Nahāvand

Nahavand lies south of Hamadan in the northern Zagros, where streams from the Alvand massif water its fields and orchards. Its position on the road from Iraq to northern Iran made it both a market and a place of battle. In the early Islamic centuries its merchants traded saffron from nearby Rudravar and fruit sent as far as Iraq. A great battle near the town in the seventh century opened the Iranian plateau to the Arab conquerors.

In the fourteenth century Hamdallah Mustawfi described a middle-sized town surrounded by fertile land producing grain, cotton and fruit. During the Ottoman–Safavid wars an Ottoman commander built a fortress here in 1589 as a base for an advance into Iran. The people rose against the garrison in 1602–03, and Shah Abbas's governor of Hamadan destroyed the fort after its expulsion. Ottoman troops returned during the Safavid decline, but Nader Shah recovered Nahavand in 1730. Two decades later Karim Khan Zand defeated his rival Ali Mardan Khan nearby.