Istakhr (ĭstä'kər), old town, S Iran. Built largely from the ruins of ancient Persepolis, 3 mi (4.8 km) away, it was a capital of the Sassanid dynasty. Istakhr stubbornly resisted (640-49) the Arabs but soon afterward lost its importance to Shiraz. The name also appears as Stakhr.
Istakhr
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| Estakhr | |
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  Estakhr
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| Coordinates: 29°58′51″N 52°54′34″E / 29.98083°N 52.90944°E | |
| Country |  Iran |
| Province | Fars Province |
Estakhr (in Persian: استخر) was an ancient city located in southern Iran, in Fars province, five kilometers north of Persepolis. It was a prosperous city during the time of Achaemenid Persia.
History
At first, Estakhr was an Achaemenid city in present-day Fârs Province, Iran. It temporarily became the capital of Sassanian Persia during the reign of Ardashir I before the capital moved to Ctesiphon. During the Sasanid period the royal treasury of the empire known as ganj ī šāhīgān is said to have been in Eṣṭaḵr. In 915-16, Masʿūdī himself saw in a house at Estakhr owned by a Persian noble, "the large and very fine manuscript" of a work copied in 731 from original documents in the royal treasury.[1]
In 659 CE, Caliph Ali sent Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan to suppress a Persian rebellion in Estakhr. Ziyad succeeded at this and stayed on as governor. Estakhr was burned to the ground during the Islamic conquest of Persia by Arab Muslim invaders[citation needed]. For a while, Abdallah ibn Muawiya (the designated leader of a Kaysanites Shia sub-sect) established himself at Estakhr from where he ruled for a few years over Fārs and other parts of Persia, including Ahvaz, Jibal, Isfahan and Kerman from 744 to 748 until fleeing to Khurasan from the advancing Umayyad forces. After being rebuilt, the city lost its importance to Shiraz. Today only an archaeological site remains.
Notes
- ^ Boyce, Mary (1998). "Estakr, ii. as a Zoroastrian religious centre". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 8. pp. 643–6. http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/unicode/v8f6/v8f688.html#ii.
External links
Coordinates: 29°58′51″N 52°54′34″E / 29.98083°N 52.90944°E
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