Abhar

Abhar stands in a river valley west of Qazvin, on the old road towards Zanjan and Azerbaijan. Medieval geographers often named it together with Zanjan, and its fields and gardens benefited from the Abhar River. The town produced notable scholars and officials, including Kamal al-Din Abhari, a vizier to the last Great Seljuk sultans. In the Safavid period the traveller Jean Chardin described Abhar as a town of houses and gardens, set on the long route across northwestern Iran.