Mazari Sharif

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Mazari Sharif
The historic Blue Mosque in Mazari Sharif
Mazari Sharif
Province	Balkh
Coordinates	36.700° N 67.117° E
Population (2006)	300,600 (4th) Central Statistics Office of Afghanistan
Area
Time zone	GMT+04:30 Kabul (UTC)

Mazari Sharif, also known as Mazar-i Sharif or Mazār-e Sharīf (Persian: مزار شریف‎ ), is the fourth largest city of Afghanistan, with population of 300,600 people (2006 official estimate). It is the capital of Balkh province and is linked by road to Kabul to the south-east, Herat to the west and Uzbekistan to the north. Mazari Sharif means "Noble Shrine," a reference to the large, blue-tiled sanctuary and mosque in the center of the city that most Afghans, both Shia and Sunni, but not most non-Afghan Shia, and historians, believe is the site of the tomb of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin who is believed to be buried in Najaf, Iraq. The dominant language in Mazari Sharif is Dari-Persian. . The city is a major tourist attraction because of its fabulous Muslim and Hellenistic archeological sites. In July 2006, the discovery of Hellenistic remains was announced.^[1]

1 History
2 Industry
3 Places of interest
4 Trivia
5 See also
6 References and footnotes
7 External links

[edit] History

The gardens of Mazari Sharif's Blue Mosque.

Some of the artwork on the Blue Mosque.

A Mazari Sharif Afghan rug.

A local carpet seller.

Mazari Sharif is famous for playing Buzkashi, which is a local sport from this region.

Mazari Sharif owes its existence to a dream. At the beginning of the 12th century a local mullah had a dream in which the Ali bin Talib, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law and one of the four rightly guided Caliphs appeared to reveal that he had been secretly buried near the city of Balkh. After investigation, the Seljuk sultan Sanjar ordered a shrine to be built on the spot, where it stood until its destruction by Genghis Khan. Although later rebuilt, Mazar stood in the shadow of its neighbour Balkh, until that city was abandoned in 1866 for health reasons. Mazar became the capital of Afghan Turkestan and has prospered since.

Mazar is the capital of Balkh province, and Afghanistan's fourth largest city. Its population is dominated by Tajiks, although there are significant Uzbek, Turkmen, Hazara, and Pashtun minorities, the latter largely as a result of resettlement programmes by Abdur Rahman Khan in the 19th century. Its geography means that the city has traditionally looked as much north to Bukhara as south to Kabul.

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Mazar was a strategical base for the red army, as they used its airport to launch airstrikes on Afghan mujahideen. In the early 1990s, after Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, Mazar slowly began falling into the hands of Tajik and Uzbek militias (Jamiat-e Islami of Ahmad Shah Massoud and Rabbani, both who are Tajiks, and, Jumbesh-e Melli of Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is Uzbek). As a garrison for the communist Afghan army, the city was under the command of Dostum, who mutinied against Najibullah's Kabul regime in 1992 and established the autonomous administration of North Afghanistan with the aid of Massoud.

Under Dostum's Uzbek Jumbesh-e Melli militia, Mazar was an oasis of peace during the civil war, and as the rest of the country disintegrated he strengthened political ties with the newly independent central Asian states and Turkey, printed his own currency and established his own airline. This peace was shattered in May 1997, when he was betrayed by one of his generals, Abdul Malik, and fled Mazar as the Taliban were getting ready to take the city.

From the early 1990s to early 1997, Mazari Sharif remained a stronghold of Dostum and his militia while most of the remaining country was slowly being taken over by the Taliban. Between May and July 1997 the Taliban unsuccessfully attempted to take Mazar, leading to approximately 2,500 Taliban soldiers being massacred by Abdul Malik and his shia followers. In retaliation to this incident, the Taliban on August 8, 1998, reportedly returned and lead a six-day killing frenzy of Hazaras and other local people. Soon after, the city was occupied and taken over by the Taliban. It was this capture of Mazar that prompted Pakistan's recognition of the Taliban regime.

Following 9/11, Mazar was the first Afghan city to fall to the Afghan Northern Alliance (former militias). The Taliban's retreat from Mazar quickly turned into rout from the rest of the north and west of Afghanistan. On November 9, 2001 the city was recaptured by the Afghan Northern Alliance after heavy battles with help from the United States. An alleged massacre of Taliban soldiers by US allies is said to have taken place near the city at that time.

Small scale clashes between militias belonging to different commanders persisted throughout 2002, and were the focus of intensive UN peace-brokering and small arms disarmament programme. After some pressure, an office of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission opened an office in Mazar in April 2003.

Mazari Sharif is in full control of the new Afghan central government, which is led by US backed President Hamid Karzai. There are also NATO peacekeeing forces in and around the city providing assistance to the new government.

[edit] Industry

The local economy is dominated by agriculture and karakol production; small scale oil and gas exploitation have boosted the city's prospects. The city is a traditional centre for buzkashi, and its shrine the focus of Afghanistan’s Nawroz celebrations.

[edit] Places of interest

The modern city of Mazari Sharif is centered around the Shrine of Hazrat Ali. Much restored, it is one of Afghanistan’s most glorious monuments. Outside Mazar lies the ancient city of Balkh, that still contains much of interest to the visitor.

[edit] Trivia

The name "Mazar E Sharif" has also been applied to a potent strain of marijuana sold in North America, apparently because the "strain" of plants originated in Northern Afghanistan.