Balkh

Balkh (ancient Bactra), in northern Afghanistan in the historic region of Khurasan, was one of the great cities of the pre-modern Islamic east, an early centre of Hanafi law and Sufism known as 'the mother of cities.' The family of Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273) came from the Balkh region before migrating west, and the early Qur'an commentator Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 767) took his nisba al-Balkhi.