Ghazni spreads across the high plateaus south-west of Kabul, astride the main route from Kabul to Kandahar. Its capital, Ghazni city, stands about 2,200 metres above sea level and 136 kilometres south of Kabul, on a steep hill above the Ghazni River. A thousand years ago it was the capital of the Ghaznavid sultans and a great cultural centre, and the province around it is still a land of orchards, pastures and long, cold winters.
Plateau, karez and lakes
Winters are harsh: in past centuries many of the city’s people spent the cold months in warmer Kandahar. Rivers including the Arghandab, Gomal and Tarnak water parts of the province, and the Ghazni River flows south towards the Katawaz basin. Farming relies heavily on the karez, underground channels that bring groundwater to the surface: the province has counted some 1,280 of them, along with 70 canals and 223 springs.
The province also holds two natural lakes, Ab-e Istada and Dasht-e Nawur. In Qarabagh and Jaghatu districts some 2,900 hectares of wild almond woodland survive, and three man-made reservoirs, Sardeh, Zanakhan and Band-e Sultan, store water for the fields.
Capital of the Ghaznavids
By the tenth century Ghazni was a busy market linking Central Asia, Iran and India. The Turkish commander Alptigin took the city in the 960s, and in 977 Sebüktigin founded the Ghaznavid dynasty there. Ghazni flourished as the dynasty’s capital and a centre of learning and art, spreading over the surrounding hills, plateaus and valleys.
Its glory ended in 1151, when the Ghurid ruler ‘Ala al-Din Husayn, remembered as Jahansuz, “the world-burner”, sacked and burned the city; the Mongols destroyed it again in 1221. When Babur passed through in 1504–05 he found a humble place, and from 1958 a new town grew up on the plain to the south.
Monuments of the golden age survive. Two brick minarets with star-shaped bases, built by Sultan Mas‘ud III and Bahramshah, stand east of the citadel; they have their own entry in this atlas. From 1957 Italian archaeologists uncovered the palace of Mas‘ud III, dated 1112, whose marble wall panels carried Persian verses in ornamental Kufic script, among the oldest examples of Persian inscriptions, and they also studied the inscribed tomb of Sultan Mahmud (d. 1030). In 2013 Ghazni was named an Asian capital of Islamic civilisation.
People and harvests
Pashtuns and Hazaras make up most of the province’s population: Hazaras live mainly in the northern and western districts and Pashtuns in the south and east, while Tajiks form the majority in Ghazni city itself. Dari and Pashto are both widely spoken.
Grapes are the leading fruit, and most are dried into raisins for sale; apples, apricots, almonds and plums follow, the plums peeled and dried, mostly by women, over about three months. Potatoes, onions and leeks go to Kabul and beyond. Before the wars Ghazni was famous for its meat and cream, and households still make and sell qurut, butter and chaka, a strained yoghurt.