Badakhshan

Badakhshan is a historical region comprising the Wakhan Corridor in northeast Afghanistan, eastern Tajikistan, and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China.

[3] During the 20th century within Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan, the speakers of Pamir languages formed their own separate ethnic identity as Pamiris.[when?]

[12] The excavations along the banks of the Amu Darya show evidence of trade with the early civilizations of the Ancient Near East in the 4th–3rd millennia BC.

Jewelry and clothing decorated with rubies from the 3rd millennium BC have been discovered in Southeast Asia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran, Indo-China, and even in Western countries.

At that time, the presence of Badakhshan laurel[clarification needed] in India (Mohenjo-Daro), Egypt (Necropolis of Thebes), and other places was proven.

Later, in the Neolithic period, the tribes of the Middle East, including the Badakhshans, used wooden gates with their heels running over stone holes.

Other production activities, such as agriculture, animal husbandry, handicrafts, the emergence of horses and carts, road construction, etc., accelerated the division of society into classes.

The mineralogist A. E. Fersman wrote that one stone was known throughout the long history of culture – the bright blue lapis lazuli of Afghanistan (Badakhshan), which was transported by caravan routes to Egypt, China, Rome, and Byzantium.

When Mahmud died, Amir Khusroe Khan, one of his nobles, blinded Baysinghar Mirza, killed the second prince, and ruled as a usurper.

When Mirza Ibrahim fell in the war with Balkh, Khurram Begum wanted to send the Khanum to her father, Shah Muhammad of Kashgar; but she refused to go.

Not succeeding in raising disturbances in Kabul, he made for the frontier of Badakhshan, and luckily finding some adherents, he managed to get from his grandson the territory between Taiqan and the Hindu Kush.

[clarification needed] Being again pressed by Shahrukh, Mirza Sulaiman applied for help to Abdullah Khan II, king of Turan, who had long wished to annex Badakhshan.

As he could not recover Badakhshan for himself, and was rendered destitute by the death of Mirza Muhammad Hakim, he followed the example of his grandson, and repaired to the court of Akbar who made him a commander of six thousand.

[15] In the 18th century the capital of Badakhshan was the town of Khamchan, located three miles west of Fayzabad and situated on both sides of the Kokcha River.

Men of Badakhshan, disgusted with their chief because of his partiality to Kalmak and Kashghar foreigners, waited on Wazir Shah Wali and hailed him as deliverer.

Place was marked by 200 heads of raiders on Kotal of Khoja Jarghatu and Saki gave no more trouble during Sultan Shah's lifetime.

They could not aid him against British and Dost Muhammad proceeded to the Emirate of Bukhara, then governed by Amir Nasrullah Khan who was addicted to the society of boys.

Dost Muhammad Khan then decided to leave the Emirate of Bukhara but found himself a prisoner, and with difficulty escaped with his sons to Balkh.

The instigator of the murder had been fascinated by the extraordinary beauty of the wife of Mir Yar Beg, and was impelled by his passion for the lady to accomplish the death of her husband.

Ruler of Badakhshan to furnish suitable contingent in difficulty and to aid Amir of Kabul and to give annual presents.But Mir Shah had trouble governing his region.

In December 1869, Mir Jahandar Shah left the camp of Emir of Bukhara in Kulab and attacked Badakhshan and burned fort Zang Kila.

From the Dorah eastwards the crest of the Hindu Kush again became the boundary until it effects a junction with the Muztagh and Sarikol ranges, which shut off China from Russia and India.

[20] The following were the chief provincial subdivisions of Badakhshan, omitting Rushan and Shugnan: on the west Rustak, Kataghan, Ghori, Narin and Anderab; on the north Darwaz, Ragh and Shiwa; on the east Charan, Ishkashim, Zebak and Wakhan; and in the center, Faizabad, Farkhar, Minjan and Kishm.

[citation needed] In 1963, Badakhshan included the districts of Baghlan, Pul-i-Khumri, Dushi, Dahan-i-Ghori, Kanabad, Andarab, Kunduz, Hazrat-i-Imam, and Taloqan.

Its chief affluent is the Minjan, which Sir George Robertson found to be a considerable stream where it approaches the Hindu Kush close under the Dorab.

Like the Kunduz, it probably drains the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush by deep lateral valleys, more or less parallel to the crest, reaching westwards towards the Khawak Pass.

North of the Kokcha, within the Oxus bend, is the mountainous district of Darwaz, of which the physiography belongs rather to the Pamir type than to that of the Hindu Kush.

[19] A very remarkable meridional range extends for 100 miles northwards from the Hindu Kush (it is across this range that the route from Zebak to Ishkashim lies), which determines the great bend of the Oxus river northwards from Ishkashim, and narrows the valley of that river into the formation of a trough as far as the next bend westwards at Kala Wamar.

The western slopes of this range drain to the Oxus either northwestwards, by the Kokcha and the Ragh, or else they twist their streams into the Shiwa, which runs due north across Darwaz.

The mountains are rugged and difficult; but there is much world-famous beauty of scenery, and almost phenomenal agricultural wealth in the valleys of Bukhara and Ferghana to be found in the recesses of Badakhshan.