The Gardens of Babur

Babur - founder of the Mughal line - loved Kabul above his conquests, and chose its hillside for his rest: the Bagh-e Babur terraces climb the slope in the classic charbagh geometry he championed, plane trees and orchards over water channels, with his simple marble tomb enclosure near the crown and the small Shah Jahan mosque in white marble below it. Restoration in the 2000s returned the garden to civic life - families picnicking the lawns, the caravanserai hosting crafts, the pavilion museum telling the garden's centuries - and the terraces' view over the city to the mountains explains the emperor's choice wordlessly.

History

Relics found at the site go back to the 3rd century BC, but the garden as it is known began with Babur, who took Kabul from the Arghun dynasty in 1504 and, as his memoirs, the Baburnama, describe, ordered an avenue garden here, which he used as a guest house for special occasions, above all in summer. Mughal princes laid out gardens for pleasure in their lifetime and chose one of them as their last resting place, and Babur is believed to have asked to be buried in this one; in 1638 Shah Jahan put a marble screen around his tomb, and in his time a mosque was built on the thirteenth terrace, the one nearest to Mecca, with the enclosure for Babur's tomb and those of some of his male relatives on the fourteenth, which one scholar argues turned the garden into a graveyard. Later Afghan rulers re-developed it many times (Wikipedia, Gardens of Babur).

The main sights

• The charbagh terraces - the Mughal geometry climbing the slope.
• Babur's tomb - the founder's marble enclosure at the crown.
• The Shah Jahan mosque - white marble at the upper terrace.
• The city panorama - Kabul to the mountains from the walks.

When to go

April to June for blossom and roses, September to October for orchard gold. Arrange the trip through specialist local operators.

Practical notes

In the garden: it is a cherished civic space and a tomb precinct both - picnic culture and reverence share the terraces; dress and photography follow local custom comfortably.

Nearby

Kabul's old-city bazaars and the Chihilsitoon palace gardens.

Key facts