ancient city of Central Asia lying near the modern town of Mary, Mary oblast (province), Turkmenistan. Mentioned in ancient Persian texts as Mouru and in cuneiform inscriptions as Margu, it was the seat of a satrapy of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Under the Arabs in the 7th century the city was rebuilt as the capital of Khorāsān and served as a base for Muslim expansion into Central Asia and later China. A great centre of Islāmic learning under the ʿAbbāsid caliphs, Merv attained the zenith of its glory as capital of the Seljuq sultan Sanjar (reigned 1118–57) and his successors. Destroyed by the Mongols in 1221, the city and its irrigation system were rebuilt in the 15th century, but it never regained its former prosperity. Merv was under the Tekke Turkmens when it was occupied by the Russians in 1884.