Qazvin


Qazvin is a city in the Central District of Qazvin County, Qazvin province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is the largest city in the province.
Qazvin was a capital of the Safavid Empire for over forty years and nowadays is known as the calligraphy capital of Iran. It is famous for its traditional confectioneries, carpet patterns, poets, political newspaper and Pahlavi influence on its accent.
Located in northwest of Tehran, in the Qazvin Province, it is at an altitude of about above sea level. Due to its position at the south of the rugged Alborz range called KTS Atabakiyam, its climate is cold but dry.

History

Qazvin has sometimes been of central importance at major moments of Iranian history. It was captured by invading Arabs and destroyed by Hulagu Khan. In 1555, after the Ottoman capture of Tabriz, Shah Tahmasp made Qazvin the capital of the Safavid Empire, a status that Qazvin retained for half a century until Abbas the Great moved the capital to Isfahan in 1598. It is a provincial capital today that has been an important cultural center throughout its history.
Qazvin is located at a crossroad connecting Tehran, Tabriz, and the Caspian Sea region, which has historically been a major factor in its commercial importance. However, it never rivalled other major Iranian cities like Ray, Nishapur, or Isfahan during the Middle Ages. One reason is that its growth is constrained by a lack of water. Until fairly recently, the entire Qazvin plain was irrigated by just a single qanat and four small streams.

Prehistory

The earliest remains of prehistoric humans have been discovered in a cave called Qaleh Kurd where archaeologists discovered a Neanderthal tooth. Archaeological findings in the Qazvin plain reveal urban agricultural settlements for at least nine millennia.

Sasanian era

Qazvin was founded by Shapur I, the second ruler of the Sasanian Empire. It was refounded by Shapur II, who established a coin mint there. Under the Sasanians, Qazvin functioned as a frontier town against the neighbouring Daylamites, who made incursions into the place.

Early Islamic dynasties

Qazvin came under the expanding Rashidun Caliphate in 644, during the reign of Umar. It was taken by Al-Bara' ibn 'Azib, who besieged the city and received a request for a sulh from its inhabitants. They were offered the same terms as Abhar had earlier, but the people of Qazvin did not want to pay jizya and supposedly accepted Islam instead. Al-Bara' then used Qazvin as a base for further campaigns into Daylam and Gilan. Later, when Sa'id ibn al-'As was appointed governor of Persia under the Umayyads, he built a new town called Hājjāj at Qazvin.
Two more new cities were founded at Qazvin during the late 8th century. The Abbasid caliph Musa al-Hadi founded a new city called Mādina Mūsā next to Hājjāj. He bought nearby Rustamābād and designated it as a waqf for the benefit of the new town. His freedman Mubarak, a Turk, also founded a new town at Qazvin in 792/3, called Mubarakābād after himself.
Harun al-Rashid visited Qazvin while on his way to Khorasan and saw firsthand the locals' struggles as a result of the Daylamite raids. At the same time, he was impressed by their efforts to fend off the Daylamites. Harun suspended Qazvin from having to pay the kharaj tax and instead ordered an annual payment of 10,000 silver dirhams. He had a wall constructed around the new cities of Mādina Mūsā and Mubarakābād and also built a congregational mosque in the city, and he endowed several buildings as a waqf to support the mosque. The mosque no longer exists today.
Harun's wall was not completed until 868, over half a century after his death. It had 206 towers and 12 gates and was built out of mud brick except for the battlements and gates. When it was finished, more people began to settle in Qazvin. Its population was heavily Arab during this time.
Qazvin remained an important frontier town during the wars between the Abbasid caliphate and the Alid rulers of the Caspian. The caliph al-Mu'tasim appointed Fakhr al-Dawla Abu Mansur Kufi as governor of Qazvin around 838; he remained governor for the next 40 years. For a couple of years around 865/6, the Alids under Hasan ibn al-Bakir took control of Qazvin, and Fakhr al-Dawla continued to serve as governor under them.
Qazvin briefly came under Samanid rule in 905/6 when Ilyas ibn Ahmad became governor. The next year, though, the governorship passed to Fakhr al-Dawla Abu Ali, an ancestor of Hamdallah Mustawfi, and he served as governor for the next 27 years. In 913/4 Qazvin was put under Ali ibn al-Muqtadir along with Ray, Dinavar, Zanjan, Abhar, and Tarom.
In 916/7, Yusuf ibn Abi'l-Saj unsuccessfully attempted to seize control of Qazvin. He was defeated by Asfar ibn Shiruya, who made himself ruler of the whole region between Tabaristan and Gorgan and Qom and Hamadan. In 927/8 Qazvin was the site of a battle between Asfar and an army sent by the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir against him. The people of Qazvin assisted the Abbasid army, but Asfar won the battle. As punishment for siding against him, Asfar destroyed parts of the city, killed many of its inhabitants, and imposed monetary demands on the city.
After Asfar's death, the Buyid ruler Rukn al-Dawla took control of Qazvin, and it remained part of Buyid territory for over a hundred years. There was rioting in the city in 968/9 and the Buyid vizier Abu'-Fath Ali ibn Muhammad was sent to restore order. When that was done, he imposed a fine of 1,200,000 dirhams on the city.

