The city is mentioned by many a historian, such as Farhang-i Anandraj, Hamdollah Mostowfi's Nuzhat-ul qolub, Majmal al-tawarikh, and Ibn Balkhi's Farsnameh.
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In particular, some historians such as Yaqut al-Hamawi's Mu'jam Al-Buldan write of the city being centered around a pre-Islamic academic center of higher learning where scholars converged to study medicine as well as Indian and Greek sciences.