Farahabad (Mazanderan)

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Inner courtyard of the Farahabad Mosque

Farahabad ( Persian فرح‌آباد (ساری), DMG Faraḥābād (-e Sārī) , 'place of happiness') is a place on the coast of the Caspian Sea in the northern Iranian province of Mazanderan . Originally there was a village called Tajan on the river of the same name, until the Persian ruler Shah Abbas I had a palace built on this site in 1611, around which a city grew.

Abbas I settled thousands of Armenians and Jews in the city, whom he had resettled from Georgia and the foothills of the Caucasus. He granted the Jews far-reaching privileges - similar to the Armenian merchants from New Julfa near Isfahan - as he hoped that this would strengthen the production and trade of silk.

The ruler himself spent every winter in Farahabad and died here in 1629. He had the Farahabad complex built.

The Italian traveler Pietro della Valle visited the city in 1618 and described the extent of its walls as comparable to Rome and Constantinople.

Abbas I's successors neglected the place. In 1668 Russian Cossacks under Stenka Razin attacked the city as part of their raid in Persia and laid it to rubble.

Today there is a village here with a popular bathing beach, which can be reached via an expressway from Sari, 30 km away. From the Safavid city there is still the restored mosque, which was built around 1625 according to a construction plan similar to the Shahm mosque in Isfahan, the ruins of the palace and the remains of a bridge over the river Tajanrud.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Roger Savory: Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge University Press, 2007 reissue) pp.96-100 gives "Tahan" as the name of the village.
  2. ↑ . See Aptin Khanbaghi: The Fire, the Star and the Cross. Minority Religions in Medieval and Early Modern Iran. 2006, ISBN 1-84511-056-0 , p. 107 f.
  3. ↑ ^ cf. entry "Farahabad" in Encyclopedia Iranica http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/farahabad

literature

  • H. Nahavandi, Y. Bomati, Shah Abbas, empereur de Perse (1587-1629) (Perrin, Paris, 1998) pp.222-226
  • Roger Savory Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge University Press, 2007 reissue) pp.96-100

Web links

Commons : Farah Abad, Sari  - collection of images