Dāmghān

Damghan stands on the southern side of the Alborz, in the old province of Qumis. Its monuments testify to a long urban history: the Tari-khana mosque, built with techniques inherited from Sasanian architecture, is among the earliest surviving mosques in Persia. Nearby rise the cylindrical tomb tower of Pir-e Alamdar and a minaret decorated with an early inscription in glazed tile.

After the fall of the Ilkhanids, Damghan became a centre of the Sarbadar movement. Ali Muayyad struck Shiite coins here in the late 1350s and later became leader of the Sarbadars, before submitting to Timur in 1381. Damghan suffered a series of destructive raids in the following century. Its shrine of Imamzada Jafar remained a place of pilgrimage and Sufi devotion; the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh ordered repairs to a chamber used by the mystics there.