ISFAHAN

i. Geography (1) The Province

This entry will be divided into two sections:

(1) Geography of the province.

(2) Geography of the oasis.

(1) Geography of the Province

Isfahan Province is situated in central Persia between the massive central Zagros mountain range and the grand desert (see DESERT). It covers an area of approximately 107,000 km² between 30°42′ and 34°30′ N latitude and 49°36′ and 55°32′ E longitude (Sāzmān-e barnāma, p. 1). It is bounded in the north by the Central Province (Ostān-e markazi) and the provinces of Qom and Semnān, in the south by the provinces of Fārs and Kohgiluya o Boir Aḥmadi (qq.v.), in the east by Khorasan Province, in the southeast by Yazd Province, and in the west by the provinces of Luristan (Lorestān) and Čahār Mahāl o Baḵtiāri (q.v.).

According to the 1996 national census, the population of Isfahan Province (ostān) was 3.9 million (compared to 1.5 million in 1956), comprised of 17 sub-provinces (šahrestāns), 60 towns in 37 districts (baḵšes), and 2,470 rural settlements in 116 sub-districts (dehestāns). Up to and including the 1966 census, the province of Yazd was counted within the boundaries of Isfahan Province, and from the 1986 census, the sub-province of Kāšān was annexed to Isfahan Province (see ii/2, below).

Isfahan Province consists of mountains and plains, with an average elevation of 1,600 m (see Figure 1). The central Zagros mountain range forms the western borders of the province, including the following major mountains: Dālānkuh (with a peak of 3,915 m), which extends from Faridan (q.v.) to Najafābād, Darrabid mountain (with a peak of 3,631 m) in Faridan, and Šāhānkuh (with a peak of 4,040 m) near Fereydunšahr, which runs in a southeasterly direction to Semirom and reaches the summit of Denā mountain in the province of Kohgiluya o Boir Aḥmadi. The Karkas mountains (with a peak of 3,895 m), an extension of the Central mountain range (selsela-ye kuhhā-ye markazi), extend from west of Kāšān southeastward to Nāʾin (Jaʿfari, 1989, pp. 427-29, 244-45, 353). The Karkas range divides the province into two distinct topographic and climatic areas: the more temperate western regions and the arid eastern regions.

FIGURE 1. Map of Isfahan Province. Courtesy of Habib Borjian and Andre Chambers.View full image in a new tab

The province consists of 52 hydrological units belonging to 9 basins and 27 sub-basins. Rivers are small and temporary, with the exception of the Zāyandarud, which totals 405 km in length, with an average slope of 0.3 percent, average annual discharge of 1,053 mcm, average annual precipitation of 450 mm, and a basin area of 27,100 km² (Jaʿfari, 1997, pp. 247-49).

Isfahan Province can be divided into three topographic and climatic regions based on their distance from the Zagros mountains in the west and the great desert in the east: (1) Semi-humid and cold areas encompassing western and southern valleys, including the sub-provinces of Golpāyagān, Ḵᵛānsār, Faridan, Fereydunšahr, and Semirom. (2) The arid areas along the edge of the central desert, including Nāʾin, Ardestān, and Kāšān, as well as the area of desert climate in the easternmost villages of Anārak, Ḵur, and Jandaq. (3) The semi-arid region of the oasis of Isfahan—with the Zāyandarud as a main water resource—marked by a moderate climate and four distinct seasons, including the sub-provinces of Tirān and Karvan, Najafābād, Lenjān, Mobāraka, Falāvarjān, Ḵomeynišahr (formerly Mārbin), and Isfahan, as well as Šahreżā along the road to Fārs and Borḵᵛār o Meyma on the road to Qom and Tehran (for a detailed discussion, see 2, below). The average annual rainfall in the meteorological stations varies from 6.7 cm in the easternmost villages of Ḵur and Biābānak to 147 cm in the Kuhrang station; relative humidity varies between 25 and 62 percent (Wezārat-e jehād-e kešāvarzi, p. 7).

The province is generally poor in flora and fauna. The most typical of the plants are bushes and shrubs spreading over the steppes, but the landscape becomes richer with the increase in elevation. Characteristic trees are pine, cypress, plane tree, black poplar (kabuda), elm, and ash (Šafaqi, pp. 128-35). Many of the highland forests are already extinct, as the trees have been burned for charcoal (see FORESTS). The western and southern highlands offer fine pastures. The fauna of the province used to be noticeably richer than it is today, with the existence of bears, leopards, boars, and onager (see Ṭaḥwildār, p. 62). Today, there are still some ibex, wild goats, and deer in protected zones (national parks), while the marshlands around the Gāvḵuni lagoon attract hunters of wild birds. Other wild animals such as foxes, jackals (qq.v.), wolves, and rabbits are still encountered in the plains.

The population growth in the province has been sustained by water diverted from the Kārun river to the Zāyandarud, the only major river of the province. During the last few decades, employment in agriculture has been increasingly replaced by industries and services. The industrial infrastructure of the province has expanded substantially, not only by the presence of heavy industries but also with the introduction of electricity and natural gas to most parts of the province; this has made it possible to establish industries in the undeveloped regions of the province, where industrial activities are encouraged by the government (see xiv, below).

i. Geography (2) The Oasis

In central Iran, a major urban alignment punctuates the northeastern foothills of the Zagros. An entire series of large villages and towns are spread out there, between the mountains and the central desert. The region benefits both from substantial water resources and from its strategic location at the intersection of these two largest natural areas of the country.

Isfahan city (32°39′35ʹN, 51°40′17ʹE), although in a semi-arid environment (with 147 mm average annual precipitation, at 1,590 m elevation), lies at the outlet of a major river, the Zāyandarud. The river drains a large area well-watered by rain in the western Zagros, and its water nourishes a huge foothill oasis that has always provided the basis for a significant urban concentration.

By contrast, the oases furthest southeast of the foothills, such as Yazd and Kerman, are isolated; separated from the northern mountain ranges and Khorasan by harsh deserts, they only have access, through the southern mountains, to remote areas already affected by aridity and thus very poor. In the absence of any major river flowing from these mountains, the water resources of the remote areas are supplied only by underground aquifers (see ĀBYĀRI), whose use requires complicated and expensive works.

The exceptional location of the Isfahan oasis should be the point of departure for explaining the existence of a city that is one of the largest “desert cities” in the world. The volume of water available from the Zāyandarud was substantially increased by the completion in 1954 of the 2,700-meter Kuhrang tunnel—a project dating back to Shah Ṭahmāsp I (r. 1524-76) to transfer into the river the waters of the upper Kārun. The latter flows close to the Zāyandarud and 60 m above it, at 2,300 m elevation, before heading towards the Persian Gulf. The construction of the tunnel raised the average annual flow of the Zāyandarud from 772 to 960 million cubic meters. Nine years out of ten, the average annual flow exceeds 910 million cubic meters, and one year in 10, 1,680 million cubic meters. However, the runoff is very unequally distributed during the year. On the basis of natural rate of flow, the seasonal coefficients are 45 percent for spring, 27 percent for winter, 17 percent for the fall and only 11 percent for the summer—the period when the need is greatest.

It has therefore always been necessary to call upon additional resources. The qanāts have remained few: fewer than a dozen north of the oasis (districts of Lenjān and Mārbin, where they have partly dried up since the digging of deep wells) and some others downstream (Barān district). Wells, however, have increased during the 20th century: deep (60 to 100 m) in the north, where salinity is high (generally above one gram per liter), less deep (8 to 10 m) around Isfahan. As early as the late 1960s, about 800 pump wells were noted with a capacity of 8 to 25 hp, reflecting the progress of a medium-sized urban landownership with market-oriented production (Cordonnier). Further downstream, in Rudašt, village wells 4 to 5 m deep, drawn by animals, have always existed. During the summer period when river water was conserved for upstream areas, these downstream areas tapped the underflow beneath the river bed. The fairly regular flow in the old branches of the river also was used. In the 1960s, the total withdrawal from underground waters amounted to about 10 cubic meters per second in the summer, that is, more than half the minimum flow of the river.

The diversion of the Kārun, whose mountain regime sustains a higher flow during the summer than the Zāyandarud, has only slightly improved the seasonal situation, bringing the summer coefficient to no more than 20 percent, with that of spring 44 percent, winter 21 percent, and fall 15 percent. The cumulative water resources, nonetheless, remained far too low to enable an optimal exploitation of the whole cultivable area: in 1967 only 43,000 hectares were effectively cultivated (3,000 of which bore a double harvest) out of an irrigable area estimated at 78,000 hectares. The oasis formerly led a frugal life with strict control of water during most of the year (see Fesharaki, 1967; Planhol, 1969).

Distribution of these resources has remained based, up to the present, on rules codified in 1545 by Shah Ṭahmāsp (Lambton, 1937-39). The water supply, unregulated from 22 November to 5 June, is subject to control from 6 June to 21 November, that is, 165 days per year. It is entirely saved for upstream districts from 22 June to 31 October; the three downstream districts (Kerāraj, Barān, Rudašt) thus enjoy a total of only 37 days of supply, versus 75 for upstream districts and 53 for central districts (Jey, Mārbin, and Barzerud, on the outskirts of the city). As frequently occurs in the sharing of running waters in arid regions, downstream districts have only limited access to water, with practically no possibility for summer cultivation—hence the main regional differences within the oasis.

These internal contrasts are indicated, above all, in the population distribution. In 1970, population was estimated at 200,000 to 250,000 inhabitants for the irrigable area (excluding the town of Isfahan). From a total of approximately 500 villages, three-quarters were located upstream, where they were larger (500 to 5,000 inhabitants), whereas, downstream, small villages predominated (often fewer than 100 inhabitants). The density thus diminished quite strikingly from 300 to 500 inhabitants per km² of irrigable area in the upper districts to 50 to 250 per km² downstream. One obvious consequence of such a difference is that the highly populated upstream villages own generally less irrigable land, often less than 100 hectares per village, while this figure increases considerably downstream, with agriculture becoming significantly less intensive.

Thus in the upper reaches of the oasis, cultivation remains cereal-oriented. Predominantly, wheat-rice crop rotation is practiced, in winter and summer respectively; vegetables, fodder, and sugar beets may complement the wheat. Half of the lands remain fallow each year. The agrarian structure is often organized in a number of extensive fields (ṣaḥrā)—up to 6 per village. Work migration to Khuzestan or Tehran attests to the density of the population and even over-population.

In the center, around Isfahan, in the districts of Jey, Mārbin, and Barzerud, the organization is entirely different. It is the sector par excellence for market gardening, raising fruit, onions, fresh vegetables, melons, water-melons, and sugar beets for the sugar refinery in the city. Orchards producing fresh fruit predominate in the center and give way to almond trees on the periphery. Lands are usually enclosed, and farming is often by the hoe. Villagers keep milk cows. As fertilizer, cattle manure is supplemented with that of pigeons, which are sheltered in pigeon towers that for centuries (at least since the Mongol period) have been an essential feature of the countryside (Beazley). Overpopulation and work migration remain significant, mainly downstream of the oasis.

Downstream, cereal crops and the practice of crop rotation predominate again, but the shortage of water leads to a different pattern compared with upstream: the norm is winter wheat alternating with fallow land, up to 70 percent of the soil remaining fallow every year; summer crops (especially melons and watermelons) are limited to the immediate vicinity of the villages. Sheep and goat rearing become proportionally more significant than cattle. These regional contrasts were very noticeable until 1970, when the large Shah ʿAbbās dam was implemented upstream of the oasis. The dam, with a reservoir 1.25 km³ in extent, generates hydro-electric power, provides water for domestic use in the city, and regulates distribution of water for agriculture during the summer. No detailed analysis, such as that conducted in 1967 (Fesharaki; Planhol), has been made more recently, but it would appear that irrigation has developed in the downstream sectors and that agricultural production has diversified there. At the same time, the drilling of deep wells in the peripheral areas has continued vigorously, creating islets of intensive cultivation.

Already in the late 19th century, the Isfahan oasis exported cereals to neighboring regions in central Iran (e.g., Yazd and Kāšān; Costello, p. 110); and in the 1960s there was a high volume of fruit and vegetable exports to Tehran. Commercialization of agricultural production in the Isfahan oasis has only increased, and Isfahan has become a highly specialized agricultural region integrated into the world economy and exporting to markets around the Persian Gulf.

Agricultural lands have mostly been owned by residents of the city and cultivated by traditional indirect exploitation (approximately 70 percent under sharecropping tenancy in irrigated areas). Agrarian ownership, however, was of small to medium size, combined with a considerable proportion of waqf (religious endowment) properties. It is noteworthy that the first phase of the agrarian reform did not have to be implemented here, since nowhere did ownership extend to an entire village. The city has always dominated the oasis, but quite differently from the manner in other large cities in central Iran (Yazd and especially Kermān), where huge agrarian ownership always prevailed. Direct cultivation by city dwellers around deep wells also increased in the last quarter-century.

ii. Historical Geography: An Overview since Ancient Times

The Isfahan oasis, as a prosperous area of agricultural life, eventually fostered the foundation of a major city—one whose strategic location helped it to dominate the entire area of Iran. At a latitude approximately in the middle of Iran, Isfahan is at the maximum degree of east longitude where communications are still easily manageable between the northern and southern parts of the country. Heading north, one reaches—with a slight deviation to the west—the foothills of the Alborz (q.v.) and Tehran, traveling west of the Great Kavir via Qom and several minor basins with infrequent desert stretches. Towards the south, low passes give access to Fars. Westwards, one quickly reaches the most densely populated areas of the Zagros, with extensive dry-farming and heavy rainfall, for which Isfahan is the primary base for controlling tribes, especially, in the modern era, the powerful Baḵtiāri (q.v.) confederation. To the southeast, a long depression within the mountains, nowadays followed by the railroad, easily leads to the large cities of Yazd and Kerman, which mark the main rim of the Zagros.

FIGURE 1. Historical map of Isfahan with its fortifications under the Buyids, Kakuyids, and Safavids. After Šafaqi, facing p. 210.View full image in a new tab

Iranian capital or provincial headquarters? The name of the city of Isfahan from very early on evokes this notion of centrality. One finds it in Ptolemy (Geographia 6.4.4) as Aspadana, meaning “place of gathering for the army” (Spiegel, I, p. 100; see discussion below, iv). But for this positive geographical location to be fully exploited, favorable political conditions were required. Two conditions had to be met. First, from a strictly geographical point of view, the country had to be unified so that the city would be placed approximately at the center of the land it was to govern, thus optimizing conditions for rule. Second, from a strategic standpoint, external threats to this state had to be deflected equally from all surrounding areas, or else be negligible and not require constant intervention in one direction. In the latter case the country’s capital would tend to be placed at the periphery, near the main source of potential danger. For Isfahan to become the capital of Iran, then, it was necessary that the country be delimited more or less as it is at present and that it be powerful and confident of its might, indifferent to relatively weak external threats. These two conditions were only met occasionally during the country’s history.

This was clearly not the case during the first two millennia of political existence. When the first political organization emerged among Iranian tribes with the advent of the Median empire, unification of the tribes was far from being achieved. The center of power could obviously only be located at the core of the area under immediate control (see ECBATANA). When the Persians rapidly built the powerful Achaemenid empire from Fars, their historical home, it soon extended beyond Iranian lands by conquering the Fertile Crescent. For an empire that was to succeed the Assyro-Babylonian, the political seat (Susa) was most naturally located in Mesopotamia, which was endowed with an already glorious urban tradition—this to the detriment of the former center in Persepolis. From Mesopotamia the empire looked, in the main, to expand westward, to Egypt and Anatolia. After Alexander’s conquest, the Seleucids, who considered Iran and Mesopotamia as part of their heritage, and whose preoccupation was Greece, naturally maintained this tradition (Seleucia). When a specifically Iranian power re-emerged with the advent of the Parthians (see ARSACIDS), followed by the Sasanids, the clash in the west with the Roman empire continued to require situating the main center in Mesopotamia (see CTESIPHON). By integrating Iran into the vast caliphate territory under the Omayyads and early ʿAbbasids (with their capitals at Damascus and Baghdad), the Islamic conquest could not provide an opportunity to change the status quo.

During this entire period, Isfahan’s location could only serve as a provincial city. Yet, under various names and in successive sites, not easy to follow precisely, it seems to have preserved some importance. Over the centuries, the surrounding province retained its original name (i.e., Aspahan, a division of the Sasanid empire, in Moses of Khorene: Markwart, Eranšahr, pp. 28-29; see below, iv), while names of cities, even peoples, were superimposed on the city. During Alexander’s expedition, the name was Gabai (see GABAE)/Tabai (Ptolemy, Geog. 4.4.7), an important locality having an Achaemenid royal residence (basileion, Strabo, 15.3.3; Quintus Curtius, 5.13.2; Polybius, 31.9.3). It was the capital for the Gabioi people (Ptolemy, Geog. 6.4.3), whose territory, extending beyond the surrounding mountains to “above the +Khuzis” [i.e., Khuzistani people] (huper de tous Souzaious), clearly went beyond the geographical limits of the oasis. However, this capital was obviously the core of the Gabian area, considered a wealthy region where armies could obtain fresh supplies (Diodorus, 19.26.2; Briant, pp. 757-58). This is the name that appears in many texts by Muslim geographers, who for the first time provide a detailed picture of the country, under an Arabicized form, Jay (maintained in the present district name Jey; see i [2] above). During the period following the Arab conquest, Jay was one of two neighboring, but very distinct, cities near Isfahan. The other, some 3 km west, was inhabited in part by a Jewish community and is named Yahudiya by Arab geographers (see below, iv and vi).

When exactly were these cities established and how did they become neighbors? It is very difficult to answer this question, since records preserved by medieval geographers are contradictory and differ mainly on this very point of dating the foundation of these cities (Schwarz, V, pp. 587-90, gathers all the references but does not draw any conclusions). For Jay, if one were to eliminate the strictly legendary accounts referring to figures from the Iranian epic as its founders, most authors (Ebn al-Faqih, Ṭabari, Qodama, Ḥamza) attribute the construction of the city and its protective walls to Alexander. Demašqi alone (ed. Mehren, pp. 278-79; tr., p. 405) attributes it to the Sasanian king “Firuz Yazdejerd,” that is, Pērōz (r. 459-484); this however, seems incompatible with information about Yahudiya (see below). Moreover, the texts cited above on the existence of Gabai during Alexander’s time, seem to indicate that a city already existed on the site and that the conqueror’s contribution, if any, was limited to reinforcement and perhaps reorganization of the urban layout. As for Yahudiya, the issue is even more obscure. Only one date seems sure. The city undoubtedly existed before 430 C.E., when Isfahan is noted as the seat of a Christian bishopric (Guidi, p. 396.15; Markwart, Eran-šahr, p. 30). As is known, the first Christian establishments in Iran were directly linked to the presence of Jewish settlements (Schwarz, V, p. 590); this excludes the possibility that Pērōz founded Jay. As for the ultimate origin of Yahudiya, an often-repeated tradition attributes it to the exodus of the Jews from Jerusalem after the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar II (587 B.C.E.; Demašqi; Ebn al-Faqih; Moqaddasi; Mostawfi). This is far from being proven, since all the ancient Jewish settlements tended to attribute their origin to this first exodus; and the Arab authors only repeated what was told to them. If accepted, this claim would be of interest in that it would set a date ante quem for the existence of Gabai (Jay), which seems to have indisputably antedated Yahudiya. The earliest Arab geographers, while recognizing both cities, always tended to consider Jay as the main city, “Isfahan” par excellence (references in Schwarz, V, p. 586). Moreover, it would be difficult to accept the idea of the foundation ex nihilo by the Jews of a new town that had not been a suburb of a pre-existing city.

Whatever the case may be, the twin cities, with their land, wealth, and favorable geographical site, attracted the Muslim conquerors’ attention. Arab geographers do not restrain their praise (texts in Schwarz, V, pp. 592-605), going as far as calling this land “a paradise” (Moqaddasi) or “a second Baghdad” (Ebn al-Faqih). However, for the reasons outlined above, it was not possible for the conquerors to make it the capital of Iran, then part of the caliphate. At the end of the Buyid period, although Isfahan became the headquarters of a quasi-independent emirate, the main political center always remained in Ray, near the Buyids’ original region in Deylam (see vi, below).

With the emergence of the Saljuqids, for the first time geopolitical conditions aligned to make Isfahan the capital of a state which, while still formally attached to the caliphs in Baghdad, henceforth exercised full political autonomy (with the title of Sultan given to its leaders) and whose center of gravity was increasingly upon the Iranian plateau. For almost a century, the Saljuqid empire around the “Great Saljuqs” was, strictly speaking, a constellation of Turkish principalities, more or less independent from the main branch, in Anatolia, Syria (Damascus and Aleppo), Iraq, Kermān, and Ḵʷārazm, while the Ghaznavids further southeast were reduced to a state of tributaries. Those emirates on the periphery were faced with external conflicts, but the central dynasty enjoyed a relative calm only disturbed by occasional disputes over succession. Isfahan’s central location facilitated satisfactory control of relations with the more or less vassal states, and at least nominal coordination of the whole empire. It is therefore no surprise that the city was chosen by Ṭoḡrel Beg, who in 442/1050 transported from Ray “all that he possessed in gold, provisions, and arms, to make it his permanent residence” (Ebn al-Aṯir, IX, pp. 17, 234,).

