The Name
The Rigveda and the Avesta speak of the Kubha River c. 3000 B.C. and Ptolemy, writing c. 150 A.D., speaks of Kabura, the capital of Kabolitae on the Kophen River. Still later, Pahlevi texts of
the late Sassanian period refer to the city of Kapul. From these and other references, scholars have written learned dissertations.
In the absence of historical certainty, however, legend has been busy creating some delightfully charming tales concerning the origins of this name Kabul.
Sir Alexander Burnes tells us, for instance, that when he was in Kabul in 1834, it was popularly believed that two sons of Noah, Cakool and Habool, were the founders of the Afghan race. When it
came to naming their greatest city, the two brothers quarreled bitterly until at last a compromise was reached: each would give to the city one syllable of his name. Thus it was that the city
came to be called Ca-bool. Legend has taken considerable license here. In Persian, Adam's two sons, Cain and Abel, are known as Cabil and Habil. The Moghul Emperor Babur tells us Cain was the
founder of Kabul and that he visited his tomb soon after his arrival. It was situated, he said, in the gardens south of Bala Hissar
in the area now known as Shohada-i-Salehin.
Again, it is said that in the distant beginnings of time, the valley of Kabul was a large lake in the center of which lay a beautiful island where a musician led a carefree life devoted to
music and dancing. Hearing of this idyllic state, a great king came to the valley only to find upon arrival that deep waters around the island made passage impossible. Determined, he gave
orders for great quantities of straw (kah) to be brought from surrounding villages and more distant provinces. With this, a long bridge (pul) was built. The king found the valley so delightful
that he subsequently built a city there, naming it after that first Bridge of Straw, Ka-pul. Advocates of this theory point for support to the marshes of Kalah-i-Ashmat-Khan and
Chaman-i-Wazirabad and to the heights of Bemaru and Siah Sang.
The briefest version refers to Kabul's fame as a commercial center by pointing out that the bazaars are so temptingly filled that one can spend money (pul) in Kabul as though it was only straw
(kah).
A poetic reading of the name was composed by Mahmud Tarzi in a couplet which pays tribute to this city nestled within the mountains. In Persian, Kabul is written with the letters 
KABL.
The K with slight modification may become a G which together with the final L forms 
gul, the word for rose. The intermediate 
AB means water. Thus it may be written:
If you ask me the name of my abode;
It is a drop of water within a rose.
