No Gonbad Mosque

9th-century mosque ruins, the oldest remaining Islamic monument in Afghanistan

The No Gonbad Mosque — Nine Domes Mosque — is one of the oldest remaining Islamic monuments in Afghanistan, dating from the late 9th or early 10th century. The building is a ruin: the walls stand only partially, most of the domes have collapsed, and what remains of the original stucco decoration has been damaged by centuries of weather and neglect. But it survives, which is something close to miraculous given what Balkh has endured.

The building represents the early Islamic architecture of Khorasan — the great eastern province that encompassed what is now northeastern Iran, northern Afghanistan, and southern Uzbekistan — and its structure is closely related to early mosques found at Nayin in Iran. The nine bays formed by the surviving columns and arched openings give the space a certain grandeur even in ruin. This is not a well-maintained heritage site; it sits in the fields on the edge of the old city, and getting there requires a local guide or good directions.

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The No Gonbad Mosque dates to around the 9th century CE and is almost certainly built on the foundations of an earlier Zoroastrian fire temple. The nine domes that give it its name — no gonbad means "nine vaults" in Dari — were originally covered in elaborate stucco carvings, fragments of which survive in the Kabul Museum.