Razavi Khorasan
خراسان رضویKhorasan, the land where the sun rises: the shrine city of Mashhad, Ferdowsi's Tus and Khayyam's Nishapur.
Mashhad, the place of martyrdom, grew around the tomb of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia Imam, who died here in 818. It is today Iran's second city and its greatest place of pilgrimage.
Nearby is Tus, where Ferdowsi was born and is buried, and to the west Nishapur, the city of Omar Khayyam and Attar, once one of the great cities of the Islamic world. Khorasan itself means the land where the sun rises.
In the Shahnameh
Ferdowsi's tomb at Tus, rebuilt in the 1930s, is the closest thing the Shahnameh has to a shrine, and readers still recite the epic there.
Cities and towns
Mashhadمشهد
The shrine city of Imam Reza
Nishapurنیشابور
The city of Khayyam and Attar
Tusتوس
Ferdowsi's birthplace and resting place
Sabzevarسبزوار
An old town on the Silk Road to the west
Landmarksبناها و نشانهها
Tomb of Ferdowsi
آرامگاه فردوسیThe mausoleum of the poet of the Shahnameh at Tus
Tomb of Omar Khayyam
آرامگاه خیامA modern monument of 1963 in a garden in Nishapur
Shrine of Imam Reza
حرم امام رضاThe great shrine at the heart of Mashhad
Razavi Khorasan through time
Iranian historyThe Arab conquest and the Persian revivalفتح اعراب و احیای زبان فارسی
Islam reached Iran with the Arab armies of the 7th century. Persian survived, took on a new script and, under dynasties such as the Samanids, returned as one of the great literary languages of the world.
- Imam Reza dies at Sanabad, near Tus
- Ferdowsi completes the Shahnameh
- Death of Omar Khayyam in Nishapur
- Goharshad Mosque completed
- Ferdowsi mausoleum inaugurated at Tus
- Khayyam monument completed, by Houshang Seyhoun
Poets of Razavi Khorasanشاعران
Ferdowsi
فردوسیThe poet of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran, credited with keeping the Persian language and its old stories alive.
Omar Khayyam
خیامMathematician and astronomer of Nishapur, known to the world for quatrains on time, wine and doubt.
Attar
عطارDruggist of Nishapur and author of The Conference of the Birds, the great allegory of the soul's journey.
Iraj Mirza
ایرج میرزاA Qajar prince who brought everyday speech, wit and a sharp social eye into Persian verse at the turn of the 20th century.
Mohammad-Taqi Bahar
محمدتقی بهارThe last great classical poet of Iran: poet laureate, constitutionalist, journalist, politician and the founder of modern Persian stylistics.
Mehdi Akhavan-Sales
مهدی اخوان ثالثThe poet of Winter, who fused the grandeur of Khorasani classical verse with Nima's new forms and a deep sense of loss.
Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani
محمدرضا شفیعی کدکنیPoet under the name M. Sereshk and the most influential scholar of Persian literature of his generation.
Stories from hereداستانها
The Persian leopard
The great cat that never left: the Persian leopard still hunts the mountains of Iran and the Caucasus, sometimes within sight of Tehran's apartment blocks.
The goitered gazelle
A small, fast desert gazelle, and in Persian poetry the shape of the beloved's eye and the image of a love that will not be caught.
The hoopoe
A crested bird of village orchards became the guide of Attar's Conference of the Birds, leading thirty birds to the king they turn out to be.
Seleucids and Parthians
After Alexander, Greek kings ruled Iran for a time, until the Parthians, horsemen from the north-east, built an empire that lasted nearly five centuries and held Rome at bay.
The Arab conquest and the Persian revival
Islam reached Iran with the Arab armies of the 7th century. Persian survived, took on a new script and, under dynasties such as the Samanids, returned as one of the great literary languages of the world.
Seljuks, Mongols and Ilkhanids
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.
The Timurids
Timur's campaigns were brutal, but his heirs made Samarkand and Herat capitals of Persian painting, poetry, astronomy and architecture.
Afsharids, Zands and Qajars
A soldier-king who sacked Delhi, a regent who rebuilt Shiraz, and a dynasty that made Tehran the capital and lived through Iran's Constitutional Revolution.