Warehouse of Bamiyan

Arezou Azad is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Invisible East programme at the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. She is also Professor and Chair of the Arts and Heritage of Afghanistan at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) in Paris. She has authored three other peer-reviewed books: The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Economic Life in Medieval Afghanistan (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), Faḍāʾil-i Balkh or “The Merits of Balkh”, an annotated translation of a 13th-century history of Balkh (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2013). Pejman Firoozbakhsh is a Research Associate at the University of Hamburg and a former member of the Invisible East programme at the University of Oxford. He is a linguist interested in the formation and development of early New Persian, West Iranian dialects, Persian codicology and textual criticism. Pejman Firoozbakhsh’s recent publications include “Manuscript of a Persian Qaṣīda from about the Year 400/1007”, in Bi yād-i Īraj Afshār, edited by Jawād Basharī (vol. 2. Tehran: Duktur Maḥmūd Afshār, 1402/2024, 661–72) (In Persian) and ‘The Story of Rustam and Suhrāb,’ by Abu al-Qāsim Firdawsī, edited by Jalal Khaleqi Motlaq (Tehran: Sokhan 2014; rev. 2020). He has also contributed to a book by Arezou Azad The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Economic Life in Medieval Afghanistan (Edinburgh University Press, 2025).

• List of IllustrationsNote on the Invisible East CollectionMapsPrefaceTechnical NotesDramatis PersonaeIntroduction: The Invisibility of People of the Medieval Islamicate East1. Method, Aims and Sources2. Assumption and Paradigms About Rural Administration and Land Management3. The Warehouse4. Landholding Patterns in Bamiyan5. The Documentary and Archival ContextConclusion: Uncovering Life Beyond the Palace WallsAppendix: The DocumentsAcknowledgementsTimeline of Ghurid Rulers, ca. 392-612/1000-1215Timeline of Khwārazmshāhī Rulers During Ghurid Suzerainty, up to 628/1231Glossary of Terms Used in the Bamiyan PapersBibliographySubject Index

A pioneering work. Never before has the social history of rural places in the Iran-Afghanistan region been written in such granular detail. Nor could it have been: new sources, documents from administrative practice, allow for a new level of precision. A first step into a fascinating new field of investigation.