Tarikhaneh

The Tarikhaneh in Damghan, on the road along the southern edge of the Alborz, is one of the oldest surviving mosques in Iran. It is generally dated to the eighth century, within the first two centuries after the Arab conquest of Iran, though scholars disagree on the precise date. Its name is often explained as “house of God”, from a word used in some Turkic and Persian dialects, but this too is debated.

The mosque follows the early Arab plan: an open courtyard surrounded by arcades, with a deeper prayer hall on the side facing Mecca. What makes it remarkable is how it is built. The arcades rest on massive round piers of baked brick, very thick and squat, and carry pointed arches. Both piers and vaults belong to the building tradition of Sasanian Iran, so the building shows the moment when an Islamic plan was realised by Iranian builders in their own idiom.

Next to it rises a slender brick minaret, added in the Seljuk period in the eleventh century, decorated with bands of patterned brickwork and a Kufic inscription. Visitors can walk among the arcades, partly restored in modern times. Damghan also has a Seljuk tomb tower and the prehistoric mound of Tepe Hissar, so the town rewards a stop on the way between Tehran and Mashhad.