GORZEVĀN

 

GORZEVĀN (thus in the Ḥodud al-ʿālam; Yaʿqubi, Qorzomān; Ebn Ḥawqal and Yāqut, Jorzovān; Moqaddasi, Jorzovān and Korzovān), a town in the medieval Islamic region of Guzgān (q.v.) in northern Afghanistan. It lay in the district of the headwaters of the Fāryāb and Andḵuy rivers, still in modern Afghanistan called Darzāb wa Gorzevān (Ḥodud al-ʿālam, tr, Minorsky, comm. p. 335). It was the summer residence (qaṣaba) of the local princes of the Farighunid family (see āl-e farègúuún), whose winter residence was at Anbār or Anbīr (q.v.). The geographers describe it as populous and flourishing. Under the Ḵᵛārazmšāhs, it was a mint town (Zambaur, p. 97). The present ruins at Qalʿa-ye Wāli, to the south of Bālā Morḡāb, may mark its site (Yate, pp. 157, 194-96, 211).

 

Bibliography:

Ebn Ḥawqal, p. 443; tr. Kramers and Wiet, p. 428.

Gazetteer of Afghanistan IV, pp. 193-94, 230-31.

Ḥodud al-ʿālam, ed. Sotuda, pp. 30, 97; tr. Minorsky, pp. xxxvii-viii, 64, 107.

Le Strange, Lands, p. 424.

Yaʿqubi, Boldān, p. 287; tr. Wiet, p. 100.

Yāqut, Boldān (ed. Beirut) II, p. 125.

C. C. Yate, Northern Afghanistan, London, 1888.

Eduard von Zambaur, Die Münprägungen des Islam, Wiesbaden, 1968.

(C. Edmund Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 2002

Last Updated: February 17, 2012

This article is available in print.
Vol. XI, Fasc. 2, pp. 166-167