Mashhad is blue and golden domes, green and yellow taxis, minarets soaring into the sky. These are women in black veils to the toes, policemen in caps with long visors who do not respond to mass violations of traffic rules by passers-by and cars: people cross the street in front of cars and motorcyclists at any convenient place on the road, cars continue to go through red lights. These are shops under signs with Arabic script, jewelry stores, workshops, boutiques everywhere on the first floors of buildings along the streets, these are mannequins in hijabs.
And most importantly, Mashhad is Astana Gods Razavi, a magnificent architectural creation around the tomb of Ali ibn Musa (Imam Reza), a fabulous eastern city in the city, to which both the Samanids, the Timurids, and the Safavids, and the Ghaznavids had a hand in their time, and Khorezmshahs, paying tribute to the personality of Imam Reza, the seventh descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
Mashhad, with a population of three million, is the second largest city in Iran, the center of the Khorosan province, located several tens of kilometers from the border with Turkmenistan. There are especially many domestic flights here, the planes land at the airport one after another, and they fly unusually low over the city and therefore seem huge. As a result of the sanctions, Iran's air fleet is pretty outdated, but the service in old salons is excellent both in terms of the set of products and the attention of the staff.
- Farsi, Arabi, English, Turks? - will be offered a choice of languages by stewardesses in hijabs, having heard an unfamiliar speech.
Pushkin's language over the Persian sky is completely useless for communication with aircraft personnel, but in any Turkic-Kypchak one can convey one's idea in view of the similarity with Turkish: although with difficulty, they will understand you.
Mashhad, in addition, is a major railway junction connected from the north with Turkmenistan and further with Central Asia. On the western side - with the capital of Iran, from the south - with ancient Yazd.
The schedule of the Tehran-Mashhad train is formed in such a way that the train arrives at the station along the route exactly at the beginning of the prayer time, and the parking lasts about twenty minutes. During this time, passengers have time to get out of the cars, take a bath and pray in the mosques near the station. In the predawn hour in front of the station, the guide will knock on the door and remind you of the approaching time of the morning prayer.
After Tehran and Qom in Mashhad, the small number of motorcyclists on the streets immediately catches the eye. In the first two cities, the whole street is literally teeming with motorcycles, but they ride somehow silently, without the deafening roar that is characteristic of the iron horses of bikers and rockers who drive through the night streets of Russian cities. Instead of large oriental bazaars, Mashhad has large shopping centers, so the city seems more modern.
In front of the entrance to the Astana Gods Razavi complex, we had to leave our cameras, the guards only let the phones through. A temple attendant asked a foreign couple if they were Muslims. Hearing an affirmative answer, the man nodded his head, as if giving the go-ahead to the passage. Is ziyarat to Imam Reza forbidden for non-believers? I wanted to ask this question, but, having sorted through the reserves of Persian words in my head, I could not construct an interrogative sentence.
The architectural complex consists of the so-called "plates", each of which is a separate area surrounded by minarets and domes. The central place is occupied by the tomb of Imam Reza under a golden dome. Although the mausoleum has been reconstructed more than once, the lining on the pillars near the tombs dates back to the Middle Ages. Going down the stairs, we founder the "plates" there is a whole city of mirrors, a labyrinth of hundreds of thousands of mirrors, precious stones, beautiful paintings, Persian carpets, a huge treasury of art. And while I was looking at this masterpiece splendor, I did not notice how lagged behind the group. Quickly going upstairs, he poked himself into one "plate", then into another. Realizing that in this labyrinth of 260 thousand square meters I could not find my group in any way, I decided to take a walk around the sites, and after four hours go to the familiar checkpoint and wait for the others there.
The Astana Gods Razavi Publishing Center publishes about 600 books a year in different languages, including Russian. The employee of the complex, a young Iranian Azerbaijani, kindly provided me with guidebooks and booklets, from which I learned that the palace of the governor of Khorasan with gardens was originally located on the site of the complex, and it was here that the Abbasid caliph Harun al Rashid, known from fairy tales, died in 809 " 1000 and 1 nights", arriving at the borders of Turkestan to suppress the rebellion.
After the death of Harun al Rashid, his son Amin, born of the Hashemite Zubeida, became the new ruler of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the son of Mamun, whose mother was Persian, became the governor of Khorasan.Four years later, in 813, the militant Persian-Turkic Horosan army of Mamun defeated the numerically superior Arab army of Caliph Amin. Baghdad was taken, Amin was executed. Mamun became the new ruler of the faithful, and the center of the caliphate moved to Khorasan for several years.
The new caliph, unlike his father Harun, pursued a policy of rapprochement with the descendants of Hussein ibn Ali. In 816, he summoned Imam Reza from Medina to Khorasan, married his daughter to him. Known are the discussions of Ali ibn Musa with Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, which were organized by Caliph Mamun.
In the course of one of the disputes with the bishop, Imam Reza says, as if by chance: "We Muslims deeply revere Isa, but, unfortunately, he did not pray much." To which the bishop objects: "You are not the most knowledgeable of Muslims, Isa stood day and night in prayer." Then the Imam asks the question: “To whom did he pray?”. And the bishop does not find what to answer.
Caliph Mamun, unexpectedly for the Abbasid nobility, proclaimed Imam Reza his heir to the throne of the Caliphate. This caused opposition from the Abbasid clan. Relatives in Baghdad hurried to proclaim his uncle named Ibrahim the ruler of the faithful during the living caliph Mamun, and this put Mamun before a difficult choice. He, who once did not stop before the murder of his own brother, chose power.
Imam Reza was buried with honors next to Harun al Rashid. The caliph himself, suspected of poisoning a descendant of the Prophet, soon departed for Baghdad. Mamun is credited with the creation of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the patronage of the Mutazilites, the construction of the Baghdad Observatory, and the destruction of the Egyptian pyramids. Mamun has remained in history as one of the most controversial Abbasid rulers.
The area where Imam Reza was buried became known as Mashhad, the place of martyrdom: “mashhad” is a derivative of “shahid”.
Today in Astana God Razavi no longer remembers where the grave of Harun al Rashid was located. One of the servants of the temple suggested that his bones lie somewhere at the entrance to the complex. The rest just shrugged: we don't know. Thus, after the death of the caliph and Imam Reza, who was in disgrace with him, changed places: the people elevated the imam, and not the ruler.
Astana Gods Razavi is governed by the state represented by the Supreme Religious Council. The complex has dozens of manufacturing companies, 15 educational and research institutions, and several museums. More than ten thousand students study at Imam Reza University. Such data were given in a brochure in Russian, presented to me by a church attendant from among the Iranian Azerbaijanis.
As planned, a few hours later I waited for the appearance of my group at the checkpoint. It was on the first visit to Mashhad. Further, our path lay in the scientific and educational center - the city of Qom, where the tomb of Fatima Maasume, the sister of Imam Reza, is located. A year after his departure for Khorasan at the call of Caliph Mamun, yearning for her brother, Fatima left Medina and set off after him, but she was not destined to see her brother.
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