Gardez

Daniel Balland

Encyclopaedia Iranica

Gardez is a city in the Suleiman Mountains of Eastern Afghanistan, some 122 kms south of Kabul

Geography & History

Gardez is the capital of the province of Paktia and serves as the summer residence of the provincial governor, who resides in Khost during the winter. This practice of alternating headquarters is one of the last vestiges in Afghanistan of the once common seasonal migration of administrative authorities, directly moulded on nomadic traditions.

The city is situated at 2,300 m above sea-level, in a large intra-mountainous depression watered by the upper course of the Rud-e Gardez, which ends in the Aub e Estada lake. It commands the junction between two roads, the old but difficult and tortuous one linking India to Ghazni via the Korram valley and Paywar pass and another one linking Kabul to Khost via the Logar valley and Altamur pass (2,694 m). The surface of the depression is broken by several hills which constitute natural fortified positions as the ones on which the town was initially located and on which still stands an important military fortress (Bala Hisar). At its foot spreads the old town, divided into four quarters (Bazar-e Kohna, Qarya-ye Ahangaran, Qarya-ye Arjal Khel, Nawabad), and the extensive geometrical new town with a bazar, an administrative center, and residential quarters (Nahezi, p. 417; Wiebe, 1979, p. 211).

The population of the city was put at 9,550 inhabitants in the 1358 Hijri (1979) census. They were mainly Farsiwan Tajiks, Gardez belonging to a network of old isolated Tajik settlements sparsely distributed in southeastern Afghanistan that are remnants of a time when Pashto had not yet reached the area. There was also a significant community of Hindu and Sikh shopkeepers who altogether ran 9% of the shops in the bazar, mostly specializing in jewellery and cloth (Wiebe, 1982, p. 76).

During the 1970s, Gardez experienced an economic boom as a result of the German-funded Paktia Development Authority, established in 1344 Hijri (1965), and of the asphalting of the road to Kabul. While the number of shops in the bazar increased greatly from 117 in 1344 Hijri (1965) to more than 600 in 1956 Hijri (1977) (Wiebe, 1979, p. 213), a complex of small industries was burgeoning in the framework of a Handicraft Promotion Center that opened in 1350 Hijri (1971) (machinery repair, carpentry and concrete products). Social services included a sixty-bed hospital, four schools (three for boys with 1,950 students, and one for girls with 650 students in 1355 Hijri (1976), one teacher training institute (324 students), one madrasa (Madrasa-ye Rohani, 139 students), two hotels, forty mosques, two Hindu temples (Radojicic; Nahezi, p. 417). Not much must have remained of these as the province of Paktia has lost almost all its population in the 1980s owing to the civil war.

The history of Gardez is poorly documented, although it is undoubtedly an old settlement that has retained its name since its appearance in the sources. Various archaeological remains have been discovered in its vicinity, including Indo-Greek, Hephthalite and Turki Shahi coins, and several Hindu marble statues dating back to the 1st-2nd/7th-8th centuries (Ball, no. 337). In this connection, the mention in the Tarikh-e Sistan (p. 24) of the foundation of the city by the Kharijite rebel Hamza bin Abdallah (or Adharak/Atrak) (d. 213/828) probably emphasizes nothing more than the first implantation of Islam in the area. In any case, Gardez became for one and a half centuries the center of a Kharijite petty principality under the local dynasty of the Aflahids, more or less connected with the Lawiks of Ghazni. It suffered several attacks by anti-Kharijite military chiefs pursuing a personal career in this distant eastern corner of the Abbasid empire. As early as 256/870, its ruler, Abu Mansur Aflahi bin Muhammad Khaqan, surrendered to the first Saffarid ruler, Yaqub bin Layth, and agreed to become his vassal (Gardezi, ed. Habibi, p. 139). One century later, in 364/974-75, Bilgetigin, the Turkish slave governor of Ghazni, was killed under the walls of the town he was besieging. Gardez was soon incorporated into the Ghaznavid empire, probably during Sebuktagin's rule, while the converted Aflahids entered the Ghaznavid nobility (Hadud al-alam, ed. Sotuda, p. 71, tr. Minorsky, p. 91; Bivar; Bosworth, 1965, pp. 17) It is in this new context that Kharijism was eventually eradicated from the area. In 570/1162 Moez-al-Din Muhammad Ghauri took Gardez for the Ghurids (Bosworth, 1977, pp. 125, 145).

In the 10th/16th century Gardez was the headquarter of a Mughal tuman and renowned for its multi-storied houses (Qala) (Babor-nama, tr. Beveridge, p. 220; Aina-e Akbari, tr. Blochmann, II, p. 411). Nothing is known of the town during the subsequent centuries and no building remains.

Gardez is also the administrative center of a district of the Paktia province, which covers 650 km² and had a total population of 44,000 inhabitants in 1358 Hijri (1979). It was a rich agricultural district with a great deal of wheat and maize cultivation, but it was almost totally depopulated during the Russo-Afghan war.

Bibliography

1. W. Ball, Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan, 2 vols., Paris, 1982.
2. A. D. H. Bivar, Gardez, EI2 II, p. 978.
3. C. E. Bosworth, Notes on the Pre-Ghaznavid History of Eastern Afghanistan, The Islamic Quarterly 9, 1965, pp. 12-24.
   Idem, Later Ghaznavids.
4. E. Grötzbach, Städte und Basare in Afghanistan, Beihefte zum TAVO, B 16, Wiesbaden, 1979.
5. M. H. Nahezi, ed., Qamus-e jografia-e Afganestan III, Kabul, 1338 Hijri (1959).
6. S. Radojicic, Report on Hydrogeological Survey of Paktya Province, Kabul, UNICEF, 1977 (mimeograph).
7. D. Wiebe, Strukturwandlungen afghanischer Mittelpunktsiedlungen unter dem Einfluss ausländ ischer Infrastrukturprojekte, Erdkunde 33, 1979, pp. 204-15.
   Idem, Zur sozioökonomischen Raumwirksamkeit von Minoritäten: Die Hindus in Afghanistan, Die Erde 113, 1982, pp. 69-84.