Jalalabad

Jalalabad (Persian: جلال اباد - Jalālābād; also known as Pashto: جلالکوټ - Jalālkot) is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul and Kunar rivers near the Laghman valley, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province. It is linked by approximately 95 miles (153 km) of highway with Kabul to the west and about the same distance with Peshawar in Pakistan to the east.Jalalabad is the largest city in eastern Afghanistan as well as its social and business center of activity. Major industries include papermaking, as well agricultural products including oranges, rice, and sugarcane. Jalalabad is one of the leading trading centers with India and Pakistan. In 630 Xuan Zang, the famous Chinese Buddhist monk, arrived in Jalalabad and considered himself to have reached Hindustan. The city was a major center of Gandhara's Greco-Buddhist culture in the past until it was conquered by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century to the 10th century. In a 982 CE book called Hudud-al-Alam it mentions a village near modern Jalalabad where the local king used to have many Hindu, Muslim and Afghan wives. The original name of Jalalabad was Adinapur as also mentioned here: ' in the following year 1505, Babar meditated an incursion into India and proceeded by Jalalabad (then called Adinapur) and the Khaibar Pass to Peshawar.The modern city gained prominence during the reign of the Mughal emperor Babur. The founder of the Mughal Empire of India, Babur, had chosen the site for this city and the city was built by his grandson Jalal-uddin Mohammad Akbar in 1570. British troops were beseiged by Akbar Khan in the city in 1842 during the First Anglo-Afghan War. Today the city is being rebuilt under NATO and UN direction after decades of war and has been receiving an influx of returning refugees largely from Pakistan. The city is considered one of the most important cities of the Pashtun culture.