KHORASAN

also spelled Khurasan historical region and realm comprising a vast territory now lying in northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, and northern Afghanistan. The historical region extended, along the north, from the Amu Darya (Oxus River) westward to the Caspian Sea and, along the south, from the fringes of the central Iranian deserts eastward to the mountains of central Afghanistan. Arab geographers even spoke of its extending to the boundaries of India. The history of the area stretches back to very ancient times, being part of the Achaemenid empire of the 6th and 5th centuries BC and the Parthian empire of the 1st century BC. (Khorasan is sometimes loosely identified synonymously with Parthia.) Khorasan was first named, however, by the Sasanians (beginning in the 3rd century BC), who organized their empire into four quarters (named from the cardinal points), Khorasan being literally the Land of the Sun. After the Arab conquest in AD 651652, the name was retained both as the designation of a definite province and in a looser sense. At first the Arabs used the area as a march, or garrisoned frontier, but soon large colonies of Arabs moved in, especially around Merv, and a meld of Islamic and eastern Iranian cultures ensued. Later Khorasan regained virtual independence under the Tahirid, Saffarid, and Samanid dynasties (821999). Successively it formed part of the Ghaznavid, Seljuq, and Khwarezm-Shah kingdoms but was overrun by Genghis Khan in 1220 and again by Timur (Tamerlane) about 1383. The Iranian Safavid kings (15021736) fought over it against Uzbek invasions. It was occupied by the Afghans from 1722 to 1730. Nader Shah, born in Khorasan, broke the Afghan supremacy and made Meshed the capital of his Iranian empire. Ferdowsi, author of the Shah-nameh (Book of Kings), and Omar Khayyam, the celebrated poet and sage, were born in the region. Khorasan's current Iranian frontiers were defined in 1881 and in a convention of July 8, 1893. Khorasan, as a result of its troubled history, is peopled by a great variety of ethnic groups: Turkmen in the northwest; Kurds around Bojnurd and Quchan; Timuris and Jamshidis (Chahar Aimak) in the east, some of whom are still nomadic; farther southwest, Heydaris; and southeast, Balochis. The highlands in the south are home to a settled population of old Iranian stock. Here and there are found Berberis of Mongol origin, Arabs, Gypsies, and a few Jews in the towns. The largest cluster of settlements and cultivation stretches around the city of Meshed northwestward, containing the important towns of Quchan, Shirvan, and Bojnurd. The languages spoken in Khorasan are Turkish, Persian, and Kurdish. In its physical geography, the northern part of Iranian Khorasan contains two parallel ranges: an eastern prolongation of the Elburz Mountains and an independent ridge, the Koppeh Dagh. Limestones and igneous and metamorphic rocks prevail; peaks include Kuh-e Hazar Masjed (10,321 feet ) and Kuh-e Binalud (10,536 feet ). A great salt desert, Dasht-e Kavir, with quicksandlike marshes, enters Khorasan from the west. Sand dunes are widespread. There are many oases, large and crowded in the north but small and isolated in the south. The southern highlands, which are known as Kuhestan, have peaks reaching 7,0009,000 feet (2,1002,700 m). The climate is cool in the summer and cold in the winter. The north and northwest have sufficient rainfall for grasslands and scrub forests of alder, oak, juniper, and hornbeam; the south has little vegetation. Khorasan's only permanent rivers are the Atrak, the Kal-e Mureh, the Rud-e Shur, and the Kashaf Rud, all more or less salty in their lower courses. Modern Iranian Khorasan is largely agricultural, producing fruits, cereals, cotton, tobacco, oil plants, saffron, and some silk. Livestock are plentiful; wool, lambskins, and goat hair are exported, and poultry is also raised. The mineral products include turquoise, salt, iron, copper, lead, zinc, chromium, magnesite, and coal. Cement, processed foods, ginned cotton, carded wool, sugar, pharmaceuticals, animal fodder, and textiles are the manufactured products. Handicrafts include jewelry, rugs and carpets, furs, dolls, glassware, and handloomed cloth. A railway and roads link Meshed, a thriving city, with Iran's capital, Tehran.