Herat
هراتThe pearl of Khorasan: Herat was the Timurid capital of painting, poetry and gardens.
Herat has been a city of eastern Khorasan since antiquity. Under the Timurids in the fifteenth century it was one of the great capitals of the Persianate world, the city of the painter Behzad, the poet Jami and the poet and minister Ali-Shir Nava'i.
Its Friday Mosque, rebuilt by the Ghurids and the Timurids, is still covered in tilework, and in the mountains of Ghor the twelfth-century Minaret of Jam rises about sixty-five metres above a remote river valley.
Cities and towns
Heratهرات
The Timurid city of painters and poets
Farahفراه
An old town on the road to Sistan
Chaghcharanچغچران
The centre of Ghor
Landmarksبناها و نشانهها
Friday Mosque of Herat
مسجد جامع هراتA great mosque of Ghurid and Timurid tilework
Minaret of Jam
منار جامA twelfth-century minaret about sixty-five metres tall
Herat through time
Iranian historySeljuks, Mongols and Ilkhanidsسلجوقیان، مغولان و ایلخانان
Turkic and then Mongol conquerors took Iran in turn. The Seljuks built mosques and colleges; the Mongols brought catastrophe, then, as the Ilkhanids, became patrons of history-writing and art.
- Ghiyath al-Din founds the Herat Friday Mosque
- Minaret of Jam inscribed by UNESCO
Poets of Heratشاعران
Nadia Anjuman
نادیا انجمنA young poet of Herat whose one book, of ghazals written under and after the Taliban, made her a symbol of Afghan women's writing.
Stories from hereداستانها
The Timurids
Timur's campaigns were brutal, but his heirs made Samarkand and Herat capitals of Persian painting, poetry, astronomy and architecture.
Reading the motifs
A handful of motifs recur across Persian rugs. Knowing their names makes a rug easier to read; it does not turn them into a code.