Murad Khane ( prs, مراد خانی) is a district of the old city in

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. It lies just north of the Kabul River and is part of the city District 2.

History

Murad Khane was named after two Murad Khans: one the brother of a 17th-century Mughal governor and the second an 18th-century general. The area was developed in the 18th century by Ahmad Shah Durrani, the founder of the Durrani Empire. As part of this development, many ornate structures were constructed to serve as housing for members of the

Qizilbash Qizilbash or Kizilbash ( az, Qızılbaş; ota, قزيل باش; fa, قزلباش, Qezelbāš; tr, Kızılbaş, lit=Red head ) were a diverse array of mainly Turkoman Shia militant groups that flourished in Iranian Azerbaijan, Anatolia, t ...

tribe. The district was laid out in a traditional Islamic pattern, around a mosque, bath-house, garden and bazaar.

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

modernization efforts in 1975, neglect and civil war, threatened and destroyed many buildings in the area. Despite these threats, "Murad Khane retains much of its original fabric with a network of small streets connecting the bazaar, religious structures, caravanserai and houses in a layout that represents the area's unique ties to Islamic design and nearly four hundred years of Afghan history." It is one of the few surviving historic commercial and residential neighbourhoods in Kabul.

Conservation

In 2006, the

Turquoise Mountain Foundation The Turquoise Mountain Foundation is a non-governmental organization legally established in Scotland. It takes its name from Turquoise Mountain and initially focused on the enhancement of the Afghanistan craft industry.Felicia CraddockIn Afghanista ...

began restoration work in Murad Khane, headed by

Rory Stewart Roderick James Nugent Stewart (born 3 January 1973) is a British academic, diplomat, author, broadcaster, former soldier and former politician. He is the president of GiveDirectly, a visiting fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for ...

. By then, it had become one of the poorest areas in Kabul and in 2008 it was added to the World Monuments Fund's Watch List of the world's most endangered sites. Turquoise Mountain began to clear out the garbage that had accumulated over the years and set to work restoring the historic houses. Turquoise Mountain has now restored or rebuilt 150 damaged homes, documented built and intangible cultural heritage, opened the Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture to train young people in traditional crafts, opened a Primary School and Family Health Clinic for the local residents, and hosted thousands of visitors to the revived neighbourhood. Turquoise Mountain's work in Murad Khane was shown as part of an exhibit, ''Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan'', at Washington, D.C.’s

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on Asian art. The Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. Th ...

Notes

External links

{{coord missing, Afghanistan Neighborhoods of Kabul