Rey, Iran capital Tehran brought more people to visit the shrine and a major restoration was sponsored by the court. Thus Ray was the first place in Iran to be connected to the capital by a railroad in 1888. Rey, Iran Rey or Ray (; , Šahr-e Rey, “City of Ray”), also known as Rhages (; , or Europos (Ευρωπός) "Rhagai"; or "Rhaganae") and formerly as Arsacia, is the capital of Rey County in Tehran Province of Iran, and the oldest existing city in the province. Ray today has been absorbed into the Greater Tehran metropolitan area. Ray is connected via the
Iran of the Iranians, surrounding themselves with a culture that was distinctively Iranian. By the 1500s, Ismail I of Ardabil established the Safavid Empire, with his capital at Tabriz. Beginning with Azerbaijan, he subsequently extended his authority over all of the Iranian territories, and established an intermittent Iranian hegemony over the vast relative regions, reasserting the Iranian identity within large parts of Greater Iran. Iran was predominantly Sunni, but Ismail instigated a forced conversion to the Shia branch of Islam, spreading throughout the Safavid territories in the Caucasus, Iran, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. As a result, thereof, modern-day Iran is the only