Isfahan lost its central role with the disintegration of the empire of the Great Saljuqs upon the death of Sanjar (552/1157) and under the subsequent rule of the Mongols, who established their Iranian headquarters in the north (Azerbaijan, subsequently Solṭāniya). After the long period of political division that followed, it was only under the Safavids that Iran, until then disputed between the Timurids and the Āq Qoyunlu (q.v.), acquired the territorial unity required for a national capital. This did not occur until the end of the 16th century, since the constant wars between the Safavids and the Ottomans during the entire first half of the century required the location of authority at this time first in Azerbaijan, then in Qazvin. In 1006/1598 Shah ʿAbbās I chose Isfahan as a central capital for his empire, which was now established approximately within the present borders of Iran. Factors in his selection included the stabilization of the western border of the empire after the peace of Amasya (962/1555), the growing Uzbek menace on the northeast, and the European presence in the Persian Gulf that required a watchful eye on the southern shores. Isfahan remained the capital until its destruction by the Afghans in 1135/1722 (see AŠRAF ḠILZAY). The city was never to have such a status again, since changing strategic considerations to deal with the emerging Russian and Turkmen menace drove the Qajar dynasty at the end of the 18th century to select Tehran.

Structure and development of the metropolitan complex. The magnificent urban landscape that has made Isfahan the gem of architecture in Iran and an everlasting witness to its culture thus was formed in the course of two limited periods, one approximately a century, another a century and a quarter.

The guiding principle for the urban evolution of the city was the advance toward the river. The twin cities were established some 3 km north of the river, perhaps due to fear of flooding; this was still a concern at a time when the development of irrigation channels within the oasis was not of sufficient scale for their diversion of water from the river to almost completely mitigate this danger. As development of the oasis progressed, natural evolution brought the settlement area nearer the river, for practical purposes (water for domestic consumption and artisanal use, the latter still present today when Baḵtiāri carpets are washed in the river during the season of low water) as well as for recreational and aesthetic reasons. This process has continued up to the modern period.

The point of departure for this development was Yahudiya, which had mostly supplanted Jay during the early Islamic period. All the information from Arab geographers indicates that the relative decline of Jay was early. There were signs of it in the tenth century in the account of Eṣṭaḵri (pp. 182.5, 199.6), according to whom Jay already was no more than half the size of its twin, and it is confirmed by Moqaddasi (p. 225.6). The revision of Eṣṭaḵri’s text in the Gotha manuscript, perhaps of the same period, indicates that all commercial activity was centralized in Yahudiya (p. 199, note a; Schwarz, V, p. 604). This state of affairs may be a consequence of specialization in trade by the Jewish population, which had profited substantially from the Muslim conquest. Jay gradually fell into ruins, as Yāqut already noticed (III, p. 196; VIII, p. 532).

This may explain why Ṭoḡrel constructed his still standing Great Friday Mosque in Yahudiya, most probably on a pre-existing mosque site, and also why he set up another essential feature of power south of the bazaar and facing south, namely the large square for military parades and exercises (Meydān-e kohna) whose location can still be made out today (Gaube, pp. 231-32). There he also had a circular enclosure constructed (ibid., p. 46), inspired by the concept of a “round city” known in Muslim urban planning since the foundation of Baghdad. Given the surface area (approx. 1.7 km2) within the wall, the population of the city could have amounted to tens of thousands of residents. Activity in the bazaar, as witnessed by Nāṣer Ḵosrow in the mid-11th century, was then quite considerable. At that date, a distinctly centralized hierarchy incorporating both wholesale (caravansaries) and retail trade is to be emphasized, as it points to the oldest instance of the classical structure of a central bazaar in the Muslim world (Planhol, 1987).

Orientation toward the south and the river, already evident during the Saljuqid period, became more pronounced later on. In this direction, linked to pre-existing construction by a new bazaar, whose monumental entrance led to Shah ʿAbbās’s large new square for parades, the grandiose Safavid urban design was put on display, with the wide Čāhār Bāg avenue leading to the Zāyandarud as its showpiece. Many monumental bridges were then built: Allāhverdi Khan bridge, Ḵᵛāju bridge and dam, and Canal bridge (Pol-e čubi) were added to the older Šahrestān bridge, whose location further east had been established according to the location of Jay. The city next extended across the river, where the well-off built many residences, and where a significant Armenian settlement established a neighborhood in Julfa (q.v.)—an area with quasi-autonomous status and many tens of thousand residents. The Iranian metropolis thus became a huge city, whose population, though impossible to ascertain exactly, must have attained many hundreds of thousands at the minimum, based on descriptions of travelers and European residents (e.g., Herbert and Chardin, qq.v.), with a large number of foreigners settled near the bazaar (estimates summarized and discussed in Brown). The city spread out in all directions, not only south of the river, but also westward, where foreign traders established a neighborhood in close proximity to the bazaar, and east towards the former Jay and well beyond. This is illustrated by the fact that a traveler in the 19th century, arriving in Isfahan from the east, passed earth houses in ruins along 16 to 18 kilometers before reaching the city (Floyer, p. 367).

Isfahan in contemporary Iran: from decline to renewal. After the end of the Safavid dynasty, indeed from 1722, the city suffered terribly. Following the Afghan invasion and subsequent massacres, it was pillaged on two more occasions, after Nāder Shah’s assassination, by Baḵtiāri and other Lor rebels. In the 1810s a British visitor writes that, “ … one might suppose that God’s curse has extended over parts of the city, as it did over Babylon. Houses, bazaars, mosques, palaces, whole streets are to be seen in total abandonment; and I have rode for miles among its ruins without meeting with any living creature, except perhaps a jackal peeping over a wall, or a fox running to his hole” (Morier, p. 134). In the 1860s a permanent European resident of the country can only speak of the “ruins of Isfahan” and describes its former leisure gardens as having been transformed into wheat fields (Polak, I, pp. 95, 100). In 1890, a British lady traveling from the north, when crossing the city, sees “heaps of ruins” and complains that “ … that mile or more of Isfahan was the one disagreeable part of the journey” (Bishop, I, p. 244), until only in Julfa (then approximately 3,000 residents, including a European community in the midst of Armenians) does she find a pleasant environment with well-maintained gardens (ibid., p. 244). As late as 1900, Pierre Loti, who discovers a busy bazaar and luxurious gardens, speaks of “oppressive ruins” (p. 163).

Actually, it was only in the 1920s that the renaissance of the city really began, the main driving force being industrialization. The abundant water supply and the central location of the city in Iran then re-emerged as determining factors. The first phase centered on the textile industry. In the early 1920s a pioneering company (“Waṭan,” later re-christened “Mihan”) established itself there with state support, which was vigorously reinforced after 1925 under Reza Shah’s impulse (see INDUSTRIALIZATION ii; TEXTILE INDUSTRY). The textile industry remained almost the only area of industrialization there until the 1960s; at that time it employed some 15,000 individuals (18,000 in 1972), that is, about 30 percent of the entire country’s textile workers (see xiv, below). Up to that time the share of ownership by private capital had gradually increased.

The second phase occurred in the development of the steel industry (q.v.). The location, in the vast “Aryāmehr” complex some 25 kilometers southwest of the city center, on the foothills of the left bank of the Zāyandarud, spoke volumes in its favor. This state-sponsored heavy industry, constructed with Soviet assistance, was set up near Isfahan at great distance from the source for raw materials located hundreds of kilometers away in the coal basin north of Kerman and in the iron ore mines of the Bāfq region, between Kerman and Yazd. Factors in the selection of Isfahan included a substantial water supply, relatively easy provision of energy by pipeline from the oil-producing provinces in the Gulf, and the concentration there of skilled labor already trained for industrial work. The site first proposed in the late 1960s, at Čamzaman on the Trans-Iranian railway system, although not far from the iron deposits in Šamsābād, was rejected (Korby, pp. 92-93). Steel production began in 1973 with a workforce of 7,000 and a capacity of 600,000 tons, which was pushed upward to 4 million tons in the 1980s. Around these main plants, a diversified industrial landscape (with an oil refinery, sugar refinery, and other consumption industries) gradually coalesced, placing Isfahan second only to Tehran in industrial output. The main industrial area was established south of the residential area, along the banks of the Zāyandarud (see xiv, below).

Linked to this economic development, the population has been regularly growing since the 1920s. While it certainly did not exceed 50,000 residents in the early 20th century, it neared 100,000 in the 1930s, 254,000 according to the census in 1956, then 661,000 in 1976 and 1,266,000 in 1996. This growth can be explained mostly by high immigration, mainly from the mountainous regions of the western Zagros, near the city, as well as from Khuzestan since the Iran-Iraq War (see map of migratory influx in Hourcade, p. 53). To the city itself, one should add the numerous communities of the broader oasis that now form satellite cities, most notably Ḵomeyni-šahr (formerly Homāyun-šahr) with 165,000 inhabitants, and Najafābād numbering 178,000 inhabitants in 1996. In total, the city and oasis now well exceed 2 million residents, and Isfahan is thus clearly the second largest urban center in the country (see iii [2] and iii [3]).

iii. Population

This article on Isfahan’s population is divided into three parts:

(1) The Qajar period.

(2) Isfahan province, 1956-96.

(3) Isfahan city, 1956-96.

iii. Population (1) The Qajar Period

Isfahan’s population size from the Safavid through the Qajar periods, as reported by European travelers and diplomats, remained largely a matter of speculation. A number of Western travelers who visited Isfahan in the 17th century reported that Isfahan was the largest city in Safavid Persia, but its exact population at that time remains unknown. Estimates for the population of Isfahan, given by various travelers, ranged from 200,000 (Herbert [q.v.] in 1627-29; p. 126) to 500,000 inhabitants (Olearius in 1637; p. 553). Jean Chardin (q.v.) maintained that by the late 17th century the population of Isfahan almost equalled that of London, with about 500,000 inhabitants (Blake, p. 38).

There are a number of population estimates by Western travelers and diplomats as well as city officials available for the Qajar period, ranging from 60,000 to 300,000. One of the first official population censuses, conducted in Isfahan in 1870, gave a population size of 76,000 (see sec. 1 with Table 1, below). A more reliable census of Isfahan, which was carried out during the period 1939-41, counted a population of 204,000 for the city. Reliable, modern demographic data on Isfahan’s population have been reported since 1956 in regular 10-year-interval population censuses from 1956 to 1996, showing a rapid five-fold population growth from about 255,000 in 1956 to 1,266,000 in 1996 (see secs. 2 and 3, below).

Local official information for Isfahan’s population was generally inaccessible, with Europeans and Persians alike complaining about the lack of reliable data (Morier, p. 110). Population figures for the Qajar period thus diverge drastically and are largely based on conjecture by European diplomats. Numbers were largely based on auxiliary methods, such as the rough number of houses multiplied by an average number of residents per household, estimates of the city’s daily bread consumption, or even the number of slaughtered sheep. Although taxes were based on domestic property, procuring accurate figures remained difficult, even with local knowledge and information (for a discussion of the method of population estimates in the Qajar period see Saʿdvandiān, pp. 158-61).

Moḥammad-Mahdi Arbāb, a native of Isfahan, maintained that, at the time of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah’s accession in 1848, there were 200,000 city inhabitants, with that number decreasing to about 80,000 for a period before growing again to nearly 120,000 during the governorship of Ẓell-al-Solṭān (Moḥammad-Mahdi, pp. 281-82). He evidently relied on European accounts that drew similar conclusions, with a population much larger at the beginning than towards the end of the century. The figure of 200,000 seems to stem from Thomas Herbert’s 1620 account (p. 126). In 1785 Louis Ferrières-Sauveboeuf gave an estimate of 300,000 inhabitants; in 1810 John Malcolm suggested 200,000, a number repeated by most later travelers, who relied (without reference) on his authority. In 1809 James Morier assessed the population at an inflated 400,000, but revised this figure to 60,000 in 1811 (Morier, p. 110). The same year William Ouseley, still relying on Malcolm’s and Morier’s earlier figures, estimated some 200,000 inhabitants (cited in Curzon, II, p. 43).

A British appraisal of Persia’s population, based on 1867-68 state revenue records, estimated Isfahan’s inhabitants at only 60,000 (Report on Revenues and Population; Thomson, January-June 1869; FO 248/244). In 1875 Arthur Arnold noted the general estimate to be about 90,000, but deemed realistic only half this figure. In the early 1880s Ernst Höltzer, living in Julfa (q.v., Jolfā), estimated the population at 90,000 (“Beschreibung” Folder 1, p. 9). In 1891 Curzon, using information from the British agents, put the number at around 70-80,000 (Curzon, II, p. 43). In 1911 another British survey reported 80,000 inhabitants, including Julfa and the adjacent villages, with 74,000 Muslims, 4,000 Jews, about 1,500 Armenians, about 35 Zoroastrians, 55 British and British Indian subjects, and 60 Europeans of other nationalities (Isfahan News, no. 43, 28 November 1911; FO 248/1029).

A traditional government census of 1287/1870, taken just before the 1871 famine, probably provides the most reliable figures, which counted 25 urban quarters (ma-ḥallas) with 9,176 households (boyutāt) and 76,088 inhabitants. The census also included gender and major upper and middle status groups in the city, as shown in TABLE 1.

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Population figures for minorities (Jews and Armenians) are similarly vacillating. In 1828 David d’Beth Hillel estimated the number Jewish families at about 300, while in 1868 a British estimate put the figure at 1,500. The 1870 government census included 1,935 Jews (including 1,027 men with 587 adults and 440 boys, and 908 women including 577 adults and 331 girls) living in 180 houses. Various counts through the 1880s stated about 3,000, while in 1907 the Anglicans counted 6,000 souls. Again, later British counts of 1911 gave estimates of 4,000 (Hillel, p. 109; Benjamin, pp. 183-86; Höltzer, “Beschreibung,” Folder 1, p. 9; Garland, pp. 14-16; Sanderson to Kennedy; no. 113, 16 September 1889, FO 248/479).

The above census of 1870 put Julfa’s mostly Armenian population at 1,517. An 1860 count reckoned 2,586 inhabitants, 1,204 men and 1,382 women in 371 households. European counts in the early 1880s claimed about 2,658, 1,223 men and 1,435 women in 380 houses, which probably also included non-Armenians. A British poll about three decades later mentioned only 1,500 inhabitants, with further Armenian communities in the villages of Čahār Mahāl and Isfahan, counting about 2,100 souls in 390 families (Thomson, Report; 1868; FO 248/244; Ghougassian, p. 160; Der Huhāniān, p. 611).

iii. Population (2) Isfahan Province

Administrative divisions. In 2001, the province (ostān) of Isfahan comprised 19 sub-provinces (šahrestāns), 83 towns in 43 districts (baḵš), and 2,514 rural settlements in 121 sub-districts (dehestāns). The administrative divisions of the province in the period between 1966 and 2001 are given in Table 1. It should be noted that, up to and including the 1966 census, the province of Yazd was counted within the boundaries of Isfahan Province, and from the 1986 census, the sub-province of Kāšān was annexed to Isfahan Province.

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FIGURE 1. Map of Isfahan Province by administrative divisions.View full image in a new tab

Population and its distribution. The above changes to the province boundaries make it difficult to define recent historical trends for the population of the present-day province. Table 2 shows the census data in adjusted boundaries for the population of Isfahan Province from 1966 to 1996. The census data for Kāšān Sub-province, which was from 1986 within the boundaries of Isfahan Province, has been added. The census data for Yazd Sub-province, which was no longer within the boundaries of Isfahan Province after 1966, has been subtracted.

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In terms of population distribution, the sub-provinces of Isfahan (with more than 1.6 million), Kāšān, and Najafabād (with more than 300,000) were the most populated, while the sub-provinces of Naṭanz, Fereydunšahr, and Ardestān were the least populated with populations of less than 50,000 persons. Table 4 shows the distribution of population in the year 1996 and its main features by sub-province. Ḵomeynišahr is at the bottom of this table as the smallest sub-province, with a total area of 175 sq. km, while Isfahan was the largest sub-province with a total area of 15,744 sq. km. Among sub-provinces, the average size of households varied between 3.93 (Nāʾin) and 5.53 (Fereydunšahr). In terms of density, Ḵomeynišahr is the most densely populated sub-province with 1,398 persons per sq. km, while Nāʾin is the least densely populated sub-province with 1.5 persons per sq. km.

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Age and gender structure. The province of Isfahan had an even gender structure with a male/female ratio of 1.05 in 1996, a figure that is consistent in both rural and urban areas. The gender ratio in different age groups has also been even, and among children less than one year old, this figure has been equivalent to the national level of 1.05 (both in the province and in the cities and villages). The age group of 65 years old and over has also exhibited a gender ratio of 1.03 (1.02 in urban areas and 1.06 in rural areas) without any unusual fluctuations.

In terms of age structure, 36.7 percent of the population was under the age of 15, while senior citizens account for 4.8 percent. These figures are 35 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, in urban areas and 38.9 percent and 5.6 percent in rural areas.

Marital status. A little more than three-quarters of women (77.7. percent) and two-thirds of men (66.6 percent) over the age of 15 in urban areas have been married at least once. These percentages are 77.2 percent and 65.8 percent, respectively, in rural areas and, as such, there is no significant difference between the two areas. The most important difference in terms of the martial status of men and women is the difference in the percentage of widows due to death of their partners. In the urban population, 0.94 percent of men are widowers and 7.75 percent of women are widows, while in the rural population these figures are 1.14 percent and 8.18 percent, respectively. The median age at the time of first marriages for men and women in the province in 1996 is presented in Table 3.

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These figures show that the marital status in urban and rural areas is quite similar, especially for women. It should be noted that differences between the average age of first marriages of men and women have decreased, reaching approximately 4.2 years for the province (4.3 years in urban areas and 3.4 years in rural areas).

Migration. The province of Isfahan, which until 1966 also included the province of Yazd, had a negative net balance of migration with negative 109,717, and this trend continued until 1976, when it reached negative 124,555. However, in the 10-year period between 1976 and 1986, Isfahan was a net source of immigration with a migratory balance of +85,157. This situation continued in the period between 1986 and 1996, and the province was still a source of immigration with 591,640 immigrants and 500,851 emigrants, resulting in a net balance of +90,789 (of these, 334,501 had moved between and within sub-provinces; Zanjani, 2001, pp. 80, 94). Between 1986 and 1996, about 32 percent of immigrants moved within a sub-province, while 21.6 percent of them moved between sub-provinces. Furthermore, of the total immigrant population, 40.1 percent entered Isfahan from other provinces, and 2.9 percent were born outside the country. Of the total immigrant population, 74.3 percent had previously resided in a city, and 22.3 percent were from villages; of the total immigrant population, 75.9 percent settled in urban areas, while the rest settled in rural areas.

The ratio of male immigrants to female immigrants settling in urban areas was 1.25, while the ratio among those who settled in rural areas reached 1.77, a figure that is much higher than the gender ratio for the province as a whole (1.05). This shows that there was more displacement among men and reflects the scarcity of resources as well as unemployment among the population, leading men to relocate in order to pursue either employment or a better job.

Urban and rural populations. As a result of the increase in the proportion of the urban population of the province from 58.9 percent of the total population in 1966 to 74.3 percent in 1996, there were changes in the urban hierarchy, the most important of which occurred in the order of most populated cities. Throughout this 30-year period, the most populated city (Isfahan), the second most populated city (Kāšān), and the fifth most populated city (Šahreżā) remained among the 10 most populated cities. In the same span, the cities of Ḵomeynišahr, Golpāyagān, Zarrinšahr, and Rahnān (Ranān) dropped in position, while the cities of Šāhinšahr and Mobāraka entered the top 10 from previously lower positions. Table 5 shows the ten most populated cities in the province in 1966 and 1996.

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The city of Isfahan fell in the national urban hierarchy (most populated cities), from second place in 1966 (behind Tehran) to third place in 1996 (behind Tehran and Mashad).

The percentage of the urban population of the sub-provinces ranged from 24 percent in Faridan to 86.8 percent in the sub-province of Isfahan. Among the other sub-provinces, Ḵomeynišahr, Barḵᵛāvar and Meyma, Najafābād, and Kāšān had the next highest urban ratios with more than 75 percent, while the sub-provinces of Fereydunšhar, Semirom, and Falāvarjān had the lowest urban ratios with less than 43 percent of their populations residing in urban areas.

Looking at the rural population, a little more than 1 million persons were settled in 2,470 villages in 1996, yielding an average population of 404 persons per village, which was higher than the national average of 338 persons per village. The majority of the rural population resides in the sub-provinces of Isfahan (20.1 percent), Falāvarjān (12 percent), Faridan (10.2 percent), Najafābād (8.7 percent), and Kāšān (7.3 percent). Together, the populations of these five sub-provinces accounted for 59.2 percent of the total rural population of the province. Approximately 40 percent of the rest of the population were located in 12 other sub-provinces. Table 6 shows the distribution of the rural settlements by population groups.

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Close to 50 percent of the rural settlements in this province had a population of less than 50 persons, while the number of villages with populations more than 1,000 did not exceed 12.9 percent (Markaz-e āmār-e Irān, 1997, p. 6).

