Hamedān

Hamadan lies on the slopes of Mount Alvand in the cold highlands of western Iran, on the site of Ecbatana, the first capital of the Medes. Under the Buyids and then the Seljuks it prospered, and the Seljuk sultans shifted their capital here from Baghdad. Benjamin of Tudela reported a community of 30,000 Jews in 1170. The Mongols destroyed the city in 1220, and it was later completely destroyed again in the Timurid invasions.

Hamadan revived under the Safavids, its commerce depending on the main roads of western Iran. In the chaos of the early 18th century Kurdish tribes seized Hamadan in 1719 and pushed nearly as far as Isfahan, and the city was then surrendered to the Ottomans, until Nader Shah cleared the invaders and a peace treaty returned it to Iran.