Mihtarlam ( fa, مهترلام, ps, مهترلام), also spelled Mehtar Lam, is the sixteenth-largest city of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

. It is the capital of Laghman Province and center of Mihtarlam District. It is the only large urban settlement in the province. The town is situated in the valley formed by the

Alishang Alishang is a village, river and a fertile valley of Laghman Province, and also the district headquarters of Mihtarlam District, in eastern Afghanistan. It lies about 40 km northwest of Jalalabad. The fertile Alishang valley drained by th ...

and Alingar rivers, 47 km northwest of the city of

Jalalabad Jalalabad (; Dari/ ps, جلال‌آباد, ) is the fifth-largest city of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 356,274, and serves as the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country, about from the capital Kabul. Jala ...

. There is a paved road between the cities that takes approximately one hour to travel by car. On 13 August 2021, Mihtarlam was seized by

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

fighters, becoming the twenty-third provincial capital to be captured by the Taliban as part of the wider

2021 Taliban offensive A military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and other allied militants led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan based in Kabul and marked the end of the nearly 20-year-old War in Afghanistan, that had begun following the ...

Etymology

Mihtarlam is, according to local legend, named after Lamech, the father of

Noah Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5� ...

. In the

Persian language Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken an ...

, 'mihtar' means headman, lord or chief. Lam is Noah's father's name.

History

Amir

Habibullah Khan Habibullah Khan (Pashto/ Dari: ; 3 June 1872 – 20 February 1919) was the Emir of Afghanistan from 1901 until his death in 1919. He was the eldest son of the Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, whom he succeeded by right of primogeniture in October 190 ...

built Qala-e-Seraj c. 1912–13 in Mihtarlam. On 6 February 2006, two people were killed by police in riots in Mihtarlam in events of the

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy The ''Jyllands-Posten'' Muhammad cartoons controversy (or Muhammad cartoons crisis, da, Muhammedkrisen) began after the Danish newspaper ''Jyllands-Posten'' published 12 editorial cartoons on 30 September 2005, most of which depicted Muhamma ...

. On 26 February 2017, two students were killed and seven others wounded when a rocket landed in Shaheed Mawlawi Abdul Rahman School in Basram. On 14 April 2019, at least seven children were killed when unexploded ordnance detonated in Basram on the outskirts of Mihtarlam. Local officials spent 22 million Afs to rebuild Qala-e-Seraj in 2020. On 2 May 2020, a motorbike bomb exploded outside the provincial prison in Mihtarlam, killing three civilians and injuring four members of the

Afghan security forces The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), also known as the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), were the military and internal security forces of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Structure The Afghan National Security Forc ...

. Noor Mohammad, director of Laghman's provincial prison directorate, was among the injured. On 5 October 2020, Provincial Governor of Laghman, Rahmatullah Yarmal, was slightly wounded after his convoy was targeted by a suicide car bomber. On 24 May 2021, Afghan government forces clashed with Taliban militants in Mihtarlam.

Climate

Mihtarlam has a

cold semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

'' BSk'').

Places of interest

* Qala-e-Seraj *

Hajji Dunya Gul Niazi Jamia Masjid Hajji Dunya Gul Niazi Jamia Masjid ( ps, حاجی دنیا ګل نیازی جامعه مسجد) is a mosque in the city of Mihtarlam in Laghman Province Laghman (Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of t ...

Laghman University Laghman University ( fa, د لغمان پوهنتون) is a state university located in Mihtarlam, Laghman Province, in eastern Afghanistan. It was established in 2011. Laghman University has 72 bachelor's and master's degree teachers in five fa ...

*The Tomb of Lamech is located in the area. Ghaznavid Sultan

Mahmud of Ghazni Yamīn-ud-Dawla Abul-Qāṣim Maḥmūd ibn Sebüktegīn ( fa, ; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030), usually known as Mahmud of Ghazni or Mahmud Ghaznavi ( fa, ), was the founder of the Turkic Ghaznavid dynasty, ruling from 998 to 1030. At t ...

built the shrine, amid gardens, over the site of his presumed grave, 50 kilometres from Mihtarlam.

Sports

In 2021, the first stadium in Laghman opened in Mihtarlam.

References