Migratory tribes. In contrast to the rural and urban populations, the migratory tribal populations cannot be assigned to distinct geographical areas, since they spend part of the year in winter quarters and the other part in summer quarters, each of which are located in different geographical boundaries. Furthermore the migratory tribes have not been similarly defined in the tribal censuses of 1987 and 1998. While the 1987 census counted the entire migratory population, the 1998 census was only concerned with migratory populations whose summer and winter quarters were more than 30 km apart.

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In 1987, clans of the three major tribes (the Baḵtiāri [q.v.], the Jarquya, and the Qašqāʾi [q.v.]) had their summer or winter or even both their summer and winter quarters in the province of Isfahan. Table 7 shows the 1987 figures for summer and winter quarters of the major migratory tribes as well as their populations and number of households.

Accordingly, the total population of the migratory tribes whose winter or summer quarters were located in Isfahan Province was 57,104, incorporating 8,603 households, at an average of 6.6 persons per household. Among the 11 tribes in question, the number of Baḵtiāris and Qašqāʾis who spent summers in Isfahan while having winter quarters in Khuzestan and Fars accounted for the majority of the migratory tribal population with just over 70 percent. General information about the migratory tribes whose summer or winter quarters were in Isfahan Province, and whose summer and winter quarters were at least 30 km apart, is given in Table 8, which lists two fewer tribes than Table 7 (above), reflecting the fact that the summer and winter quarters of two tribes in Table 7 were less than 30 km apart

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In total, these tribes had a population of 51,902, incorporating 8,055 households, at an average of 6.4 persons per household, an almost identical figure to that of the 1987 census. The slight decrease in the population of migratory tribes is largely a result of the differing definitions of a migratory tribal population between the statistical surveys carried out in 1987 and 1998. The population of migratory tribes in this province accounted for 5.77 percent of the total migratory tribal population of the country as a whole, which, in comparison with the figure in 1987 (4.95 percent), showed an increase of 0.82 percent.

Literacy and education. In 1996, 84.7 percent of the population (88.3 percent of men and 80.9 percent of women) were literate. These figures were 86.9 percent (90.1 percent of men and 83.6 percent of women) among the urban population and 78.1 percent (83 percent of men and 73 percent of women) among the rural population. The distribution of the literate population by level of education is shown in Table 9.

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Health and medical services. In 2001, there were 66 hospitals with 5,482 beds operating in Isfahan Province, 52 of which were associated with medical colleges, 7 with private institutions, while the rest were affiliated with other institutions. In the same year, 552 medical clinics and polyclinics, 646 health centers (ḵāna-ye behdāšt), 328 medical laboratories, 476 pharmacies, 139 radiology centers, and 161 rehabilitation centers (markaz-e tavān-baḵši) were active in the province (Statistical Yearbook, 2001, p. 435).

Housing facilities. In 1996, 888,060 ordinary sedentary households occupied the 773,137 residential units of the province, 75.7 percent of which were located in urban areas while 24.3 percent were in rural areas. Accordingly, the ratio of household to residential unit was 1.15 and did not differ from the ratio in the rest of the country. Of the total housing units, 2.5 percent were one-room, 11.1 percent were two-room, 22 percent were three-room, 26.7 percent were four-room, and 37.7 percent were five or more room units. Approximately 68.7 percent of the housing units of the province were built with durable construction materials, 9.6 percent were built with semi-durable materials, and 21.7 percent were built with non-durable materials. Housing units built with durable materials accounted for 76 percent of the total units in urban areas and 46.1 percent of the units in rural areas. Compared to the preceding 20 years, these figures have increased 2.13 times and 8.64 times, respectively (Zanjani et al., 1993, pp. 121-22). Regarding the age of housing units, in 1996, 18 percent were no more than 5 years old, 18.5 percent were between 5 and 10 years old, 34.9 percent were between 10 and 20 years old, and the rest were more than 20 years old. In the same year, 74.6 percent of the ordinary sedentary households resided in owned units, 12.5 percent lived in leasehold units, 9.6 percent resided in free housing units, and the remainder lived in other housing units. In the same year, there were 100 rooms available for every 123 persons (120 persons in urban areas and 133 persons in rural areas). The price of one square meter of land in residential areas saw a 1.77-fold increase between 1996 and 2000. During the same period, the price of one square meter of residential buildings saw a 1.76-fold increase, the cost of renting housing units increased by over 200 percent, and the down payment required for leasing units also saw a 200 percent increase (National Census, Isfahan, 1976 and 1996).

Economic activity and employment. In 1996, approximately 36.7 percent of the ten-year-old and over population in the province were economically active (35.1 percent in urban areas and 41.5 percent in rural areas), of which 85.6 percent were men and 14.4 percent were women. The highest figure of activity for men was among the 35-39 age group with 96.8 percent, and the highest figure for women belonged to the 25-29 age group with 17.8 percent. In 1996, 33.8 percent of the ten-year-old and over population were employed, while 2.93 percent were in search of employment.

The figures in Table 10 below were obtained by calculating the rates of employment and unemployment among the 36.7 percent of the ten-year-old and over population in Isfahan Province who were economically active.

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In 1996, 14.5 percent of the employed population ten years of age and over worked in the major industry groups of farming, hunting, and fishing; 12.73 percent in retail or wholesale trades, and motor vehicle repair; 29.85 percent in manufacturing; and the other 42.92 percent were in other major industry groups.

In the same year, 4.28 percent of the employed population consisted of employers, 31.92 percent were own account (self-employed) workers, and 59.89 percent were employees in the public and private sectors. In 1996, 3.71 percent of the employed population provided the sole means of income for their families, 0.35 percent were employees of cooperatives, while 2.19 percent did not report their employment status.

In the survey of the employment situation of the country’s population in 2003 (Markaz-e āmār-e Irān, 2003a, Table 72, p. 337), the percentage of the active population of the province was slightly higher than it was in 1996 (37.4 percent). According to this survey, 87.8 percent of the active population was employed while 12.2 percent was unemployed and searching for employment.

Household size and composition. Of the 888,568 ordinary sedentary households in the province in 1996, 812,863 (91.5 percent) had a male head of household, while 75,705 (8.5 percent) had a female head. These percentages were 91.7 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively, in 1976 and have not changed considerably in the 20-year period from 1976 to 1996. The average size of ordinary households was 4.36 in 1996 (4.3 in urban areas and 4.51 persons in rural areas). This figure has decreased by 7 percent since 1976 (4.7 in urban areas and 4.8 in rural areas). The composition of households according to the number of persons in 1976 and 1996 is shown in Table 11. It shows that the percentage of households with seven or more persons decreased, while the percentage of households with 3, 4, 5, and 6 persons increased.

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Household income and expenditures. The most recent information about the income and expenditure of Isfahan’s households comes from a survey in 2000. The average annual expenditure of an urban household was 2.02 million tomans, while the average annual expenditure for a rural household was 1.44 million tomans. Non-food expenditures accounted for 72.1 percent of the total expenditure in urban areas and 65.8 percent in rural areas. These expenditures increased by 2.54 percent in the province from 1996 to 2000. The cost of housing made up 40.6 percent of non-food expenditure in urban areas and 29.3 percent in rural areas. The main categories of expenditure for households are presented in Table 12.

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The average annual income of an urban household in 1996 was approximately 1.96 million tomans, 35.9 percent of which came from salaries (19.3 percent from the public sector and 16.6 percent from the private sector), 30.3 percent from own account work, and 33.8 percent from other sources. The average annual income of a rural household in the same year was approximately 1.21 million tomans, and the sources of income were as above, accounting for 42.5 percent, 37.3 percent, and 20.2 percent of the total average income, respectively (Āmar-nāma-ye ostān-e Eṣfahān, 2001, pp. 499-507).

iii. Population (3) Isfahan City

The city of Isfahan is the capital of Isfahan Province (ostān), the capital of Isfahan Sub-province (šahrestān), and the center of the Isfahan comprehensive regional planning complex. According to the 1996 census, Isfahan Sub-province was comprised of eight cities, 19 rural districts, and 531 inhabited settlements. Of a total population of 1.61 million, 86.8 percent lived in urban areas. Furthermore, 90.5 percent of the urban population of Isfahan Sub-province were living in the city of Isfahan, with the remainder living in the other seven cities of the sub-province. After Isfahan, the most populated cities in Isfahan Sub-province were Ḵᵛorāskān with a population of 61,211, and the city of Renān with a population of 41,819. The smallest city in the sub-province was Kuhpāya with a population of 3,650 (National Census, Isfahan Sub-province, 1996, pp. 40-45).

The city of Isfahan, as the capital of Isfahan Province, accounted, in 1996, for about 32.2 percent of the total population of the province and 43.4 percent of its urban population. Isfahan is also the third most populated city in the country, behind Tehran and Mashad.

The Isfahan regional planning complex. In 1995, the cabinet assigned to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning (Wezārat-e maskan o šahrsāzi) the responsibility of preparing comprehensive master plans for the country’s complexes of large cities and their satellite urban and rural areas. Regional planning aimed to reduce the urban population pressures on the city of Isfahan by means of a more even population distribution at the regional level, especially in the western part of the city (Āmār-nāma-ye ostān-e Eṣfahān, 2004, p. 19). As a result, a development plan for the Isfahan region was prepared in 2001 and ratified in 2003 by the High Council of Urban and Architectural Development (Šurā-ye ʿāli-e šahrsāzi wa meʿmāri). The plan encompassed cities in nine sub-provinces with an approximate area of 35,000 sq. km. At the time of its preparation in 2001, this plan included 52 townships, with a population of 3,088,000. This plan identified the settlement order of urban and rural housing zones of the Isfahan region in four patterns: (1) the dense and populous pattern of Greater Isfahan; (2) the linear pattern of the Zāyandarud river; (3) the linear pattern of Najafābād; and (4) the cluster pattern of the region’s northern, eastern and southern areas (ibid., p. 20; Faṣl-nāma-ye ābādi 9/8, 2004, p. 19).

Population size. At the time of the first census of the cities of Iran, which was carried out between 1939 and 1941, the city of Isfahan had a population of 205,000 (Zanjani, 1991, p. 5). As such, Isfahan ranked third in terms of population after Tehran (540,000) and Mashad (214,000). According to the 1996 national census, the city had a population of 1,266,000, exhibiting an approximately six-fold increase in the span of 56 years. The population of the city and its relative share of the population of Isfahan province from 1941 to 1996 are given in Table 1.

FIGURE 1. Population density per sq. hectare in various quarters of Isfahan City. After Šafaqi, facing p. 354.View full image in a new tab

Accounting for the fact that the borders of Isfahan Province were not the same in the various censuses, and that they included what is now Yazd Province until 1966, and considering the current geographical borders of Isfahan Province, the city’s relative share of the province’s total population was 27.5 percent in 1966, rising to 30.8 percent in 1976. The city’s relative share of the province’s total population has seen a consistent increase in each census except for 1986 (for which figures reflect the effects of the Iran-Iraq War on the concentration of the population in large cities) and almost doubled between 1956 and 1996 (Zanjani et al., 1983).

The average annual growth rate of the population of Isfahan was close to 0.25 percent between 1956 and 1996. In Table 2 these figures are compared to the average annual growth rate for the total urban population of Iran in various periods between censuses.

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Accordingly, the average annual growth rate of Isfahan’s population has been less than that of the country’s urban population, except for the period between 1956 and 1966.

In terms of urban planning, the city of Isfahan is considered one of the largest cities in Iran, with 10 townships. Each township has its own municipality that, as part of Isfahan’s municipality, is responsible for urban services.

Age and Gender Structure. The gender (male/female) ratio of Isfahan’s population in the census years is given in Table 3.

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Due to changes in the definition of households between the 1976 and 1986 censuses, the 1956-76 data are not completely comparable with the 1986 figures. The significant increase from 1956 to 1966 can be attributed to the presence in the city of 20,367 men in the 15-24 age group who were born in other provinces, as opposed to only 10,149 women in the same category. The gap between the population of men and women in this category was made up of students, soldiers, and young immigrants, who had a noticeable effect on the gender ratio of the population (1.12 instead of 1.09). The influx of these men was undoubtedly the result of Isfahan’s transformation into an important employment center in 1956 with the opening of the steel mill (Ḏawb-e āhan) and its subsidiaries as well as the development of the University of Isfahan.

These figures are given in Table 4.

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The age structure of Isfahan’s population showed significant changes between 1986 and 1996. As a result of the new birth-control measures that were officially adopted towards the end of 1987, the percentage of the population under 5 years old dropped from 16.12 percent in 1986 to 8.66 percent in 1996, a significant success in terms of birth-control policies. This downward trend has continued in the years since 1996 and has affected the age structure of the population.

Literacy and education. Among the 6-year-old and over population of the city in 1996, approximately 89.2 percent (91.9 percent of men and 86.3 percent of women) were literate, 41.2 percent of whom were students. Of the 418,000 enrolled students, 38.9 percent were at the elementary level, 28.3 percent were at junior high school level, 23.8 percent were at high school level, and 9 percent were enrolled in institutions of higher education. In recent years, the number of women entering university has exceeded the number of men. The literacy rate in the city of Isfahan increased from 48 percent in 1966 to 89.2 percent in 1996. These figures are given in Table 5.

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It should be noted that in the period between 1966 and 1996 the percentage of literate women greatly increased as compared to the percentage of literate men, and the gap between the two genders decreased from 24.9 percentage points to 5.6 percentage points.

Marital status. The percentage of married men (among the population 15 years old and over) and the percentage of married women (among the population 10 years old and over) decreased between 1966 and 1996. These figures are given in Table 6.

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Accordingly, the percentage of married men has remained steady since 1979 (70 percent in 1986 and 1996), while the percentage of married women decreased in the same period (69.3 percent in 1986 and 63.78 percent in 1996). This decrease is attributable greater numbers of women enrolling in high school and higher education.

As detailed marriage and matrimony tables on the city level were not published in 1986 and 1996, the average age for first marriages among men and women cannot be calculated for these years. This information is available, however, for Isfahan Sub-province’s urban population, with the city of Isfahan accounting for 83.9 percent and 90.3 percent of this population in 1986 and 1996, respectively. The average age of first marriages among the population of Isfahan in 1966 and 1976 is given in Table 7 alongside the average age of first marriages for the urban population of the province. If we disregard the differences of statistical groups between 1966 and 1976 (the population of Isfahan City) and that of 1986 and 1996 (the urban population of Isfahan Sub-province), the average age at first marriages among men and women has increased by 0.5 and 4 years, respectively, in the 30-year period between 1966 and 1996.

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Housing status. Table 8 shows the use of housing units by ordinary households of the city by type of tenure, as follows.

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Housing Facilities. In 1986, 98.4 percent of the city’s households had electricity, 90.7 percent had plumbing, 18 percent had telephones, 90.6 percent used gas for cooking. In this year the majority of households (69.1 percent) used kerosene for heating needs. In 1996, 99.6 percent had use of electricity, 96.9 percent had plumbing, and 58.4 percent had telephones. Furthermore, 98.2 percent of households used gas for cooking, and 86.6 percent used gas for heating needs. The high rate of use of gas is due to the gas pipelines reaching Isfahan in that period.

Economic activity. It must be noted that there were changes in the description and tabulation of what constitutes economic activity in various census years before and after the 1979 Revolution. Accordingly, this survey will only compare economic activity of Isfahan City for those categories which saw minimal changes in their description or tabulation.

The percentage of the 10-year-old and over economically active and employed population of Isfahan decreased from 40.6 percent in 1966 to 33.4 percent in 1996. The changes in the relative share of the main economic activities in the active and inactive populations of the city are presented in Table 9.

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It is clear that the percentage of the employed among the population 10 years of age and over has decreased. In fact, in the 30-year period between 1966 and 1996 the employment rate decreased by 8.4 percent, while the percentage of students notably increased in the same span.

The unemployment figures given in Table 9 (above) have been obtained through comparison with the total population 10 years of age and over. If we calculate these figures among the active population, the unemployment rate experiences an increase in the census years, from 3.45 percent in 1966 to 4.17 percent in 1976, to 12.66 percent in 1986, and finally to 8.42 percent in 1996. The employment rate is also obtained by subtracting the aforementioned figures from a unit of 1. Therefore, the employment rate for the city’s population in the years mentioned above would be 96.5 percent, 95.8 percent, 87.3 percent and 91.6 percent, respectively.

The distribution of the employed population in the main industry groups in 1966 and 1996 is given in Table 10. This comparison clearly demonstrates the structural changes in the city’s employed population in this 30-year period.

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In 1996, of the 28,199 unemployed residents of Isfahan, 86.2 percent were men and 13.8 percent were women. Among this unemployed population, 40.7 percent were in the 10-24 age group, 51.7 percent were in the 25-64 age group, and 7.6 percent were in the 65 and over age group. In terms of literacy, 18.6 percent of the unemployed population had elementary education, while 55 percent had been educated at higher levels (high school, advanced education).

Among the urban population of Isfahan Country (the city of Isfahan and seven other small and medium sized cities), a total of 54,772 employed people had undergone advanced education, amounting to 15.5 percent of the total employed population. Furthermore, in 1996 approximately 9.63 percent of the unemployed population who were seeking employment also had an advanced level of education (7.61 percent for men and 24.06 percent for women).

Population projection. In recent studies conducted by the Comprehensive Regional Planning Project (Ṭarḥ-e āmāyeš-e sarzamin), the population of the city has been projected according to two options: the medial one, which predicts that the country’s total population will reach 101.6 million in 2021, and the low option, which projects a total population of 91.2 million for the country in the same year (Zanjāni, 1999, 3rd level, pp. 14-15). The results of these projections are presented in Table 11.

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The data from these projections have been used in studies relating to housing planning up to the year 2021. The average size of households in the city of Isfahan has been calculated according to the low option in the years considered by the housing plan and is presented in Table 12.

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iv. Pre-Islamic Period

The name of Isfahan. In Middle Persian sources, Isfahan (Mid. Pers. Spahān) occurs clearly as the name of a province—in the inscriptions of Kerdir, “… Spahān and Ray …” in the list of provinces where fire foundations were endowed (Sar Mašhad 17, Naqš-e Rostam 35; Back, p. 421); in literature: “Spahān and Pārs and the adjoining districts” in the epic text Kārnāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pābagān (1.3; Grenet, p. 52; for kust[ag] “district” as administrative term, see Gyselen, 1989, p. 42); Spahān as one of the regions allotted by the Kayanid Sām to his sons (Bundahišn 35.48; see also the chapters on rivers and mountains, 9.44, 11.8); and Spahān as an example of “fearful places” (Pahlavi  Vendidad 2.23; the attribute may be a reference to the terrain and road conditions of Paraetacene [see below]). (A)spahan and Rey also figure as neighboring regions in the account of the struggle between Ḵosrow II (r. 590-628) and Bahrām Čobin (see BAHRĀM vii), in the 7th-century Armenian history of Sebeos (Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 27; Sebeos, pp. 60, 63, 73).

The earliest Islamic sources likewise use the name “Isfahan” to refer to the region, and not unequivocally to the city of Gay [q.v.] (see further ISFAHAN vi, below). The latter usage has been dated from the 2nd/8th century onward, based on numismatic and literary evidence (Janāb, p. 13), but the practice may be evidenced in the 1st/7th century (for a possible reading on an Arab-Sasanian coin, see Gyselen, 2000, p. 173). A close association of the name of the province with its primary city seems evident from the title of the Nestorian bishops of Ispahan (ʾsphn), who are attested in the 5th-6th centuries (Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 30) and who must have had their episcopal seat at Gay.

Application of a region name to the main fortress-town in it has other parallels (see examples, Eilers, 1988, p. 312), possibly including Ray (however, no earlier name of the city is known). The earliest references to Ray are to the region (dahyu, q.v.) in northeastern Media (Ragā: Darius I, Bisotun 2.71; in the Avesta: Y. 19.18, Vd. 1.16; Book of Judith 1.5, 1.15), but the city name also is old (Arrian, Anabasis 3.20.2; Book of  Tobit 1.14 through 9.5, depending on MS: “Rhagae in/of Media” or simply “Rhaga”; cf. Rhaga in Strabo, 1.3.19, 11.9.1, 11.13.6, covering both). The name Rhagiane indicates a region in Ptolemy, Geographia 6.2.5, distinguished from the city, which is recorded under its Seleucid name Europus (for the Greek names of the city, see RE VI/1, col. 1310). Isidorus (sec. 7 and summary table entry) uses the distinct terms “Rhagiane Media” and (the city of) “Rhaga.” The Peutinger Table has two adjoining city entries, Europus and Nagae; if the latter is emended to +Ragae (as suggested by F. H. Weissbach, RE VI/1, col. 1310), this would be a case of synonymous names treated as separate places, somewhat analogous to that of Ptolemy’s Gabae and Aspadana (see below).

