Mazar-i-Sharīf,[a][b] also known asMazar-e Sharif or simplyMazar, is thefifth-largest city inAfghanistan by population, with the estimates varying from 500,000-680,000. It is the capital ofBalkh province and is linked by highways withKunduz in the east,Kabul in the southeast,Herat in the southwest andTermez,Uzbekistan in the north. It is about 55 km (34 mi) from the Uzbek border. The city is also a tourist attraction because of its famous shrines as well as theIslamic andHellenistic archeological sites. The ancient city ofBalkh is also nearby.
Mazar-i-Sharif is the regional hub of northern Afghanistan, located in close proximity to both Uzbekistan andTajikistan. It is also home toan international airport. It has the highest percentage of built-up land (91%)[1] of all the Afghan provincial capitals, and it has additional built-up area extending beyond the municipal boundary but forming a part of the largerurban area. It is also the lowest-lying major city in the country, about 357 metres (1,171 ft) above sea level. The city was spared the devastation that occurred in the country's other large cities during theSoviet–Afghan War and subsequentcivil war, and was long regarded as one of the safest cities in the country.[2]
On 14 August 2021, Mazar-i-Sharif was seized byTaliban fighters, becoming the twenty-fifth provincial capital to be captured by the Taliban as part of the wider2021 Taliban offensive.
Mazar Sharif is considered a smaller city in Afghanistan's city hierarchy, with a population of between 177,000 and 180,000 inhabitants.
Research shows that exposure to war and armed violence in Mazar-e-Sharif has led to the development of mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use disorders. Studies conducted in Mazar-e-Sharif, which were conducted after the fall of the Taliban and under conditions of relative security, show that despite a relative decrease in direct experience of war among the younger generation, the psychological effects of war continue to be severe in the form of daily stress and psychological problems, especially in men. These stresses and mental disorders are caused by past war events and socio-cultural problems that continue to have an impact on the mental health of individuals.[3][4]
The nameMazar-i-Sharif means "tomb of the saint", a reference to the purported tomb ofAli, cousin, son-in-law and companion of theIslamic prophetMuhammad. The tomb is housed in the large, blue-tiled sanctuary and mosque in the center of the city known as theShrine of Ali or the Blue Mosque.[5]
TheAchaemenids controlled the region from the sixth century BCE.Alexander the Great conquered the area but it was then incorporated into theSeleucid Empire after his death. The decline of the Seleucids consequently led to the emergence of theGreco-Bactrian kingdom. Around 130 BCE, theSakas occupied the region and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom fell. TheYuezhi took Mazar-i-Sharif and the surrounding area which led to the creation of theKushan Empire. TheSasanians subsequently controlled the area after the fall of the Kushans. The Islamic conquests reached Mazar-i-Sharif in 651 CE.[6]
The poetJalal al-Din Rumi was born somewhere in this area. His father Baha' Walad was descended from the first caliphAbu Bakr.
TheSeljuk sultanAhmed Sanjar ordered a city and shrine to be built on the location, which was later destroyed byGenghis Khan and his Mongol army in the 13th century, and then rebuilt. During the nineteenth century, due to the absence of drainage systems and the weak economy of the region, the excess water of this area flooded many acres of the land in the vicinity of residential areas causing a malaria epidemic in the region. The ruler of North Central Afghanistan decided to move the capital to Mazar-i-Sharif.[7]
The city along with the region south of theAmu Darya became part of theDurrani Empire in around 1751. For the most part the region was controlled by autonomous Uzbek rulers. After the Bukharan-Durrani war of 1788–1790, Qilich Ali Beg ofKhulm formed a mini-empire stretching from Balkh toAybak,Saighan,Kahmard,Darra-i Suf, andQunduz.[8] When he died in 1817, theBalkh and Mazar-i Sharif region became an independent city state with Aqcha as its dependency. In November 1837 the Bukharans conquered the city but Balkh was still able to retain autonomy.[9][10] In 1849 the city was conquered and annexed into Afghanistan.
