Worcester College
University of Oxford, Walton Street, Oxford OX1 2HB
UK
Islam dominates the international news, and Afghanistan is often at the forefront. How Islam grew in northern Afghanistan, and how Afghanistan shaped Islam have until recently been largely a mystery. This paper reflects the work of the Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage project based in Oxford with the support of the Leverhulme Trust. An international team of experts in the UK, France, the US, Afghanistan, Iran and Germany is studying the textual, cartographic and archaeological evidence on one particular area in Afghanistan called Balkh. Historical Balkh (near modern-day Mazar-i Sharif) was one of the oldest, largest and most important cities in Central Asia from antiquity to the eve of the Mongol conquests. Despite its legacy, very little is known about the changes experienced by this great city, connected by legend with the life of Zoroaster and indubitably a major Buddhist centre in late antiquity, following the Islamic conquest. The Fada’il-i Balkh is the earliest surviving local history of Balkh, and until recently was hardly studied. It was written in Arabic in 610/1240, but only its Persian adaption of 676/1278 survives. Arezou Azad will describe how this text presents a fascinating narrative on sacred landscape in a way that sheds light on the Islamisation of Balkh. Most notably, it shows how the sacrality of Balkh’s pre-Islamic religious sites was retained and adopted after the Muslim conquests; and not at all ignored or forgotten. Seen in this light, the sacred landscape of medieval Balkh emerges as an adaption and reinterpretation of ancient sacrality in an Islamic guise.