The underlying form of the name Spahān can be analyzed as: (1) *spādāna- “connected with the army (spāda-)” with the adjectival suffix -āna (Spiegel, I, p. 100; Back, p. 257), but become a noun; compare “Hamadān” < OPers. hamgmatāna- (Gk. Ecbatana [q.v.]; see also IRAN vi, 1. Earliest Evidence); (2) Old Persian *spādānām “of the armies,” genitive plural of spāda- (Hübschmann, 1895, p. 201; cf. -ān in ērān-šahr, q.v.). The meaning in either case agrees with Ḥamza Eṣfahāni, who stated in his Ketāb Eṣfahān (known only through quotations) what may have been a familiar (and correct) popular etymology: “Isfahan” means “the armies” (cited by Yāqut: see Schwartz, V, p. 587; cf. Aṣfahān asfāhān, Māfarruḵi, p. 6; cf. also the city name variant Sefahān in the Šāh-nāma [Moscow] II, pp. 21.242, 126.909, and other forms in Schwartz, V, pp. 585-86). The age of this usage as a province name prior to Kerdir’s list is unknown, as is its source—whether an actual administrative term or a popular usage alluding to the function of the garrison city of Gabae/Gay. Ptolemy’s name Aspadana (see below), if going back to Alexander or the Seleucids, would indicate the name’s currency in the Achaemenid period.

Associated names. For the Middle Persian city-name Gay (in Šāpur I’s inscription ŠKZ: Mid. Pers. gdy, Parth. gʾb, Gk. Gē), the older form is represented in Gk. Gabae. The underlying Old Iranian toponym would be *Gaba (> Mid. Pers. Gay, as OPers. Ragā > Ray), for which a meaning of “lowland” (and hence, winter pasture) has been suggested (Ehlers, 1988, p. 368; Huyse, II, p. 164 with references). This would be in keeping with the site of the city and its abundance in crops and flocks (e.g., Ebn Hawqal, p. 362; tr., II, p. 354; Schwartz, V, p. 595; see also ref. below to Eumenes). Ptolemy locates three place names with initial Gab- in Media (Geog. 6.2; there are also Gau- names; these may represent *Gāu-: cf. Av. Gāum “Sogdiana” in Vd. 1.4 [see GABAE]). But he, or his source, places Gabae (Geog. 6.4.7) in the far southeast of Persia, as he does Pasargada. The Gabaei people likewise are found in a southerly direction (6.4.3), near the Suzaei. If the latter (their name perhaps confused with the Susaei of Susiana) are to be understood as +Uzaei for xuz-, the people of Khuzestan [see GABAE], then Ptolemy’s source for this data shows consistency, since Susa and Elymais (q.v.; i.e., Khuzestan) are southwestern neighbors of Isfahan (cf. Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 29, n. 3).

Strabo (15.3.3) more accurately locates Gabae “somewhere in the upper [i.e., northerly] parts of Persia—”a general location in keeping with Ptolemy’s city of Aspadana (Geog. 6.4.4), which is placed in western and northern Persia. The name Aspadana for *Spādāna(m) suggests a non-southwestern (i.e., non-Old Persian) Iranian transmission of the name with prothetic vowel, such as occurs in Parthian (see ʾsp- examples in Henning, Mir. Man. III, pp. 895-96), for example, in Paikuli inscription 14 ʾspʾdp[ty] for Mid. Pers. spʾhpt “army commander” (Skjærvø, p. 42; cf. Arm. (a)sparapet [see ARMENIA AND IRAN ii, pt. 6.d]) and the city name of Isfahan in Armenian and Syriac, above; Manichean ʿspʾδ (cf. Sogdian ʾspʾδ, ʿspʾδ, spʾδ /əspāδ/ “army,” Gharib, p. 63). The Greek name appears again, as Aspada in “Elamitis,” in the work of the Geographus Ravennas (Schnetz, p. 24, 2.2.2). Ptolemy and his sources are deemed in error in distinguishing Aspadana from Gabae (Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 29); more precisely, they did not recognize the regional scope of Aspadana, recording it as another city. (For a differing view, see above, i.)

Ptolemy’s Aspadana is placed in the direction of Isfahan. It is perhaps far enough north to be assigned (with W. Tomaschek, RE II/2, col. 1709) to Paraetacene, the border region of Persia adjoining Media (Ptolemy, Geog. 6.4.3) and leading eastward to Gabae/Isfahan. The name Paraetacene—and presumably at least part of the area—is identified with modern Faridan (q.v.), the uplands west of the Isfahan plain (see additional references in RE, Supp. X, cols. 478-82). Although the Paraetaceni people are termed a Median tribe by Herodotus (1.101), the land is later attributed to Persia and to Elymais (Diodorus Siculus, 19.34.7; Strabo, 16.1.17-18). Alexander had assigned it to the governor of Susa (Arrian, An. 3.19.2)—a practical choice for protection of his communications but perhaps also following current Achaemenid custom. The administration of Paraetacene and the fortified city of Gabae from the power centers of the provinces to the south may point to the city’s importance for the defense of Persia (Pārs) and Susiana against forays from the north. For example, in Ṭabari’s account (II, p. 709.16 f.) Isfahan is the starting point for the conquest of Persia by the Arsacid Artabanus [IV?; q.v.]; Ḵosrow II, in stationing Armenian troops in Isfahan, must have hoped to prevent the rebels from raiding to the south (Sebeos, pp. 59-61); and Ebn Ḥawqal says it was the line of defense against Turks and Deylamites (p. 363; tr., II, p. 355).

Region and province. The province of Isfahan has a varied landscape of plains and hills, and in the west and southwest it is bordered by the high ranges of the Zagros mountains. E. Herzfeld (1968, p. 189) suggested that the Isfahan region is to be equated with the ancient Elamite province of Siamshki, a district attested from the late 3rd millennium B.C.E. During the 2nd millennium it was administered, together with the district of Elam, by a viceroy accountable to the Elamite king, who resided at Susa in Khuzestan.

Strabo (15.3.3) states that the Achaemenid kings had one of their palaces at Gabae—in Persia—showing the area’s close political bond to the Achaemenid homeland. The grecized name of the city’s district, Gabiene, may indicate that it formed an eparchy or sub-district of a Seleucid satrapy and distinct from Paraetacene (according to W. W. Tarn, on names in –ene: pp. 2-4), as it probably had been in an Achaemenid satrapy (Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 29). In 317 B.C.E., during the wars of the successors of Alexander the Great, Eumenes, who supported the legitimate heirs, moved his army from highland Paraetacene to winter in Gabiene, where provisions and fodder were abundant; and there some of his officers betrayed him to the contender Antiochus, who became Antiochus I (Diodorus, 9.19.34-43). In 165 B.C.E., another Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, advanced from Susa and attempted to plunder a sanctuary of Artemis in Elymais. He was unsuccessful, having been thwarted by the local tribes. Antiochus retreated to Gabae (emended from Tabae) “in Persia” and died there in the winter of 164 B.C.E. (Polybius, 31.9; cf. Appian, Syriaca 66).

Spahān must have become part of the Arsacid (q.v.) kingdom under Mithradates I (r. ca. 171-138 B.C.E.) or Mithradates II (r. ca. 123-88 B.C.E.). The former is said to have subjugated Media (Justin, 41.6.7), presumably after the death of the rebel Seleucid satrap of Media, Timarchus, ca. 162-160 (see Debevoise, p. 21; RE VIA1, cols. 1237-38; compare Ṭabari’s Aršak “Arsaces,” who defeated the Seleucids and gained control “from Mosul to Ray and Isfahan” [I, p. 704.14-15]). The latter likewise defeated the Seleucids, consolidated Arsacid control of Iran, and stabilized the frontiers of the kingdom. Down to the time of the rise of the Sasanids in the 220s C.E., the city and region may have held considerable autonomy. According to Ṭabari (I, p. 818.7-8), the local king, Šāḏ-sābūr, was killed when the city (i.e., Gay) was captured by the the Sasanid Ardašīr I (q.v.) as the latter proceeded to extend his power beyond Fars but before his confrontation with Artabanus V, the last of the Iranian Arsacid dynasts. Ṭabari does not mention any appointment of a governor, but, during the reign of Ardašir’s son Šāpūr I (r. ca. 239-70), a governor (šahrab) of Gay is named in the list of current royal officials in the king’s victory inscription at Naqš-e Rostam (ŠKZ, Mid. Pers. 33, Parth. 27, Gk. 63.; Huyse, 1999, I, pp. 59-60). Under the Sasanids the province of Spahān extended from Hamadan eastward to the borders of Kermān and from Ray and Qomes southward to the borders of Fārs and Khuzestan.

Abū Noʿaym (I, p. 14) gives this account of the Sasanid province of Isfahan: It comprised three administrative regions (ostān), seven cities or towns (Persian šahr, Ar. madīna), 30 lesser towns (rostāq), 120 rural subdivisions (tassuj), and 5,000 villages (Persian deh, Arabic qarya). The seven cities of the province were known as Kahṯa, Jār, Jayy (that is, Gay), Qeh (or Qeh-Jāvarsān), Mehrbon, Darrām, and Sāruya. Four of the cities that lay in northern and northeastern sections of the province were already ruined in late Sasanid times. The three remaining cities, namely Jayy, Qeh, and Sāruya were divided into two major townships (kūra), 27 lesser towns, and 3,013 villages before the Arab conquest. On the eve of the wars of conquest, Jayy constituted the principal city and Qeh-Jāvarsān the second major city of the province of Isfahan. By the completion of the Muslim conquest of Isfahan, the towns of Qeh and Sāruya were wiped out, and Jayy stood as the sole surviving city of the province.

Some Sasanid and Arab-Sasanian drachm coins show a mint signature GD, which is read as “Gay” (Mochiri, 1972, pp. 27-31; see also ARAB-SASANIAN COINAGE and SASANIAN COINAGE, Table 2). This mark is attested for most Sasanid kings from Pērōz (457-84) to Ardašīr III (628-29) and under the early Arab governors, while “Isfahan” seems not to have been used as a mint name until some time later in the Islamic period. The Middle Persian name “Spahān” does occur on the seal of an administrative official, called the framādār [q.v.] “of the seven princely families” (wāspuhragān; see Chaumont, 1998; Gyselen, 1989, pp. 65-66, 73-74; cf. the title “accountant [amārgār] of the seven princely families,” in Sebeos: Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 29; Sebeos, pp. 46-48). The high status of Spahān which this title seems to imply is echoed in the account of Abū Noʿaym, who states that, before Islam, the province of Isfahan was the seat of the seven noble families (Arab. ahl al-boyutāt; on the social classes, see Huyse, II, pp. 119-20; Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 29; SOCIAL CLASS iii; ASĀWERA). “Spahān” also occurs on the seal of an “accountant of Ray and Spahān” (Gyselen, 2002, pp. 42, 169 f.); his jurisdiction apparently covered the two provinces, of which the two main cities were key links along the highway to the north and east.

Descriptions of the city. The Arab geographers (e.g., Ebn Hawqal, p. 362; tr., II, p. 354) report that the Sasanid city of Isfahan comprised two adjoining towns: Jayy, the fortified town and province center (hence the alternate name Šahrestāna) on the site later occupied by central Isfahan, and, two miles (mil) away, Yahudiya, a Jewish settlement. Ebn al-Faqīh (p. 261) states that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar first brought Jews to Isfahan from Jerusalem; and Šahristānihā ī Ērān 53 (Markwart, Ērānšahr, p. 21) attributes the founding of the Jewish community there to Yazdegerd I (r. 399-421), who did so at the request of his Jewish wife Sōšanduxt. (On the deportation of Jews from the western Sasanid frontier, see Neusner, III, pp. 339 ff.; IV, p. 16.) The fifth-century Armenian historian Moses of Khoren (3.35) records a transfer of Jews from Armenia to Aspahan already under Šāpur II in the 360s, while Faustus (q.v.) mentions only the settlement of the Armenian captives in Asuristān and Xuzistān (pp. 192-95). In any case, the formal founding of the town of Yahudiya is dated to the early ʿAbbasid period and is attributed to Ayyub b. Ziyād al-Kendī (Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 16-17). What may have been, in the Sasanid period, a relatively small Jewish settlement (Pers. ku-johudān, glossed as Ar. sekkat al-yahud, Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 16) was later known to the Arab writers as the larger of the two towns. (See also Honarfar, pp. 25-29; Le Strange, pp. 202-6.)

Based on earlier sources, Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad Āvi (14th cent.), in the Persian translation of the Arabic local history of Isfahan, describes Gay/Isfahan as it appeared during the Sasanid period (Āvi, pp. 417-18). One of the gates of Gay, situated opposite the market square, was named the Gate of Jūr (or Gūr); a second, the Gate of the Moon (or perhaps of Māh “Media”), also called the Gate of Esfīš; a third, the Gate of Tīr (the Arrow, or Mercury); and a fourth, the Gate of Juš, commonly called the Jews’ Gate. Near this last entrance the Sasanid king Pērōz is said to have built a village called Āḏar-šāpurān, and here he constructed a new palace and garden, also a fire temple to which he bequeathed the revenues of the village. One of the curious features of Gay at this period (Āvi, p. 418) was that “when the sun reached the first degree of Capricorn, it shone, as it rose, directly through the Gate of Jur and, as it set, through the Jews’ Gate; while on entering the first degree of Cancer it shone, as it rose, through the Gate of Māh or Esfīš and, as it set, through the Gate of Tīr. The width of the foundations and walls was 60 large bricks, and over one of the gates was an inscription stating that the sum expended on feeding the artisans and laborers engaged in the construction of the wall amounted, ere it was completed, to 600,000 derhams” (see also Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 15). Close to the Gate of Jur was a market called Bāzār-e Jurin. There, at the season of the New Year (that is, the vernal equinox), the people of the Isfahan district, “rich and poor, high and low, men, women, and children used to repair, remaining encamped there for two or three months for the great fair and general festivities which were held at Nowruz” (Āvi, p. 418).

The city in traditional history. The Middle Persian geography Šahristānihā ī Ērān [q.v.] (sec. 53: Markwart, 1931, p. 21) records that the provincial capital of Gay was built by Alexander the Great; and this opinion is repeated by the early Islamic writers Ṭabarī (I, p. 702) and Ebn al-Faqīh (p. 262). According to the local history, the city was founded before the period of the legendary Iranian hero Jamšīd; it suffered much destruction from Afrāsiāb the Turk, was restored by Queen Ḵomānī (Homāy, q.v.), the daughter of Bahman, son of Esfandiār, and was left unharmed by Alexander (Āvi, p. 417). Another fragment of legendary history is given by the Isfahan native, Ebn Rosta (q.v., pp. 151 ff.), according to whom an ancient building in Jayy called Sāroq was built by Kay Kāus and later rebuilt by Bahman, son of Esfandiār. (See also survey in Schwartz, V, pp. 587-89.)

The local history (Āvi, p. 417) associates with Gay/Jayy a version of Zoroastrian tradition regarding the history of its sacred books (see EṢTAḴR and AVESTA): because of the clean air and dry soil, the ancient books of the Persians are said to have been preserved there during the Sasanid period. They were written on birchbark, because this material was less subject to decay than others. The climate of Gay also attracted several of the Sasanid kings, according to local lore. Ḥamza, in his Ketāb Eṣfahān (quoted by Āvi, p. 419), relates that Pērōz, the son of Yazdegerd II (439-57), consulted a Greek physician from Rūm (i.e., Anatolia) as to which of the cities of Persia was best suited for a palace. The physician chose Isfahan, because the climate would give “life to the Messiah, duration to life, and eternity to duration.” Pērōz instructed Šāpūrān, a son of Āḏarnāmān, governor of Isfahan, to repair the walls of Gay in preparation for the king taking up local residence. But Pērōz was killed shortly after. His son Kawād (488-531) directed a similar inquiry regarding a propitious place of residence to a Greek physician, and again Gay was suggested.

The local history (Āvi, p. 694) also relates that the Sasanid kings preferred Isfahanis as retainers to all other peoples. It states that, of 373 attendants of Ḵosrow II (590-628), 230 were Isfahanis. To these alone did the king entrust the guardianship of the Derafš-e Kāviān (q.v.). This royal standard was said to be the leather apron of the blacksmith Kāva (an Isfahani), who, according to legend, had rid Iran of the evil tyrant Zohak. On one occasion when Ḵosrow did attempt to have the care of the standard transferred to the Āẕarbāyǰānis, a fight ensued between the two sides; and in this the Iṣfahanis prevailed. Ḵosrow II (591-628) wished the custody of the standard to remain especially with the Isfahani family of Gudarz. Ardašir I (224-40) is said to have held that no ruler could achieve a permanent victory over another until he had secured the support of the Isfahanis; and Ḵosrow I also credited his success to them. Ḵosrow II also is alleged to have preferred Isfahanis, particularly men from the Faridan area, to all other troops (Āvi, p. 695).

v. Local Historiography

Isfahan is exceptional in the number and variety of works of local historiography; no other Persian city has attracted nearly as many such works. These works were written predominantly in two periods: the pre-Mongol (and in particular the pre-Saljuq) period and the 19th century; works written in the 20th century will not be dealt with extensively here. Works of local historiography about Isfahan can be classified into two distinct literary genres: the biographical dictionary and the adab-oriented local history.

Biographical dictionaries. Biographical dictionaries of local perspective were written for a large number of Persian cities in the pre-Mongol period, but only a fraction of them are extant in either the original Arabic or Persian renderings. Two biographical dictionaries about scholars from Isfahan, both written in Arabic, have come down to us. The earlier of these two, the Ṭabaqāt al-moḥaddeṯin be-Eṣfahān wa’l-wāredin ʿalayhā, by Abu’l-Šayḵ ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moḥammad (274-369/887-979), was probably written in the 350s/960s, since the latest dates mentioned do not relate to events far beyond 350 (ed. Baluši, IV, p. 230, dated 353). The mention of dates as late as that seems to be exceptional, so they could have been added during the final stages of the process of completing the work. The second work of this genre is Ḏekr akbār Eṣfahān by the Hadith transmitter and historian Abu Noʿaym Eṣfahāni (q.v.; d. 430/1038). The latest dates in this work suggest that it was completed in the 410s/1020s.

Abu’l-Šayḵ was not necessarily the first author from Isfahan to write a biographical dictionary about the scholars who lived in, or had come to, his hometown. Among the many sources he quotes, the Hanbalite scholar Ebn Manda (d. 301/913-14) is the most prominent. On the basis of this and other later sources, it is almost certain that Ebn Manda wrote such a work. It seems that it was still known in the immediate pre-Mongol period, since the author of an analogous work on the scholars of Qazvin was apparently able to use it then (Rāfeʿi, I, p. 2). Moreover, Abu’l-Šayḵ frequently mentions men who wrote their mašyaḵa (list of teachers with whom they studied Hadith and other Islamic sciences); thus, it would be reasonable to assume that he used a number of these in preparing his work. The transition from writing down one’s own mašyaḵa to compiling a book on the “categories” or “generations” of scholars is likely to have been a relatively smooth one.

Undoubtedly, Abu’l-Šayḵ was, in turn, one of the most important, perhaps even the single most important, source for Abu Noʿaym, who referred to him as Abu Moḥammad b. Ḥayyān. Except for a very few, all the scholars included in Abu’l-Šayḵ’s work are also mentioned by Abu Noʿaym. Abu Noʿaym did not, however, merely write a continuation (ḏayl) to Abu’l-Šayḵ’s work; rather, he used most of his material in a slightly abridged or otherwise adapted form; thus, any changes that Abu Noʿaym introduced into the text of his source can be taken to be intentional. Other sources of comparable character were identified first by Sven Dedering in the introduction to his edition of Abu Noʿaym’s work, and have recently been discussed more comprehensively by Nur-Allāh Kasāʾi in the introduction to his Persian translation of the work. Kasāʾi also provides a detailed comparison between the respective works of Abu’l-Šayḵ and Abu Noʿaym. It is also worth mentioning that an important source for Abu Noʿaym was the (apparently lost) Ketāb Eṣfahān by Ḥamza Eṣfahāni (see below).

These two biographical dictionaries are similar in scope, but they offer a number of differences in form: Abu’l-Šayḵ arranged his entries according to the principle of ṭabaqāt (categories), whereas Abu Noʿaym adhered to alphabetical order (except for the Companions of the Prophet), using the ṭabaqāt principle only within larger groups made up of men who bore very common given names such as Aḥmad (I, pp. 77 ff.).

Both works start with an introductory chapter, that of the earlier work being much more concise. Abu Noʿaym places a perceptible stress on the good qualities of the Persians and their merits in contributing to the spread of Islam and the maintenance of its purity. For instance, half of the section on the Companions of the Prophet is devoted to Salmān Fār(e)si (q.v.), and the stories about the Arab conquest of Isfahan provide unfavorable details about how the invaders proceeded. Both works link the early history of Isfahan back to the prophetic cycle of history by claiming that the people of Isfahan were the only ones who did not support Nimrod in his rebellion against God, but supported Abraham instead (Abu’l-Šayḵ, 1989, I, p. 150; 1987-92, I, p. 28, Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 48 ff.).

The biographical parts of both of these works shed some light on institutions of learning and their development. The earlier work describes teaching activity taking place mainly in mosques and in private homes, whereas the later one refers to specialized institutions unknown to the earlier source, such as a “House of learning and transmission,” (bayt al-ʿlm wa’l-rewāya) mentioned in relation to someone who died in 363/973, as well as a “House of Hadith and transmission” ( baytal-ḥadiṯ wa’l-rewāya )(ed. Dedering, I, pp. 156, 221). Other matters for which contemporary scholars have found it useful to resort to using local biographical dictionaries in general, and in particular those written about Isfahan, include the office of the judge (Halm) and the spread of law schools (Melchert; Tsafrir). Scholars have also offered, on the basis of such sources, reconstructions of the rise of Sufism to a respected movement that managed to attract even some of the more prominent religious scholars (Paul, 2000a, using methods developed by Chabbi).

