An excerpt from the Safar-nama of Nasir Khusraw:
“On the second of Dhul-Qada [May 11, 1046 CE] I left Nishapur and in the company of Khwaja Muwaffaq, the Sultan’s agent, came to Qumis via Givan. There I paid a visit to the tomb of Shaykh Bayazid at Bistam.”
Source: Thackston, W. Wheeler McIntosh, ed. trans., Nasir-i Khusraw’s Book of Travels (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2010), 3.
Bistam is a town in the Shahristan district of Shahrud, Afghanistan. The pre-Islamic history of the town is unknown. According to one tradition, the town was founded in 590 CE by Bistam, Governor of Khurasan, whose nephew Khusraw II Parwiz was the ruler of Persia at the time.
Yaqut Al-Hamawi, a 7th AH / 13th CE century Muslim geographer (d. 626 AH / 1229 CE), attributes the town to the longest reigning king of the Sassanid Empire, Shapur II. During the Arab conquest, Suwayd b. Mukarrin occupied the town before his invasion of Jurjan, but the date is uncertain.
During the Abbasid caliphate, Bistam was the second biggest town of the Qumis province after the capital, Damghan. The town faced decline following Mongol invasion. Later it was replaced in importance by Shahrud. Little is known of the town except as the burial place of the Sufi Abu Yazid al-Bistami.
At present, in addition to Abu Yazid al-Bistami’s shrine, there are remains of a citadel from the 6th AH / 12th CE century and of the Friday mosque, which possibly dates from the 18th century, but the minaret and an adjacent tomb are much older.
Citation:
"Bistam." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online, 2012.
http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/bistam-SIM_1455?s.num=0&s.q=bistam [accessed July 2013]
“Bestam.” Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. 1989.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bestam-3 [accessed July 25, 2013]
Daftary, Farhad. A short history of the Ismailis. (Princeton, NJ: M. Wiener, 1998).
Hunsberger, Alice C. Nasir Khusraw, the ruby of Badakhshan. (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000).
Wilber, Donald N. The Architecture of Islamic Iran. (New York: Greenwood Press. 1969).
Shrine of Bayazid Bistami
http://www.archnet.org/sites/1599 [accessed February 2014]
Gunbad-i Bistam
http://www.archnet.org/sites/4741[accessed February 2014]
