centuries In 1506 Uzbeks entered Balkh under the command of Muhammad Shaybani. They were briefly expelled by the Safavids in 1510. Babur ruled Balkh between 1511 and 1512 as a vassal of the Persian Safavids. But he was defeated twice by the Khanate of Bukhara and was forced to retire to Kabul. Balkh was ruled by Bukhara except for Safavid rule between 1598 and 1601. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan fruitlessly fought them there for several years in the 1640s. Nevertheless, Balkh was ruled by the Mughal Empire from 1641 and turned into a subah (imperial top-level province) in 1646 by Shah Jahan, only to be lost in 1647, just like the neighboring Badakhshan Subah. Balkh was the government seat of Aurangzeb in his youth. In 1736 it was conquered by Nader Shah. After his assassination, local Uzbek Hadji Khan declared the independence of Balkh in 1747, under the Maimana Khanate. In 1751, Balkh was captured by Ahmad Shah Durrani of the Durrani Empire, and from that time it remained under Afghan rule. In 1866, after a malaria outbreak during the flood season, Balkh lost its administrative status to the neighbouring city of Mazar-i-Sharif (Mazār-e Šarīf), about southeast of Balkh. 20th to 21st centuries In 1911 Balkh comprised a settlement of about 500 houses of Afghan settlers, a colony of Jews and a small bazaar set in the midst of a waste of ruins and acres of debris. Entering by the west (Akcha) gate, one passed under three arches, in which the compilers recognized the remnants of the former Jama Masjid (, Friday Mosque). The outer walls, mostly in utter disrepair, were estimated about in perimeter. In the south-east, they were set high on a mound or rampart, which indicated a Mongol origin to the compilers. The fort and citadel to the north-east were built well above the town on a barren mound and were walled and moated. There was, however, little left of them but the remains of a few pillars. The Green Mosque (), named for its green-tiled dome (see photograph top right corner) and said to be the tomb of the Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa, had nothing but the arched entrance remaining of the former madrasah (, school). The town was garrisoned as of 1911 by a few thousand irregulars (kasidars), the regular troops of Afghan Turkestan being cantoned at Takhtapul, near Mazari Sharif. The gardens to