Registan in the context of Tilya Kori Madrasa

The Baba Mountain range (Pashto: بابا غر Bâbâ Ǧar; Persian: کوه بابا Kōh-i Bābā; or Kūh-e Bābā; Kōh or Kūh meaning ′mountain′, Bābā meaning ′father′) is the western extension of the Hindu Kush, and the origin of Afghanistan's Kabul, Arghandab, Helmand, Farah, Hari, Murghab, Balkh, and Kunduz rivers. The mountain range is crowned by Foladi peak (or Shah Fuladi) rising 5048 m (some old maps and dictionaries: 5143 m) above sea level, and is located south of Bamyan.

The Koh-e Firoz plateau merges farther to the west by gentle gradients into the Paropamise, and which may be traced across the Hari River to Mashad. To the southwest of the culminating peaks, long spurs divide the upper tributaries of the Helmand River, and separate its basin from that of the Farah River. These spurs retain a considerable altitude, marked by peaks exceeding 11,000 ft (3,400 m). They sweep in a broad band of roughly parallel ranges to the southwest, preserving their general direction till they abut on the Great Registan desert to the west of Kandahar, where they terminate in a series of detached and broken anticlinals whose sides are swept by a sea of encroaching sand. The long, straight, level-backed ridges which divide the Argandab, the Tarnak and Arghastan valleys, flank the route from Kandahar to Ghazni.The high jagged peaks above the Hajigak Pass, blue-black and shining, shimmer in the sunlight for they contain an estimated reserve of 2 billion tons of iron ore; Asia's richest deposit. The very steep descent from the Hajigak Pass (3,700 m (12,100 ft)) with its numerous hairpin bends leads to the sparkling Kalu River, known locally as the Sauzao or Green Waters. It is bordered by poplars and several charming villages.

Madrasa (/məˈdræsə/, also US: /-rɑːs-/, UK: /ˈmædrɑːsə/; Arabic: مدرسة [madˈrasa] , pl. مدارس madāris), sometimes romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary education or higher learning. In countries outside the Arab world, the word usually refers to a specific type of religious school or college for the study of the religion of Islam (loosely equivalent to a seminary in Christianity and a yeshiva or beit midrash in Judaism), though this may not be the only subject studied.

In an architectural and historical context, the term generally refers to a particular kind of institution in the historic Muslim world that primarily taught Sharia (Islamic law) and fiqh (jurisprudence), as well as other subjects on occasion. The origin of the madrasa is widely credited to Nizam al-Mulk, a vizier under the Seljuks in the 11th century, who was responsible for building the first network of official madrasas in Iran, Mesopotamia, and Khorasan. From there, the construction of madrasas spread across much of the Muslim world over the next few centuries, often adopting similar models of architectural design.