Khurasan Road

The Khurasan Road was the great trunk road connecting Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, with the northeastern province of Khurasan and thence to Central Asia and China.

It is possibly the best described of the roads of the Abbasid realm; not only is it described in detail by Ibn Rustah, but most other medieval Muslim geographers such as Qudama ibn Ja'far and Ibn Khordadbeh refer to it and give distances along its various stretches in their works. The road began at the Khurasan Gate on the eastern side of the Round City of al-Mansur, and exited the city at the second Khurasan Gate of East Baghdad.

The first settlement after Baghdad was Nahrawan or Jisr Nahrawan ("Bridge of Nahrawan"), named after the great Nahrawan Canal which passed through it. In the Abbasid period it was prosperous, but was abandoned and fell in ruin when the road moved north to Ba'quba. The surrounding district was known as Ṭarīq-i-Khurāsān after the Khurasan Road. The next town was known in Arabic as Daskarah al-Malik ("Daskara of the King"), and is identified with Sassanian-era Dastagird. Then followed Jalula, near which a large Sasanian-era bridge crossed the Diyala River, and Khaniqin, also the site of a major bridge, and Qasr Sjirin, the "Castle of Shirin", named after the wife of the Sasanian shah Khosrow II. At Hulwan, the road left the Mesopotamian plain and entered the Zagros Mountains and the province of Jibal. The road continued to Madharustan and finally exited the Hulwan pass at the town of Kirind and the village of Khushan. Then followed Tazar or Qasr Yazid and al-Zubaydiya, where the road turned east towards Kirmanshah across the plain of Mayidasht or Mahidasht. On most of these localities, the Muslim geographers record the presence of remnants of Sasanian palaces. From Kirmanshah the road continued to Hamadan and Sivah, turned north to Rayy, and from there passed east into the province of Qumis. The road was the main lifeline of Qumis, and most of the province's towns were located along its course: Khuwar, Qasr or Qariyat al-Milh (the "Salt Castle"), Ras al-Kalb ("Dog's Head", identifiable with Lasgird), Samnan, Damghan, al-Haddadah ("the Forge") or Mihman-Dust, and Bistam. Near Bistam, at the village of Badhash, the road entered Khurasan.

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