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This study examines the traditional mosques in the Quzzat quarter of Herat Old City, Afghanistan, after WWII. The study discovered urban developments, typology of mosques, as well as destructions, changes, and transformations of the traditional mosques. It involved compiling data, conducting a field survey, examining historical maps, reviewing published works to explain constructions, and finding out how transformations took place. Twenty-nine mosques are constructed in the study area. Twenty-five of them were originally constructed before WWII with traditional local material, and four were constructed after WWII; of these four, three are modern (concrete) and one is made of traditional material. Twelve out of the twenty-five traditional mosques still exist in traditional form, while twelve have been transformed, and one has been damaged. Modern mosques are found to the northwest of the quarter, where the city wall was razed, flattened, and transformed into residential area. Transformations started after WWII and have occurred mainly in the southern parts of the quarter. The majority of the mosques in the northern areas are preserved, while in the southern regions they are transformed, and modern constructions were carried out in the newly urbanized areas.

This study aimed to find out the distribution, destructions, developments, transformations, and processes of changes of mosques after WWII in Herat Old City, which is a medieval city still preserved and standing. One hundred and eight mosques were constructed, 2 of them were demolished, and 106 still exist. Twenty-eight are modern mosques, and 80 are traditional. Twenty-two out of 80 are preserved, 56 have been transformed, and 2 were damaged, or demolished. Modern mosques are mainly located in the second and fourth quarters, while traditional mosques are distributed in all four quarters. The transformation started in the 1950s after WWII, continued in the 1970s, 1990s, and 2000s, and has occurred in all four quarters, slightly higher in the second and fourth quarters. Through a field survey, data were collected, findings were combined, unified, and plotted on the map, and the mosques were categorized based on building material.

This study aims to investigate and appraise works produced in Afghanistan, specifically considering Herati Metalwork in Afghanistan during the different dynasties who ruled in Herat, such as the Ghaznavids (975-1187), Seljuk (1037-1194), Ghurids (1170-1215), Ilkhanids (1256-1335) and the Timurid (1370-1507). Herat was a very important place for producing metalwork’s inlaid with either gold or silver, in which the inlay was usually presented calligraphy or naturalistic motifs. The thesis aims to shed light on the metalwork objects which were produced in the city of Herat; the case study considered in this research will be the metalwork of Herat located at the Museum of Islamic art (MIA) in Doha, Qatar. The method used in this thesis is focused on analyzing the different motifs, techniques used in producing the metalwork objects in Herat. The thesis will also engage a comparison between some of the metalwork objects from the Museum of Islamic art in Doha, with some other Herati metalwork objects located in different museums. This study reveals that the metalwork of Herat are considered the best metalwork produced in the world due to the location of the city of Herat, since its located on the trade routes from the Levant to India and China, further commanding a rich hinterland.

InFrontier Fictions, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet looks at the efforts of Iranians to defend, if not expand, their borders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and explores how their conceptions of national geography influenced cultural and political change. The \"frontier fictions,\" or the ways in which the Iranians viewed their often fluctuating borders and the conflicts surrounding them, played a dominant role in defining the nation. On these borderlands, new ideas of citizenship and nationality were unleashed, refining older ideas of ethnicity. Kashani-Sabet maintains that land-based conceptions of countries existed before the advent of the modern nation-state. Her focus on geography enables her to explore and document fully a wide range of aspects of modern citizenship in Iran, including love of homeland, the hegemony of the Persian language, and widespread interest in archaeology, travel, and map-making. While many historians have focused on the concept of the \"imagined community\" in their explanations of the rise of nationalism, Kashani-Sabet is able to complement this perspective with a very tangible explanation of what connects people to a specific place. Her approach is intended to enrich our understanding not only of Iranian nationalism, but also of nationalism everywhere.

Examines points related to Soviet Union's planning for invasion of Afghanistan, tactics for meeting threat posed by insurgents, and operations to remove Soviet forces from Afghanistan while installing \"viable, if not popular,\" Afghan government.

Examines how intelligence performance led to failure to foresee Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, by analyzing content and sources of information; and how intelligence was obtained, interpreted, and presented; compares evidence with that available from Soviet archives.