Minaret and Archaeological Remains of Jam

The Minaret of Jam was entirely unknown to the international academic world until 1957, when an Afghan government survey team working in the Ghor province of central Afghanistan reported a 65-metre fired-brick tower standing at the confluence of two rivers in a remote highland valley. The tower had been there since the late 12th century. The Aimaq nomadic people who lived around it had simply not told anyone.

The Minaret

The tower was built during the reign of Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad Ghori of the Ghurid dynasty, probably around 1190 CE. The Ghurids controlled an empire stretching from Herat west through Afghanistan and east into the Punjab, and at their peak were one of the major Islamic powers of the medieval world. The Minaret of Jam is decorated with interlaced geometric and floral kufic script, Quranic inscriptions, and fired-brick geometric patterns of extraordinary precision; the eight-sided sections with alternating geometric and inscribed bands suggest the work of master craftsmen at the apex of Ghurid ambition.

After the minaret’s discovery, excavations in the surrounding valley confirmed a substantial medieval urban settlement, leading to the theory that Jam may have been the site of Firuzkuh, the Ghurid summer capital that had eluded historians for centuries. The site received UNESCO World Heritage status in 2002.

The connection to India is direct: the Qutb Minar in Delhi, begun around 1192 CE by a Ghurid general and still standing, was modelled on the Jam minaret. Understanding one clarifies the other.

The Current Situation

Afghanistan has been under Taliban administration since 2021, and most Western governments advise against all travel to the country. The minaret is on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger. A major flood in May 2024 destroyed access roads and bridges; retaining walls were completed in March 2025 following flood damage to the structure’s base. As of mid-2026, the site remains accessible to determined independent travellers (reports from September 2024 confirm this) but the access road from Herat takes 13 hours by vehicle in good conditions, travel advisories remain at the highest risk level, and any decision to visit requires careful consideration of current ground conditions, government advisories, and personal risk tolerance.

Engaging With This History From Elsewhere

For those unable or unwilling to travel to Afghanistan, the architectural tradition the minaret represents survives elsewhere. The Qutb Minar in Delhi (12th to 13th century) is accessible and the most direct structural echo of Jam. The great mosques and mausolea of Isfahan in Iran (Masjed-e Jame, Seljuk and Il-Khanid periods) sit within the broader Central Asian Islamic architectural world the Ghurids were part of. Uzbekistan’s Bukhara and Samarkand (Timurid period, somewhat later but architecturally related) are accessible and extraordinary.

The Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Afghan Institute of Archaeology maintain photographic archives and published documentation of the Jam site that provide the best available record of the minaret’s current state and its archaeological context.