Bamiyan History

History

Bamiyan’s place in Afghan history begins with the emergence of the Kushan empire in the 1st century AD. As a halfway point between Balkh and the Kushan capital at Kapisa (near modern Bagram), it grew rich from the trade along the Silk Road between Rome and the Han Chinese.

The nomadic Kushans quickly took to Buddhism and were instrumental in fusing Eastern art with the Hellenistic tradition left by the Greeks. This Graeco-Buddhic art flowered in Bamiyan, which quickly became a major centre of culture and religion where monasteries flourished.

Kushan power waned, but Bamiyan remained a cultural centre. Another wave of invaders, the White Huns, were assimilated in the 4th century and went on to create two giant statues of Buddha, carved out of the sandstone cliffs of the valley walls, bedecked with jewels and gilt. Bamiyan became one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the world.

Events in the east threatened Bamiyan’s pre-eminence and in the 7th century, Afghanistan felt the eastward thrust of Islam. High in the mountains, Bamiyan clung on to its Buddhist traditions for another 400 years, until the ascendant Ghaznavids finally brought Islam to the valley for good.

A series of smaller dynasties held sway over Bamiyan until the beginning of the 13th century. The Shansabani kings briefly made the valley the capital of a realm stretching as far north as Balkh and Badakhshan, until they were swept away in the Mongol tidal wave in 1222.

Genghis Khan initially sent his favourite grandson to deal with the Shansabani kings and they responded by slaying the young general. As revenge, Genghis sent his warriors to storm the citadels. Every living thing in the valley was slaughtered.

Bamiyan never fully recovered from the Mongol devastation. While the Hazaras now claim descent from the Mongol invaders, they spent the next 600 years independent but isolated from Afghan history. The Hazaras’ adherence to Shiite Islam meant they were further distrusted by the Afghan mainstream.

In the 1890s Abdur Rahman Khan led a military campaign to bring Bamiyan and the Hazarajat under the control of the Afghan state. He declared a jihad against the Hazaras, taking many into slavery and giving their land to Pashtun farmers. Ironically, the Hazaras were allowed to return when the newcomers found it impossible to raise crops in Bamiyan’s marginal environment. The area remained the most underdeveloped part of Afghanistan throughout the 20th century.

Bamiyan rebelled against the communist government in early 1979, with the town inspired by the success of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shiite revolution in Iran. After the Soviet invasion, the mountainous surroundings were a blessing to the resistance, who drove the Russians out of the Hazarajat by 1981.

For the first time in their history the Hazaras could organise themselves politically and militarily. Bamiyan was ruled by the mujaheddin party Hezb-e Wahdat, supported by Iran. By the middle of the 1990s, Hazara influence extended as far as Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif.

The rise of the Taliban saw the return of anti-Hazara sentiments. Following their capture of Kabul, the Pashtun militia immediately started a blockade of the Bamiyan valley. The region was dependent on food aid but the Taliban refused access to the international community, in a bid to starve their enemies. By the time the Taliban captured Bamiyan in September 1998, much of the population had fled to the mountains. In an echo of Abdur Rahman Khan’s policies, the Taliban tried to encourage Pashtun’s nomads to settle on the Hazaras’ land.

Almost immediately, the Taliban threatened to blow up the giant Buddhas, but backed down in the face of international outrage. Mullah Omar even went as far as declaring that they should be protected to encourage a future return of tourism to Afghanistan.

Such ideals didn’t last long. With UN sanctions biting, and faced with a newly resurgent Hazara resistance, the Buddha statues were declared un-Islamic and their destruction was decreed. Over two days in the beginning of March 2001, dynamite and tank-fire reduced the monumental statues to rubble. The world – and the Afghan population – was horrified. The Taliban celebrated by selling picture calendars of the demolition on the streets of Kabul.

The US-led campaign in November 2001 saw a final Taliban spate of killing and destruction before Bamiyan’s liberation. But peace has finally returned to Bamiyan, even producing the country’s first female governor in the figure of Habiba Sorabi. Economic development has been slower to follow.