MYSTERY OF IRAN

Nader Shah, the founder of Afshar dynasty (1736 – 1747), is considered a local hero for briefly returning Khorasan to the centre of a vast Central Asian empire. Nader’s horseback statue crowns his otherwise rather dour 1950s grey-granite mausoleum, which was designed to emulate the lines of a tent (reputedly Nader was born and died under canvas). A small museum displays guns, a rhino-hide shield and four-pointed hats that must have made Afshar-dynasty courtiers look like jesters.

This beautifully proportioned, blue-domed mausoleum commemorates an apostle of the prophet Mohammad. Coming to pay respects here was said to have been Imam Reza’s ‘main consolation’ in coming all the way out to Khorasan. The tower took its present form after a 1612 rebuild, which added a band of interior Kufic inscriptions by master-calligrapher Ali Reza Abbasi. The beautiful floral motifs around it date from a Qajar redecoration. Surrounding the mausoleum is a large cemetery paved with thousands of tombstones.

In this museum you will find rugs ranging from beautiful classics through to garish coral gardens and a Tabriz-made carpet-portrait of WWI bogey-man Kaiser Wilhelm II. Tying the staggering 30 million knots for Seven Beloved Cities took 14 years. Upstairs, beside the shoe-deposit counter, is a two-room Calligraphy Gallery displaying priceless Korans, many dating back over a millennium.

Outside of Mashhad There are also some sights outside the city. Tomb of Khajeh Morad kilometers from Mashhad along the road to Tehran, the tomb of Khajeh Rabi' located 6 kilometers north of the city where there are some inscriptions by the renowned Safavid calligrapher Reza Abbasi, and the tomb of Khajeh Abasalt in a distance of 20 kilometers from Mashhad along the road to Neishabour, (the three personalities were the disciples of Imam Reza). Among the other sights are the tomb of the great poet Ferdowsi in Tous, 24 kilometers away from Mashhad; and the summer resorts at Torghabeh, Torogh, Akhlomod, Zoshk and Shandiz.