Mashhad

Mashhad is the capital of Razavi Khorasan province in northeastern Iran, in a valley near the borders with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. It grew around the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth imam of Shia Islam, and pilgrims from across Iran and beyond travel to it each year.

A shrine to the imam was built in the 9th century at the village of Sanabad near the old city of Tus, and the town that grew around it took the name Mashhad. Tus was the home of Ferdowsi, who wrote the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings, in the 10th and 11th centuries. Under the Timurids, Empress Goharshad built a large mosque beside the shrine in 1418, with a blue-tiled courtyard and iwans. Nader Shah made Mashhad his capital in the 18th century, and the city grew as a trading center on the routes to Central Asia.

Saffron, grown on the farms of Khorasan, is dried and packed in Mashhad by companies such as Novin Saffron and sold around the world. Turquoise from the mines of Nishapur, west of the city, is cut and set in silver in the bazaars. Carpets woven in the region are sold in its markets.

The Imam Reza Shrine complex, with its golden dome and minarets, holds courtyards, libraries and museums of carpets and manuscripts. Kooh Sangi Park, around a rocky hill in the south of the city, is a place for family picnics. The resort valleys of Torghabeh and Shandiz, west of the city, have orchards and restaurants that serve grilled lamb.