Kashan Shenasi

Kashan Shenasi

Jarmqāsān and Sardqāsān: Kashan in Ancient Sources

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Hosein Imanian Bidgoli
Associate Professor, Department of Languages and Literature, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran
10.22052/kashan.2025.255358.1123
Abstract
The region of Kashan, due to its location along major routes of the Iranian central plateau and its possession of both desert and mountainous areas, among other factors, has always been considered a valuable territory. Discovering the reason for its naming as "Kāshān" will lead us into generally unclear conclusions, a point that has been mentioned in the research and statements of others. In the early Islamic centuries and mostly in Arabic-language sources, Kashan is referred to as the two rustāqs (districts) of "Jarmqāsān" and "Sardqāsān." Since these two terms are first found in the writings of Rōzbeh Irāni (Ibn al-Moqaffa'), who was a translator of part of the Pahlavi texts, it can be presumed that this nomenclature was also prevalent in Iran before the Arab conquest. Roughly from the 4th and 5th centuries AH (10th-11th CE), the single name "Kāshān" was applied to both its warm and cold parts, replacing the two aforementioned names. A look at medieval sources shows that Kashan was no longer considered a rustāq among the rustāqs of Isfahan or Qom, but rather a madīna (city) encompassing several qarya (villages), and was counted as having a congregational mosque (jāmeh) and pulpit (minbar), a madrasa, a governor (hākem), and fortifications (borj wa bārū). This article, using a descriptive-analytical method and based on the examination of Arabic and Persian sources from the second to the sixth centuries AH (8th-12th CE), seeks to clarify the period and the reasons for this transformation. It can be surmised that water scarcity in the warm-climate villages during the first few Islamic centuries, the merger of several surrounding villages with Kashan, the spread of Shiite Islam in the central part of Kashan, and its economic prosperity in the fourth and fifth centuries AH (10th-11th CE) caused the two warm and cold rustāqs of Kashan to transform into the madīna of Kashan—a central city encompassing several villages.
Keywords
Qāsān
Kāshān
Garmsir (warm region)
Sardsir (cold region)
Rustāq (district)
Madīna (city)
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