Shighnan

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Shighnan (also Shignan, Shugnan, Shughnan, or Syghinan) is the name of a town and a district in Badakhshan Province in the mountainous northeast of Afghanistan and a district in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan.

In ancient times the area was known for its ruby mines, which are mentioned in the writings of Marco Polo:

It is in this province that those fine and valuable gems the Balas Rubies are found. They are got in certain rocks among the mountains, and in the search for them the people dig great caves underground, just as is done by miners for silver. There is but one special mountain that produces them, and it is called Syghinan. [1]

In the nineteenth century, Shighnan and its vassal Roshan were states whose native rulers claimed descent from Alexander the Great. The archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein wrote: "North of Shughnan lies Roshan, ruled usually by relatives of the old chiefs of Shughnan... there is no proof, however, to their genealogical claims." [2] Both states were conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 1882, but were assigned to Russia by the Durand agreement of 1893. In an 1895 agreement between the British and Russia Moscow agreed to hand over all districts previously occupied by her on the left bank of the Panj, or upper Oxus, to Afghanistan in exchange for lands on the right hand bank in Darvaz. The Russian controlled half of Shighnan was incorporated into to the Gorno-Badakhshan oblast in 1925, which was merged into the newly formed Tajikistan in 1929.