Zaranj (Sistan)

Zaranj was the chief city of the historic region of Sistan, on the present-day border of Iran and Afghanistan; the old site lies in southwestern Afghanistan. It was the capital of the Saffarid dynasty in the 9th century and a centre of the region's Islamic culture. The Ismaili thinker Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani took his nisba from Sistan.