Balkh Old City
Ancient Town · Balkh, Balkh
The "Mother of Cities": one of the oldest urban sites in the world, capital of ancient Bactria, linked by tradition to Zoroaster's preaching and by record to the birth of Rumi and the poet-queen Rabia Balkhi. Alexander took it, the Arab conquest prized it, Genghis Khan levelled it in 1220. Today a country town sits inside the vast eroded circuit of the Bala Hissar mud walls, around a central park holding the blue-domed 16th-century shrine of Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa — restored by the Aga Khan Trust — with the Green Mosque, Rabia Balkhi's tomb and the wall-top walks nearby. Half an hour from Mazar-e Sharif, it is northern Afghanistan's open-air history lesson.
Central park and Bala Hissar circuit, Balkh town, Balkh, Balkh, Afghanistan
The park and walls are open ground, dawn to dusk by custom. The Parsa shrine interior follows prayer-time rhythms at the keeper's discretion. Nothing is published.