'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME I' [‎305ar] (628/820)

town itself and it may be said that a quarter of the town is in ruins.
The great ark on the north side of the town is at present a ruin. The
Government would not grant the sums necessary for repairs, and
already in 1894 the Governor of Nishapur was obliged to quit the ark
and remove to a private house. Nishapur has only two colleges (mad-
raseh), the Madraseh-i-Gulshan and the Madraseh-i-Darb-i-Meshed.
Coll jges, caravanserais, in- There are two caravanserais in the town—the
habitants. one named Serai Muhammad Husain Mustaufi,
and the other Serai HajI Riza, and one outside, caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). Shah
’Abbas. A great part of the inhabitants are
esources. Saiyids who, as usual in Persia, live on the
fat of the land at the expense of those inhabitants who are not Saiyids,
while most of the latter are very poor and oppressed.
About 2 miles south-east of the ’Iraq gate there is a fine garden with the
grave of Imamzadeh Muhammad-ibn-i-Muham-
mad-ibn-i-Zaid-ibn-i-Imam Zain-ul-Abidln, who
is known as Muhammad Mahruk, the “ burnt,” because he was burnt, it is
said, by order of Yazid-ibn-i-Mahalleh, Governor of Khorasan (eighth
century).
The ruins* of the Shahr-i-Kuhneh (old town) cover about a square mile
The old town 8 roun d t° the east of the present town.
The mounds commence at about a mile from
the town wall, and extend eastwards to beyond Mahruk’s grave, and
northwards as far as the high road to Qadamgah.
Of the old town nothing much is known. Firdausi relates in his
“Shahnameh” that Shapur built the fortress of Nishapur, called
kuJmndtz i p. “ tho im-
read that
Armenian
i by him to
Shrine of Mahruk.
he south-east
rence of them
or mound of
the interven-
r cultivation,
^can see that
the soil is full of bricks to a considerable depth.
The line of mounds on the south-west encloses a space about half a mile in length and
some 600 yards in breadth, which is said by the people to have been simply the citadel
of the town, not the town itself.
The wal's and bastions were evidently all of mud, as there are comparatively few
bits of brick about. These mounds will all disappear entirely in course of time, as the people
have found out what strength there is in the soil of which they are composed, and the
earth is being gradually cleared away to be spread on the fields.
The imamzadeh and tomb of ’Umar Khaiyam, situated half a mile to the east of the
above, are said by the custodian to have stood in what was the centre of the ancient
city. To the east and north-east of these again the country is covered with a thick mass
of oroken bricks, which extends right up to the high Tapped of Alp Arslan, distant some 3
miles from the city and near the village of Turbabad. This is a flat-topped, artificial mound
some 30 feet in height and 200 yards square, which is said to be the site of the ancient
Shbdi ,kh built by Alp Arslan in 1073 for his son by Malik Shah, whom he married to a
davof Uktai Khan the sou »f Chingiz Khaa.—(C. E, Yah.)