Qom (Persian: قم; [qom] ⓘ) is the capital of Qom province, Iran. It is also the capital of Qom County and its Central District. It is the seventh largest metropolis and the seventh largest city in Iran. The city is 140 km (87 mi) to the south of Tehran, on the banks of the Qom River. Qom is a holy city in Shia Islam, as it is the site of the Fatima Masumeh Shrine, a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. She was the granddaughter of Ja'far al-Sadiq, the daughter of Musa al-Kazim, the sister of Ali al-Rida, and the aunt of Muhammad al-Jawad, the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth of the Twelve Imams. The city is the world's largest center for Shia Islamic scholarship and is a significant destination of pilgrimage, with around 20 million pilgrims visiting every year. Qom's economy is heavily dependent on pilgrimage, and the city is the most conservative in Iran.
Qom is also home to Jamkaran Mosque, another holy site in Shia Islam where every year, millions celebrate Mid-Sha'ban, marking the birth of Muhammad al-Mahdi. The city has developed into a lively industrial center owing, in part, to its proximity to Tehran. It is a regional center for the distribution of petroleum and petroleum products, and a natural gas pipeline from Bandar Anzali and Tehran and a crude oil pipeline from Tehran run through Qom to the Abadan refinery on the Persian Gulf. Qom gained additional prosperity when oil was discovered at Sarajeh (fa:میدان نفتی البرز قم) near the city in 1956 and a large refinery was built between Qom and Tehran. In between the Tehran-Qom highway is the Imam Khomeini International Airport, the largest airport in Iran.
Etymology
The precise origin of the name is unclear. There are multiple theories:
- Some researchers consider the old name of Qom to be Komiran. The first element would reflect the word kom 'city', while the second element would be shared by Shemiran (near Tehran), Tehran, Chamran (in Saveh areas), and Iran. The full name would then be equivalent to 'Iran city'.
- According to the 10th-century book Tarikh-i Qum (literally 'History of Qom'), the name of the city comes from the word koomeh (Persian: کومه), which literally means 'hut'. On this view, the name referred to the basic dwelling of the local shepherds and farmers, who made their houses out of much reed that grew around the ford of Qom River.
History
The present city of Qom in Central Iran dates back to ancient times. Its pre-Islamic history can be partially documented, although the earlier epochs remain unclear. Excavations at Tepe Sialk indicate that the region had been settled since ancient times (Ghirshman and Vanden Berghe), and more recent surveys have revealed traces of large, inhabited places south of Qom, dating from the 4th and 1st millennium BC.
In antiquity, the Qom region was a stronghold of the cult of Anahita, the Iranian goddess of fertility. André Godard has reported about an Anahita temple along the Qom River (Golshan River). A district called Taraznahid (Nahid is her Persian name), close to Qom, is also connected to the goddess.
While nothing is known about the area from Elamite, Medes, and Achaemenid times, there are significant archeological remains from the Seleucid and Parthian epochs, of which the ruins of Khurha (about 70 kilometres or 43 miles southwest of Qom) are the most famous and important remnants. Their dating and function have instigated long and controversial debates and interpretations, for they have been interpreted and explained variously as the remains of a Sasanian temple, or of a Seleucid Dionysian temple, or of a Parthian complex. Its true function is still a matter of dispute, but the contributions by Wolfram Kleiss point to a Parthian palace that served as a station on the nearby highway and was used until Sasanian times.
The recently published results of the excavations carried out in 1955 by Iranian archeologists have revived the old thesis of a Seleucid religious building. Besides Khurha, which is already mentioned as Khor Abad at Qomi in the 9th century, the region has turned up a few other remnants from this epoch, including the four Parthian heads found near Qom, now kept in the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. Qomi names Parthian personalities as founders of villages in the Qom area. The possible mention of Qom in the form of Greek names in two ancient geographical works (the Tabula Peutingera and Ptolemy's geographical tables) remains doubtful.