During the 1980sSoviet–Afghan War, Mazar-i-Sharif was a strategic base for theSoviet Army as they used its airport to launch air strikes onmujahideen rebels. Mazar-i-Sharif was also the main city that linked to Soviet territory in the north, especially the roads leading to theUzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. As a garrison for the Soviet-backedAfghan Army, the city was under the command of GeneralAbdul Rashid Dostum. Mujahideen militiasHezbe Wahdat andJamiat-e Islami both attempted to contest the city but were repelled by the Army. Dostum mutinied againstMohammad Najibullah's government on March 19, 1992, shortly before its collapse, and formed his new party and militia,Junbish-e Milli. The party took over the city the next day. Afterwards Mazar-i-Sharif became thede facto capital of a relatively stable and secularproto-state in northern Afghanistan under the rule of Dostum. The city remained peaceful and prosperous, whilst rest of the nation disintegrated and was slowly taken over by fundamentalistTaliban forces.[11] The city was called at the time a "glittering jewel in Afghanistan's battered crown". Money rolled in from foreign donorsRussia,Turkey, newly independentUzbekistan and others, with whom Dostum had established close relations.[12] He printed his own currency for the region and established his own airline. The city remained relatively liberal asKabul previously was, where activities such as coeducational schools and betting was legal as opposed to the Taliban dominated regions in the south of the country.[13]
This peace was shattered in May 1997 when he was betrayed by one of his generals, warlordAbdul Malik Pahlawan who allied himself with the Taliban, forcing him to flee from Mazar-i-Sharif as the Taliban were getting ready to take the city through Pahlawan. Afterwards Pahlawan himself mutinied the Taliban on the deal and it was reported that between May and July 1997 that Pahlawan executed thousands of Taliban members, that he personally did many of the killings by slaughtering the prisoners as a revenge for the 1995 death ofAbdul Ali Mazari. "He is widely believed to have been responsible for the brutal massacre of up to 3,000 Taliban prisoners after inviting them into Mazar-i-Sharif."[14] Several of the Taliban escaped the slaughtering and reported what had happened. Meanwhile, Dostum came back and took the city again from Pahlawan.
However the Taliban retaliated in 1998attacking the city and killing an estimated 8,000non-combatants. At 10 am on 8 August 1998, the Taliban entered the city and for the next two days drove their pickup trucks "up and down the narrow streets of Mazar-i-Sharif shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved—shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys."[15] More than 8000 noncombatants were reported killed in Mazar-i-Sharif and later inBamiyan.[16] In addition, the Taliban were criticized for forbidding anyone from burying the corpses for the first six days (contrary to the injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial) while the remains rotted in the summer heat and were eaten by dogs.[17] The Taliban also reportedly sought out and massacred members of theHazara, while in control of Mazar.[15]
Following theSeptember 11 attacks in 2001, Mazar-i-Sharif was the first Afghan city to fall to the U.S.-backed Afghan military alliance,Northern Alliance (United Front). The Taliban's defeat in Mazar quickly turned into a rout from the rest of the north and west of Afghanistan. After theBattle of Mazar-i-Sharif in November 2001, the city was officially captured by forces of the Northern Alliance. They were joined by theUnited States Special Operations Forces and supported byU.S. Air Force aircraft. After this battle, the Northern Alliance advanced towards the city ofKunduz, which was the last remaining Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan. Thesiege of the city lasted two weeks with the city being captured on November 25.[18] Around 8,000 Taliban fighters were captured. They were taken to Mazar-i-Sharif and then toSheberghan prison inJowzjan Province. Between 400 and 3,000 prisoners were reportedlymassacred by the Northern Alliance during the journey and buried in mass graves in the Dasht-e Leili desert west of Sheberghan.[19]
The city slowly came under the control of theKarzai administration after 2002, which is led byPresidentHamid Karzai. The209th Corps (Shaheen) of theAfghan National Army is based at Mazar-i-Sharif, which providesmilitary assistance to northern Afghanistan. TheAfghan Border Police headquarters for the Northern Zone is also located in the city. Despite the security put in place, there are reports of Taliban activities andassassinations of tribal elders. Officials in Mazar-i-Sharif reported that between 20 and 30 Afghan tribal elders have been assassinated inBalkh Province in the last several years. There is no conclusive evidence as to who is behind it but majority of the victims are said to have been associated with theHezb-i Islami political party.[20]
