Mashhad

Mashhad
Climate diagram
	Temperature in ° C , precipitation in mm
	Source: weather.ir ; wetterkontor.de

Mashhad
	The Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad
	Mashhad
	Mashhad
Basic data
Country:	Iran
Province :	Razavi Khorasan
Coordinates :	36 ° 18 ' N , 59 ° 36' E Coordinates: 36 ° 18 ' N , 59 ° 36' E
Height :	995 m
Residents :	3,001,184 (2016 census)
Time zone :	UTC +3: 30
Website:	www.mashhad.ir
politics
Mayor :	Mohammad Pejman

Maschhad (also Meschhed or Masched , traditionally Maschhäd , in English spelling Mashad ; Persian مشهد, DMG Mašhad / mæʃˈhæd /) is the capital of the Iranian province of Razavi-Khorasan and the second largest city in Iran . It is located 850 km east of Tehran at an altitude of around 985 m on the Kaschaf River .

Mashhad is a political and religious center that is visited by more than 20 million tourists and pilgrims annually. The city is considered one of the seven holy places of Shiite Islam , because there is the holy shrine of the eighth Shiite imam Reza as the only burial place of a Shiite imam on Iranian soil.

The city is located in an agricultural region; The main products are wool and the carpets made from it . From Mashhad there is a 812 km long railway line to Garmsar; from there it is 113 kilometers by train to Tehran. Your airport is considered the third largest in Iran.

history

Central Asia with the Silk Road

The city was founded around the year 823. The name ( Arabic "place of the martyr") arose because there is the tomb of the eighth Shiite imam Ali ibn Musā ar-Rezā , who, according to Shiite tradition, was poisoned there at the behest of the caliph al-Ma'mūn . Before that, the city was a rather insignificant village called Sanābād, which developed into an important pilgrimage site after the Imam's death. A sanctuary was built in honor of the Imam, which today houses one of the richest collections of art and cultural goods in Iran. Various theological schools of Shiite Islam started from here.

Relief in Tūs (near Mashhad), the birthplace of Firdausi , with depictions of motifs from Iranian mythology in Shahnameh

In addition to its religious importance as a shrine of Shiite Islam, the city also gained great political importance in the past when the Persian ruler Nadir Shah , who ruled from 1736 to 1747, made the city his capital.

Although mostly inhabited by Muslims , there have been some religious minorities in Mashhad in the past, mostly Jews , who were forcibly converted to Islam in 1839. They came to be known as Jadid al-Islam ("Newcomers to Islam"). Outwardly, they adapted to the Islamic way of life, but often secretly kept their beliefs and traditions.

The city benefited from its location on the Silk Road . It was a trading point on the way between West and East. The transport links through the Silk Road helped urban development and to become attractive for pilgrims.

The mass demonstrations in May 1992 in particular were characteristic of the political atmosphere in Mashhad at the end of the 20th century. They came out of the resistance to the demolition of slums. A bomb attack on the Imam Reza Shrine took place on June 20, 1994, in which 26 people were killed. Responsible for this was the People's Mujahideen of Iran (MKO) under the leadership of Mehdi Nahvi , who wanted to commemorate the anniversary of its founding on June 20, 1981.

In 1998 and 2003, student unrest broke out in Tehran after the same events .

For 2017, ISESCO has named Mashhad as the capital of Islamic culture in the Asian region.

population

Mashhad has over 3 million inhabitants, mainly of Iranian , Arab and Afghan origin, as well as a large Kurdish minority. Due to immigration from rural areas, the population grew rapidly at the beginning of the 21st century.

Population development of the agglomeration according to the UN:

year	population
1950	173,000
1960	293,000
1970	489,000
1980	892,000
1990	1,680,000
2000	2,073,000
2010	2,661,000
2017	3,042,000

traffic

air traffic

From Airport Mashhad International there are flight connections, particularly in neighboring countries.

railroad

Railway lines in the Iranian railway connect Maschhad with Tehran , Turkmenistan and Bandar Abbas ( north-south track ).

metro

In public transport the city there is a light rail (for some years "Mashhad Metro" ). The railway uses three-unit electric multiple units, 70 of which the Chinese CNR Group Corporation delivered to Changchun in 2010 .

