Nardaran

Coordinates: 40°33′22″N 50°00′20″E / 40.55611°N 50.00556°E / 40.55611; 50.00556

Nardaran is a settlement and municipality on the Abşeron Peninsula in Baku, Azerbaijan. It has a population of 8,300. Located 25 kilometers northeast of central Baku, it is politically part of the Baku city-subdivision and treated as a suburb. Unlike the rest of the country which is staunchly secular, Nardaran is a sole center of conservative Shi'a Islam in Azerbaijan.

Nardaran's name come from Persian (Farsi): nar (pomegranate)نار + daran (trees) داران, i.e. "place with pomegranate trees".

The town is the site of an 14th-century castle, featuring a round tower approximately 12.5 meters high. During Soviet rule, the town was known as a center for growing flowers. Since Azerbaijan's independence, the economy has dwindled and the town is reputed for its caviar poachers.

Center of Shia Islam

Nardaran "has long been a bastion of devout Shia Muslims" and is the only place in the whole of Azerbaijan where its inhabitants are devoutly religious and conservative, and where its streets displayed religious banners and where most women wear chadors in public. The town is home to a madrasa as well as the Rehime Khanim Mosque, a large Shia mosque built in the late 1990s over the tomb of Rahima Khanim, the sister of Imam Reza. The now banned Islamic Party of Azerbaijan was founded in this town and its base was centered there. Nardaran has been the site of strong protests and unrest, notable riots in June 2002 over what protesters deemed inadequate living standards and another in January 2006 which resulted in the deaths of three people. On November 26, 2015 two policemen and four suspected Shia Muslim militants were killed in an armed confrontation. The religious leader of the Muslim Union Eldar Bagirov was also arrested, together with 14 other Nardaran residents.