The Cypress of Kashmar was a cypress tree regarded as sacred to followers of Zoroastrianism. According to the Iranian epic Shahnameh, the tree had grown from a branch Zoroaster had carried away from Paradise and which he planted in honor of King Vishtaspa's conversion to Zoroastrianism in Kashmarbalkh. On 10 December 861 AD, Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil ordered the tree be felled and transported to his capital in Samarra where its wood would be used as beams for his new palace. But one day before the cypress trees arrived, the caliph was killed by Turkish slaves. The palace and its spiral minaret still stand today.