ii. IN THE ALBORZ (HISTORY)

The early Islamic geographers did not mention this Fīrūzkūh as such, but they did describe the district of Vīma/Vayma (i.e., Mid. Pers. Wēm “lit. rock”), in which it lay; from the slopes of Vīma a stream flowed south to Ḵovār in Qūmes (Eṣṭaḵrī, pp. 206, 209, tr. pp. 216, 218; Ebn Ḥawqal, pp. 378-79, tr. Kramers, pp. 367, 369; Abū Dolaf, tr., p. 53; Moqaddasī/Maqdesī, pp. 51, 392 n. aḤodūd al-ʿālam, ed. Sotūda, p. 147, tr. Minorsky, p. 135).

In the early 12th century, however, Fīrūzkūh was mentioned in historical sources on the Caspian region (e.g., Ebn Esfandīār, tr. Browne, pp. 165, 255) as a strong fortress (not to be identified with the Ferrīm or Perrīm of the Qarinids and then Bavandids, pace Casanova; see Jovaynī, ed. Qazvīnī, III, comm. p. 383). It was besieged by Sultan ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Tekeš Ḵᵛārazmšāh (567-96/1172-200) in 594/1198; in 624/1227 Sultan Moḥammad’s son Rokn-al-Dīn Ḡūr-Sānjī was besieged there by the Mongols; and in 654/1256 the il-khan Hülegü (Hūlāgū) passed by Fīrūzkūh in his campaign against the Ismaʿili imam Ḵoršāh and the destruction of Ismaʿili fortresses (Jovaynī, ed. Qazvīnī, I, pp. 42, II, 208-10, III, 108, tr. Boyle, I, p. 311, II, pp. 475-76, 619; Rašīd-al-Dīn, Jāmeʿ al-tawārīkò, Baku, pp. 32-33). Subsequently Fīrūzkūh became a summer pasture for the Il-khanids and Timurids; it was there, in 694/1295, that Ḡāzān Khan (694-703/1295-1304) formally became a Muslim at the hands of Shaikh Ṣadr-al-Dīn Ebrāhīm Ḥamawī Jovaynī (Rašīd-al-Dīn, Jāmeʿ al-tawārīkò, Baku, pp. 294-97; idem, Tārīḵ-e ḡāzānī, pp. 76-80; Spuler, Mongolen3, p. 185).