Gardens of Babur

Bagh-e Babur (Dari: باغ بابر), also known as the Gardens of Babur, is a historic site in District 5 (Nahia 5) of Kabul, Afghanistan. It is located in the Guzargah neighborhood, with the Sher Darwaza mountain being to the east, Chihil Sutun to the south, and the Kabul Zoo to the northwest. The over 500-year-old Bagh-e Babur has numerous gardens, several terraced buildings, a small mosque, and plenty of walking space. Visited by up to one million locals and foreign tourists a year, it is also where the tombs of the first Mughal emperor Babur and some of his relatives are located. The park is thought to have been developed around 1504, when Babur gave orders for the construction of an "avenue garden" in Kabul, described in some detail in his 16th century memoirs, the Baburnama. It has been re-developed by various Afghan rulers since then.

It was the tradition of Mughal princes to develop sites for recreation and pleasure purposes during their lifetime, and later choose one of these as their last resting place. The site continued to be of significance to Babur's successors; Jahangir made a pilgrimage to the site in 1607, when he ordered that all gardens in Kabul be surrounded by walls, that a prayer platform be laid in front of Babur's grave, and an inscribed headstone placed at its head. During the visit of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1638, a marble screen was erected around the tomb of Babur, and a mosque built on the terrace below. There are accounts from the time of the visit to the site of Shah Jahan in 1638 of a stone water channel that ran between an avenue of trees from the terrace below the mosque, with pools at certain intervals.