HERAT

Province and city in western Afghanistan.

Herat is both a province in northwestern Afghanistan and the name of the provincial capital of that province. In 2003 the population of the city of Herat was generally held to number about 180,000, although some estimates have the population much higher. Even using the lower figure, Herat is the third largest city in Afghanistan and the major city in the country's western region. Close to the Iranian border, the people in the province are largely Persian speakers, although some Turkomans live in the northern area.

Because of its strategic location, Herat has been a fortified town for several thousand years. Mention of it first appears in the Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrians (1500 b.c.e.), and scholars have conjectured that the name Herat may be a derivative of Aria, a province in the ancient Persian empire. Alexander the Great built Alexandria Ariorum on the site (330 b.c.e.). During the Afghan war of resistance (1978–1992), the city of Herat saw considerable fighting and suffered significant destruction. When the Najibullah government fell in 1992, Ismaʿil Khan, a commander in the Jamiʿat-e Islami, took control of the area.

The Taliban captured Herat in 1995, and Is-mail Khan and his fighters fled to Iran. The Taliban installed an administration imposing strict Islamic rule. When the Taliban fell in 2001, Ismaʿil Khan returned to Herat and was appointed governor of the province by the Hamid Karzai government. Herat now serves as a major smuggling route for foreign goods coming into Afghanistan, and for the export of Afghan opium.

See also afghanistan.

Bibliography

Adamec, Ludwig. Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1991.

Ewans, Martin. Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

grant farr

HERAT

HERAT , city in N.W. Afghanistan. Jewish settlement there goes back to early Islamic times. The recent discovery in Firuzkuh, near Herat, of 20 Judeo-Persian tombstone inscriptions covering the years 1115–1215 indicates the existence of a Jewish settlement with a cemetery. Firuzkuh was destroyed by the *Mongol invasion (1221), and the Jewish survivors may have fled further east, perhaps to China. From 1839 the community in Herat absorbed many refugees from *Meshed across the Persian border, victims of a forced conversion decree. The outbreak of Anglo-Persian hostilities in the second part of the 19^th century caused many of these Meshed Conversos to be expelled from Herat, forcing them to settle in the vicinity of Baba Qudrat. Ephraim *Neumark found in Herat in 1884 about 300 Jewish families, engaged in commerce, handicrafts, and trade with India and Central Asia. In 1898 E.N. *Adler discovered in the city some Hebrew manuscripts written in 1773. Many Jews from Herat emigrated to Palestine in the early decades of the 20^th century, among them R. Garji and his family, and the Shauloff family. They brought with them manuscripts of Judeo-Persian literature which they printed in Jerusalem. In the late 1960s the Jewish community in Herat had dwindled to only a few families.

bibliography:

W.J. Fischel, in: JAOS, 85 (1965), 148–53; I. Ben Zvi, Mehkarim u-Mekorot (1966), 325, 331–3. add. bibliography: R.N. Frye, "Harāt," in: EIS², 3 (1971), 177–78.

[Walter Joseph Fischel]