athe ways of western khurasan districts toward nayshabur at the time of imam al-riḍā’s (a.s.) arrival in khurasan

in islamic period, nayshabur was located on the connecting ways of east and west owing the major part of its political importance and economic prosperity to this specific geographical status. every caravan that was intended to pass from east to west or the other way round had to pass through this city. in passing through fars province and jibāl to the east of iran, there were two major ways leading to nayshabur: quhistan and qumis. the course of imam al-riḍā’s (a.s.) caravan toward merv from these two ways has only passed through nayshabur. despite scanty and unconvincing evidences on the passage of imam al-riḍā’s (a.s.) caravan through qumis to nashabur, it seems that this caravan has passed through fars-quhistan. in the present research, after a brief explanation of the geographical situation of nayshabur in the islamic period, the writer tries at first to show the ways of the provinces located in western khurasan and specifically the jibāl, fars, and gurgan provinces toward nayshabur; and then to answer the question as to which of the main ways of fars and jibāl were more frequented toward nayshabur in late second/seventh and early third/eighth centuries. the arrival of imam al-riḍā (a.s.) in nayshabur in 200/815 falls in this same time-period. the present study to some extent denotes the relative prosperity in the traffic on the quhistan way comparing to the qumis way in this time, the relative prosperity of the same way through which imam al-riḍā (a.s.) entered nayshabur.