Qazvin

History

Qazvin has sometimes been of central importance at major moments of Iranian history. It was captured by invading Arabs (644 AD) and destroyed by Hulagu Khan (13th century). In 1555, after the Ottoman capture of Tabriz, Shah Tahmasp (1524–1576) 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 (r. 240–270), the second ruler of the Sasanian Empire. It was refounded by Shapur II (r. 309–379), 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 (agreement) 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 (176 AH), 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 (293 AH) 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 (301 AH) Qazvin was put under Ali ibn al-Muqtadir along with Ray, Dinavar, Zanjan, Abhar, and Tarom.

Ghaznavids, Seljuks, and Khwarazmshahs

Qazvin came under Ghaznavid control in 1030 (421 AH). Around 1033/4 (424 AH), 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 (484 AH) 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 (430 AH), 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 (434 AH), the Seljuk sultan Tughril besieged Qazvin. In 1046 Qazvin was visited by Nasir-i Khusraw, who left the following account:

It had many gardens, without walls or thorn-hedges or any obstacle to prevent entry into them. I saw it to be a good city. It had a strong wall and embattlements. It had good bazaars, except that it only had a little water from one kariz... The ra'is of the town was an 'Alid. Of all the crafts in the town, the shoe-makers (kafshgar) were the most numerous.

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 (512 AH), 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 (500-508 AH). 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 (548 AH); 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.

The Mongols

Meanwhile, a new threat was looming – the Mongols. Qazvin changed hands several times during their wars with the Khwarazmshahs, and in 1220 (617 AH) 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 (651 AH). 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 (677 AH).

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.

Safavid rule

From its beginnings under Ismail I, the Safavid state had key frontiers in Azerbaijan, with the Ottoman Empire, and in Khorasan with the Uzbek tribes led by the Shaybanids. Because of Qazvin's central location on the road between these two regions, its strategic importance increased under the Safavids. In 1555, after temporarily losing his original capital of Tabriz to the Ottomans, Tahmasp I moved his capital to the more secure location of Qazvin. Qazvin remained capital until Abbas I moved the capital to Isfahan about half a century later. While it was the capital, Qazvin bore the title dār al-salṭana.

Like many other cities in Iran, Qazvin became divided into Haydari and Ne'mati factions during the Safavid period. The Italian traveller Vicento d'Alessandri visited Qazvin during the reign of Tahmasp I and reported that 4 of Qazvin's districts belonged to one group and 5 belonged to the other, and the two had been hostile to one another for at least 30 years by that point with frequent conflicts between the two.

Widespread public conversion to Twelver Shi'ism probably took place during the early Safavid period, but many people probably secretly remained Sunnis for some time. The Nuqqawi heresy spread to Qazvin during the reign of Tahmasp I. The local leader was Darvīsh Khusrāw, who came from a family of muqannis (qanat builders) and had associated with the Nuqqawis for a while before returning to Qazvin. The ulama, concerned with his growing popularity, charged him with heresy and banned him from the mosque where he had been living at. After Tahmasp's death, he returned to preaching, but he was eventually charged with heresy again and executed in 1593/4 (1002 AH).

Qazvin was also a mercantile center during this period. There was an increase in European merchants coming through southern Russia, and in 1561 Anthony Jenkinson noted the presence of merchants from India as well. The English merchant Arthur Edwards made several trips to Qazvin for the Muscovy Company; he wrote in 1567 that it was a producer of velvet and other goods but not as high in quality as elsewhere, and in 1569 he wrote that there were many spices sold in its markets but again they were not as good as elsewhere, and they went for such a high price that buying them here would be unprofitable.

After Tahmasp's death, Turkoman rebels seized Qazvin and installed his son Tahmasp Mirza as a puppet ruler in the city for a while. In the spring of 1596, Hamza Mirza marched on Qazvin and overthrew the Turkomans. Qazvin appears to have emerged relatively unscathed from this drama – Don Juan of Persia, who visited the city soon after, described it as large and prosperous. He wrote that it had over 100,000 heads of households, or upwards of 450,000 people in total, with over 500 mosques and a "sumptuous" palace quarter. A member of Anthony Shirley's entourage, which arrived in Qazvin in December 1598, was less enthusiastic and wrote that it was an unremarkable city except for a few mosques and the palace gate; he estimated its population as a somewhat smaller than London's.

Qajar era

By the beginning of the 19th century, Qazvin was again starting to flourish as a center of trade. Commercial traffic on the Caspian Sea was growing, and Qazvin was one of the main centers of activity – in the words of one traveller in 1801, it was "the mart of all the commerce of the Caspian". Qazvin's importance as a commercial entrepôt was helped by the fact that it lay at a three-way crossroads: it connected Tehran, the new Qajar capital; Tabriz, "the second city of the empire", and the important Caspian port of Anzali. Qazvin was manufacturing velvets, brocades, and cotton cloth. In an 1841 report, the British diplomat Keith Edward Abbott wrote that Qazvin was commercially as important as Tehran. Mirza Husayn Farahani, who visited Qazvin in 1884, wrote that it was divided into 17 districts and had 600 shops, 8 caravanserais, 40 mosques, 9 madrasas, and 12 yakhchals. Its walls were in ruins but 12 gates were still standing.

