ART. XXIV.—Description of Persia and Mesopotamia in the Year 1340 A.B
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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. ART. XXIV.—Description of Persia and Mesopotamia in the year 1340 A.B. from the Nuzhat-al-Kulub of Hamd-Allah Mu&tawfi, with a summary of the contents of that work. By Gr. LE STRANGE. {Continued from p. 536, July Number, 1902.) Chapter 17. Khurasan. Contents: Nishapur, 185m; Shadyakh, 185M; Isfarayin, 186y; Bayhak and Sabzivar, 186/; Biyar, 186»; Juwayn, I860; Jajarm, lS6r ; Khabushan, 186M; ShakkSn, 186w; Tus, 186a:; Kalat and Jirm, 187«; Marlnan, 187/; Herat, 187A; Asfuzar, 187s; Fushanj, 187t; Malan and Bakharz, 187«; Badghis, 187a; Jam, 188«; Chast, 188y; Khwaf, 188;'; Zawah, 188«; Ghur, Balkh, Tukharistan, Bamiyan, and Panjhlr, I880; Juzjan, 188£; Khutlan, 188M; Saminjan, 188MI; Tayikan, 188a;; Talikan, 189« ; Faryab and Kavadiyan, 1893 ; Kalif, 189^; Marv Shahijan, 189/; Shaburkan, 189^ and 1905; Ablvard, 189s; Khavaran, 189*!; Khavardan, 189M; Sarakhs, 189z; Marv-ar-Eud, 1903; Maraz, 190«; Kal'ah May, 190/ Khurasan in the middle ages was far more extensive than is the province of this name in modern Persia. Mediaeval Khurasan extended on the north-east to the Oxus, and included all the districts round Herat which now belong to Afghanistan. On the other hand, the small province of Kumis, on the northern boundary of the Great Desert, which at the present day is included within the limits of Persian Khurasan, was of old a separate district, and formed in the time of Mustawfi a province apart, Hamd-Allah divides Khurasan into four quarters (Rub') J.B.A.S. 1902. 47 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Arizona, on 18 Jun 2017 at 14:22:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00029804 734 PERSIA UNDER THE MONGOLS. or districts; namely, Nishapur, Herat, Balkh, and Great Marv. Of Nishapur city he gives a full account, describing its plan, which had originally been laid out after the fashion of a chess-board, and noting its walls and watercourses. The Arabs had written the name Naysabur. Mustawfi devotes a paragraph to the great suburb of Shadyakh, which Yakut (iii, 228) from his personal knowledge has also described. This had been built, or rebuilt, after the great earthquake of the year 605 (A.D. 1208) which had laid Nishapur in ruins; but both suburb and city were again destroyed by the earthquake of 679 (A.D. 1280), and a third city of Nishapur was the capital of Khurasan when Mustawfi wrote. In regard to Shadyakh its ruins still exist some three miles to the east of the modern city (Yate, Khurasan, p. 412). Nishapur had its chief water supply from a stream that flowed down from the mountains to the north-east of the town ; and forty water-mills were turned by the stream in the two leagues of its course through the plain after leaving the hills. Five leagues distant from the city, on the water- shed of the range dividing Nishapur from the Mashhad valley, was a small lake, about one league round, called Buhayrah Chashmah Sabz—'the Lake of the Green Spring'— recently visited and described by Colonel Yate {Khurasan, p. 353), from which Mustawfi reports that water flowed, either way, east and west. Here the Amir Chupan had built a kiosk on the brink of the spring, of which many wonders are told, and spectres were seen rising from the waters at certain seasons; further, the lake was said to be unfathomable (L. 226£). A great number of streams flowed down from this mountain range to the plain of Nishapur, chief among these being the Shurah-riid or Salt Eiver, into which at flood times most of the lesser streams ultimately drained, coming from the various sides of the plain. Mustawfi (in part copied by the Jihan Numa, p. 328) mentions the names of a great number of these, to wit, the Dizbad river, flowing to the village of this name on the Herat road, the Ab-i-Sahr (or Sakhtar), the Khayrud or Ab-i-Kharu, the Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Arizona, on 18 Jun 2017 at 14:22:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00029804 PERSIA UNDER THE MONGOLS.. 