Astarabadh

Astarabadh, also written Astarabad, is a town in northern Iran about 23 miles east of the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea, on a tributary of the Karasu. It lies on a plain at about 377 feet above sea level, three miles from the foothills of an Elburz spur, and the plain ends in the Turkoman steppes to the north. The town is now called Gurgan, not to be confused with the medieval Gurgan (Arabic Djurdjan) to the north-east. Its pre-Islamic history is unknown; Mordtmann identified it with the ancient Zadrakarta. The etymology of the name is obscure, and folk etymology links it with the Persian word for star. ¹

Astarabadh was the second city of the province of Gurgan in Islamic times, and shared the fortunes of the capital, Gurgan. The Arabs raided the province in the caliphate of 'Uthman, and again under Mu'awiya through Sa'id ibn 'Uthman; it was not conquered until Yazid ibn al-Muhallab defeated the ruling Turks of the area in 98 AH (716). A tradition says that Yazid founded Astarabadh on the site of a village called Astarak. There were frequent rebellions in Gurgan under both the Umayyads and the 'Abbasids. The town is rarely mentioned by historians. Al-Istakhri records it as a silk centre, and the Hudud al-'Alam says that its people spoke two languages, one of which probably survives in the dialect of the Hurufi sect. ¹

After the Mongol conquest of Iran Astarabadh replaced Gurgan as the most important town of the area. The province was the scene of strife between the last Il-Khans, the Timurids and local Turkish tribal leaders. The Kadar tribe of Turkomans (the entry's spelling) then became the leading power in Astarabadh, and the entry records Nadir Shah and Agha Muhammad as having erected buildings in the town (the scan of this sentence is partly garbled). The town, on the steppes, suffered repeated raids. Astarabadh had many mosques and shrines, and was called dar al-mu'minin, probably because many sayyids lived there. It was renamed Gurgan under Riza Shah; in 1950 it had about 25,000 inhabitants. ¹

The province as it existed under the Qajars was bounded on the north by the Gurgan river, on the south by the Elburz, on the west by the Caspian and Mazandaran, and on the east by the district of Djajarm. It has a mountain area, well watered and wooded, and a fertile plain that becomes desert to the north. Wheat and tobacco are grown here, Persian speakers predominate in the mountains and towns, and Turkomans on the plains. ²