Rab'-e Rashidi

Rab'-e Rashidi (Persian: رَبع رشیدی) is the site of a historic building complex including a school and a workshop for producing books that was constructed in the early 14th century during the reign of Ghazan, a ruler of the Ilkhanid dynasty, in the northeastern part of the city of Tabriz, Iran.

In addition to all these the complex held a workshop for the production of books, where the early manuscripts of the Jami' al-tawarikh, and in the 1330s probably the Great Mongol Shahnameh, were produced.

The most prominent of the masonry bases still extant has a rectangular projection, possibly the foundation for an astrological observatory that is mentioned in Rashid al-Din's writings.

All the staff also received bread and other food in addition to their salaries, and it was also distributed to those attending the tomb at certain times, and 100 of the poor were fed daily.

[8] Rab'-e Rashidi origins date to the 13th century, when Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the minister of Ghazan Khan, the seventh ruler of the Ilkhanid dynasty, established a large academic center in Tabriz, the capital of Ilkhanid dynasty at the time, which he named Rab'-e Rashidi.

Students from Iran, China, Egypt, and Syria studied subjects here under the supervision of intellectuals, scientists, physicians and Islamic scholars.

The main components of the foundation were a library, a hospice, a hospital, a khanqah, and a tomb with winter and summer mosques.

However, due to what is believed to have been a conspiracy, Rashid al-Din was executed under the false pretext that he had poisoned Oljeitu Khan.

According to later stories, before Shah Abbas, a ruler by the name of Malik Ashraf later took over the site in 1351 and expanded it further by building fortifications, mosques, hospitals and schools.