Small-scale clashes between militias belonging to different commanders persisted throughout 2002, and were the focus of intensive UN peace-brokering and small arms disarmament programme. After some pressure, an office of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission opened an office in Mazar in April 2003. There were reports about northernPashtun civilians being ethnically cleansed by the other groups, mainly by ethnic Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks.[21]
In 2006, the discovery of newHellenistic remains was announced.[22]
On April 1, 2011, ten foreign employees working forUnited Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)were killed by angry demonstrators in the city. The demonstration was organized in retaliation topastorsTerry Jones and Wayne Sapp'sMarch 21 Qur'an-burning inFlorida, United States.[23] Among the dead were fiveNepalis, aNorwegian,Romanian andSwedish nationals, two of them were said to bedecapitated.[24][25][26] Terry Jones, the American pastor who was going to burnIslam'sHoly Book, denied his responsibility for incitement.[27] PresidentBarack Obama strongly condemned both the Quran burning, calling it an act of "extreme intolerance and bigotry", and the "outrageous" attacks by protesters, referring to them as "an affront to human decency and dignity." "No religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonorable and deplorable act."[28] U.S. legislators, including Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid, also condemned both the burning and the violence in reaction to it.[29]
By July 2011 violence grew to a record high in theinsurgency.[30] In late July 2011, NATO troops also handed control of Mazar-i-Sharif to local forces amid rising security fears just days after it was hit by a deadly bombing. Mazar-i-Sharif is the sixth of seven areas to transition to Afghan control, but critics say the timing is political and there is skepticism over Afghan abilities to combat theTaliban insurgency.
In November 2018,VOA reported that 40 houses in Qazil Abad, an immediatesuburb of Mazar-i-Sharif, usedunexplodedSovietGradsurface-to-surface rockets as construction materials. As a result, several people were killed and wounded from explosions over the years. These rockets, left behind by theSoviet Army in 1989 at the end of theSoviet–Afghan War, were used as cheap building materials by the poor residents of the village. It was estimated that over 400 rockets were incorporated into the village as wall and ceiling beams, door-stoppers, and even footbridges used by children. When the rest of the world discovered this fact, theDanish demining group of theDanish Refugee Council visited the village and, after asking the residents, begandemining and rebuilding the village, safely removing and disposing of the rockets throughcontrolled detonation at theborder with Uzbekistan.[34][35][36]
President Ghani visited the city on 11 August 2021 to rally local warlords to fight the Taliban.[37] On 14 August, the Taliban captured Mazar-i-Sharif along withSharana andAsadabad, the provincial capitals ofPaktika andKunar provinces respectively.[38][39][40] Local government forces and regional leadersAbdul Rashid Dostum andAtta Mohammad Noor fled to neighboringUzbekistan.[41]
Mazar-i-Sharif has acold steppe climate (Köppen climate classificationBSk) with hot summers and cold winters. Precipitation is low and mostly falls between December and April. The climate in Mazar-i-Sharif is very hot during the summer with daily temperatures of over 40 °C (104 °F) from June to August. The winters are cold with temperatures falling below freezing; it may snow from November through March.[43]
Locals of Mazar-i-Sharif enjoying rides at a small familyamusement park in 2012
The city of Mazar-i-Sharif has a total population of 500,207,[45] and is the fourth-largest city of Afghanistan by population.[46] It has a total land area of 8,304 Hectares with 77,615 total number of dwellings.[47]
The November 2003 issue ofNational Geographic magazine indicated the ethnic composition asPashtuns 15%,Hazaras 12%,Tajiks 53%,Turkmens 10%, andUzbeks 20%.[48] Occasionalethnic violence has been reported in the region in the last decades, mainly between Pashtuns and the other groups.[21][49][50][51] In 2011 news reports mentioned assassinations taking place in the area but with no evidence as to who is behind them.[20]
The dominant language in Mazar-i-Sharif is an eastern dialect of Persian known asDari, followed byPashto, andUzbek.
