Qaen

Qaen was a principal town of Quhistan, set among the dry mountains and cultivated valleys of eastern Iran. Saffron and fruit grew in its surrounding district, while a fortress above the town belonged to the network of Nizari Ismaili strongholds. In the eleventh century the traveller Nasir Khusraw described Qaen as a large fortified city with a moat and a Friday mosque distinguished by a magnificent arch.

The congregational mosque associated with the later town bears an inscription dating its construction to 796 AH, or 1393–94, under Jamshid ibn Qarin. Its great iwan preserves the monumental character that travellers admired in the region's mosques, though the earlier mosque described by Nasir Khusraw stood at the older city. Qaen remained a centre of the wider Qayenat district, and in 1732 Nader Shah appointed a member of the Khuzayma family its governor. Their descendants continued to exercise authority in the area around Qaen and Birjand.