Both books discuss in their introductions the pleasant landscape and climate of Isfahan and its surroundings in a very similar way, thus apparently laying the foundation for further developments of the genre that treats local history and geography as closely related subjects.

Adab-oriented local historiography. Works of local historiography written in the pre-Mongol period mostly belong to the genre of biographical dictionaries. The only extant work of this genre about Isfahan is Māfarruḵi’s Maḥāsen Eṣfahān in Arabic, which was written probably some time between 464/1072 and 484/1092 (Bulliet), when Isfahan had become the capital of the Great Saljuq empire. Māfarruḵi includes quotes from Ketāb Eṣfahān, the lost work of Ḥamza Eṣfahāni; thus it seems that in Isfahan there was something like a tradition of writing local history in both genres. It is, however, impossible to venture a reconstruction of Ḥamza’s work based on the rather short references in Abu Noʿaym and Māfarruḵi, but it seems likely that it had a part similar to a biographical dictionary (including not only scholars, but also men of letters) and another one on antiquities (Paul, 2000b). Another such work on “the glories of Isfahan” (fi mafāḵer Eṣfahān) may have existed in the form of ʿAli b. Ḥamza b. ʿOmāra’s Qalāʾed al šaraf, which is mentioned by Mā-farruḵi (p. 27) and Yāqut (V. pp. 200 f.) but seems to be lost. Nevertheless, it is probable that there was a tradition of writing adab-oriented local histories of Isfahan as well as biographical dictionaries of scholars.

Māfarruḵi’s work was translated into Persian in the 14th century by Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad b. Abi’l-Reżā Āvi, who rearranged it by dividing the text into eight chapters and added further material in several places, in many cases poetry, as well as praise of the Il-khanid vizier who governed Isfahan in his time. Māfarruḵi’s work is a pleasantly arranged assortment of stories, including some about storytelling itself. It was written from the vantage point of the secretarial class that focuses on the rules of good governance, which are sometimes linked to the pre-Islamic past. This is history as a means of conveying contemporary messages; the rules are set first in a distant past, and later cases are used to illustrate that they are still valid. In its historical parts, the text certainly does not aim to recount history “as it really happened,” but tells stories of a historical nature as exempla to illustrate general rules that mostly pertain to good governance. Since these rules are grounded in a common cultural code shared by the author and his audience (and, in fact, later generations as well), the work is permeated with the values that were characteristic of the author’s time and social background. This work’s overall message is that experience (tajreba) has shown time and again that successful rulers are those who heed the advice of secretaries, viziers, and even the ordinary public. It is irrelevant that some of the stories told to convey this point of view may be fictitious.

Works written in the later 19th century. No local history of Isfahan seems to have been written under the Safavids or in the period immediately following their downfall. Local historiography resumed only in the second half of the 19th century, particularly as a response to Nāṣer-al-Din Shah’s project for a general description of the regions of Persia called Merʾāt al-boldān. Thus geography, in particular historical geography, is the focus of interest in some of these works, which are a source of information about city quarters and even about individual buildings. One of the works written for Nāṣer-al-Din Shah was Neṣf al-jahān fi taʿrif al-Eṣfahān (in classical Arabic, the name of the city did not bear the definite article) by Moḥammad-Mahdi b. Moḥammad-Reżā Eṣfahāni. The earliest extant manuscript of this work is dated 1287/1870, but additions and revisions were made, apparently, until 1303/1885. It continued the tradition of adab-oriented historiography from the earlier periods in that it also presented a mix of history and geography, as indeed would have been what the king wanted. The historical part takes up almost half of the text, highlighting two periods. In the section dealing with early history (pp. 139-69), the author tried to link his understanding of the results of modern (Western) scholarship (archeology and research on cuneiform texts) to the Persian (Šāh-nāma) tradition. After the legendary kings of Persia and Babylon, most of ancient and medieval history is given short shrift; but the author still manages to quote Māfarruḵi a couple of times and refers to Jean Chardin (q.v.) and Engelbert Kaempfer as witnesses to the prosperity of the country under the Safavids (pp. 178-79). The second period focuses on the conquest of Persia by the Afghans and the ensuing period of upheaval, which he pursues as far as the reign of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qājār (q.v.; pp. 180 ff.). In this part, he frequently refers to European writers, among whom Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia (1829) holds a prominent place (the references to Chardin and Kaempfer are probably also taken from here). Whenever the author has to decide whether the chronicle written by Mirzā Mahdi Khan Estrābādi (certainly the Tāriḵ-e nāderi is intended) or the English work is more reliable, he opts for the latter work.

Ḥājj Mirzā Ḥasan Khan Jāberi Anṣāri (1870-1957) wrote a history of Isfahan, which is called Tāriḵ-e Eṣfahān in the latest edition. (An earlier version, shorn of the third volume, which is a collection of biographies, is known as Tāriḵ-e Eṣfahān wa-Ray wa hama-ye jahān; the first version, called Tāriḵ-e neṣf-e jahān wa hama-ye jahān, was published in lithograph edition in Isfahan in 1914.) This is also a combination of both geography and history, and it seems particularly valuable for its detailed description of the Zāyandarud river and the system through which its waters were distributed (Lambton). In a section consisting of biographies, dates as late as 1350/1931 are given, thus reaching far into the 20th century. The author was one of the main proponents of the constitutional movement in Isfahan, and so his perspective is also partisan. He was well informed about questions of governance and administration, since he held posts in the provincial administration under Masʿud Mirzā Ẓell-al-Solṭān for long periods, so it is not surprising that his main categoried are ʿemārat (flourishing parts) and virāni/ḵarābi (ruinous state).

vi. Medieval Period

Introduction. The history of Isfahan prior to the city’s efflorescence in the 17th century often traced alternating cycles of urbanization and de-urbanization. Periods of urbanization brought about the extension of city limits, as well as a rapid rise in construction and settlement within its confines, increased the volume of mercantile trade and monetized economy, and encouraged various forms of literary activity. De-urbanization entailed depopulation of the city and surrounding countryside, dilapidation of constructions, shift toward a pastoral economy, and marked cultural decline. Major political transformations punctuated such cyclical transitions between urbanization and de-urbanization in Isfahan’s history.

Arab conquest. Wars of conquest led by Arab armies in the 1st/7th century coincided with and exacerbated a phase of intense de-urbanization in the Sasanid province of Isfahan. Before their invasion, from among the seven towns of the province—Kahṯa, Jār, Mehrbon, Darrām, Jay, Qeh (or Qeh-Jāvarsān), and Sārūya—the first four already had fallen into ruins and the invading armies wiped out the last two (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 14). Great numbers of people were killed or captured and enslaved during the conquests (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 28), and the settlement pattern of the region changed.

The timeline of Arab conquests (fotuḥāt) as preserved in primary sources is generally erratic (Donner), and particularly problematic in the case of Isfahan (Noth). The summary presented here, based on a comparative reading of various sources, aims to reconstruct a consistent narrative from a number of conflicting accounts (for various accounts of the conquest of Isfahan, see Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, pp. 178-90; Ṭabari, I, pp. 2637-641, tr. pp. 7 ff.; Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 19-30; Balʿami, I, pp. 519-20; Balāḏori, pp. 312-15). It is commonly accepted that Arab armies conquered the province of Isfahan in the wake of their grand victory (fatḥ al-fotuḥ) in Nehāvand (ca. 19/640). Shortly after the battle of Nehāvand, most likely during the early months of the year 21/winter 642, Caliph ʿOmar b. Ḵaṭṭāb, acting on the advice of his Persian client Hormozān (d. 23/644, q.v.), ordered troops from Kufa and Baṣra to proceed toward the town of Jay in the province of Isfahan. Primary sources often conflate the name of ʿOmar’s dispatched commander, but generally agree that several men named ʿAbd-Allāh (ʿabādela) had played important roles in the conquest of Isfahan (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 27). Some sources emphasize the role of ʿAbd-Allāh b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. ʿEtbān, a Companion of the Prophet, while others mention the young ʿAbd-Allāh b. Bodayl b. Warqāʾ Tamimi, who took his orders from the Companion Abū Mūsā Ašʿari.

The last Sasanid king, Yazdegerd III (d. 31/651), persistently sought to mobilize his provincial governors (marzbāns) against the invading armies, but his efforts proved unsuccessful as he reluctantly ran off from one province to the next, until he was finally killed in Marv. Caliph ʿOmar sought to chase Yazdegerd out of Sasanid territories and thereby uproot the sporadic military agitations that the latter stirred. It was probably the pursuit of Yazdegerd on his way to Khorasan that brought Arab armies to Isfahan.

The first place to be conquered in the province of Isfahan was an unspecified village called Rostāq al-Šayḵ, which lay between Nehāvand and Jay. There Arab armies confronted the native people under the regional ruler (ostandār). The commander of Persian armies, a senior veteran named Šahrbarāz Jāḏuya was killed in the battle, and a great number of the natives were slaughtered (Ṭabari, I, p. 2638; tr., XIV, pp. 6-7; Balʿami, I, p. 519; Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 25). Eventually, the Fāḏusfān (q.v.) of Isfahan, who held the rank of a local king (malek; Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 25; Ṭabari, I, pp. 2638-39) surrendered the entire province.

The round fortress-town of Jay comprised the principal city of the province of Isfahan. Before the Arab conquest, Jay had no non-military settlers. Local peasants who worked on the surrounding countryside resided in the town of Qeh, and the doors of Jay only opened to them in times of serious threat. Arab conquerors demolished the town of Qeh, evicted its surviving population, and forcibly settled them inside Jay. Thus, the fortress-town of Jay was settled by a permanent, non-military population for the first time during the Arab conquest of the region (Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 15-16). Earlier, the sixth-century Sasanid general, Maṭyār (Mahyār?), who has been erroneously credited by Abu Noʿaym with having conquered Constantinople for King Ḵosrow II Parvēz (r. 590-628), had built the first place of residence (dār) inside Jay (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 16).

By the year 23/644, after a few failed revolts, Isfahan had capitulated, and treaties were in place with conquerors for the payment of taxes and tribute in exchange for military protection. A per-capita tribute ( jezya) for the indigenous able-bodied, adult male population was conceded, and it was agreed in principle that lands should remain in the hands of the native population. Those who did not accept the terms of the new treaty were driven out into Kermān, and their lands were repossessed (for contents of the treaty, see Abū Noʿaym, I, p. 26). Treasuries of the province were depleted, and invaders garnered an enormous amount of booty in the first year of conquest. According to Māfarruḵi (p. 12; tr., p. 49) they collected forty millon derhams. The local Jewish community of Isfahan seem to have welcomed the Arab invaders with jubilation (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 287; Abu’l-Šayḵ, 1, p. 321) and divulged to them the location of treasures hidden in the small but strongly fortified village of Fābezān near the major fire-temple in Dārak. It was not far from there that six thousand heavily-armed men put up a fight, and after their defeat a massacre of the local population took place in the hands of the invading army (Abu Noʿaym. I, p. 28).

At first, Sāʾeb b. Aqraʿ (d. ca. 35/655), whose name is recorded among the Companions of the Prophet and who was related to the Arab general ʿOṯmān b. Abi’l-ʿĀṣ, took local charge of Arab affairs in the province of Isfahan. His descendants remained influential in Isfahan for centuries (Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 75, 342). Shortly after the conquest, the province of Isfahan came under direct supervision by the governor of ʿErāq. Initially, revenues levied from the province went to Basra, but in the the early Omayyad period (ca. 41/662) they were diverted to Kufa (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 49; Houtum-Schindler, p. 4), probably because by that time troops that had participated in the conquest of Isfahan, including the Sasanid elite cavalrymen (asāwera, q.v., Mid. Pers. aswār “horseman”) who played an instrumental role in the conquests (Balāḏori, pp. 372-74; Zakeri, p. 126; Morony, p. 198), had mostly settled in Kufa. A group of those Sasanid cavalrymen, from among the Ḥamrāʾ (lit. “the Red”) who had affiliated themselves with the Arab tribe of Banu Tamim, took land entitlements in the village of Sāmān near the border of Isfahan (Ṭabari, I, pp. 2463-464, II, p. 992; tr., XIII, p. 43, XXII, p. 139; Balāḏori, p. 280; Morony, p. 197; Zakeri, p. 120).

During the first century after its conquest, lands of the province of Isfahan remained a rich source of revenue for the caliphate, especially as Omayyad agents forcibly extracted revenue from the “most docile population” of the prosperous land of Isfahan, where as a contemporary phrased it, “saffron and roses abound; mountains contain mines of silver and bismuth; walnut and almond trees as well as the best of vines grow there. Honeybees fly around, fresh water flows, and finest mares roam about. The food is healthy, water pure, soil fecund, and air clean: meat remains edible there longer than it does anywhere else” (see letter by Ḥajjāj b. Yusof to his tax agent Vehzād b. Yazdād Anbāri, in Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, pp. 152-53; Abu Noʿaym I, p. 37; tr., pp. 80-81). A relatively steady annual yield of about twelve million derhams is reported from the province (Māfarruḵi, I, p. 12; Qomi, p. 31).

In a few instances, Omayyad opponents, such as the Kufa-based rebel Moḵtār b. Abi ʿObayda Ṯaqafi (66-67/685-87) and the Qoraši counter-caliph ʿAbd-Allāh b. Zobayr (d. 72/691), temporarily seized control of the province and deprived the caliphate of its revenues. Azraqi Kharejites, led by Qaṭari b. Fojāʿa Tamimi (d. 78 or 79) and his allies, who roved around Isfahan and mixed with the indigenous peasantry, posed a more pugnacious peril to Omayyad agents in the region. After the year 68/678, when ʿAttāb b. Warqā’ Tamimi (d. ca. 80/699; see Abu Noʿaym, II, pp. 148-49) decisively pushed the Kharejite threat away from the province, the Arab presence in Isfahan increased, and it seems that Islam began to acquire a firmer footing in Isfahan as of this time.

Early on, Arab settlers had taken up residence outside the walls of Jay and did not mix with the native population, but they gradually moved inside the fortress-town. Some Arab tribal groups, from among the BanuTamim, Banu Qays, Banu ʿAnaza, and Qaḥṭāni Arabs, collectively appropriated pastures and agricultural lands in various parts of the province of Isfahan. In particular, Taymi Arabs settled the village of Ṭehrān not far from Jay (Qomi, pp. 264-65; Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 17).

A few brick and clay buildings with unadorned exteriors served as mosques in the 1st/7th-century Isfahan. Archeological excavations, interpreted in the light of textual sources, corroborate the building of a mosque over an earlier Zoroastrian or Christian site at one of the gates of Jay (Mir-Fattāḥ dates the unearthed edifice to later centuries, but the results of this excavation are consistent with a report by Abu Noʿaym, II, p. 345 concerning the foundation of an early mosque at a local monastery [dayr] outside Jay, during the conquest of the province). This mosque was also associated with the tomb of a fallen Companion of the Prophet, Ḥomama b. Abi Ḥomama Dawsi, who was killed (ca. 21/642) and buried nearby (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 71), and the site remained a venerated cemetery in following centuries. A large mosque was built in the village of Ḵošinān during the caliphate of ʿAli b. Abi Ṭāleb (r. 35-40/656-61) by a certain Abu Ḵonās, mawlā of ʿOmar b. Ḵaṭṭāb, and another one was constructed early on in Bāḏāna (or Vāḏāna) quarter by the Arab commander Walid b. Ṯomāma (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 17). Literary sources further mention an early mosque that was located inside Jay and carried the name of a certain Joljela b. Bodayl Tamimi. The early Hadith transmitter and Qurʾan reciter Saʿid b. Jobayr (d. 94/713), who stayed a few years in hiding from Omayyad persecution with the family of Qāsem b. Bahrām Eṣfahāni near Jay, regularly prayed at that mosque (Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, p. 315; Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 324-25). It seems plausible to assume that the edifice referred to as the Jorjir or Jurjir mosque (alternatively pronounced as Juji, Juja, and Joʾjoʾ by the natives: Jāberi-e Anṣāri, p. 223; Honarfar, pp. 40-43) in Jay is indeed the same mosque dating to the 1st/7th century that was named after Joljela b. Bodayl. (For alternative dating to the 4th/10th, without considering this significant early evidence, see Goddard, who only relies on the later testimony of Māfarruḵi and and its translation, p. 63.)

Early mosques played an instrumental role in the spread of Islam in Isfahan. By the end of the 1st/7th century, at least one copy of the Qurʾan had reached Jay (Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, p. 415; Abu Noʿaym, II, p. 159). Some descendants of those who had been captured during the conquest of the province a couple of generations earlier had become Muslims and returned to their ancestral land. Ḥabib b. Zobayr b. Moškān Helāli Eṣfahāni, member of an indigenous pre-Islamic princely family, whose father had been captured and sold into slavery a few decades earlier, returned to Isfahan toward the end of the 1st/7th century and assumed a leadership role among local Muslims. His descendants, referred to as the Zobayris, played important roles in the future life of Isfahan (Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, pp. 372-77; Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 294-95, II/334; Kamaly, index of names, s.v.). The province of Isfahan even came to have its first Muslim judge, namely ʿAbd-Allāh b. Abi Maryam Omawi (d. ca. 100; see Abu Noʿaym, II, p. 45; Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, pp. 439-41; not mentioned by Tsafrir), from whom a distinguished family of men of religious learning later descended in Isfahan.

The anti-Omayyad uprising of the Ṭālebi rebel, ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moʿāwia (q.v.) b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Jaʿfar b. Abi Ṭāleb (d. 131/749; for this date, see Abu Noʿaym, II, pp. 42-43), which defined a decisive moment in the course of the ʿAbbasid Revolution, was centered at the province of Isfahan. By 128/745, ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moʿāwia had come to lead large numbers of troops recruited from among a diverse base, including Zaydis, Yamanis, other Arab dissenters, militant elements from among doctrinal extremists (ḡolāt, q.v.), Kharejites (Madelung, pp. 56-58), local peasants, and even members of the ʿAbbasid family, most notably the later ʿAbbasid caliph al-Manṣūr. Significant numbers of Ṭālebi Arabs and their affiliates migrated to Iranian lands, including Isfahan, at this time (see Ebn Ṭabāṭabā for places were they settled). Isfahan was the main stronghold from which ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moʿāwia ruled for more than two years over vast territories in the Jebāl, Ahvāz, Fārs, Kermān, and Khorasan. Coins struck in his name in Isfahan provide the earliest numismatic evidence of the spreading uprising that eventually toppled the Omayyads (Broome).

Important battles took place in and around Isfahan during this time. Abu Moslem Ḵorāsāni (k. 137/755, q.v.), the architect of the ʿAbbasid victory, who is said to have been born in Faridan near Isfahan (Abu Noʿaym, II, p. 109; Māfarruḵi, p. 24, tr. 70), and his lieutenant Qaḥṭaba b. Šabib Ṭāʾi crushed the huge armies of both the Ṭālebi rebel ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moʿāwia and the Omayyad general ʿĀmer b. Żobāra Morri in the province of Isfahan.

At this time, Isfahan was a breeding ground for messianic movements (Bertels, tr., p. 76, n. 2; Qāẓi Noʿmān, part 13). A group of ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moʿāwia’s followers, referred to as the Janāḥiya, refused to accept that he had died and maintained instead that he continued to live in hiding in the mountains around the province (Tucker). The revolt of Abu ʿIsā Eṣfahāni (q.v.), an important Jewish messianic figure whose followers became known as the ʿIsāwiya or the Eṣfahāniya, advocated comparable claims, probably in Isfahan shortly after the accession of al-Manṣur to the ʿAbbasid throne.

Isfahan under the ʿAbbasids. The ʿAbbasid Revolution opened a new chapter in the history of Isfahan. Until then, the province of Isfahan was composed of several “dispersed villages, torn apart towns and decrepit ruins” (Māfarruḵi, p. 9, tr. p. 20). The ʿAbbasid Revolution marked the advent of a new era of rapid urban growth, conversion to Islam, and increased cultural activity, primarily in the form of Hadith transmission, throughout the province.

In 151/770, during the reign of the second ʿAbbasid caliph al-Manṣur (r. 138-58/754-75), his appointed delegate-governor, Ayyūb b. Ziād, set out to build a new fortress and a full-fledged congregational (jāmeʿ) mosque with a pulpit (menbar) and prayer-niche (maqṣura), in the village of Ḵošinān on the banks of a tributary of Zāyandarūd known as the Foresān canal. The mosque may have been constructed around the older mosque in Ḵošinān dating to the reign of ʿAli b. Abi Ṭāleb. The construction effort must have been extensive, because, according to a later report, the new edifice covered an area larger than ten thousand square meters, had twenty-seven entrances, fifty-nine arches, and eighty-six round columns (Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, p. 178). Ayyub b. Ziād extended the limits of Ḵošinān toward what was known as the Jews’ district (kō jahudān, Ar. sekkat al-yahud) outside Jay, and thereby expanded, walled in, and transformed that old neighborhood into a new cantonment-town (meṣr) called Yahudiya (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 17).

