Zaranj

Zaranj was the historic capital of Sistan, in the broad inland basin where the Helmand River spreads into lakes and reed marshes. Canals carried the river's water to fields around the city, and from here in the ninth century the coppersmith Yaqub ibn al-Layth rose to found the Saffarid dynasty, whose armies reached far beyond the desert.

By 1337 Sistan was ruled by the Mihrabanid maliks, a local line that had served the Ilkhans and declared its independence after 1335. In 1383 Timur conquered the region and made the maliks his vassals, and his campaigns left the old city and its irrigation works in ruins. Timurid overlordship lasted until the Uzbek invasion of 1507, and after the Uzbeks were driven out in 1510 the maliks became vassals of the Safavids, who deposed them in 1537. Sistan then passed back and forth between Safavid governors and Afghan rulers. Nader Shah reconquered it in 1727, and after his death in 1747 it fell to the Durrani state. Through all these changes the fortunes of the settlements around Zaranj depended on the Helmand and on the canals that spread its water across the plain.