Qom | This city is not what you think!
Qom is a small city 125 kilometers south of Tehran, the city is mostly known as the religious capital of Iran.
In addition to the seminaries and Fatima Masoumeh Shrine, The sister of the eighth Shiite Imam, there are many beautiful places for you to visit in this city. So, read the rest to find out!
First of all, you’ve got to know that Qom is a religious city and the low about hijab is a little stricter than the other cities of Iran, so you may have to have longer manteaus with you and pay more attention to your outfit.
You can travel to Qom using railway, airway or road transport, there are buses and taxis available in Qom and if you want to use subway, it is available at some parts of the city.
Qom doesn’t sum up in mosques and Islamic schools and holly shrines, there are tons of spectacular places you can visit in this small city. In this article we are going to introduce seven of them to you and completely change your opinion.
1. Qom Jame’ Mosque
Qom Jame’ Mosque or Atiq mosque, is located in the old part of the city, near Azar Street and Ray Gate. The 6,000-square-meter antique mosque is the 12th largest mosque in the country and the oldest mosque in Qom after Imam Hassan Asgari’s mosque. This mosque is consisted of buildings from different periods and dynasties. The current construction of the dome goes back to 1135 AD; this date was vividly clear in the Inscriptions on the building till reconstructing the building in Qajar dynasty.
The mosque is built with a rectangular courtyard and not even an iron branch was used to build this large mosque and its dome. It has an ancient porch and dome with two earrings, three Shabistans, iwan, a porch and entrance porch.
2. Gonbad Sabz Garden
One of Qom’s historic attractions of the eighth century is the tomb towers located inside a small garden known as the Green Dome Garden. The Green Dome Garden is consisted of three tombs adjacent to each other, located in the eastern part of the city, at the end of Chahar Mardan Street, next to the Qom Martyrs’ Gulzar, and is known as Kashan Gate among the locals.
This remarkable complex is one of the unique monuments in terms of plaster- moulding and brick work in Qom. The rulers of the Safi family, one of the independent rulers of Qom, are buried in here.
According to the names engraved on the historical inscriptions of these places, Khwaja Asiluddin, Khwaja Ali Safi and another person who unfortunately is unidentified because of the disappearance of the third dome’s inscription, are buried in these domes.
3. Feyziyeh School
Faizieh Qom School, one of the most famous areas of religious sciences in Iran and in the world, is located in the holy Astana Square, next to the holy shrine of Hazrat Masoumeh.
The school has four porches and consists of two floors with 40 cells (Hojre) in each floor. The cells of the first floor is from Qajar dynasty and the cells in second floor were built in 20th century.
The oldest part of the building is it’s south porch with beautiful tiles, which is on the side of Qiblah and is connected to the holy shrine. The porch was built in 15th century and designed in Safavid dynasty during it’s restoration.
4. Qom Salt Lake
In the desert region of central Iran, 62 km from Qom and 35 km from Aran and Bidgol village a salt lake known as Qom salt lake, Masileh salt lake or Aran and Bidgol salt lake is located. This salt lake, known for its high salinity, is one of the most important natural attractions in Qom province.
The lake with a length of 80 km and a width of 30 km and a depth of 5 to 54 m is one of the most important food and industrial salt extraction bases in the country. About 3 kilometers to the lake and to the southern part of it, there is a spectacular island called “The Wander Island”.
The Wander Island
The average height of the salt lake is 707m above the sea level and the highest point of this island is about 808 meters above sea level which is composed of porous volcanic rocks and has no vegetation.The reason for naming the wandering name on the island, is that when you look at the island from afar, the two ends of the island disappear into the horizon, creating a landscape like a wandering ship in the vast desert. In the past, people believed that the wandering island was always moving and moving from place to place.
5. Dayr-e Gachin
Dayr-e Gachin, One of Iran’s largest caravansaries, is located on the historic Ray-Qom Road in the center of the Desert National Park. The unique features of this monument is the reason that people call it “Mother of Iranian carvanserais”. The building was named Dayr-e Gachin because of it’s big plaster dome, but there is no such dome now. The monument goes back to Sasanid dynasty and it was repaired during Saljuq, Safavid and Qajar periods. It was built with a four iwan plan and the spaces within it can be divided into human, animal and welfare spaces. The building has four round towers at the corners and two half-oval bases on either side of the main porch, which is in the middle of the south wall.
6. Mont Élie or Khazr Nabi Mountain.
Situated 6 kilometers from downtown Qom, to the south of the city is a 1090-meter-high white mountain called Khazr Nabi Mountain. At the top of this mountain is a small mosque that it said that it used to be the place of Khazr prophet’s pilgrimage, which is why they call the mountain by his name. To reach the summit of Mount Khazr Nabi, which is the Qibla of Qom, you have to climb up about more than 300 stairs.
7. Jamkaran Mosque
Jamkaran Mosque is located 6 km from Qom city, near Kashan road and Jamkaran village. The mosque is near Mont Élie and you can plan to visit both sites in a day. Decorations of the mosque were made during the Qajar period, including seven-color brick tiles, ornamented by Islamic motifs with gold-and-azure watercolor and an inscription of brick and adorned tiles with Jom’e Sura on it. The altar is beautifully and artistically decorated, and the art masters have adorned them with plastered mahogany coverings and inscriptions with Thultha writings on them.
The main Shabistan of the Jamkaran mosque is about 1000 square meters, built on an octagonal plan consisting of three entrances to the north and two entrances to the south. Eight columns embedded in this Shabistan are decorated with mosaic tiles and Mogharnas, and the dome is located on them with a metal structure.
The inner side of the dome is beautifully decorated with bricks and mosaic tiles and the outside is covered with azure tiles.
