Izad khāst
The fortress of Izad Khāst or Izad Khāst, is one of the ancient buildings related to the Sasanians period located in the vicinity of the historical city which has the same name in the district of Ābādeh (Fārs region).
This ancient fortress, very similar to the citadel of Bam, Kermān also has other names such as Sarsang fortress or Kohne fortress. Regarding its name it is said that once there was an army here and that because of the abundance of snow, many people lost their lives; when the survivors were asked about the cause of this incident, one of the elders replied: "Izad Khāst" and there they stopped, buried the dead and built a village that became known by this name.
The builders of the ancient fortress Izad Khāst, have resorted mostly to the natural elements building their city on a large rock that from three sides gives on a cliff high from 6 to 15 meters and only on one side that more or less is on the same level of the ground, the fortress is accessed and this factor has been the reason for its safety and its inhabitants making it impossible to access the enemy and the impregnable fortress.
The height of this building at 5 floors is 22 meters. Inside you can see very small houses with very narrow alleys. The houses did not have the courtyard and the roof of the first floor was in fact the courtyard of the second floor. With the use of wood added from the ceilings, for the houses around the walls of the fortress a balcony had been created whose presence still strikes the eye.
At the center of the fortress there was a temple of fire on whose ruins a mosque was built similar to the early mosques and the architectural style of the pavilion. In a corner there is also a very nice hammam dating back to the Safavid era with an inscription that shows the year of construction, a dressing room and a calidarium and contains all the elements of an Iranian hammam.
The beauty of Izad Khāst is not limited to its fortress. Many other Sassanid buildings and also some important Safavids can be seen in its surroundings as: the Shāh Abbāsi caravanserai with 4000 meters of square footage with some rooms and rooms provided with the most beautiful decorations, an inscription with white sols calligraphy on the cerulean background and around the courtyard rectangular of the caravanserai important sepulchres and in front of a Safavid bridge that passes over the river Izad Khāst and also an arched dam of the same epoch known as Sarband dam.
In some ancient maps the current place of the city of Izad Khāst has been called "place of division", ie the same place where the Aryan civilization was divided into the three known groups, the Medes, the Persians and the Parts.
