Amul (Mazandaran)

Amul is a town in the south-west corner of the eastern Mazandaran plain, on the west bank of the Harhaz river, about 20 km south of the Caspian Sea, in the district that the Classical writers associated with the Mapourioi. The name may be the modern Persian form of the hypothetical Old Persian Amardha. ¹

Ibn Isfandiyar says that Amul was founded by Amula, daughter of a Daylamite chieftain and wife of King Firuz of Balkh; Hamd Allah Mustawfi attributes its foundation to King Tahmurath. The entry treats both as legends. In the Sasanian era the district of Amul, together with Gilan, formed a Nestorian episcopal see, and the town is mentioned several times in the Shahnama. ¹

In Muslim times Amul became an important industrial town. Al-Tabari and the jurist Abu '1-Tayyib al-Tabari were born there. The Hudud al-'Alam describes it as a great town and the capital of Tabaristan, very prosperous, with many merchants and scholars, several industries, and a surrounding district that produced large quantities of fruit. Mas'ud, son of Mahmud of Ghazna, sacked it in 426/1035-36, and Timur sacked it again. ¹

Earthquakes and floods devastated the town several times, yet it remained a considerable town, with red-tiled houses of burnt brick. A twelve-arched bridge over the Harhaz links it with its suburb on the east bank. Roads connect it with the small Caspian port of Mahmudabad, with Barfurush to the east, and with Chalus and Rasht to the west. Its population in 1941 was 14,166, though it varied seasonally, as many people went to the mountains in summer. ¹