In pre-Islamic times, Yahudiya comprised a small neighborhood of seven hundred jaribs, located about two kilometers outside of Jay, toward the desert of Dardašt. The ʿAbbasid lieutenant Ayyub b. Ziād incorporated the villages of Bāṭerqān, Foresān, Yavān, Ḵorjān, Felfelān, Sonbolān, Forāʾān, Kamāʾān, Juzdān, Lonbān, Aškahān, Jarvāʾān, Barvaskān, and Fābejān (or Fābezān) into the new town of Yahudiya that he had built (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 17; Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, p. 176; see also, Ebn Ḵordādbeh, pp. 20-21; Ebn al-Faqih, p. 263), and thereafter Yahudiya became the seat of ʿAbbasid rule in the province of Isfahan. It is said that at some point the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Manṣur expressed interest in relocating his capital from Baghdad to that location (Māfarruḵi, pp. 8-9, tr., p. 20. The ancient town of Jay, with its magnificent four gates (Bāb Ḵor, Māhbar, Tirbar, and Gušbar, later Bāb Yāhudiya) and one hundred towers, was initially three times larger than sekkat al-yahud (see figures in Abu’l-Šayḵ, I, p. 176; Abū Noʿaym, I, pp. 15-16), but gradually it was dwarfed in size, population and importance by the ʿAbbasid city of Yahudiya.

Also in the aftermath of the ʿAbbasid Revolution, a permanent marketplace (suq) was established outside Yahudiya, and the foundation of this permanent marketplace marked a milestone in the economic evolution of the emerging city of Isfahan. Seasonal marketplaces in towns and villages had a long history all across the Iranian plateau (see BĀZĀR), but there is no evidence to indicate that permanent marketplaces existed in Isfahan prior to the second half of the 2nd/8th century (for a stronger claim, see Gaube, p. 21). Local histories credit the ʿAbbasid delegate-governor Ayyub b. Ziād with the foundation of the marketplace, where shops and stores were built for traders, merchants, and artisans. Increased volume of coin output from local mints (Noonan) corroborates a general trend of increasing monetization of the economy on the eve of the ʿAbbasid Revolution.

The proper designation of the city of Isfahan, as a geographically delineated part of the province known by the same name, also seems to post-date the ʿAbbasid Revolution (for numismatic corroboration of this statement, cf. Walker, pp. LX f.; Lane-Poole, I, pp. 227-47; Jenāb, pp. 12-13; Kamaly, p. 30). It was only from that time on that the city of Isfahan became known as comprised of the twin towns of Yahudiya and Šahrestān, where the latter name referred to Jay and its immediate environs. It should therefore be stressed that statements to the effect that “Isfahan,” rather than Jay, was already an administrative capital as far back as the time of the Arsacids, or that Yahudiya constituted one of the twin cities that defined the city of Isfahan under the Sasanids, though widely circulating in modern literature on Iranian cities, are inaccurate and anachronistic. (See, for example, Lockhart, pp. 19-20; Gaube, p. 67; Golombek, p. 20; Rawson, p. 143, n. 529; Le Strange, p. 203; Honarfar, p. 69.)

Between the death of the second ʿAbbasid caliph al-Manṣur (158/775) and the year 184/800, fourteen years into the reign of Hārun al-Rašid (r. 170-193/786-809), direct caliphal interference with local affairs in Isfahan remained minimal. Even the full collection of taxes was not strictly enforced at all times and places. Notably, the district (kura) of Qom, at the time part of the province of Isfahan, often fell behind in payments. In 184/800, Hārun al-Rashid set out on a vigorous campaign to collect overdue revenues from several tax districts, including Isfahan and associated territories. Local sources refer to this year as the “year of residuals” (Ar. plur. mawānīḏ from Pers. sing. mānḏa; the word mistakenly appears as mawāyand in Qomi, p. 29). In 189/805, al-Rašid severed tax obligations of Qom from Isfahan, by redefining the boundaries between the two districts: four rural districts (rostāq) from Isfahan were appended to Qom, while a few districts formerly of Hamadān and Nehāvand were added to Isfahan proper. This brought the total number of rostāqs of Isfahan to twenty-three. Without Qom, the annual tax obligation of Isfahan, which is mentioned by Qodāma b. Jaʿfar (pp. 242, 250) as 10,500,000 derhams, sometimes exceeded 12,000,000 derhams (Qomi, p. 31; Yaʿqubi, p. 51; Ebn Rosta, 1998, p. 136).

ʿAbbāsid functionaries found it difficult to extract taxes at such high levels consistently. Partly for this reason, periodic reassessments of taxable properties and delimitations of tax districts were put into effect. Finally, the caliph al-Moʿtaṣem (r. 218-27/833-42) reduced Isfahan proper to a single tax district (kura), comprised of nineteen rural areas (rostāq) and two thousand five hundred villages, and he further severed Karaj as a separate kura (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 14; for later ʿAbbasid reassessments, see Qomi 184-85).

The ʿAbbasid caliphate utilized various mechanisms in order to ensure the efficient and uninterrupted collection of revenues. For seven years, the caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136-58/754-75) assigned Isfahan as a temporary tax farm (ṭoʿma) to Aḥmad b. Aḥjam Ḵozāʿi (ca. 160/777; on him, see Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 77-78), an ʿAbbasid general who finally settled in Marv. During and after the ʿAbbasid civil war between the two brothers al-Amin and al-Maʾmun, the vizier Ḥasan b. Sahl b. Zādān Farroḵ (d. 236/850-51) oversaw the collection of taxes in Isfahan. With the outbreak of the revolt of Bābak Ḵorrami (d. 223/838, q.v.), which stirred instability in the region, the Arab general Abu Dolaf Qāsem b. ʿIsā ʿEjli (d. 225/839-40, q.v.) was commissioned to quash insurgencies, and to administer the collection of local revenues for the caliph. Based in sumptuous fortifications erected in Karaj (at the time still part of Isfahan: later called Karaj-e Abu Dolaf), and relying on the force of his Arab tribal kinsmen who had settled in the region, this pro-Shiʿa Arab general and his descendants ruled, with brief interruptions, over Isfahan and its countryside for several decades (Yaʿqubi, p. 51; Abu Noʿaym, II, p. 160).

Under local dynasties. The ʿAbbasid caliphate, to counter the contingency of its appointed agents reneging on their obligations, folowed the policy of instigating rivalry among potential candidates for lucrative positions. By selectively granting official recognition to one military commander at a time, and depriving others of the privilege, the caliphate tried to maintain a steady flow of revenue into its treasury in Baghdad. For example, in 253/867, Caliph al-Moʿtazz (r. 252-55/866-69) dispatched the Turkic slave-general Musā b. Boḡā to rule over the region of Jebāl, and the latter fought off and defeated the previously appointed ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz b. Abi Dolaf (Ebn al-Aṯir, VII, p. 178). Later, Yaʿqub b. Layṯ Ṣaffār (d. 265/879, q.v.) took control of Isfahan away from ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz b. Abi Dolaf (on Yaʿqub’s unwelcome rule in Isfahan, see Māfarruḵi, p. 38). For a few years, the clan of Abu Dolaf served as functionaries of the Saffarids in Isfahan, until Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz b. Abi Dolaf ousted ʿAmr b. Layṯ from Isfahan in 271/884 (Ebn al-Aṯir, VII, p. 416). In 276/889, Caliph al-Moʿtamed’s brother and heir apparent, Abu Aḥmad al-Mowaffaq, visited Isfahan partly in order to reaffirm ʿAbbasid suzerainty over the region (Fields, p. 159; Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 358, II, pp. 159, 227). Later, in 283/896, Amir Abu’l-Najm Badr al-Ostādh al-Kabir Ḥammāmi (d. after 300/913), a client of Caliph al-Moʿtażed, unseated ʿOmar b. ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz b. Abi Dolaf, and as governor of the area from 295/908 to 300/913, he brought about a brief period of peace and stability in Isfahan (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 239; Ebn al-Aṯir, VII, pp. 479 f., VIII, p. 12).

Military rule over Isfahan continued to change hands rapidly. In 301/913, the Samanids of Khorasan briefly extended their control over Isfahan (Lambton). From the beginnings of the 4th/10th century, the unbridled penetration of Deylami warlords into ʿAbbasid territory made a tremendous impact on Isfahan. For about two decades, various warlords fought each other over the control of Isfahan and the surrounding hinterland. Enormous numbers of tribally organized Deylami, Kurdish, and Turkish troops led by a series of Deylami warlords threatened the very fabric of urban and rural life in Isfahan as well as in other lands of the caliphate. For over a generation, ʿAli b. Vahsudān (d. 306/919), Aḥmad Saʿluk (d. 311/923), Mar-dāvij b. Ziār (d. 323/919), Vošmgir b. Ziār (d. 357/967), Laškari, and eventually, Rokn-al-Dawla Ḥasan b. Buya (d. 365/976), in turn maintained military control over Isfahan (Lambton, passim).

Powerful local landowning families played a more enduring and more significant role in local affairs than military agents and tax collectors (see Kamaly as an inquiry into the role of patrician families). This privileged group of urban notables, often with roots extending to pre-Islamic times, had emerged to prominence especially in the aftermath of the ʿAbbasid Revolution. Laxity in the collection of taxes on the part of the caliphate, as well as the local growth of mercantile trade in the city and between Isfahan and other regions, had provided local landowners and emerging merchants with independent means of sustenance. As early as the 3rd/9th century, the patrician Ḥosayn b. Ḥafṣ Hamaḏāni (d. 212/827; see Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 274-76), a wealthy landowner from whom a prominent family of judges and judicial attendants descended in Isfahan, reportedly enjoyed a non-taxable annual income of one hundred thousand derhams. Another example is provided by Abu Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Mahdi b. Rostam (d. 272/886; Abu Noʿaym, I, pp. 85-86), a man of substantial means who could afford to spend three hundred thousand derhams on his personal library.

As major landowners, merchants, and local leaders, these patricians exercised decisive control over local resources and effectively negotiated a variety of concessions from the caliph and his appointed agents. At times, the caliphs officially acknowledged members of the patriciate as sovereign rulers of the city (moḵtār al-balad: see especially Abu Noʿaym, II, pp. 53-54, 345-46). Meanwhile, the ʿAbbasid caliphate sought to curb the influence of indigenous authorities through a variety of means, such as periodic reassessment of taxation levels, direct appointment of judges, and conferral of authority upon military agents in the region. Powerful local families repeatedly stood their ground in facing caliphal challenges. In particular, when the ʿAbbasid caliphate launched a vigorous campaign, commonly referred to as the meḥna (218-32/833-47), with the aim of unseating locally favored judges and judicial functionaries, its attempt foundered in the face of opposition from local patricians (Kamaly, pp. 109 ff.).

Buyid Isfahan. Both city and countryside continued to suffer from long-lasting political instability until the consolidation of power under the Buyids finally put an end to violence and ushered in an almost century-long era of calm and prosperity in the Jebāl region. Isfahan particularly prospered under the Buyids. The name of Isfahan appears consistently on Buyid coinage from 323/934-35 for almost a century thereafter until the year 421/1029 (see Treadwell). They fortified the city and built an enormous wall, twenty-one thousand steps in circumference (Honar-far, p. 34). During eighteen years in office, the capable Buyid vizier Abu’l-Qāsem Esmāʿil, known as Ṣāheb b. ʿAbbād (d. 385), who keenly expressed earnest emotions in favor of Isfahan, turned the local court of Abu Manṣur Moʿayyed-al-Dawla (r. 366-73/976-84) and Abu’l-Ḥasan Faḵr al-Dawla (r. 373-87/984-97) into a magnet for attracting talent. Men of letters, especially masters of Arabic poetry and literature (see list of poets in Ebn ʿAbbād’s circle in Ṯaʿālebi, III, passim) as well as transmitters of Hadith (for the names of more than four hundred and fifty who lived in the Buyid period, see Abū Noʿaym, passim) flocked to Isfahan from distant lands, as far west as Palestine and Egypt, and as far east as Balḵ and Termeḏ.

In spite of the fact that Buyid rulers were Shiʿite, and their powerful vizier Ṣāḥeb b. ʿAbbād was considered a Moʿtazelite Shiʿite (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 214; Cahen and Pellat, pp. 672), the predominantly Sunnite and pro-Hanbalite population of Isfahan (as reported explicitly by Moqaddasi /Maqdesi, pp. 384, 399) maintained agreeable relations with them, and no major disturbances are reported. The court and the rest of the literary elite of Isfahan shared an incontrovertible devotion to supporting Islamic institutions, and in particular exhibited a strong predilection for Arabic as the sole literary language. Even Ḥamza b. Ḥasan Eṣfahāni, whose works reveal his avid interest in matters Iranian and the pre-Islamic history of Persia and whom a later source describes as a strong šoʿubi (Ebn al-Qefṭi, I, p. 335), wrote in Arabic.

The geographer Moqaddasi/Maqdesi, who visited Isfahan in the year 367/977, praised Yahudiya as a large emporium, well-built and populous with excellent climate, where agricultural crops are produced and commerce thrives. Wealthy merchants and skilled artisans abound. They export textiles to faraway places, and the people are Sunnites Muslims and quite astute (Moqaddasi, pp. 388-89; Eṣṭaḵri, pp. 198-99; Ebn Ḥawqal, pp. 362-63). Isfahan was renowned for its silk brocades and artifacts such as padlocks (aqfāl) and astrolabes. Abu Maḥmud Ḥāmed b. Ḵeżr Ḵojandi (d. 390), described as the leading instrument maker of his time, dedicated some of his works, including astrolabes, to the Buyid Faḵr-al-Dawla, and probably lived in or visited Isfahan during the latter’s reign. The city contained splendid buildings, gardens, stables, bathhouses, and bountiful marketplaces (Māfarruḵi, pp. 83 ff.). Moʾayyed-al-Dawla is said to have been so concerned about the welfare of his subjects that every night from his castle he would listen to the sounds coming from the city; and if he did not hear joyful singing and merriment, he would fail to sleep (Māfarruḵi, pp. 96-97). Daily public prayers were conducted in as many as fifty mosques just in the Jarvāʾān neighborhood, and no fewer than fifty men attended each session (Māfarruḵi, p. 89; tr., p. 74). In the eyes of its contemporary townsfolk, Buyid Isfahan stood second in prominence only to Baghdad, center of the ʿAbbasid caliphate, and Ray, the Buyid capital (Azdī, 17).

By the opening years of the 5th/11th century, Buyid rule in the region had already begun to deteriorate. With the death of Faḵr-al-Dawla and the accession to the throne of his four-year-old son, Majd-al-Dawla Rostam (r. 387-420/997-1029), Buyid suzerainty over Isfahan was already in its last phase. Sources tend to blame this loss of control on Rostam’s mother, Sayyeda Ḵātun, and her interventions in the affairs of the government. From 398/1007, ʿAlāʾ-al-Dawla Moḥammad b. Došmanziār (q.v.), often referred to as Ebn Kākuya (or Pesar-e Kāku, e.g., Bayaqi, p. 19) maternal uncle of Sayyeda Ḵātun, took over as governor of Isfahan, nominally serving on behalf of Majd-al-Dawla. Perhaps, the most significant aspect of his rule was that he provided a safe haven for Avicenna (370-428/980-1037, q.v.), who spent fourteen of his most productive years as vizier in Isfahan (Kamaly).

ʿAlāʾ-al-Dawla’s rule over Isfahan was interrupted a few times and ended with his death in 433/1042. He faced incessant opposition from rival Deylami warlords, such as Ebn Fulād (407-11/1016-20), ʿAli b. ʿEmrān Espahbad and Manučehr b. Qābus in 418/1027-28, and Anuširavān b. Qābus in 421/1030.

Under the Ghaznavids. In 420/1029, the Ghaznavids took advantage of the faltering authority of the Buyids, invaded Isfahan, massacred its inhabitants, and seized control of the city and its hinterland (Ebn al-Aṯir, IX, p. 372). This pushed Isfahan into another phase of depopulation and dilapidation that lasted more than two decades (Bertels, tr., pp. 45-46).

Under the Saljuqs. In the spring of 442/1051, after several attempts going back to 434/1042, the Saljuq army of Ṭoḡrel Beg conquered Isfahan after a prolonged and devastating siege (Ebn al-Aṯir, IX, pp. 562-63; Māfarruḵi, p. 101). The city, however, rapidly recovered its prosperity under the Saljuqs, as Ṭoḡrel Beg appointed the capable Abu’l-Fatḥ b. Moẓaffar Nišāburi as governor over the region, spent about 500,000 dinars on the improvement and maintenance of buildings, and ordered that no taxes to be levied on people for three years. A period of rapid urban revival ensued as the people who had scattered around due to war and famine returned, and Ṭoḡrel, who especially favored Isfahan, transferred the seat of Saljuq rule from Ray to that city (Māfarruḵi, p. 101; Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow, 1971, pp. 127-28; Honarfar, p. 55).

Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow who visited Isfahan in Ṣafar 444/June 1052, just a year after the Saljuq takeover of the city, praised it as the finest, most commodious, and best flourishing of all Persian-speaking towns he had visited. An often quoted passage in his travelogue marvels at Isfahan’s fine aqueducts, tall buildings, fine Friday Mosque, well-built quarters, bustling bazaars, and clean caravansaries. It reports that two hundred moneychangers (ṣarrāf) had stalls in a bazaar of their own, and on a certain lane, known as Ku-ye-Ṭarāz, there stood fifty caravansaries filled with merchants and shopkeepers (Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow, 1971, pp. 127-28; 2001, pp. 125-26).

Isfahan’s urban renewal went hand in hand with the city’s imminent rise as the political and cultural center of the eastern Saljuq empire. Alp Arslān (q.v.) continued Ṭoḡrel Beg’s favorable policies in Isfahan (Māfarruḵi, pp. 101-2), and his son and successor, Malekšāh, was born and raised in Isfahan, where, in 464/1071, he received Caliph Moqtadi’s recognition as heir to the Saljuq throne (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, p. 71; Mostawfi, p. 439).

Under Malekshāh (r. 465-85/1072-92) and his capable vizier Ḵᵛāja Neẓām-al-Molk (d. 485/1092), Isfahan reached an unprecedented zenith that was matched and further surpassed only several centuries later under the Safavid Shah ʿAbbās I the Great (q.v.).

An enclosing wall with a circumference of three and a half leagues (slightly over twenty km) delimited the city and its immediate countryside from the surrounding hinterland, and inside the wall every bazaar, quarter, and lane had separating doors and gates, which were guarded under lock and chain at nighttime (Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow, 1971, pp. 127-28, 2001, pp. 125-26). The population of Isfahan quickly rose to between one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand people (estimate based on Māfarruḵi, pp. 86-87; cf. Lambton; Watson, p. 133; Bulliet, p. 73; Rāvandi, p. 161). Arabic writing and poetry continued to flourish in Isfahan (Eṣfahāni, passim); Persian literature enjoyed court patronage in an unprecedented way (Māfarruḵi, pp. 33-35; tr. p. 125) and eventually became increasingly more dominant in Isfahan.

Malekšāh had large buildings and fortifications constructed inside and outside the city. The town’s old fort underwent restoration, and a new fortress, named Dežkūh or Šāh-dež (also called Dezkuh or Šāh-dez; Rāvandi, p. 156; see also Willey, pp. 206-11; Mehryār), where Malekšāh kept his treasury and later played an important role in Isfahan’s history, was built about 30 km southwest of the city.

Mosques prospered, and the city’s old Congregational Mosque was renovated and vastly expanded (Lambton, p. 101). Large gardens known as Bāḡ-e Kārān, Bāḡ-e Aḥmad-Siāh, Bayt-al-Māʾ, Bāḡ-e Falāsān, and Bāḡ-e Dašt-e Gur, as well as magnificent palaces such as Qaṣr-e Farqad, Qaṣr-e Hārun, Qaṣr-e Kuhān, and others also date from Malekšāh’s reign (Rāvandi, p. 132; Māfarruḵi, pp. 53-56; tr., pp. 26-34).

Exemption of city-dwellers from various levies increased settlement and encouraged construction within the city and boosted commerce. The city grew in size as it incorporated more of the surrounding hinterland. City limits were extended to include a new neighborhood called Jubāra. Not far from the new neighborhood, Neẓām-al-Molk built a madrasa, with substantial endowment from surrounding agricultural lands (Māfarruḵi, pp. 104-5; tr., p. 142).

It appears that the Saljuqs, once they had consolidated their power, supplanted old local patrician families, whom they considered potential adversaries, and replaced them by new clans whose pro-Saljuq loyalty was guaranteed. Old, powerful families, most notably the Manda, Ḥafṣ, and Moškān families, lost their central significance under the Saljuqs and eventually disappeared from the scene. New families, most notably the Ḵojandis and the Ṣāʿedis, who migrated to Isfahan from Greater Khorasan under direct sponsorship by Neẓām-al-Molk, became entrenched as leaders of local communities of Shafeʿites and Hanafites respectively. The Ḵojandi clan claimed descent from the 1st/7th-century Arab general, Mohallab b. Abi Ṣofra. Neẓām-al-Molk brought a leading member of this family, namely Abū Bakr Moḥammad b. Tābet b. Ḥasan b. ʿAli Ḵojandi (d. 483), to Isfahan from Marv and appointed him in charge of the Neẓāmiya madrasa in Isfahan (on the Khojandi family, see Homāʾi, pp. 133-40; Kasāʾi, pp. 219-28).

