Āzādvar

Azadvar was the chief town of Jovayn, a fertile district of western Khorasan on the road between Nishapur and Gurgan. Medieval geographers described a prosperous place with mosques, markets and a caravanserai, surrounded by villages and fields of grain and fruit. Underground qanats carried water down from the hills to irrigate the valley. The district gave its name to a distinguished family of scholars, including the historian Ata Malik Juvayni.

The town continued to flourish into the age of the Ilkhans, under whom members of the Juvayni family held high office. In the fourteenth century Azadvar appears to have declined, and the district's centre passed to Faryumad farther south. The remains of the old town lay near the later settlement, recalling its former place on one of Khorasan's important caravan roads.