Qom

Qom

Search Qom with any search engine and you will see a picture of the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa or Jamkaran Mosque.

The name of Qom is equal to religion. The largest area of ​​Seminary in Iran and perhaps even the whole Shiite world was established in this city and famous figures studied there.

But in the depth of Qom, apart from the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa and Jamkaran, lies a series of secrets that have nothing to do with the Islamic world.

Once upon a time in ancient Iran, at the same time that Ahura Mazda was creating the holy lands when the myth of Iran was being formed and many gods were helping both in heaven and on earth, he chose a land, the fairest of them all, pure. bright, blessed, and divined in the heart of Iran.

Anahita, the mother of waters, strong and powerful, the goddess of fertility and purity, marked it as her territory. Thousands of years ago, Qom had springs, water, rivers, and settlements. In other words, it was the throne of Iran’s mythical goddess of waters.

According to Zoroastrian texts, Anahita made a pantheon around a spring in the land that Ahura Mazda had sworn to protect from any evil. Years later, that spring became a shrine and that shrine to the city and today it is known as Qom.

Mythological memories have been forgotten now and almost no one knows that the main reason for Qom’s fame in religion is not only because of Islam.

Water was one of the four elements that were considered sacred in Zoroastrianism and should never be contaminated. Many women came to this pantheon to be fertile, girls to have a successful marriage, and men to have righteous children.

After the Arabs invasion, Qom, which was on the Silk Road too, received a lot of attention, and then the biggest historical event of Qom after Islam took place in this city.

At the end of the second century AH, Al-Mamun the Abbasid Caliph, Ali Al-Ridha, the eighth Imam of the Shiites, to Khorasan to ask him to be the heir to his throne.

With the travel of Ali al-Ridha to Marv, a group of his brothers and sisters left Mecca and Medina and moved to Iran to finally join their brother in Khorasan. Fatimah bint Musa entered Qom and died there.

Due to the previous importance of Qom in the Iranian subconscious, the high position of Fatimah bint Musa, her good character, and her blood relationship with the eighth Shiite, Qom was on the map again.

Especially when the Safavid came to power in Iran in the tenth and eleventh centuries, AH and the official sect in Islamic Iran changed from Sunni to Shiite.

They paid a lot of respect to the tombs of the children and grandchildren of the Shiite Imams, especially Fatimah bint Musa, and gradually turned the simple tombstone into a pantheon, a mosque, and then a shrine.

This shrine became a refuge for many Shiite scholars and clerics, so that the largest religious school in Iran, the seminary of Qom, was built in this city.

Due to the inherent support of religion for justice and equality, when it came to constitutionalism during the Qajar period, Qom became the most controversial center of the struggle against the authoritarian regime and wore a political robe as well.

With the victory of the Constitutional Revolution, Qom continued its political activities, trained and handed over someone like Ruhollah Khomeini to Iran. It was in the seminary of Qom that Khomeini’s opposition to the Pahlavi government began, and the numerous uprisings of the people of Qom had a direct impact on the course of the 1978 revolution.

After the revolution, Qom made great strides in publishing books, and it has numerous libraries, publications, and authors, especially in the field of children’s poetry and literature.

The tomb of Fatimah bint Musa became so famous that pilgrims came from faraway lands to show their respect. This attraction is mainly because of the character of Fatimah bint Musa and the subconscious support of the mother of waters.

Many famous faces have been buried in the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa, some of whom deserved to be in that holy land, and some did not.

Parvin E’tesami, a gifted poetess and mistress of debatical style in Iranian literature, a critic of the political situation of the society, had bequeathed to be buried next to Fatimah bint Musa. The poem she wrote for his tombstone is very thought-provoking. 

Shah Abbas II Safavid also built his tomb in the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa.

But people like Shah Suleiman and Shah Safi Safavid, the last kings of the Safavid dynasty, and others like Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, who all left Iran in ruins and passed, are unfortunately also buried in this historical religious place.

In addition to the importance of the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa, a mosque has been built in Qom, the name of which is still a testimonial to the glorious era of Persia’s mythological history.

Jamkaran is a mosque that many Shiites and Muslims believe in. Shiite narrations say that a man saw Muhammad Al-Mahdi (the 12th Imam of Shiite who is still alive for the Armageddon) in a dream and took the order to build a mosque from him. For this reason, many pilgrims even come to this mosque on foot.

An issue that can be considered in the meantime is the name of “Jamkaran”. In today’s Persian, it can be translated into “what Jam has built”.

“Jam” or “Jamshid” is one of the most renowned figures in the mythological history of Iran. By interpreting Zoroastrian’s holy books, we understand that Jam was the first homo-sapiens. Ahura Mazda initially offered the prophet-hood of the Zoroastrian religion to Jamshid, but Jamshid saw it beyond his power and was content with the kingdom.

On three occasions, due to overcrowding, Jam asked Ahura Mazda to widen the earth.

This is in line with the archaeological findings around Qom, and archaeologists have considered Qom as one of the earliest human settlements.

Jamshid then, realized that a terrible natural disaster was on its way and if he could not save the people from it, all life on earth would be destroyed. So, by his superhuman abilities, he built a fortress or a castle, and the people in that place were called to this fort or fortress.

In Iran, there is no land, village, or ruin with this name. What the mythologists guess is that today’s Jamkaran is the place where Jamshid used to build his fort.

In this castle, no one got sick or aged. There was no evil, no famine, and everything was at its finest. Perhaps it can be called a kind of utopia of Iranian mythology.

Apart from historical, religious, and mythological issues, Qom is one of the most touristic cities in Iran, of course for pilgrimage.

Another thing that can make Qom famous is Sohan. Sohan is a kind of Iranian sweet that is made from wheat germ. Sohan is produced and supplied in different forms and types such as Honey Sohan, Sesame Sohan, Halva, Almond, etc.

The main raw materials used in baking and preparing Sohan are water, flour, wheat, sugar, oil, egg yolk, cardamom, saffron, and pistachio kernels.

We hope you enjoy the myths behind the historical events of Qom, that the greatness of the shrine of Fatimah bint Musa surprises you, and that the tea itself next to the Sohan of Qom would be a new taste and thereby, according to the Japanese, seven days shall be added to your life.