Ghazni stands on the road from Kabul to Kandahar, about 136 km south of the capital and some 2,200 metres above sea level. A small market town existed here long ago: the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang stopped in 629, and by the 10th century Ghazni was a busy trading centre on the routes between Central Asia, Iran and India.
Its golden age came as the capital of the Ghaznavids (977–1186), a dynasty of Turkic origin. Under Sultan Mahmud the empire reached from Ray in Persia to northern India, and the court became a centre of Persian poetry, home to poets such as ‘Onsori, Farrokhi and Manuchehri; Ferdowsi, too, sought Mahmud’s favour late in life.
In 1150–51 the Ghurid ruler ‘Ala al-Din Hosayn set the city on fire, and the Mongols destroyed it again in 1221. The best-known survivors of the Ghaznavid city are two brick minarets east of the citadel, bearing the names of Sultans Mas‘ud III and Bahramshah. Their star-shaped bases remain, though their tall shafts collapsed around the turn of the 20th century; excavations nearby uncovered a palace lined with carved marble panels.