Khorasan
Khorasan
(khôr'əsän`) orKhurasan
(ko͝or'əsän`), region and former province (1991 pop. 6,013,200), c.125,000 sq mi (323,750 sq km), NE Iran. Mashhad is the chief city; other cities include Sabzevar, Bojnurd, and Neyshabur. It is mainly mountainous and arid. Khorasan was occupied by the Arabs in the mid-7th cent., and Abu MuslimAbu Muslim, c.728–755, Persian leader of the Abbasid revolution. By political and religious agitation he raised (747) the black banners of the Abbasids against the ruling Umayyad family.
..... Click the link for more information. began (8th cent.) his campaign against the Umayyads there. The province contributed to the power of the early Abbasid caliphs. Khorasan was devastated by the Oghuz Turks in 1153 and 1157 and by the Mongols from 1220 to 1222. Timur invaded in 1383. An earthquake devastated Khorasan in 1997. In 2004 Khorasan was divided into three provinces: Northern, Southern, and Razavi Khorasan.
Khorasan
(also Khurasan), a historical region in the Middle East from the third to the mid-18th century that included northeastern Iran, the Merv oasis, oases in the southern part of the Turkmen SSR, and northwestern Afghanistan. Khorasan was first named by the Sassanids, who called it Khwarasan. The region was conquered by the Arabs in the mid-seventh century and after the dissolution of the Arab Caliphate was ruled from the ninth to the early 16th century successively by the Taharids, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Seljuks, and Khwarazm-Shahs. Until it was conquered by the Mongols in the early 1220’s, Khorasan was one of the most economically developed regions in the Middle East. From 1510 to 1736 it formed part of the Safavid state. After the fall of the Safavid state, part of Khorasan (the Herat region and Balkh) was incorporated into Afghanistan, and part into Iran; the Merv region was conquered in the early 19th century by the Turkmens.