The Importance of Nuzhat Al-Qulūb in Explaining Historical Geography and Determining the Place-Names of Kurdistan during the Ilkhanid Period

During the Ilkhanid Period, the western part of the province of Jibal was named Kurdistan in administrative documents. Nuzhat al-Qulūb is the first text to provide detailed and valuable data about Kurdistan's historical geography. Some of the mentioned cities were ruined in the next centuries, and the names of some places are erroneously recorded in various manuscripts of Nuzhat al-Qulūb. Based on Mostowfī's Nuzhat al-Qulūb, by the historical analytic method, this study seeks to determine the location of some of the Kurdistan cities. This study shows that of the seventeen place-names mentioned in Nuzhat al-Qulūb, four places located in the present-day province of Soleimānieh in Iraq, as follows: Khuftiyān Castle near the Qal'eh Chūlan River, Nīmrāh near Halabja, Darband-e Zangī at the mouth of Sirwān River and Darband-e Tādj Khātūn at Little Zab River Valley and within Shārbazhir. Also, six other places that have disappeared today had located within current Kermanshahān: respectively, the city of Alānī near Javanrūd, Dezbil (or Drbīl) or possibly Dartang near Sar pol-e Zahab, Khūshān near Kerend-e Gharb, Solṭānābād-e Chamchamāl at the foot of Bistūn Mountain and near the present city of Bistūn, Dīnavar near the present city of Sonqor-e Kolyai and Bastam (=Visṭām, probably current Tāq-e Bostān) on the outskirts of Kermānshāh. Six other places are still present: Kerend, Māhīdasht, Harsīn, Kangāvar, Kermānshāh, and Alīshtar (in Lorestan).