Sohrevard ( fa, سهرورد, also
Romanized as Sohravard) is a city in the
Central District of
Khodabandeh County,
Zanjan Province,
Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 5,786, in 1,356 families.
Sohrevard was the birthplace of the twelfth century Iranian philosopher,
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi,
[M. Kamal, ''Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy'', p.12, Ashgate Publishing Inc., 136 pp., 2006, (see p.12)] the Persian Sufi
Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi and his nephew
Shahab al-Din Abu Hafs Umar Suhrawardi (a direct descendant of Islamic Khalifa Abū Bakr as-Ṣiddīq).
Name
According to
Theodor Nöldeke, and later followed by
Josef Marquart, the name Sohrevard was originally derived from the personal name
Sohrab, so that the city's original name would have been something like ''Suxrāp-kart'' or ''Suhrāv-gerd''.
Nöldeke specifically thought the Sohrab in question was a certain governor of
al-Hirah
Al-Hirah ( ar, الحيرة, translit=al-Ḥīra Middle Persian: ''Hērt'' ) was an ancient city in Mesopotamia located south of what is now Kufa in south-central Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of I ...
attested with this name, but there were many other known people named Sohrab and in reality the city could have been named after any one of them.
History
Medieval Muslim geographers described Sohrevard as a town in the province of
Jibal, located south of
Soltaniyeh on the road from
Hamadan to
Zanjan Zanjan may refer to:
* Zanjan Province, Iran
* Zanjan County, an area within Zanjan Province
* Zanjan, Iran, the capital of Zanjan County and Zanjan Province
* University of Zanjan, in the city of Zanjan
* Zanjan Airport, an airport serving Zanj ...
.
According to
al-Istakhri
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al-Istakhri () (also ''Estakhri'', fa, استخری, i.e. from the Iranian city of Istakhr, b. - d. 346 AH/AD 957) was a 10th-century travel-author and geographer who wrote valuable accounts in Arab ...
, this route was the shortest route to get from Jibal to
Adharbayjan and was the one usually used in peacetime; in times of political conflict, travellers took the longer route via
Qazvin instead.
wrote the exact opposite about the two routes.
Since Sohrevard had a cold highland climate, it did not produce much agriculturally except for grain and some smaller fruits.
In the 10th century, when Ibn Hawqal wrote, Sohrevard was a Kurdish town inhabited by
Kharijites
The Kharijites (, singular ), also called al-Shurat (), were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the ...
, who later mostly emigrated from the city.
The walled city of Sohrevard was later destroyed by the
Mongols.
In the 14th century,
Hamdallah Mustawfi described Sohrevard as merely a small village, with many Mongol villages also in the area.
References
Populated places in Khodabandeh County
Cities in Zanjan Province
{{Khodabandeh-geo-stub