The installation of new, privileged families triggered decisive changes with long-lasting consequences in the local power structure as well as in patterns of factionalism in Isfahan. While the majority of the population with its Hanbalite or other Sunnite leanings found the overarching Saljuq policy of “Sunnite revival” congenial, other groups that subscribed to less mainstream doctrines became alienated and bent onto radicalism. After the closely spaced deaths of Neẓām-al-Molk and Malekšāh, Isfahan’s fortunes took a turn for the worse, and the city declined rapidly, as it came to suffer gravely from conflicts between contenders for the Saljuq throne, on the one hand, and the so-called “heretics” on the other. In the intense struggle between Barkiāroq (d. 498/1105, q.v.), and the Isfahan-based Torkān Ḵātūn (d. 487/1094, fighting in the name of her prepubescent son Maḥmūd), and later Moḥammad, over succession to the Saljuq throne, various military factions became involved and wreaked havoc on the city of Isfahan and its environs.

Meanwhile, a former canvas-dealer named Aḥmad b. ʿAṭṭāš (q.v.) penetrated the Šāh-dež fortress in the role of a teacher. The fortress, guarded by Deylami soldiers, was home to young women and children of the Saljuq household, and at certain times housed the treasury and the armory as well. Ebn al-ʿAṭṭāš eventually won over the fortress, and thousands of troops rallied around him there (Rāvandi, pp. 155-161; 30,000, according to Mostawfi, pp. 444-45; Daftary, pp. 354-55). As of 488/1095, Ebn al-ʿAttāš and his agents effectively ruled over the hinterland of Isfahan from his base at Šāh-dež and other fortresses in the region. Their control over the city remained tenuous at best, but the weight of their power instilled fear among its population (as illustrated by the macabre account of a blind beggar known as ʿAlawi Madani, who lured people to their deaths in a house at the end of a dark, dead-end alley; see Mostawfi, pp. 445-6; Rāvandi, pp. 157-58). Eventually, in the year 500/1107 Sultan Moḥammad b. Malekšāh (r. 498-511 /1105-18) captured Šāh-dež and slaughtered Ebn al-ʿAṭṭāš and those close to him in the most atrocious way (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, pp. 430-34; Rāvandi, pp. 157-61).

Continuous clashes between the Baṭenis (see BĀṬENIYA) and the Saljuqs wreaked enormous devastation and caused tremendous hardship in Isfahan (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, pp. 527-29). During the unstable reign of Barkiāroq in Isfahan, Abu’l-Qāsem Masʿūd b. Moḥammad Ḵojandi, chief of the local Shafeʿite community, vehemently persecuted the Bāṭenis and burned them alive, which made the Bāṭenis refer to him as Lucifer (mālek-e duzaḵ; Homāʾi, p. 135). In 515, the Bāṭenis set fire to the city’s Friday Mosque at night. In 523, the Ismailis of Isfahan rebelled and killed ʿAbd-al-Laṭif Ḵojandi, the leader of the Shafeʿites (Ebn al-Aṯir, X, p. 595, 659-60).

Eventually, Sultan Sanjar b. Malekšāh (r. 511-52/1118-157) abandoned Isfahan as Saljuq capital and transferred the seat of his power to Khorasan. This did not, however, put an end to the city’s chaos and misfortune. Recurrent famines led “people to eat each other” (mardom mardom miḵordand), and by 570/1165, even the previously well-off and elite families had to struggle with abject impoverishment (Rāvandi, pp. 229, 239). Factional wars, between the Shafeʿites and the Hanafites, and between Sunnites and Shiʿites, continued.

After the Saljuqs. In Rabiʿ I 590/March 1194, Sultan Abu’l-Moẓaffar Takeš Ḵᵛārazmšāh (r. 567-96/1172-1200) killed Ṭoḡrel b. Arsalān (r. 571-90/1176-194), the last of the Saljuq rulers of eastern and central Persian lands, in a battle at Ray, and from there proceeded to take over Isfahan and other parts of the Jebāl region. The contemporary ʿAbbasid caliph in Baghdad, Abu’l-ʿAbbās al-Nāṣer le-Din-Allāh (r. 575-622/1180-225), had instigated this conflict in order to reap the benefits from clashes among warlords. However, the hold of Takeš and succeeding Ḵᵛārazmšāhs on the region of Jebāl, including Isfahan, remained precarious; this was because of fierce competition over control of the region posed especially by militant Ismailis as well as by rival Turkic warlords such as Nūr-al-Din Kukja (k. ca. 600/1203), Šams-al-Din Āytoḡmeš (k. 608/1211-12), Nāṣer-al-Din Mingli (k. ca. 612/1215), and Sayf-al-Din Iḡlameš Atābaki (k. 614/1217; see Ebn al-Aṯir, XII, pp. 195, 238, 296, 300-301; Rāvandi, pp. 391-402; Jovayni, III, Qazvini’s commentary, pp. 407-11, 414-18, with references to primary sources).

As observed by Moḥammad Qazvini (Jovayni, III, commentary, pp. 410-11), between the fall of the Saljuqs of central Persia and the Mongol conquest of the Iranian plateau, a “dynasty” of Turkic slave-kings (mamālik), who were affiliated with the Eldigüz/Ildegoz Atābaks of Azerbaijan (see ATĀBAKĀN-E ĀḎARBĀYJĀN) and occasionally with the Ḵᵛārazmšāhs, ruled more or less independently over Isfahan for some three decades. No independent, detailed study of this dynasty has been published so far. Sporadic evidence, such as the praise expressed for the slave-king Āytoḡmeš in the introduction to Abu’l-Šaraf Jorfādaqāni’s translation of Abu Naṣr ʿOtbi’s Taʾriḵ al-yamini (p. 5; Jovayni, III, commentary, p. 409), and a passing reference, in Saʿdi’s Golestān (p. 63), to the palace of the aforementioned Iḡlameš suggest that cultural activity in some cities of the Jebāl region, especially in Hamadān and to a lesser extent in Ray and Isfahan, continued during this period.

Mongol invasion. The onslaught of the Mongols curtailed whatever cultural life that may have existed in the region and at least temporarily disrupted other urban activities on a large scale. The Mongol army first advanced toward Isfahan in 623/1226 and inflicted vast carnage in and around the city. In 625/1128 Jalāl-al-Din Ḵᵛārazmšāh (d. 628/1231) stationed his troops inside the city and managed to ward off the Mongols temporarily, but he was defeated, and Isfahan became the last major town in the Jebāl region that the Mongols conquered (Ḵorandezi, pp. 167-70; Jovayni, II, pp. 168-69; tr., pp. 436-38). In his account of the Mongol conquest of Isfahan, Rašid-al-Din Fażl-Allāh reports “a massacre like none before” (Rašid-al-Din, p. 349). In spite of the purge of its inhabitants, the remaining population of Isfahan remained insubordinate to the Mongols for decades. Eventually, Bahāʾ-al-Din b. Šams-al-Din Moḥammad Jovayni, appointed as governor of the region by the Mongol Abāqā Khan (r. 663-80/1265-82, q.v.), quashed all local resistance with ruthless vengeance (Boyle, p. 330).

By the early 8th/14th century, the wave of land and tax reforms initiated by Maḥmud Ḡāzān Khan (r. 694-703/1295-304), and pursued by Ḡiyāṯ-al-Din Moḥammad Khodābanda Öljeitü/Uljāytu (r. 703-16/1304-316) brought intensified reconstructive activity to the region. A generation-long period of urban revival dawned, limits of the city were extended, and as many as forty-four neighborhoods, each with delimiting gates, thrived within the city of Isfahan. The proliferation of local charitable endowments in this period attests to the accumulation of wealth and points to political stability under the later Il-khans (see IL-KHANIDS). Numerous religious schools (madrasa), Sufi hospices (ḵānaqāh) and other charitable edifices (abwāb al-ḵayr) stood in the city, and Isfahan remained a notable center of craftsmanship. Guilds of craftsmen, led by local headmen (kalu), exerted noticeable influence in the affairs of the city of Isfahan at this time. Sustained annual taxation at the level of fifty tomāns (Mostowfī, Nozhat, p. 51) further affirms the presence of local wealth and the ability of Il-khan rulers to extract revenue from the population.

Encouraged by the prominent Shiʿite scholar Ḥasan b. Yusof Ḥelli (d. 726/1325, q.v.), Solṭān Moḥammad Ḵodābanda set out to declare Twelver Shiʿism as official religion in some parts of his kingdom, including Isfahan. This attempt failed, as violent local riots erupted, especially in Isfahan, which had been a long-time stronghold of Sunnite Islam, and Ḵodābanda withdrew his edict. Anecdotal evidence from primary sources, including the attempt by Ḵodābanda to recognize Shiʿism officially, as well as other evidence such as the establishment of a dār-al-siāda in the traditionally Sunnite city of Isfahan and the increasing visibility of sayyeds in urban life indicate that, well before the appearance of the Safavids in the 10th/16th century, Shiʿism had already secured a noticeable foothold in central Persia (Ibn Battuta).

The post-Il-khanid period. Recurrent local riots, partly roused by Ḵodābanda’s short-lived religious fervor, coupled with the weakening authority of the Mongol Il-khans, ushered in a long period of urban decline in Isfahan and once again reduced the region to an agricultural tax-farm controlled by nomadic warlords of Turkic origin. In 742/1341-42, Amir Pir Ḥosayn Čupāni (see CHOBANIDS), who had gained suzerainty over Fārs and Isfahan, appointed Shaikh Abu Esḥāq Inju (q.v.) as governor of Isfahan. Ḵᵛāja Šams-al-Din Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ (d. ca. 791/1398, q.v.), the renowned Persian poet from Shiraz, lavishly praised Abu Esḥāq, and his decision to travel to Isfahan may have coincided with Abu Esḥāq’s tenure as governor in that city. However, Inju’s fortune in Fars and Isfahan waned quickly, as Amir Mobārez-al-Din Mo-ḥammad Moẓaffari supplanted him in 757/1356. Isfahan and Shirāz particularly suffered from ensuing political instability (Kotobi, pp. 41-43, 47, 60-61).

The disintegration of urban life in Isfahan reached a critical breakpoint in 789/1387, when Timur reportedly slaughtered 70,000 souls in Isfahan in retaliation to the killing of his tax collectors by the mob (Šāmi, I, p. 105; Ḥāfeẓ-e Abru, II, pp. 666-67; Manz, p. 71). This left the city of Isfahan and its countryside largely depopulated, and in ensuing decades nomadic warlords repeatedly took advantage of the region’s vulnerability. The massacre and looting of 857/1453 perpetrated by Jahānšāh Qara Qoyunlu is poignantly recorded in sources (Abu Bakr Ṭehrāni, II, pp. 328-30).

After 874/1470, under the suzerainty of Uzun Ḥasan Āq Qoyunlu (d. 882/1478), urban life in Isfahan began to rejuvenate (Woods, 1976, p. 112). Contemporary reports by Venetian visitors describe Isfahan as a spacious, walled-city of some 50,000 inhabitants with a circumference of about four miles (ten miles including the countryside; Contarini, pp 80-81, 140). It took, however, more than a century for Isfahan to reach its apogee as one of the most splendid cities of the world of its time under Shah ʿAbbās I (q.v.).

vii. Safavid Period

Isfahan came under Safavid rule in 1503 following Shah Esmāʿil’s defeat of Solṭān Morād, the Āq Qoyunlu (q.v.) ruler of Erāq-e ʿAjam, near Hamadān. No contemporary source describes the conquest of the city in any detail, but we do know that it was accompanied by great brutality. In retaliation for the killing of many Shiʿite inhabitants under the Āq Qoyunlu, Shah Esmāʿil caused a bloodbath among the city’s Sunnites. The Portuguese traveler, Tenreiro, visiting Isfahan in 1524, reports seeing mounds of dirt with bones sticking out that were reportedly the remains of 5,000 people killed by the Safavids (Tenreiro, pp. 20-21).

Following the conquest, Esmāʿil appointed Dormeš Khan Šāmlu governor. Mirzā Šāh-Ḥosayn, originally a builder (bannā, meʿmār) in Isfahan, at that point started his political career by serving Dormeš Khan as vizier of the dāruḡa (“mayor”; see below and CITIES ii) of the city. He was later promoted to the post of wakil (royal deputy, the highest subject of the king) of Shah Esmāʿil, and was so influential that his enemies finally assassinated him in 1523 (Rumlu, pp. 231-32). In fact, his case is not an exception. Beginning with the reign of Shah Esmāʿil, Isfahani families occupied high positions in the Safavid administration, and at least one Safavid grand vizier, Mirzā Salmān Jāberi, appointed by Moḥammad Ḵodābanda in 1578, hailed from an Isfahani family.

Isfahan continued to be a focus of Shah Esmāʿil even as he set out to conquer other parts of the Iranian plateau. Stopping at the city from time to time, he is said to have been keen to restore the city to its pre-Mongol significance and in this regard paid particular attention to the role and function of its squares. In 1509 he ordered the enlargement of the Meydān-e Naqš-e Jahān (Royal Square) to accommodate the playing of polo, qabāq-bāzi, and other games and forms of entertainment. He used the Old Meydān (Meydān-e kohna) as the place of execution of rebels. The building of Hārun-e Welāyat, the mausoleum of a saint, at the southern end of the Old Meydān, was completed by Mirzā Šāh-Ḥosayn in 1512 (Ḵᵛāndamir, IV, p. 500; Quiring-Zoche, p. 64).

Shah Ṭahmāsb (r. 1524-76), who was born in a suburb of Isfahan in 1514, added several other buildings, mostly mosques, to the city. He incorporated Isfahan into the royal domain in 1534, and the city’s status as crown land ( ḵāṣṣa , q.v.) remained largely unchanged until the end of the Safavid period (Röhrborn, p. 118). The only exception is the reign of Moḥammad Ḵodābanda (1577-87), who offered Isfahan as a revenue assignment (teyul) to Ḥamza Mirzā, one of his sons and his heir. The de-facto ruler of Isfahan, however, became his plenipotentiary (ṣāḥeb-e eḵtiār), Farhād Khan (q.v.), who did much to secure the city from the Arašlu tribe, who had taken control of the environs and were moving into the city as well. Once in power, Farhād Beg built himself a fortified residence alongside the Bāḡ-e Naqš-e Jahān (Royal Garden) and designed a new garden around it, destroying the bāḡ itself and moving its trees in the process (Afuštaʾi Naṭanzi, pp. 339-40).

During the reign of Shah Ṭahmāsb, the city twice experienced wartime disorder. The first time was during the civil war between two Qezelbāš tribal leaders, Čoḡā Solṭān Takkalu and Ḥosayn Khan Šāmlu, in 937/1530. The latter attacked Čoḡā Solṭān in a suburb of Isfahan, and Čoḡā Solṭān took refuge in the royal tent located near his camp. Ḥosayn Khan managed to kill Čoḡā Solṭān but ultimately was defeated by Takkalu reinforcements. He retreated to Isfahan and then fled to Fārs. It seems that the city itself was not thrown into disarray during this conflict (Rumlu, pp. 308-10).

The revolt of Alqās Mirzā (q.v.), Ṭahmāsb’s brother, in 1548-49 represents the second period of disorder for Isfahan. After ravaging Hamadān, Ray, and Qom, Alqās Mirzā’s troops, supported by the Ottoman Sultan Solayman, came close to Isfahan. He believed that the citizens would open the city’s gate without fighting, because no substantial Safavid force was around. Instead, the people of Isfahan, led by Šāh Taqi-al-Din Moḥammad Mir-e Mirān, a community leader (naqib), and his brother Mir Ḡiāṯ-al-Din Moḥammad, shut the city gates and put up strong resistance, strengthened in their determination by the fact that the shah had sent his own harem to Isfahan (Navidi, p. 101). Alqās, finding it difficult to subdue Isfahan, gave up on his attempt to take the city and left for Shiraz (Rumlu, p. 434). The event became certainly the turning point of Alqās Mirzā’s revolt, which ended with his arrest and confinement in Qahqaha castle the following year (Rumlu, pp. 437-38). Although Isfahan made a great contribution to Ṭahmāsb’s cause through its fierce resistance, it does not seem to have received any royal favors in return. We only know of an order by Ṭahmāsb to abolish various taxes imposed on guilds in 1563 (Honarfar, pp. 88-90). This may simply have been part of the exemption from the tax on commerce (tamḡā), which Ṭahmāsb offered throughout the kingdom in 972/1564. The measure was apparently taken after the oracle of Ṣāḥeb-al-Amir appeared in the ruler’s dream (Qāżi Aḥmad, p. 449).

After Ḥamza Mirzā’s death in 1586, Isfahan fell to his brother, Abu Ṭāleb Mirzā. Farhād Khan lost his post and was incarcerated. Ḡolām (slave; see BARDA AND BARDA-DĀRI) forces loyal to him revolted, however, and managed to take hold of the city fortress with their own hostages. Long negotiations with representatives of Shah Ḵodābanda, who had meanwhile arrived in Isfahan, led to the release of the hostages but not the freeing of Farhād Khan. The ḡolāms only surrendered after royalist forces threatened to bombard the citadel. The structure was destroyed after the rebels had left it. Shortly thereafter Moḥammad Ḵodābanda died, and Isfahan opened up its gates to the forces of the new ruler, Shah ʿAbbās I, who proceeded to grant the city and its environs to his wakil, Moršedqoli Khan, as a teyul. As city mayor he appointed Yuli Beg. The latter set out to restore the Tabarak fortress but also showed signs of autonomy. The decision of Shah ʿAbbās to visit Isfahan in 1590 led to a confrontation, with Yuli Beg retreating into the fortress with his troops. Ultimately the shah reconciled himself with Yuli Beg, although the post of senior governor (ḥākem) went to ʿAli Beg Ostājlu (Afuštaʾi Naṭanzi, pp. 33-35, 233-38; Quiring-Zoche, pp. 80-89). Shortly thereafter, in early 1590, Isfahan was made crown land again, with the post of vizier going to Mirzā Moḥammad Nišāpuri (Ḵuzāni Eṣfahāni, fol. 39b).

ISFAHAN AS THE SAFAVID CAPITAL

The idea of turning Isfahan into a new capital must have come to Shah ʿAbbās shortly after his accession in 1587, for the first mention of designs for the new Isfahan occurs under 998/1588 in the Afżal al-tawāriḵ (Ḵuzāni Eṣfahāni, fol. 38v). At that early date some changes were made, among them the beginnings of the ʿĀli Qāpu palace (q.v.), but an overall new design did not come to fruition, possibly because of opposition. The choice of Isfahan as the new administrative and cultural center was based in part on the availability of water—in the form of the Zāyandarud—but was clearly politically motivated as well. The city was located deep into the interior and thus far less exposed to the Ottoman threat than Tabriz and even Qazvin had been. It was also well positioned vis-à-vis the Persian Gulf, and thus played a pivotal role in Shah ʿAbbās’s territorial and commercial designs in that direction, which he initiated shortly after Isfahan had become the new capital (Mazzaoui).

Both Eskandar Beg Torkamān and Mollā Jalāl Monajjem tell us that the royal household moved to Isfahan and that Shah ʿAbbās proclaimed the city his capital (maqarr-e dawlat) in 1006/1597-98, giving orders for the erection of “magnificent” buildings (Eskandar Beg, tr. Savory, pp. 724; Mollā Jalāl, p. 161). Most scholars in fact consider this year as the time of transfer of the Safavid capital from Qazvin to Isfahan. Stephen Blake’s new interpretation, which attaches crucial importance to the mentioning of the older design, is convincingly refuted by Babaie (see Blake, and the review by Babaie, pp. 478-82; for the various phases of the new design, see also Haneda, 1990). It is true that, from 1590 onward, Isfahan was often called dār al-salṭana in the sources, but we have to realize that it was not the capital in the modern sense of the word. As had always been the case among rulers of nomadic background and as would be true until the 19th century in Persia, the capital really was where the ruler happened to be. The Dutch noted how, in the later 17th century, Isfahan’s population would swell by some 60,000 whenever the shah returned to the city. Tabriz and Qazvin were still referred to as dār al-salṭana as well, after the “transfer” of the capital, and Shah ʿAbbās stayed in Isfahan less than two months a year on average throughout his reign, less than the three months he spent in Māzandarān as of 1619. Shah Ṣafi was absent from Isfahan for a full five years between 1631 and 1636. Still, Isfahan played a central role from the inception of Safavid rule, with members of its prominent families heavily represented in key bureaucratic positions as early as Shah Esmāʿil I’s administration (Quiring-Zoche, pp. 252-52). That the city grew in importance throughout the 1590s is suggested by the fact that Shah ʿAbbās made the trip to and from Qazvin at least eighteen times in this period and visited Isfahan every year between 1590 and 1603 (Melville, p. 200). After it became the capital, all coronation ceremonies were held in Isfahan. The city in the course of time also gained more of a central focus as later shahs lost their appetite for campaigning. Shah ʿAbbās II was the last Safavid monarch who spent considerable time on the battlefield, as well as in the royal residence in Māzandarān. Especially the last two rulers, Solaymān and Solṭān-Ḥosayn, rarely left the confines of their palace, and Solṭān-Ḥosayn often resided at Faraḥābād, the pleasure garden built outside Isfahan (although between 1717 and 1721 the shah was absent from Isfahan, spending time in Kāšān and Qazvin and returning to the capital just a year before the fall of the capital to the Afghans; Floor, 1998, pp. 31, 36). In sum, it may be said that Isfahan gradually acquired the status of capital (Quiring-Zoche, p. 105).

