The Green Mosque — officially the Shrine of Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa, a 15th-century Timurid scholar and mystic — is the most architecturally intact monument in Balkh and one of the finest examples of Timurid religious architecture in Central Asia. Its dome, covered in turquoise and blue tiles, rises over the otherwise flat landscape of the old city and can be seen from a considerable distance. The tilework, though damaged, gives a clear sense of what Balkh looked like in its last great era of prosperity before the final Uzbek and then Russian incursions reduced the city to a fraction of its former size.
The shrine complex includes the mosque, a courtyard, and the tomb of Abu Nasr Parsa himself. It is still an active place of pilgrimage and worship, and visitors should behave accordingly — remove shoes, dress conservatively, and ask before photographing worshippers. The building is set in a small walled garden, and the contrast between the brilliant tiles and the dusty town around it is striking.