کلتور
Culture
Architecture
Hujras, forts, mosques and homes.
Articles on architecture
- Ahmad Shah Durrani's mausoleum in KandaharThe octagonal tomb of Ahmad Shah Baba (d. 1772) stands in Kandahar under a blue-tiled dome, beside the Kherqa Sharif shrine of the Prophet's cloak, and has long been respected as a sanctuary.
- Bala Hisar, Peshawar: the fort of the Durrani kingsThe Bala Hisar is the brick fort on the mound above old Peshawar. Timur Shah's Sadozai court sat there, Elphinstone was received there in 1809, the Sikhs wrecked and rebuilt it in the 1820s and 1830s, and the Frontier Corps has held it since 1948.
- Darul Aman palace and Amanullah's new KabulDarul Aman palace, begun in the 1920s as the centre of King Amanullah's planned new capital south-west of Kabul, was left unfinished in 1929, burned three times, ruined in the 1990s and rebuilt by Afghans for the centenary of independence in 2019.
- Mahabat Khan Mosque, Peshawar: the Mughal mosque of Andar ShahrThe Mahabat Khan Mosque is Peshawar's largest Mughal mosque, in the old city's Andar Shahr bazaar, built in the 1660s or 1670s by a Mughal governor. Its minarets were used as gallows under the Sikhs, by the gazetteer's account.
- Rahman Baba's mazar at Hazarkhwani, Peshawar: the shrine and its ursThe mazar of the Pashto poet Rahman Baba stands in a graveyard at Hazarkhwani, south of Peshawar, and has hosted poets' gatherings since the late 1930s. Its mausoleum was bombed on 5 March 2009 and reopened in 2012.
- Rohtas Fort: Sher Shah Suri's fortress on the JhelumRohtas Fort, 16 km north-west of Jhelum, was begun in 1541 by the Afghan king Sher Shah Suri to hold the Gakhar hills and bar Humayun's return. Its walls run for over 4 km with 68 bastions and twelve gates, and UNESCO listed it in 1997.
- Sethi House and the old houses of PeshawarSethi House is a merchant mansion of the 1880s in Peshawar's walled city, home of the Sethi family who traded to Kabul, Bukhara and Russia, restored by the provincial archaeology department and opened to visitors in 2013.
- Sher Shah Suri's tomb at Sasaram, BiharThe tomb of the Afghan king Sher Shah Suri (d. 1545) stands in an artificial lake at Sasaram in Bihar, an octagonal domed building begun in his lifetime and finished under his son Islam Shah, the last great work of the Lodi tomb tradition.
- The hujra and the qala: Pashtun guest house and family compoundThe hujra (حجره) is the men's guest house of a Pashtun village, where travellers are fed and lodged, elders meet in council and young men learn custom; the qala or kala is the walled family compound, its women, grain stores and well kept behind mud walls that in Mohmand villages stood 18 feet high.
- The Lodi tombs of Delhi: Sikandar's tomb, the Bara Gumbad and Bahlul's tombThe tombs and mosque of the Afghan Lodi sultans of Delhi include Sikandar Lodi's octagonal tomb in its walled garden, the Bara Gumbad mosque of 1494 and Bahlul's tomb at Chirag Delhi. Their octagonal and square plans were copied at Sasaram and in Humayun's tomb.
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