Mogadishu vs Mashhad

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Mogadishu (, also US: ; Somali: Muqdisho [mʉqdɪʃɔ]; Arabic: مقديشو‎, romanized: Muqadīshū [muqaˈdiːʃuː]; Italian: Mogadiscio [moɡaˈdiʃʃo]), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting with traders all round the Indian Ocean for millennia and currently has a population of 2,425,000 residents. Mogadishu is the nearest foreign mainland city to Seychelles, at a distance of 835 mi (1,344 km) over the Indian Ocean. Mogadishu is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean, which unlike other Somali regions, is considered a municipality rather than a maamulgoboleed (federal state).Mogadishu has a long history, which ranges from the ancient period up until the present, serving as the capital of an influential Sultanate in the 9th century, which for centuries controlled the Indian Ocean gold trade, and eventually came under the Ajuran Empire in the 13th century, which was an important player in the medieval Silk Road maritime trade.

Mogadishu enjoyed the height of its prosperity during the 14th and 15th centuries and was during the early modern period considered the richest city on the East African coast, as well as the center of a thriving textile industry. In the 17th century, Mogadishu and parts of southern Somalia fell under the Hiraab Imamate and then came under the direct rule of the Somali Sultanate of the Geledi. The onset of Italian colonialism occurred in incremental stages, with Italian treaties in the 1880s followed by economic engagement between various Somali clans, including the Reer Mataan and the Shaansi (Cadcad) clans like reer Xamar and the Italian Benadir Company and then direct governance by the Italian government after 1906 and the British Military Administration of Somalia after World War Two and the UN Italian Trust Territory in the 1950s. This was followed by independence in 1960, the Hantiwadaag (socialist) era during Barre's presidency (1969-1991), a three-decade civil war afterward, and as of the late 2010s and 2020s a period of reconstruction.

Source: Wikipedia

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Mashhad (Persian: مشهد‎, romanized: Mašhad [mæʃˈhæd] (listen)), also spelled Mashad or Meshad, is the second-most-populous city in Iran and the capital of Razavi Khorasan Province. It is located in the northeast of the country. It has a population of 3,001,184 (2016 census), which includes the areas of Mashhad Taman and Torqabeh. It was a major oasis along the ancient Silk Road connecting with Merv to the east. The city is named after the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia Imam. The Imam was buried in a village in Khorasan, which afterward gained the name Mashhad, meaning the place of martyrdom. Every year, millions of pilgrims visit the Imam Reza shrine. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid is also buried within the same shrine. Mashhad has been governed by different ethnic groups over the course of its history.

The city enjoyed relative prosperity in the Mongol period. Mashhad is also known colloquially as the city of Ferdowsi, after the Iranian poet who composed the Shahnameh. The city is the hometown of some of the most significant Iranian literary figures and artists, such as the poet Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, and Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, the traditional Iranian singer and composer. Ferdowsi and Akhavan-Sales are both buried in Tus, an ancient city that is considered to be the main origin of the current city of Mashhad. On 30 October 2009 (the anniversary of Imam Reza's martyrdom), Iran's then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Mashhad to be "Iran's spiritual capital".

Source: Wikipedia