Ghaznavids, Seljuks, and Khwarazmshahs

Qazvin came under Ghaznavid control in 1030. Around 1033/4, Abu Ali Muhammad Ja'fari became governor of Qazvin. He and his sons continued to hold power in Qazvin for almost 60 years. The last of these sons, Fakhr ul-Ma'ali Sharafshah, died in 1091 or 1092 and was survived by one daughter. He was extremely wealthy and he and his followers owned most of the land in the area. The annual income from his landed estates was said to be 366,000 gold dinars.
In 1038/9, along with an alliance of the Ghuzz, the Daylamite ruler Fanna Khusraw came to Qazvin after already sacking Ray the year before. The locals bought them off for a sum of 7,000 dinars. Later in 1042/3, the Seljuk sultan Tughril besieged Qazvin. In 1046 Qazvin was visited by Nasir-i Khusraw, who left the following account:
Under the Seljuks, Qazvin appears to have formed part of the central territory around the capital in Isfahan that was more or less directly ruled by the sultans, who were able to levy taxes and appoint governors here. However, despite Qazvin's position close to the Isma'ili strongholds like Alamut, the Seljuks do not seem to have considered it an important governorship to be given to an important amir. After the death of the last Ja'fari ruler of Qazvin, Malikshah appointed Imad ud-Dawla Turan ibn Alfaqash as governor of Qazvin and instructed him to transfer his household and possessions there so that he would be more invested in its governance. Later, in 1118/9, Sanjar assigned Qazvin to the future Tughril II along with other territories. In terms of religion, Seljuk-era Qazvin was mostly Sunni, although it did have a Shi'i quarter.
The oldest known structure in Qazvin that still exists is the dome chamber of the city's Jameh mosque, which according to its inscription was built from 1106 to 1114. Its patron was the amir Abu Mansur Khumartash ibn Abd Allah al-'Imadi. It was built adjoining an earlier madrasa that was itself built in the 10th century by the sahib Isma'il ibn Abbad. The 13th-century writer Zakariya Qazvini wrote that the dome was "unparalleled anywhere" in size; he wrote that "the masons despaired of vaulting such a huge space until a passing boy suggested that they fill the interior with straw". According to Hamdallah Mustawfi, two iwans were added to the mosque in 1153 ; the present-day north iwan is Seljuk in style and may be one of them. The present-day mosque mostly dates from the Safavid and Qajar periods; it is one of the largest mosques in Iran.
Another early monument is the Heydariyeh Mosque, which was probably built a few years after the Jameh mosque. Its original function is unclear; it could have been either a mosque or a madrasa. It features a very early use of glazed ornamentation. A unique architectural style emerged in Seljuk-era Qazvin that influenced architecture in surrounding regions, such as the mosques at Sojas and Ghorveh.
Not long after the Isma'ilis established themselves at Alamut, Abu'l-Mahasin Ruyani persuaded the Qazvinis to have anyone coming from the direction of Alamut to be out to death, to prevent people from developing sympathies for the enemy after spending time with them. In 1129 the Isma'ilis killed about 400 people in Qazvin in retaliation for their envoy being killed in Isfahan. Under the grandmaster Muhammad ibn Buzurg-Ummid the Isma'ilis conducted raids against Qazvin. In 1165 the Isma'ilis of Rudbar built a fortress very close to Qazvin, which threatened the city. In 1176, the city's walls were rebuilt by the Seljuk vizier Sadr al-Din al-Maraghi.
Qazvin later came under the Khwarazmshahs. Isma'ili raids continued during this period. When Jalal al-Din Hasan III succeeded as Isma'ili imam in 1210 he claimed to have converted to Sunni Islam and took the name "Naw-Musalmān" meaning "New Muslim". The people of Qazvin were skeptical and demanded proof, and he obliged by inviting some of Qazvin's leading men to Alamut Castle where he publicly burned Isma'ili texts for them to see. Also in 1210, the city was damaged by the forces of Kingdom of Georgia sent by Tamar the Great, as per the retribution for destroying Georgian-controlled Ani by the Muslim forces that left 12,000 Christians dead.

The Mongols

Meanwhile, a new threat was looming – the Mongols. Qazvin changed hands several times during their wars with the Khwarazmshahs, and in 1220 the Mongols massacred the city's inhabitants.
It was under the Mongols that there was large-scale Turkic migration into the Qazvin area. Although at least some must have settled there during Seljuk times, it was during the Mongols that they started coming in larger numbers. Several prominent Turkic families established themselves in Qazvin. One of them was the Būlātmūriyān, who first came during the rule of Ögedei when their member Amir Takash was appointed shihna or military governor of Qazvin. Another was the Qarāvulān, who acquired large landed estates but had already lost their prominence by the time of Hamdallah Mustawfi. However, most of the main families at his time still traced their roots back to an Arab founder. The religion was mostly Sunni of the Shafi'i madhhab, although there were Shi'i and Hanafi Sunni minorities.
Mangu Qa'an appointed Iftikhar al-Din Muhammad al-Bukhari as governor of Qazvin in 1253/4. Iftikhar al-Din learned Mongolian and translated the Kalila wa-Dimna into Mongolian. He and his brother Imam al-Din Yahya remained in office until 1278/9.
Qazvin suffered during the tumultuous period preceding Ghazan Khan's rise to power in 1295. Many people left the town, to the point that Hamdallah Mustawfi wrote that Friday prayers could not be performed. He also mentioned Mongol reappropriation of waqf land in nearby Pishkildarra.
At the end of Uljaytu's reign Qazvin became administered by Husam al-Din Amir Umar Shirazi and the mustawfi Hajji Fakhr al-Din Ahmad. When Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan took over in 1316, he assigned the income from Qazvin to cover the expenses of his mother's household.
After the fall of the Ilkhanate, Qazvin had an uneventful history until the beginning of the Safavid Empire.