Gholam Ali Pouratayee, Khorasan Music

Maestro Gholam Ali Pouratayee is one of the biggest names in the history of traditional Khorasani music. He lives in Torbat Jam.

Gholam Ali Pouratayee

Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan (Persian: خراسان کهن یا خراسان بزرگ) (also written Khurasan) is a historical region spanning what are now northeastern Iran, most of Afghanistan, and the southern parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikstan. The name "Khorasan" is derived from Middle Persian khor (meaning "sun") and asan (or ayan literally meaning "to come" or "coming"), hence meaning "land where the sun rises". The Persian word Khāvar-zamīn (Persian: خاور زمین), meaning "the eastern land", has also been used as an equivalent term.

Khorasan in its proper sense comprised principally the cities of Nishapur and Tus (now in Iran), Balkh and Herat (now in Afghanistan), Merv (now in Turkmenistan), and Samarqand and Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan). However, the name has been used in the past to cover a larger region that encompassed most of Transoxiana and Soghdiana in the north, extended westward to the Caspian Sea, southward to include the Sistan desert and eastward to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. Arab geographers even spoke of its extending to the boundaries of ancient India, possibly as far as the Indus valley, in what is now Pakistan. Sources from the 14th to the 16th century report that Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul in Afghanistan formed the frontier region between Khorasan and Hindustan.

In the Islamic period, Persian Iraq and Khorasan were the two important territories. The boundary between these two was the region surrounding the cities of Gurgan and Damghan. In particular, the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs and Timurids divided their empires into Iraqi and Khorasani regions. The adjective Greater is added these days to distinguish the historical region from the Khorasan province of Iran, which roughly encompasses the western half of the historical Khorasan. It is also used to indicate that ancient Khorasan encompassed a loose collection of territories individually known by other popular names, such as Bactria, Khwarezmia, Sogdiana, Transoxiana, and Sistan or Arachosia.

Torbat-e Jām is an ancient city in the Razavi Khorasan state in north-eastern Iran. It is about 160 kilometres (99 miles) southwest of Mashhad, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Taybad, and about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the Afghanistan border. There are many ancient places there, like the mazar (tomb) of Sheikh Ahmad Jami and Prince Ghasem Anvar. It includes many villages, such as Bezd, Mahmoodabad, Nilshahr. (From Wikipedia)

Here is a vocal performance by Gholam Ali Pouratayee accompanied by his legendary dutar.