Haji Piyada

Aramgah e Hajji Piyadah Baba
Persian: آرامگاه حاجى پياده بابا
Shown within Afghanistan
Coordinates 36°43′47.1″N 66°53′7.1″E / 36.729750°N 66.885306°E
Type ruin

Aramgah e Qazi Yunus (Persian: آرامگاه قاضى يونس, called now as Hajji Piadah Baba ḤĀJI PIĀDA pilgrimage to Mecca on foot) [1] is a grave of the judge Yunus.

The grave is on the edge of the Masjid e No Gonbad (Persian: مسجد نُه‌گنبد Mosque of Nine Cupolas), a Samanid-style building in Balkh province of northern Afghanistan. Built in the 9th century, it is thought to be the earliest Islamic building in the country.[2]

In the Sassanid Dynasty was here Akashdadah e Naubahar (Persian: آتشکده نوبهار Fire Temple of Naubahar). In the Kushan Empire was a common meditation center, the Barmarkiden their ornaments because of Islamic conquests - have expanded Hindu-Buddhist and Zoroastrian pattern (Mithra cult like sun, flowers, lily) painted over with plaster and the Samanids with nine DOMES, the first Mosque in Bactra. As the hidden ornaments have appeared, they have been destroyed again from Islamic religious considerations. The grave of Judge Yunus it does not fit to the complex, although a pilgrimage on foot to Mecca undertook.

It measures 20×20 meters. The outside walls are of mud-brick construction. The interior is divided into nine bays, each originally covered by a dome. The columns and the arches that divide the bays are exquisitely decorated in deeply carved stucco, depicting a wide wariety of design, stylistically comparable to Abbasid decoration in Mesopotamia.[3]

The site was listed on the World Monuments Fund's 2006 World Monuments Watch list of 100 Most Endangered Sites.[4]

Video

References

  1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/joaoleitao/7857706170/
  2. City of Balkh (antique Bactria), UNESCO website
  3. Archaeological gazetteer of Afghanistan (Title in French: Catalogue des sites archeologiques d'Afghanistan), Warwick Ball, Volume I & II, Editions Recherche sur les civilisations, Paris, 1982.
  4. World Monuments Fund's World Monuments Watch 1996-2006. – Retrieved on 12 November 2008.