Store in Mazar-i-Sharif withRussian name in Cyrillic
Mazar-i-Sharif serves as the major trading center in northern Afghanistan. The local economy is dominated by trade, agriculture andKarakulsheep farming. Small-scale oil and gas exploitation have also boosted the city's prospects. It is also the location of consulates ofIndia andPakistan for trading and political links.[52][53]
The modern city of Mazar-i Sharif is centred around the Shrine of Ali. Much restored, it is one of Afghanistan's most glorious monuments. Outside Mazar-i Sharif lies the ancient city ofBalkh. The city is a centre for the traditionalbuzkashi sport, and theBlue Mosque is the focus of northern Afghanistan'sNowruz celebration. Although most Muslims believe that the real grave ofAli is found withinImam Ali Mosque inNajaf,Iraq, others still come to Mazar-i-Sharif to pay respect.
It became the first city in Afghanistan to connect itself by rail with a neighboring country.Rail service from Mazar-i-Sharif toUzbekistan began in December 2011 and cargo onfreight trains arrive at a station nearMazar-i-Sharif Airport,[55] where the goods are reloaded onto trucks or airplanes and sent to their last destinations across Afghanistan.
HighwayAH76 links Mazar-i-Sharif toSheberghan in the west, andPul-e Khomri andKabul to the south-east. Roads to the east link it toKunduz. Roads to the north link it to theUzbek border townTermez, where it becomes highway M39 going north toSamarkand andTashkent. Roads to the south link it toBamiyan Province and the mountainous range of central Afghanistan.
Morsal Obeidi (German-Afghan murder victim) – Born in Mazar-i-Sharif,[56] moved to Germany at age three,[57] and lived in Mazar-i-Sharif for eight months after her parents sent her there to Islamize her.[58]
Wasef Bakhtari,Afghan poet of thePersian language, literary figure and intellectual, one of the first Persian poets to introduceshe’r-e nimaa'i ("Nimaic poetry") to Afghan-Persian literature, grew up in Mazar-i-Sharif
^The Last Warlord: The Life and Legend of Dostum, the Afghan Warrior Who Led US Special Forces to Topple the Taliban Regime by Brian Glyn Williams, 2013
^Gutsch, Jochen-Martin[in German]; Per Hinrichs; Susanne Koelbl; Gunther Latsch; Sven Röbel; Andreas Ulrich (2008-05-27)."The High Price of Freedom".Der Spiegel. Translated by Christopher Sultan. p. 1. Retrieved2019-11-30. – Original German version:Gutsch, Jochen-Martin; Hinrichs, Per; Koelbl, Susanne; Latsch, Gunther; Röbel, Sven; Ulrich, Andreas (25 May 2008)."Eigentum des Mannes".Der Spiegel. –PDF page.
^Gutsch, Jochen-Martin[in German]; Per Hinrichs; Susanne Koelbl; Gunther Latsch; Sven Röbel; Andreas Ulrich (2008-05-27)."The High Price of Freedom".Der Spiegel. Translated by Christopher Sultan. p. 2. Retrieved2019-11-30. – Original German version:Gutsch, Jochen-Martin; Hinrichs, Per; Koelbl, Susanne; Latsch, Gunther; Röbel, Sven; Ulrich, Andreas (25 May 2008)."Eigentum des Mannes".Der Spiegel. –PDF page
"Mezar-i Sharif".Islamic Cultural Heritage Database. Istanbul: Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture. Archived from the original on June 15, 2013.
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