Qualla: Shanb Ghazan: The Mongol Satellite City

Shanb Ghazan: The Mongol Satellite City: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ghazani, CC BY-SA 3.0. It started as a village called Shanb. In 1290, under the Mongol ruler Arghun Khan -- a Buddhist -- the village was transformed into a town called Arghuniyye, complete with a Buddhist temple and a palace. When Arghun's successor Mahmud Ghazan took power, the settlement evolved further into Ghazaniya, a satellite city on the western edge of Tabriz. At its center rose a dome 135 meters tall, the tomb of Ghazan Khan himself, surrounded by twelve public institutions built on all twelve sides. The dome astonished everyone who saw it. Within three centuries, earthquakes had buried it all.

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Image: Ghazani | CC BY-SA 3.0

Shanb Ghazan: The Mongol Satellite City: Twelve Institutions Around a Dome

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ghazani, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ghazan Khan began construction of his tomb, the Qubba-ye-Aali (Big Dome), in late 1297. He was a ruler who believed in benevolence as policy, and the dome was not meant to stand alone. Around it he ordered the construction of twelve public institutions: a congregational mosque, a...

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Image: Ghazani | CC BY-SA 3.0

Shanb Ghazan: The Mongol Satellite City: Gateway to Tabriz

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ghazani, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ghazan Khan decreed that foreign merchants entering Tabriz must first pass through and stay in Shanb-e-Ghazan. The requirement turned the neighborhood into a commercial gateway, filled with traders arriving from across the Mongol Empire and beyond. Tax revenues from the province ...

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Image: Ghazani | CC BY-SA 3.0

Shanb Ghazan: The Mongol Satellite City: Empires Fight Over the Ruins

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ghazani, CC BY-SA 3.0. In later centuries, the neighborhood's strategic position made it a battlefield. When the Ottoman general Pargali Ibrahim Pasha, minister to Suleiman the Magnificent, occupied Tabriz, he built a castle in Shanb-e-Ghazan. The Safavids and Ottomans traded control of the site for de...

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Image: Ghazani | CC BY-SA 3.0

Shanb Ghazan: The Mongol Satellite City: A Neighborhood of Ghosts

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ghazani, CC BY-SA 4.0. The neglect of subsequent Qajar and Pahlavi governments completed the erasure. The antiquities of Shanb-e-Ghazan were gradually despoiled, carried off, or simply allowed to crumble. Today, the historical neighborhood contains almost no visible historical remains -- just a bathhou...

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Image: Ghazani | CC BY-SA 4.0