Mausoleum of Ahmad Shah Durrani

The mausoleum of Ahmad Shah Durrani stands in the centre of the old city of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, beside the shrine of the Kherqa Sharif. Ahmad Shah, a Pashtun commander who had served the Iranian ruler Nader Shah, was chosen as king at a tribal assembly near Kandahar in 1747, after Nader's assassination. He founded the Durrani empire, which at its height stretched from Khorasan to Kashmir and Punjab, and is widely regarded in Afghanistan as the founder of the modern state; many Afghans call him Ahmad Shah Baba, “Ahmad Shah the father”.

Ahmad Shah built a new city at Kandahar, laid out on a grid, and when he died in 1772 he was buried at its heart. His tomb is an octagonal building crowned by a dome, its walls faced with tiles in blue, turquoise and white. Inside, the walls are painted, and the cenotaph carries inscriptions in Persian, the language of his court, though Ahmad Shah also wrote poetry in Pashto.

Next to the mausoleum is the shrine of the Kherqa Sharif, “the noble cloak”, which keeps a cloak believed to have been worn by the Prophet Muhammad. Ahmad Shah is said to have brought it to Kandahar from Bukhara. The cloak is rarely shown, and the shrine remains one of the most revered places in Afghanistan. Together, the tomb and the shrine form the spiritual and historic heart of Kandahar, where visitors come to pray, to pay their respects to the founder of the Durrani state, and to sit in the gardens and courtyards around them.