The capital of Khorasan province in northeast Iran and
the second largest city in the country, Mashhad is best known for its beautiful
pilgrimage shrine of Imam Reza. The shrine was built on the site of the village
of Sanabad, where Imam Reza died in 818 AD (some sources say 817). Imam Reza,
the eighth Shi'ite Imam, was born in Medina in 765 AD and was widely known to be
a person of both extraordinary scholarship and saintly qualities.
Imam Reza Shrine
Imam Reza Shrine
The small town of Tus, about 30 kilometres (19 miles)
north of Mashhad, was once the regional capital. Ferdowsi was born in Khorasan in a village near Toos,
in 940. His great epic the Shahnameh, to which he devoted most of his adult
life, was originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan, who were the
chief instigators of the revival of Persian cultural traditions after the Arab
conquest of the seventh century.
Ferdowsi Statue at his garden
Ferdowsi Tomb
Neishabur is the earliest known capital of
Khorassan, and was once one of the most glorious centres of all Persia. During
the Seljuq period, it became a thriving literary, artistic and academic centre.
Today, Neishabur is a small provincial town and is famous for having been the
hometown of the poet, astronomer and mathematician Omar Khayyam (1048 - c.1125).
Among the handful of tombs in the outskirts of Neishabur, the most famous is
that of Omar Khayyam. It was built in 1934 in the gardens of the imamzadeh
Mohammad Mahruq.
Khayam Tomb
Khayam Garden
Other famous men buried at
Neishabur include the 13th century Sufi poet Attar-od-Din and the 20th century
poet Kamal-ol-Molk (died in 1938).
Attar Garden
Attar Shrine
Kamal-ol-Molk Tomb
Apart from a number of large beautiful parks and the
tombs of historical celebrities in nearby Toos and Neyshabour, the tomb of Nader
Shah and Kooh Sangi park and mellat park that have a modern devices for children such as 3th fanfar(charkhofalak) of the word and koohestan park e shadi
that have a zoo with manifold of wild animals keep in this place and attracts
more of people that come to Mashhad, are also noteworthy sights.