This increase in commercial importance does not seem to have been accompanied by an increase in population, although it's hard to tell for sure because contemporary estimates were not necessarily based on the same criteria. James Justinian Morier and William Ouseley in the early 1800s both gave an estimate of 25,000 people. The census taken from 1880 to 1882 gave a population of 64,362 for Qazvin. Farahani in 1884 wrote that Qazvin had 30,000 people in about 7,000 households. George Curzon wrote that Qazvin's population was said to be 40,000 in 1889, but he wrote that its actual population was probably no more than 2/3 of that.

In the middle of the century, the Babi movement had one of its centers here and the first massacre of Babis occurred in Qazvin in 1847. In the second half of the 19th century Qazvin was one of the centers of Russian presence in northern Iran. A detachment of the Persian Cossack Brigade under Russian officers was stationed here. From 1893 this was the headquarters of the Russian Company for Road construction in Persia which connected Qazvin by roads to Tehran and Hamadan. The company built a hospital and the St. Nicolas Church.

20th century to present

In 1920 Qazvin was used as a base for the British Norperforce. The 1921 Persian coup d'état that led to the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty was launched from Qazvin.

During the reign of Reza Shah, Qazvin declined in importance as a commercial center as communications improved. Many merchants and other residents moved to Tehran.

On 1 September 1962, an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale struck Qazvin, killing more than 12,000 people. The earthquake occurred shortly before Israeli Minister of Agriculture, Moshe Dayan, was scheduled to visit Iran in mid-September for meetings with the Shah and with his Iranian counterpart, in order to discuss Israel's possible role in the White Revolution, a plan for land reform and the modernization of rural Iran. Shortly after the earthquake, two planning experts were sent from Israel to assist with Iranian relief activities. After touring the region and meeting with the Iranian minister in charge of relief efforts, they were assigned to rebuild the village of Khuznin, located in the center of the Qazvin region. Other teams, both Iranian and foreign, had also arrived in the region to offer assistance and expertise in the reconstruction activities. Each team was assigned one or more villages for planning and rebuilding. Over the course of three months, the Israeli team built hundreds of houses in the village that they had been allocated.

In 1963, the Qazvin Development Authority was established to develop the agriculture and water resources of Qazvin and its surroundings.

The city of Qazvin became the capital of the new province of Qazvin in May of 1997. On 15 July 2009 Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 crashed near Qazvin. In autumn of 2015 portions of Qazvin were struck by a meteorite, and in the same year, the city annexed the villages of Chubin Dar, Hasanabad, Kheyrabad, Mashaldar, Najafabad, Naserabad, Shahrak-e Danesh, and Vosuqabad.

Demographics

Language

The majority of the people of the city of Qazvin are Persians. The majority language is Persian. Iranian Azerbaijanis and Tats are the other ethnic groups of the city of Qazvin. They speak Iranian Azerbaijani and Tati respectively.

Population

At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 349,821 in 96,420 households. The following census in 2011 counted 381,598 people in 114,662 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 402,748 people in 127,154 households.

Climate

Qazvin has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa).

Main sights

Qazvin contains several archeological excavations. In the middle of the city lie the ruins of Meimoon Ghal'eh, one of several Sasanian edifices in the area.

Qazvin contains several buildings from the Safavid era, dating to the period in which it was the capital of Iran. A well known of the surviving edifices is the Chehel sotoun, today a museum in central Qazvin.

In the Islamic era, the popularity of mystics (tasawwuf), as well as the prominence of tradition (Hadith), religious jurisprudence (fiqh), and philosophy in Qazvin, led to the emergence of many mosques and religious schools. They include:

Jame' Atiq Mosque of Qazvin

Heydarieh Mosque

Masjed Al-Nabi (Soltani Mosque): With an area of 14000 m2, this mosque is one of the most glorious mosques of antiquity, built in the Safavieh's monarchy era.

Sanjideh Mosque: Another mosque of Qazvin dating back to pre-Islamic Iran; a former fire temple. Its present-day form is attributed to the Seljukian era.

Panjeh Ali Mosque: A former place of worship for royal harem members in the Safavid period.

Peighambarieh School-Mosque: Founded 1644 according to inscription.

Peighambarieh Shrine: Where four Jewish saints who foretold the coming of Christ, are buried.

Molla Verdikhani School-Mosque: Founded in 1648.

Salehieh Madrasa and Mosque: Founded in 1817 by Mulla Muhammad Salih Baraghani.

