Farkhar District

The major villages of this district are: Shaktan, Shingan, Nahr Ab, Dasht e Robat, Abi Dara, Kurani, Pire Farkhar, Shori, Dehak, Jangle Gaza, Dasht e Konj, Chashma e Garmuk, Shahre Farkhar, Kundal, Mazre Shikh, Khanaqa, Khurmab, Ardishan, Kashan, Sare Kham, Singan, Pyani, Dahne Zure, Khafdara, Sang e Atash, Khawaki, Farhangurd, Khusdeh, Darbaho, Huti, Warook, Ghashob, Yookh, Lujdeh and Mashtan.

Farkhar was a major centre of jihadist opposition to the Soviet occupation. It was the main training centre of the Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Masoud.

The name Farkhār is generally believed to be the Sogdian (and possibly also Khwarazmian) βṛγʾr, the equivalent of the Sanskrit word vihāra (a Buddhist monastery), which it renders in translations of Buddhist texts.[2][3] Another view is that it is not etymologically connected with vihāra but is a Persian word, originally *paru-khuvāthra "full of happiness".[4]

Although Buddhism was eventually replaced by Islam in northern Afghanistan around the 8th century,[5] as late as the 11th-century the Khwarazmian scholar al-Biruni was able to write in a discussion of Buddhists: "their monuments, the bahārs of their idols and their farkhārs, are visible on the borders of Khorasan adjacent to India".[6]

In Persian poetry, the phrase بت فرخار‎ bot-e Farxār "buddha of a temple" or "idol from Farkhar" became proverbial for a beautiful person. One of the earliest poets to use it was Manuchehri, an 11th-century poet at the court of Mas'ud I of Ghazni, who wrote:[7]

هنگام بهارست و جهان چون بت فرخار‎

hengām-e bahār ast o jahān čun bot-e farxār

"It is springtime and the world is like an buddha of Farkhar"

In another example the poet Khwaju (or Khaju) (d. 1352), praising a handsome Turk, writes:[8]

شیراز ترکستان شده کان بت ز فرخار آمده‎

Šīrāz Torkestān šode k'ān bot ze Farxār āmade

"Shiraz has become Turkistan since that "buddha" came from Farkhar"

• Grötzbach, Erwin F. (1999). Farḵār. Encyclopaedia Iranica online.