The Sasanian epoch offers many archeological findings and remnants, besides the fact that various sources mention Qom. The most interesting building from an archeological point of view is the Qalʿa-ye Doḵtar in Qom itself, which was long thought to have served religious purposes, while more recent research points to an administrative use. The wider surroundings of Qom also contain numerous traces from palaces, religious, military and administrative buildings. Some of these are mentioned by Qomi, who also names many more fire temples in the urban area of present Qom and its region, of which no archeological traces are left although the location of one fire temple can probably be equated with today's Masjed-e Emām in the city. According to Qomi, the most important fire temple of the area stood in the nearby village of Dizijan.
Tāriḵ-e Qom and some other sources also speak of genuine historical figures of the Sasanian epoch in connection with Qom and its region. They shed new light on the time of the seizure of power by the first Sasanian king Ardashir I, who fought his decisive battles near Qom, and the collapse of the Sasanian empire, which is extensively reported by Ebn Aʿṯam Kufi and the Nehāyat al-Erab and names a certain Šērzād as the satrap of the region. The existence of an urban settlement in the Sasanian epoch is furthermore verified by Middle Persian sources, literary sources, inscriptions, and seals, that mention in the time of Shapur I and Kawād I the names Godmān/Gomān and Ērān Win(n)ārd Kawād, both of which could be identified as Qom.
Qom likely functioned as a small administrative unit throughout the whole Sasanian era. Probably the urban structure of the Sasanian settlement of Qom can be compared with the type of city of Ctesiphon (Or. Madāʾen) and consisted of several villages and little towns with Abaraštejān, Mamajjān and Jamkarān as the bigger settlements that were loosely connected by defense installations.
It is difficult to decipher the actual process of the Arab conquest of Qom from the extant Arabic sources. According to Balāḏori, the first tentative conquest of Qom took place in 23/644 by Abu Musa Ashaari after a few days of fighting, although Abu Musa's route through Western Persia, as narrated by Balāḏori, appears somewhat confusing. It remains unclear who the defenders of Qom were. Probably fleeing Sasanian nobles and local soldiers returning from the great battles against the Arabs formed the core of the resistance. The area remained largely untouched for 60 years after the initial conquest and was probably administered from Isfahan.
The first permanent settlement of Arab settlers in Qom took place during the revolts of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi and Moṭarref b. Moḡira b. Šaʿba in 66–77/685–96, when small groups of refugees moved there and Qom itself was affected by the fighting between the Umayyad state power and the rebels. The decisive step for the later urban development of Qom occurred when a group of Ashaari Arabs came to the area. These Ashaaries originated in Yemen and the first important figure among them was the first conqueror of the area of Qom, the above-mentioned Abu Musa Ashaari. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Saʿd and Aḥwaṣ b. Saʿd were grandsons of Abi Musa's nephew and led the group of Ashaaries that emigrated from Kufa to the region of Qom. It is not exactly clear why they migrated, but it might have also been a general opposition to the Umayyad dynasty. A central element was the early contact with the leading local Zoroastrian Persian noble Yazdanfadar.
As the Arabs required a great deal of pasture for their large herds of cattle and were much wealthier than the local Persians, they slowly started to buy land and take over more villages. The decisive step for controlling the area was the elimination of the local Persian noble class that took place after the death of Yazdanfadar in 733. Although a few names of governors and their tax assessments are known from the time after the administrative independence, the death of Fātimah bint Mūsā, the sister of the eighth Imam of Shias Ali al-Ridha in the city in 201/816–17 proved to be of great importance for the later history of Qom. Fātimah bint Mūsā died while following her brother to Khorasan, a region in northern Iran. The place of her entombment developed from 869–70 into a building that was transformed over time into today's magnificent and economically important sanctuary.
