Kashmar

Kashmar (ka:S'maer) (کاشمر, also Romanized as Kāshmar; formerly کشمر Keshmar, ترشیز Torshīz or سلطان‌آباد Soltanabad) is a city in, and the capital of, the Central District of Kashmar County, Razavi Khorasan province, Iran, and also serves as capital of the county. Kashmar is located near the river Shesh Taraz in the western part of the province, and south of the province's capital Mashhad, in Iran, from east to Bardaskan, west to Torbat-e Heydarieh, north to Nishapur, south to Gonabad. Until two centuries ago, this city was named Torshiz (ترشیز). At the 2006 census, its population was 81,527 in 21,947 households. The following census in 2011 counted 90,200 people in 26,445 households. The latest census in 2016 showed a population of 102,282 people in 31,775 households. Kashmar is a city with ancient history and many legendary stories Among the historical legends are about the Cypress of Kashmar. Cypress of Kashmar The Cypress of Kashmar is a mythical cypress tree of legendary beauty and gargantuan dimensions. It is said to have sprung from a branch brought by Zoroaster from Paradise and to have stood in today's Kashmar in northeastern Iran and to have been planted by Zoroaster in honor of the conversion of King Vishtaspa to Zoroastrianism. According to the Iranian physicist and historian Zakariya al-Qazwini King Vishtaspa had been a patron of Zoroaster who planted the tree himself. In his ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt, he further describes how the Al-Mutawakkil in 247 AH (861 AD) caused the mighty cypress to be felled, and then transported it across Iran, to be used for beams in his new palace at Samarra. Before, he wanted the tree to be reconstructed before his eyes. This was done in spite of protests by the Iranians, who offered a very high sum of money to save the tree. Al-Mutawakkil never saw the cypress, because he was murdered by a Turkish soldier (possibly in the employ of his son) on the night when it arrived on the banks of the Tigris.