
Fahraj ( fa, فهرج, also
Romanize
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
d as Fahrej; also known as Fahruj and Faraj) is a village in
Fahraj Rural District, in the
Central District of
Yazd County,
Yazd Province,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...
. At the 2006 census, its population was 2,694, in 697 families.
Located 30 km southeast of
Yazd on the road to
Bafq, at the foothill of
Chalta mountain, Fahraj lies in an arid region on the edge of the desert and relies on
qanat
A qanat or kārīz is a system for transporting water from an aquifer or water well to the surface, through an underground aqueduct; the system originated approximately 3,000 BC in what is now Iran. The function is essentially the same acro ...
s and deep
wells for its water supply. Its population consists mainly of
Persian-speaking
Shi'ites.
History
In the ''
Tarikh-e Yazd'',
Ja'far ibn Mohammad Ja'fari attributed Fahraj's founding to the
Sasanian king
Kavad I. As ''Bahra'', the 10th-century geographers
Estakhri and
al-Moqaddasi listed Fahraj as one of the main towns in the province of Yazd, along with
Meybod and
Na'in. Like the other two, Fahraj was described as possessing a
jameh mosque
A congregational mosque or Friday mosque (, ''masjid jāmi‘'', or simply: , ''jāmi‘''; ), or sometimes great mosque or grand mosque (, ''jāmi‘ kabir''; ), is a mosque for hosting the Friday noon prayers known as ''Friday prayer, jumu'ah'' ...
. Later,
Abu'l-Fida gave the
geographical coordinates of Fahraj, something he only did for places he considered important, indicating the continued significance of Fahraj at this time.
Fahraj was the scene of an episode during
Muslim conquest of Persia. The army of the caliph
Umar I, chasing the Sasanian emperor
Yazdegerd III, came to Fahraj, where they called upon the town's
Zorastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic on ...
inhabitants to convert to
Islam. The people of Fahraj resisted, along with those of nearby
Khovaydak and
Faraftar, and they fought back against the Muslim army. A number of the
companions of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monot ...
, as well as members of
the following generation, were killed. They came to be known as the ''šohadā-ye Fahraj'', or "the martyrs of Fahraj", and
mausoleums said to belong to them still exist at Abadi-ye Shohada, 2 km outside of Fahraj.
Mosque
The
jameh mosque
A congregational mosque or Friday mosque (, ''masjid jāmi‘'', or simply: , ''jāmi‘''; ), or sometimes great mosque or grand mosque (, ''jāmi‘ kabir''; ), is a mosque for hosting the Friday noon prayers known as ''Friday prayer, jumu'ah'' ...
of Fahraj, located in the center of town, is one of the oldest extant mosques in Iran. It is made of
sun-dried bricks, with the
façade
A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means 'frontage' or ' face'.
In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...
coated in ''
sim-gel'' (a mixture of
sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a soil texture, textur ...
,
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay part ...
, and chopped
straw
Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has a numbe ...
, ''
gel-rig'', and
plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "r ...
bracing. The minaret, built in the 10th or 11th century, is made of smaller bricks. The eastern wall has
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
reliefs that, along with other decorative elements, resemble
Sasanian art. In times of upheaval, people would store their valuables in hiding places in the mosque to protect them from thieves or raiders.
References
Populated places in Yazd County
Sasanian cities
{{YazdCounty-geo-stub