Wojciech Fedoruk

4.50 Poland - 18-Sep-24 -

The Minaret of Jam is an almost legendary place. For at least 20 years, from 2001 to 2021 (though actually since the outbreak of the Afghan war in 1978), it was completely inaccessible to visitors. During the US intervention, the mountains around it were a Taliban hotbed and were not controlled by the Afghan government or US military. After the Taliban took power, it is open again, which I took advantage of by visiting this place in September 2024 with a group of seven like-minded travelers from Poland (including three women).

The minaret is very difficult to access. You can get to it from May to October via terrible roads. The road from Herat takes 13 hours (including breaks), the road to Bamyan takes up to 13.5 hours. And these are only 200 and 300 kilometers, respectively. Despite this, it is quite popular - our fixer announced that he has run his 25th group here in three years. But it is still a challenge, depending on the weather. In May 2024, a huge flood destroyed some of the access roads and bridges, and to get to the minaret it was necessary to cross the river on a rope. The road looks a bit better now, the bridge has been built in a different place... until the next spring flood?

The last dozen or so kilometers to the minaret is an extremely difficult road in the high mountains. Finally, IT emerged from behind the rock - an absolutely extraordinary structure surrounded by several hundred-meter-high peaks. The minaret is 800 years old, but it is surprisingly well preserved - most of the brick decorations and almost all of the Arabic inscriptions remain to this day. It should be added that it is located in a very unfavorable place where floods occur regularly. This year it came within centimeters to the very base of the minaret, but fortunately did not damage it. The minaret is leaning and there are fears that it will collapse one day. The Taliban government is trying to protect it. I talked to an Afghan engineer who came to the minaret to investigate the possibility of protecting the monument.

The minaret of Jam is probably the only (and certainly the most important) remnant of the Ghurid civilization, which at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries created a huge empire, covering Afghanistan and parts of neighboring countries. Why this empire built such a magnificent minaret in the middle of nowhere is not really known, although Jam was one of their capitals.

Part of the entry is a Jewish cemetery, but it no longer exists. The locals say that the Americans flew here by helicopter and took everything. Whether this is true and the cemetery was not deliberately destroyed is unknown.

The Taliban are currently building a mini hotel near the minaret, but there is still no infrastructure on site. We slept in tents a dozen or so meters from the minaret. It was an unforgettable experience to watch it during sunset and sunrise and in the moonlit sky.

Finally, I would like to add that the situation in Afghanistan remains stable, but no one knows how long it will last. The Taliban government invents more and more absurd bans and favors the Pashtuns at the expense of other ethnic groups, ISIS from time to time violates the fragile alliance with the Taliban and murders "opponents", e.g. the few Shiites here. Visit Jam as soon as possible, while the time is right.