The first, 8 km long section of a second line of the light rail with eight stops was opened on February 20, 2017. The second section is 6.5 km long and is under construction. The section for a third line is also under construction. The first section is to be extended by 11.5 km and later by 17 km in a second section.

Vakilabad Prison

According to reports by human rights groups, there were clandestine mass executions of suspected drug traffickers in Mashhad Central Prison, Vakilabad , in the second half of 2010 and again in 2011. The rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran were not observed, nor were there any fair trials. Neither the convicts, their lawyers, nor their relatives had been informed of the executions beforehand. In Iran, possession of more than 30 grams of narcotics (amphetamines, crack, heroin and other drugs) is punishable by death. In 2005, the public execution of two youths, Ayaz Marhoni, 18, and Mahmoud Asgari, 16, on July 19, 2005 by hanging them on a construction crane in Mashhad attracted worldwide attention (see Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni ).

Climate table

Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Mashhad

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C )	7.2	9.2	13.9	20.8	26.6	32.2	34.4	33.0	28.9	22.3	15.4	9.7	O	21.2
Min. Temperature (° C)	-3.8	-2.1	2.6	8.2	12.2	16.2	18.5	16.6	11.5	6.1	1.7	-1.9	O	7.2

Precipitation ( mm )	33.0	35.2	55.6	46.3	27.6	4.2	1.1	0.8	1.7	8.6	16.4	24.7	Σ	255.2

Hours of sunshine ( h / d )	5.4	5.5	4.8	6.4	9.2	11.4	11.7	11.6	10.2	8.3	6.7	5.4	O	8.1

Rainy days ( d )	8.6	10.4	13.8	12.1	8.7	2.5	0.9	0.5	0.9	3.9	5.3	8.1	Σ	75.7

Humidity ( % )	76	74	70	63	49	37	35	34	38	49	63	72	O	54.9

Source: weather.ir ; wetterkontor.de

Colleges

sons and daughters of the town

Hamed Afagh (* 1983), national basketball player
Reza Abbasi (1570–1635), miniature painter and calligrapher
Mohammed Ali Abtahi (* 1958), Persian clergyman and politician
Nasīr ad-Dīn at-Tūsī (1201–1274), theologian, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, doctor
Mehdi Achawan Sales (1929–1990), poet
Ghazaleh Alizadeh (1949–1996), poet and writer
Anousheh Ansari (* 1966), American entrepreneur and multimillionaire
Ali as-Sistani (* 1930), Shiite clergyman in Iraq
Chodadad Azizi (born 1971), football player
Mohammad-Resa Shajarian (* 1940), singer of classical Persian music
Mohammad-Taqi Bahar (1886–1951), poet and scholar
Mahdi Chahjouei (* 1989), football player
Ali Chamene'i (* 1939), religious leader of Iran (Supreme Legal Scholar)
Esmā'il Cho'i (* 1938), philosopher and writer
Reza Enayati (* 1976), football player
Firdausi (around 940-1020), author of the heroic epic Shāhnāme , a fundamental component of Persian culture
Reza Ghoochannejhad (* 1987), football player
Abbās Hakim (* 1934), university professor, writer, poet and playwright
Kourosh Khani (* 1989), racing car driver
Kayvan Kohanfekr (* 1991), cyclist
Mohammad Taghi Massoudieh (1927–1999), Iranian ethnomusicologist and composer
Nemat Mirzazadeh (* 1936), poet (pseudonym: M. Āsarm)
Alireza Nikbakht Vahedi (born 1980), football player
Rafi Pitts (* 1967), British-Iranian film director
Hossein Sabet (* 1950), carpet dealer, publisher and hotelier
Ali Schariati (1933–1977), sociologist and publicist, born in the suburb of Mazinan