Economy

Qazvin today is a center of textile trade, including cotton, silk and velvet, in addition to leather. It is on the railroad line and the highway between Tehran and Tabriz. Qazvin has one of the largest power plants feeding electricity into Iran's national power grid, the Shahid Raja'i facility, which provides 7% of Iran's electrical power.

Colleges and universities

Qazvin has several institutes of higher education:

Imam Khomeini International University

Islamic Azad University of Qazvin

Payam-e-Nur University of Qazvin

Qazvin University of Medical Sciences

Raja University

Shahid Babaee Technical Institute

Kar University

Parsian Higher Education Institute

Dehkhoda University

Ghazali University

Mir-Emad Higher Education Institute

Darolfonoun University

Allameh Ghazvini University

Modern towers

Some famous residential towers are: Punak (536 units), Aseman, Elahieh, Bademestan (440 units in 17 floors) and Tejarat tower with 28 floors.

Shopping complexes

City Star in Khayam Street

Ferdowsi in Ferdowsi Street

Iranian in Adl Street

Narvan in Ferdowsi Street

Noor in Felestin Street

Meh ro mah Bouali Street

Alghadir on South Khayam Street

Alavi on Taleghani Street

Bridges

Naderi

Molasadra

Ertebatat

Persian Gulf (Khalij Fars)

Abotorabi

Nasr

Motahari

Imam Ali

Rajaei

Famous hotels

Alborz

Safir

Mir Emad

Iranian

behrouzi historical house

Iran

Marmar

Razhia

Ghods(closed)

Grand Hotel, Qazvin

Noizar

Minno

Sina (new)

Major parks

Shohada

Dehkhoda

Beheshti

Fadak (Barajin)

Mellat

Al-Ghadir

Afarinesh

Molla Khalila

Transportation

Qazvin railway station

Qazvin Airport

Qazvin Eastern Bus terminal

سامانه هوشمند اجاره اتوبوس و مینی بوس https://terminali.ir

Qazvin southwestern terminal (Takestan & Hamedan)

Sport

Qazvin is a well-known city because of its famous athletes. The city has highly focused on athletic teams along recent years. Techmash is a basketball team which entered Iranian Basketball Super League in 2013. Shams Azar is the local football team, playing in the Persian Gulf Pro League (First division).

This city has several important sports complexes:

Sardare Azadegan Stadium

Shahid Rajai Stadium

Shahid Babaei sports complex

Notable people

Pre-modern times

Ibn Majah, author of the last of the six canonical hadith collections recognized by Sunni Muslims

Hamdollah Mostowfi: the great Il-Khanid historian and writer

Zakariya Qazvini: 13th-century writer, cosmographer, and geographer

Ubayd Zakani: famous 8th-century poet noted for his satire and obscene verses

Mir Emad Hassani: famous Nasta'liq calligrapher

Darvish Ablulmajid: famous Shekaste Nasta'liq calligrapher

Mirza Mohammad-Reza Qazvini: Persian envoy of the Franco-Persian alliance

Modern times

Yousef Alikhani: contemporary fiction writer and researcher

Azizi family: a well-known family that originates from Qazvin includes |Sheikh Ahmad Azizi] who is buried in Peighambariyeh shrine, known research and medical doctor Dr. Sadegh Pirooz Azizi, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1997 to 2005 Mr. Ahmad Azizi, hadi Azizi and Abolghasem Azizi.

Ali Akbar Dehkhoda: prominent linguist and author of Iran's first modern Persian dictionary

Ali Etesamifar: puppeteer

Abdul Hossein Darki: doctor

Goharshad Ghazvini, Persian calligrapher

Jamal Karimi-Rad: former Minister of Justice (2005–2006).

Hadi Mirmiran: architect

Shirin Neshat: Famous contemporary Iranian artist

Mojabi family: a prominent family that originates from Qazvin including Javad Mojabi and Zohreh Mojabi

Molla Khalil Ibn Ghazi Qazvini: famous faqih (religious jurist) and commentator of the Qur'an in the Safavid period (d. 1678)

Aref Qazvini: poet, lyricist, and musician

Ra'ees ol-Mojahedin: The late Mirza Hassan Sheikh al-Islam, son of Mirza Masoud Sheikh al-Islam, leader of the liberals and constitutionalists of Qazvin

Shahid Saless: killed in 1846. The third religious leader after Imam Ali who was murdered during prayer.

Buried in Qazvin

Uwais Qarni: celebrity of early Islam, thought to have been killed here while fighting against an army of Deilamian origin

Ahmad Ghazali: famous Iranian sufi who died in 1126 CE and was buried beside Shahzadeh Hossein

Ali Ibn Shazan: great scholar of the fifth century

Shahzadeh Hossein: Shiite saint

Abbas Babaei

Twin towns and cities

Évora, Portugal (2016)

Baalbek, Lebanon (2015)

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (2011)

Denizli, Turkey (2012)

Shah Alam, Malaysia (2011)