The Minar was a staged, tower-like structure built in the center of the Sasanian circular city of Gōr (modern Firuzabad, Iran).

[1] Among Western orientalists and travellers, the structure was first observed by Eugène Flandin and Pascal Coste, who noted its uniqueness in Iranian architecture.

In fact, this grand scheme was centred in Terbal and continued the concentric and radiant pattern of the town, with traces of canals, paths, walls and field borders found up to 10 km distant from this central tower.

[5][2][8] It is thought that the Terbal was the architectural predecessor of the unique minaret (known as the malwiya) of Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq, which was built in the Abbasid period.

[9] The minaret itself inspired that of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, Egypt,[9] and recently Philip Johnson's design for the 1976 Chapel of Thanksgiving at Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas, Texas.