735 Tusankan or Tushkan-rud, the Ab-i-Pusht-i-Farush, the , Khajank river, the Ab-i-Farkhak, the Ab-i-Dahr, and the Ab-i-'Atshabad—'Thirst River' — coming down by the Maydan-i-Sultan, but of which the water-supply so often failed as fully to deserve its evil name (L. 219q to 2206). The town of Isfarayin [1] in the centre of the plain of this name, at the ruins known as Shahr-i-Bilkis, recently described by Colonel Yate (Khurasan, p. 378), was celebrated for its castle called Diz-Zar, ' the Golden fort.' Bayhak was the capital of the great district of the same name lying south of Isfarayin, and its ruins lie close to Sabzivar [2], which is the present chief town of this district. Biyar [3] lies on the border of the Great Desert, and is marked as Biyar-Jumand on our maps. Juwayn is the name of the plain south and , west of Isfarayin (see Eoute x): its chief town is Fariyumad, and Mustawfi mentions the hamlets of Bahrabad, Dav, Kazrl, and Khudashah [4]. The city of Jajarm is at the western limit of the Juwayn plain on the river Jaghan-rud (L. 220e); in its neighbourhood is the mountain known as Kuh-i-Shakak (Sakan, Sitan, etc., are other readings of the MSS.), whence a stream flowed forth from a marvellous cave (L. 205m). Khabushan, now known as Kuchan, is in the Mashhad valley to the east of Juwayn ; the city had been rebuilt by Hulagii, and the surrounding district was known as that of TTstuwa. The town of Shakkan (or Shafan) I am unable to identify. Tus, one of the ancient capitals of Khurasan, is now a complete ruin; it lies four leagues distance to the north-west of the shrines at Mashhad [5], which last is the modern capital of Khurasan and means ' the Place of Martyrdom,' originally called the village of Sanabad. There lie buried at Mashhad the Imam Eiza and the Caliph Harun-ar-Rashld, with many other famous personages, their tombs being surrounded by what in the time of Mustawfi had already come to be a large city. In the mountain called Kuh Gulshan near Tus was a great cavern with a spring welling from its depths, of which many wonders are related (L. 206m, and see Yate, Khurasan, p. 351). The Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Arizona, on 18 Jun 2017 at 14:22:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00029804 736 PERSIA UNDER THE MONGOLS. great mountain fastness of Kilat,1 with Jinn for its chief city, lies to the north of Mashhad, and is now generally known as Kilat-i-Nadirl, from the fact of Nadir Shah having stored his Indian treasure here. This is one of the earliest notices of Kilat, for it is not mentioned by the earlier Arab geographers, but it became famous in later times, notably after its siege by Timur, as described by 'All of Yazd in his Zafar Namah (i, 328). In 1875 it was visited and described by Colonel Macgregor {Khurasan, ii, 51). The town of Marlnan (the MSS. give Marsan, Hafarmiyan, and many other variants) was within the limits of Kilat. Herat was watered by the canals of the river Harl-rud. It had a famous castle called Shamlram, built over the ruins of an ancient Fire-temple, on a mountain two leagues distant from the city, and Mustawfi adds a long account of the town, its markets and its shrines, giving the names of the various city canals derived from the Harl-rud (L. 216p). The river of Herat rose in the mountains of Ghur; after passing Herat it watered the Fushanj district, and thence flowed north to join the Sarakhs river (the modern Tejend- ab). Asfuzar, now generally called Sabzivar of Afghanistan, is a town at some distance to the south of Herat, and is mentioned in the Itineraries (Route xvii, and Ibn Hawkal, p. 305). Fushanj [6], or Bushanj according to the same authorities, must be identical with the present city of Ghuriyan lying west of Herat near the Harl-rud ; and under the name Fushanj it sustained a siege by Timur, as described in the Zafar Namah (i, 312), but I have been unable to discover when its present name of Ghuriyan first came into use.2 According to Mustawfi, Kusuy, or Kusri [7] and 1 Kilat, which has come to be the name of more than one important fortress- town of western Asia, is a word that apparently came into use at the close of the middle ages, and is presumably a Persianized form of the Arabic Kal'ah (spelt with dotted k), meaning ' a castle.' It is worth noting that the name Kilat does not occur in Yakut or, I believe, in any of the earlier Arab geographers. 2 The name Fushanj, or Bushanj, has apparently gone completely out of use ; on the other hand, I can find no mention of this Ghuriyan in any Eastern author. Yakut (iii, 821, 824) mentions Ghiiraj, which he says is commonly pronounced Ghurah, and is a village near the gate of the city of Herat; and there was the village of Ghuriyan near Marv.