In 825–26, a major rebellion against the tax regulations of the caliphate broke out in Qom. It was caused by the refusal of the caliph Al-Ma'mun to lower the yearly tax assessment as he had done in Ray. The revolt was led by an Ashaari named Yahya ibn Emran, maintaining that taxes should not be paid to an unlawful ruler. Yahya was killed by troops sent by the caliph and the citizens were severely punished; the taxes were raised from 2 million to 7 million dirhams. Two years later the taxes were again raised by 700,000 dirham by the Ashaari governor Ali ibn Isa, who was subsequently deposed because he was strongly rejected by the inhabitants of Qom. But in 833 Ali returned to the post of governor (wali) and forcefully collected tax debts that were laid upon him by the caliph. He destroyed parts of Qom and handed over a wanted rebel to caliphal authorities under Al-Moʿtasem. Between 839–42 two contradicting tax assessments were carried out under turbulent circumstances which amounted to a sum of 5 million dirhams. The names of those involved have survived.
The move of a Hadith transmitter from Kufa to Qom, which took place probably in the middle of the 9th century, indicates the increased importance of Qom as a center of Shia learning. At about the same time another military attack on the city occurred in 254/868, when Mofleḥ, the Turkish officer of the caliph Al-Mostaʿin, executed some of its inhabitants because of the city's refusal to pay taxes. Mofleḥ became governor of Qom and lasted in that position for at least five years. During his governorship important Alids moved to Qom and there are references to close contacts between the representative of the 11th Shia's Imam, Hassan al-Askari, in Qom and other Qomis. The representative Ahmad b. Eshaq was at the same time administrator of the Fāṭema sanctuary and the agent (wakil) responsible for the pensions of the Alids.
The first Friday mosque in Qom was built in 878–79 on the site of a fire temple, although there are also confusing reports concerning a possible earlier Friday mosque. In 881–82 Qom was occupied by the Turkish military leader Edgu Tegin (Arabic: Yadkutakin b. Asātakin or Aḏkutakin), who tried to collect the tax arrears for seven years which partially ruined the guarantors (some of whom are known) of these taxes. At about the same time the early orthodox Shias achieved their victory in the town. In 893–94, at the latest, all extremists (ḡolāt) were driven out of town by the leading Shia shaikh of Qom, Ahmaad b. Mohamed Isa Azhari. Probably one year later, in 1895, the famous Islamic mystic Ḥosayn b. Manṣur Ḥallaj stayed in Qom, where he was arrested.
From 895–96 onwards the history of Qom was connected with a family of Turkish military leaders from the army of the caliph Al-Mu'tadid, including the governor Berun (Birun). In the same year, Berun destroyed a big and probably still active fire temple located on the territory of the evolving city and probably opposite today's sanctuary of Fātimah bint Mūsā. In these unstable political times, Qom was visited by the vizier of Al-Moʿtazed, Obayd-Allah ibn Solayman, and two tax assessments were organized.
An administrative peculiarity of Qom was put to an end at about the same time, to wit the independent appointment of judges through the Arab inhabitants of Qom until the time of al-Moktafi, which, together with the dispatch of a joint Arab-Persian delegation to the vizier Ḥamid ibn Abbas indicate the end of the elevated position of the Arabs in Qom. The period of the governor Abbas ibn Amr Ganawi (292–96/904–09) is remarkable for the presence of non-Twelver Shias in Qom and the establishment of the office of the jahbaḏ (financial officer) as the tax broker for the city, which fostered local self-determination.
In 909 Hosayn ibn Hamdan ibn Hamdun was appointed governor of Qom and Kāšān by the caliph Al-Moqtader and had to assist the caliph's army against the Saffarids in Fars. Altogether he stayed in power only for two years before he had to return to Baghdad. In the years 301/913–14 to 315/927, the people of Qom had, besides another tax assessment (meanwhile the eighth), a caliphal intervention that resulted in the appointment of a governor to stabilize the administrative grip over the region. This move caused more unrest and affected the balance of power in an area that was disputed between the powers of the time (Daylamites, Samanids).