After Shah Abbas the First had walked through Kashan and across the kavir area of salt plain and salt mud, he turned eastwards along the Khurasan highroad towards the Holy City of Mashhad.
This latter part of the Shah’s route is easy to trace exactly: many pilgrims came – and still come – this way. However, the non-specific names given by Yazdi for most of Abbas’ stopping places mean that the exact halts are difficult to find with certainty.
As the Portuguese ambassador Gouvea explained in 1602, the Khurasani towns and villages that the Shah passed through in 1601 had only very shortly before been a conflict-zone: “This Province [‘Coraçon’] is now desolate and ruined because of the wars there have been for several years between the Kings of Persia and the Tartars”.