Kandahār

Kandahar stands on the broad plain of the Arghandab and Tarnak rivers, south of Afghanistan's central mountains. Orchards and irrigated fields surround a city whose position made it a meeting place of routes from Persia, India and Central Asia. Its fortress guarded a valuable commercial passage: in the seventeenth century caravans carried Indian textiles and indigo westward through the city, while horses from Persia and Central Asia travelled toward India. South of the oasis lay the sands of the Registan desert.

Babur captured Kandahar in 1507 and, after losing it, secured its surrender again in 1522. The city became a prize contested by the Mughal emperors and Safavid shahs. Shah Abbas I took it in 1622; it returned to Mughal hands in 1638 and was recovered by the Safavids under Abbas II. The struggle disrupted the trade that had enriched the city.

In 1709 the Ghilzai chief Mir Wais overthrew Safavid rule at Kandahar. His successors carried their campaigns into Persia, but Nader Shah besieged and destroyed the old city in 1738. After Nader's death in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani made Kandahar the political centre of an independent Afghan state. Ahmad Shah laid out a new capital with two main streets crossing at a covered bazaar, near the great mosque. The capital later shifted to Kabul, yet Kandahar remained closely associated with the dynasty's origins.