afghan-Turkistan, situated in 36° 46' N. 66° 53' E.; 1,266 feet above the sea. Balkh (Bactra) was the capital of the old Bactrian satrapy and subsequently of the Greco-Bactrian kings. Its siege by Antiochus the Great (206 BC), followed by the temporary submission of king Euthydemia, marks the last effort of Seleucid power in these regions. On the overthrow of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, Balkh passed under the Yueh-chi and then under the Parthians; and it was here that Artaxerxes (Ardesh1r), the first of the Sassanids, was acknowledged as Great King in supersession of the Parthian dynasty. After the overthrow of the Sassanid kingdom by the Arabs, Balkh and the adjoining territories, known as Haiathala or Tukharistan (now Afghan-Turkistan), fell under their sway, and the subsequent connection of these was generally either with Khorasan or with Trans-Oxiana. On the break-up of the Khalifat, Balkh came successively under the rule of the Saffarids, the Samanids, the Ghaznivids, the Seljuks, the Shahs of Khwarizm, the Mongols of Genghis who destroyed the city, and of Timur, from one of whose descendants it passed to the Uzbeks, Shaybanids, and Janids of the line of Genghis. It was temporarily occupied, under the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, by his sons, Murad and Aurangzeb, but was evacuated very shortly. It passed into Afghan possession under Ahmad Shah Durrani, but was again lost (1826) in the troublous period that followed the expulsion of his grandson, Mahmud Shah. For a time it was ruled by an Uzbek chief who owned a nominal suzerainty to Bokhara; but in 1840, disputes having arisen between the Amir of Bokhara and his vassal, the former crossed the Oxus, captured and destroyed the city of Balkh, and deported the majority of the inhabitants. In 1850 Balkh was again united to Afghanistan.

There is little of antiquarian interest to be seen at the present day in the ruins of this once great city, probably one of the oldest capitals in Asia, but now a small and insignificant Tajik village. The inner walls, which are still standing, enclose an area of about three square miles. The only buildings of any importance that yet retain any form or shape are the ziarat and madrasah of Khwaja Abunasar Parsai, and it is doubtful whether these were built in the thirteenth or the sixteenth century. According to local tradition, Balkh has been destroyed twenty-four times; it certainly never fully recovered its destruction by Genghis Khan, attended by the wholesale massacre of the inhabitants, though it was not until the capture of the city by the Am1r of Bokhara (1840) that it was finally abandoned. No trace has been discovered of the ancient splendors of Bactra; and the still visible remains, which are scattered over a circuit of 20 miles, consist mainly of mosques and tombs of sun-dried bricks, and show nothing of even early Mohammedan date. The old Arab historians record a heathen temple at Balkh, called by them Naobihar, which Sir Henry Rawlinson points out to have been certainly a Buddhist monastery (nawa vihara). The name Naobihar still attaches to a village on one of the Balkh canals, thus preserving through many centuries the memory of the ancient Indian religion."
The Imperial Gazetteer of India Vol. VI Argaon TO Bardwan New Edition Published Under The Authority Of His Majesty's Secretary Of State For India In Council Oxford At The Clarendon Press 1908