Isfahan’s newly acquired status found expression in the construction of a new governmental and commercial center southwest of the existing one, in a shift in that direction that had begun under the Saljuqs (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 47, 54). A new royal square, the Meydān-e Naqš-e Jahān, measuring 524 x 158 m, formed the fulcrum of this development. The model for the meydān seems to have been the meydān of the old city, although it has been suggested that the meydān of Kermān, laid out by Ganj-ʿAli Khan in the late 16th century, served as a model as well (Galdieri, 1974, p. 385; Gaube and Wirth, p. 55). The outline of the meydān and the adjacent Qay-ṣariya bazaar was begun in 1001—a one-year tax relief was granted for the purpose—and the Čahār Bāḡ as well as the Shaikh Loṭf-Allāh mosque were designed in 1002 (Ḵuzāni Eṣfahāni, foll. 61v, 74). In the year 1012/1603, the shops, the caravansaries, the bathhouses, and the coffeehouses around the meydān were completed (Jonā-bādi, pp. 759-60). The same year saw the first proposal to connect the waters of the Zāyandarud with those of the Kuhrang river. This scheme came up again in 102930/161619-20 and in the 1680s, but would only be executed in the 19th century (Mollā Jalāl, p. 244; Eskandar Beg, pp. 1170-71, 1180 see i[2], above). The Masjed-e Šāh, anchoring the southern end of the square, was begun in 1020/1611. The mosque complex was virtually completed by the end of Shah ʿAbbās I’s reign, although additions and repairs continued to be made until 1078/1667 (Blake, p. 140). Following the completion of the royal square, the Qayṣariya bazaar, with its entry gate at the north end of the square, gradually developed into a huge covered marketplace (for its development, see Gaube and Wirth, pp. 31 ff.; Blake, pp. 101 ff.). Henceforth this part of the city would be its preeminent commercial center, even if the old center continued to play an important role in social life (see x, below).

In later years more building activity took place, mostly involving palaces. A new royal palace took shape in the Naqš-e jahān garden, adjacent to the new meydān, which had been a garden retreat for Shah Esmāʿil I. The palace grew out a series of mansions, principally one owned by Farhād Khan (q.v.), but the exact stages of its construction remain unclear (Eskandar Beg, II, p. 780; tr., II, p. 977; discussion in Blake, pp. 58 ff.). The same is true of the building of the ʿĀli Qāpu, the five-storey audience hall overlooking the meydān, which was begun under Shah ʿAbbās but not used until the reign of Shah Ṣafi (Galdi-eri, 1979). The Ṭālār-e Ṭawila, the Āyena-Ḵāna, and the Čehel Sotun (Forty columns), too, date from this period; they were all built in the period 1635-47, under the auspices and patronage of Moḥammad Sāru Taqi (Floor, 2002; Babaie, 1994, pp. 128-29; idem, 2002, pp. 23-24). The Čehel Sotun was constructed in 1056/1646 or 1057/1647. It was rebuilt after it burned down in 1706, and the structure as it exists today dates from that time (Blake, pp. 66-69). The Pol-e Ḵᵛāju was erected under Shah ʿAbbās II as well (see x, below).

The wall that had surrounded Isfahan for centuries and that had always marked the boundary between the inner city and the suburbs continued to exist, but by the early 17th century it had lost its significance as a defense mechanism and thus was allowed to become dilapidated (Gaube and Wirth, p. 33; Haneda, 1996, pp. 370-72). The old city anyhow was unable to accommodate ʿAbbās I’s designs for a new capital, and much of the new development took place beyond the perimeter of the wall. Southwest of the new royal palace and the area around the square, new quarters such as ʿAbbāsābād and Ḵᵛāju were developed in the western and southern suburb. Craftsmen and merchants from all over the country were urged to come to settle in Isfahan. Most notably, the shah resettled craftsmen from newly conquered Tabriz to ʿAbbāsābād and had Armenian merchants from Julfa settle in New Julfa (Pers. Jolfā; see JULFA), which was specially built for them at the southern bank of the Zāyandarud. In the middle of these new quarters ran the long and straight avenue of Čahārbāḡ from a gate of the old city to the Hazār Jarib garden situated at the southern hill. Beautiful gardens were built at both sides of the avenue. With its canals and their abundant water, the greenery of its parks, its wide and straight streets and its spacious layout, the urban plan of the new city suited the elite, government officials and the rich, who came to settle down there from outside of Isfahan. Thus, the character of the new city differed substantially from that of the old city, which maintained the character of a traditional Persian city with its winding streets, small houses, and little public greenery, and where most Isfahanis continued to live.

The building activities continued until nearly the end of the Safavid rule in the 18th century. Various shahs also built pleasure gardens across the Zāyandarud. Thus Shah ʿAbbās I had ʿAbbāsābād (Hazār Jarib) constructed as an extension of the Čahārbāḡ ʿAbbās II created Saʿādatābād in 1070/1659; and Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn had Faraḥābād laid out in 1697, making further additions and embellishments in 1711 and again in the period 1714-17 (Ḵātunā-bādi, pp. 562-63; NA, VOC 1856, 15 April 1714, fol. 714; Darhuhaniyan, p. 146; VOC 1870, 9 March 1715, foll. 614-15; VOC 1870, 25 November 1714, fol. 495; VOC 1848, 13 April 1715, fol. 2280v; VOC 1897, 3 December 1716, fol. 247; Honarfar, pp. 722-25; Blake, pp. 74-81). The Madrasa-ye Maryam Begom was built and turned into waqf (endowment) property by Maryam Begom, Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn’s great aunt, in 1703 (Honarfar, pp. 662-67). The Madrasa-ye Čahārbāḡ, the blue, lofty dome of which can be seen from anywhere in Isfahan, was also built under the reign of Solṭān-Ḥosayn, begun in 1704-5 and finished in 1706-7 (Ḵātunābādi, p. 556; Herdeg). Isfahan and its buildings are always associated with the name of Shah ʿAbbās I. In reality, however, they are the cooperative work of many people, royal, religious, military and civil, throughout the Safavid period (see x, below).

Various Western observers claimed that 17th-century Isfahan was the largest city in all of Safavid Persia (Schillinger, p. 228). According to Jean Chardin (q.v.), Isfahan had 162 mosques, 48 madrasas, 1,802 caravansaries, 273 public baths, and 12 cemeteries within its walls (for an overview of the city’s caravansaries, see Vademecum of Caravanserais in Isfahan). The exact number of its population is not known, but clearly grew over time, especially after the city gained the status of capital. Don Juan of Persia for the 1590s estimated 80,000 households and 360,000 inhabitants (Don Juan, p. 39). Thomas Herbert (q.v.), visiting in 1627-29, calculated 70,000 households and a total of 200,000 people (Herbert, p. 126). Adam Olearius in 1637 gives a figure of 500,000 inhabitants (Olearius, p. 553). Chardin confirms this by suggesting that in the late 17th century the population of Isfahan was almost as numerous as that of London, then the biggest city in Europe with an estimated population of 500,000. Three-quarters of the population may have lived within the city walls, and one-quarter outside of them (Blake, p. 38). This would have made late Safavid Isfahan one of the biggest cities in the world, besides London, Istanbul, Šāhjahānābād (Delhi), Beijing, and Edo (Tokyo).

ADMINISTRATION

The post of ḥākem as the local governor of Isfahan goes back to the period before the Safavids. In the 16th century, the ḥākem was often an individual of high rank in the larger administration. Thus two of the ḥokkām were also preceptors of rulers, Durmiš Khan for Sām Mirzā, and Mohammad Khan for the young Moḥammad Ḵodā-banda. In the early reign of Shah ʿAbbās I, Farhād Khan served as ḥākem (Quiring-Zoche, p. 138).

Another one of Isfahan’s principal administrators was the dāruḡa. In the 16th century the dāruḡa may have been appointed by the ḥākem, but later on it was the shah who appointed him, something that is reflected in the rather frequent mention of the position in the Persian chronicles. In the European sources, the dāruḡa is often equated with the post of mayor (Chardin, X, p. 28; Fryer, III, p. 23; Kaempfer, p. 110). The jurisdiction is not always clear, but it seems that, as a rule, the dāruḡa was not in charge of fiscal matters. Initially the function may have had a military aspect, but, as it evolved in the 17th century, the dāruḡa mostly dealt with issues of law and public security (Fryer, III, p. 23; Minorsky, pp. 82, 149; Floor, 2001, p. 118). The association of the function of dāruḡa with crown domain (Floor, 2001, pp. 116-17) is not fully borne out by the evidence. Already in the 15th century we hear of a dāruḡa in Isfahan (Quiring-Zoche, pp. 130, 134). In the Safavid period we have Mirzā Jān Beg, who was appointed dāruḡa in 1530-31, three or four years before the conversion of Isfahan to crown land (Haneda, p. 80). The appointment of Georgians to the post also goes back further than 1620, for Bižan Beg Gorji acceded to the post in 998/1590 and Kostandil (Constantine), the son of the Georgian King Alexander II, was appointed dāruḡa in 1602-3 (Ḵuzāni Eṣfahāni, foll. 40b, 148; Maeda, pp. 261-62). Still, several non-Georgians were appointed in later years, for instance, Tahtā Khan Beg and Bektāš Beg Ostājlu, and only in 1620 did the post become the prerogative of a son of the governor of Georgia, in an arrangement made by Shah ʿAbbās (Della Valle, II, p. 176; Chardin, X, p. 29; Kaempfer, pp. 110-11). From that moment until the end of Safavid rule, the dāruḡa was always a Georgian.

From the moment Isfahan turned into crown domain, a vizier was appointed as well (Quiring-Zoche, p. 145). Typically a ḡolām, this official was assigned to the divān-e ḵāṣṣa (office of the crown lands) and as such charged with the fiscal administration of the town. The vizier also had a judicial function in that, once a week, he had petitions read to him from people with grievances (Pacifique de Provins, p. 393). However, the position was fluid. Thus in 1046/1636 the post of vizier was combined with that of the wazir-e mawqufāt (minister of property endowments) in the person of Moḥammad-ʿAli Beg Eṣfahāni, but the two were divided again two years later, when Mirzā Taqi Dawlatābādi became vizier and Mir Ṣafi-al-Din Moḥammad was appointed wazir-e mawqufāt (Eskandar Beg, 1938, p. 296).

The kalāntar was another city official. He may have taken over from the raʾis in the 16th century as a representative of the local population, as part of a development whereby local notables made room for centrally appointed bureaucratic officials, who were often outsiders. He should not be confused with the Armenian kalāntar of New Jolfā. Although appointed by the shah, he was chosen in consultation with the people and served as an intermediary between them and the authorities. One of his tasks was to defend the populace against tyranny, including the tyranny of unscrupulous vendors, examine their complaints and the grievances of merchants. He also acted as a mediator with the guilds, and appointed the heads of city wards, the kadḵodās. Collecting rent and taxes appears to have been among his responsibilities as well (Minorsky, p. 82; Rafiʿā, p. 73; Thevenot, p. 103; Fryer, III, p. 24; Sanson, p. 29; Quiring-Zoche, pp. 162-67; Aubin, p. 37; Floor, 2000, p. 46).

A MULTI-LINGUAL, MULTI-ETHNIC CITY

In the course of Shah ʿAbbās I’s reign Isfahan developed into a lively, cosmopolitan city, home to Muslims, Armenians, Georgians, and Jews, Indians, as well as representatives of European religious orders and agents of trading companies. The center of town, the Meydān-e Naqš-e Jahān, was frequently the scene of popular games such as polo and qabāq-andāzi, an archery game; and there ram fighting, bull fighting, wolf baiting, and other forms of entertainment were performed (examples in Della Valle, I, pp. 709-10, 713-14; Chick, p. 184; Figueroa, II, pp. 58 f.; Gaudereau, pp. 71-72). Following a military victory, on holidays, and on the occasion of visits by important foreign envoys, the Meydān and the bazaar were illuminated and performances of jugglers and rope dancers staged (Jonābādi, pp. 805, 829-31; Della Valle, I, pp. 821, 829; II, pp. 7-8, 36; Chardin, IX, pp. 329-30). People mingled in the coffeehouses that flanked the square, lined the Čahār-bāḡ, and were also spread around various other neighborhoods, or sought oblivion in the many establishments concentrated around the Old Meydān that served an opium drink called kuknār (Matthee, 2005, p. 108). Seventeenth-century Isfahan was also home to reportedly 12,000 prostitutes, who occupied the porticos around the Meydān-e Naqš-e Jahān and also served their clientele in an area between the Madrasa-ye Ṣafaviya and the Fatḥ-Allāh mosque (Matthee, 2000).

By the middle of the 17th century, most people in Isfahan had become Shiʿite Muslim as a result of Safavid Shiʿite propaganda policy. They occupied without doubt the most important part of the urban society. There were two kinds of Shiʿite Muslims: Persian speakers and Turkic speakers.

People living in the old city of Isfahan were mostly Persian-speaking. Government officials and their servants, merchants, artisans and their apprentices, professors and students, all spoke Persian. Business and preaching were usually done in Persian. Persian was without doubt the most popular language in the city.

Turkic-speaking people were mainly found at the royal court. Even in the 17th century, when the influence of the turcophone Qezelbāš had diminished considerably, people at the court continued to speak in Turkic. In the 16th century, the wives and mothers of the king had usually been of Turkish origin. Therefore it is not surprising that people spoke Turkic there in and around the royal palace. However, in the 17th century, as most women in the harem were of Georgian origin, they still retained the habit of speaking in Turkic.

In the city itself, the use of Turkic must have been very limited. However, in caravansaries visited by people from Azerbaijan, for example, the common language was Turkic. Members of Turkish tribes coming to the city for commerce would have spoken Turkic as well. Thus, Turkic would have been the second popular language. It was, however, only a colloquial language and never was used as a literary language.

Isfahan was home to many Armenians as well. The city’s Armenians became concentrated in Jolfā as part of a resettlement under Shah ʿAbbās II. Jolfā had an estimated 20,000 inhabitants in the mid-17th century, a number that may have gone up to 30,000 by the end of the century (Herzig, p. 81). These spoke Armenian and for the most part belonged to the Armenian Orthodox church. Most of them were merchants engaged in the trade of Persian silk and precious metals. They had their own networks with compatriots in Europe and India. In their dealings with other merchants in Isfahan they must have spoken Persian.

Further, many of the city’s inhabitants were of Georgian, Circassian, and Daghistani descent. Engelbert Kaempfer, who was in Persia in 1684-85, estimated their number at 20,000 (Kaempfer, p. 204). Following an agreement between Shah ʿAbbās I and Taimuraz Khan, Georgia’s last independent ruler, whereby the latter submitted to Safavid rule in exchange for being allowed to rule as the region’s wāli and for having his son serve as dāruḡa of Isfahan in perpetuity, a Georgian prince converted to Islam served as governor (Chardin, X, p. 29; Kaempfer, pp. 110-11). He was accompanied by a certain number of soldiers, and they spoke in Georgian among themselves. There must also have been some Georgian Orthodox Christians. The royal court had a great number of Georgian ḡolāms as well as Georgian women. Although they spoke Persian or Turkic, their mother tongue was Georgian.

Isfahan was home to a large Indian community as well. Their presence was particularly important from the commercial point of view. There were two kinds of Indians, Muslim and Hindu. Indians formed a large ethnic community in Isfahan, and their numbers is given as between ten and fifteen thousand (Tavernier, I, pp. 421-22; Thevenot, p. 217). Merchants were engaged in the trade of various Indian goods, such as textiles, indigo (q.v.; a dyestuff), sugar, and tobacco. Hindu moneylenders had a good business, because Islamic law prohibits Muslims from lending money for interest. The moneylending business was almost an Indian monopoly. They spoke various languages, including Urdu (q.v.), Hindi, and Gujarati (q.v.). Insofar as commerce in Isfahan was concerned though, they certainly spoke in Persian. Hindus often served European companies as interpreters and as brokers (Dale, pp. 70 ff.).

Besides these large groups, there were small communities of Persian-speaking Zoroastrians and Jews. Catholics and Protestants, monks, merchants, and court artisans, were present in small numbers, too. Most of them came from Europe and returned there after several years. There were, however, several monks like Raphael du Mans of the Capuchin order, who lived in Isfahan almost fifty years and died there.

Social divisions were expressed in the distinction between the elite and the common people, but also found expression in traditional rivalries in the old city, where two groups, the Ḥaydari and Neʿmati (q.v.), representing the two quarters of the old city, Dardašt and Jubāra, periodically engaged in communal fighting (Chardin, VII, pp. 289-93; Perry, pp. 107-18).

ISFAHAN IN CRISIS

Isfahan’s population is said to have grown by one-fifth or even one-fourth between 1645 and 1665 (Richard, ed., II, p. 262). But thereafter, conditions grew worse for the city as part of an overall deterioration in political management and economic wellbeing in Safavid territory in the second half of the 17th century. In 1662, the city was struck by famine, causing people to assemble in front of the dawlat-ḵāna demanding measures against hoarding (Waḥid Qazvini, p. 307). In 1668-69, famine struck again. Its main cause was a drought, but hoarding by bakers and grain merchants exacerbated the misery of Isfahan’s residents, and the situation got even worse when, following Shah Solaymān’s coronation, the court and its huge entourage returned to the city before adequate provisioning measures were taken (Chardin, IX, p. 571; X, pp. 2-4; NA, VOC 1266, 8 November 1668, foll. 155, 923v, 941; IOR, G/36/105, 14 August 1668, fol. 36). In the latter part of the 1670s the high cost of living and growing deprivation caused a bread riot in the city, with people pelting political officials with rocks. From early 1678 until mid-1679 in Isfahan alone, more than 70,000 people are said to have died from a terrible famine. In 1678 the common people of the city rose in revolt against inflation and famine (Matthee, 1999, p. 177).

In the second half of the 17th century, the position of religious minorities in the city also worsened. Clerically inspired campaigns put pressure on Jews to convert to Islam; the authorities took various measures to curb wine-drinking and vices associated with coffeehouses, and several decrees were issued restricting the activities of Armenian merchants and Catholic missionaries (Moreen; Matthee, 2006a, pp. 84-94; idem, 2006b). The local Armenian population was made more vulnerable to political and religious pressure by internal splits in the community between Catholics and Schismatics (Ghougassian, passim; Baghdiantz-McCabe, passim).

A new crisis hit Isfahan at the beginning of the 18th century as part of a deepening malaise that affected all of Persia. In 1713 the Isfahan region was made unsafe by Baḵtiāri and Lor brigands, so that no caravans could leave or enter the city unless accompanied by large contingent of soldiers (NA, VOC 1856, 9 October 1713, foll. 494-95). Too years later, famine struck again. Exacerbated by a grain monopoly by harem eunuchs and high-ranking clerics, this crisis pushed bread prices in the city so high that it caused people to riot on 20 February 1715. Cursing the shah and his ministers, the rioters threw rocks at the ʿĀli Qāpu and damaged the gate of the royal kitchen. They also assailed the residence of chief cleric Mollā Moḥammad Bāqer Majlesi. The shah (Solṭān-Ḥosayn) thereupon dismissed the current city dāruḡa, Qurčišāh Beg, who combined his function with that of supervisor of the city’s victuals (moḥtaseb), and appointed Emāmqoli Khan Zangana, the amirāḵor-bāši and a son of grand vizier Šāhqoli Khan, in his stead. The monarch also had officials dispatched to the residence of Mir Moḥammad-Bāqer to order him to offer a large volume of grain on the royal square. This did not quell the unrest, however. On 16 June 1715, the people forced the shah, who intended to leave Isfahan, to stay in the city, and the next day they crowded together in front of the royal palace and threatened to plunder and set fire to it (Floor, pp. 26-27; Matthee, 2004, pp. 187-88). From that moment until the fall of the city to the Afghans, the post of moḥtaseb was rotated with increasing speed, but to little avail. Food prices remained sky-high, and the misery in the city continued, with theft, burglaries, and murder becoming common (NA, VOC 1897, 14 November 1716, fol. 237; ibid., 3 December 1716, fol. 268). Beggars were said to be ubiquitous in the city and poverty had reached such levels that the poor would quickly strip the flesh of any dead camel, mule, or horse left out on the street (Worm, p. 293).

The Afghans arrived in Golnābād on 8 March 1722 and defeated the Persian army, which, at about 40,000 men and an additional 30,000 infantry troops, was at least twice as large as that of the Afghans. The Georgian contingent, the only one to fight, was decimated. Losing some 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers on the battlefield, the remainder of the Safavid army sought refuge in the city (Lockhart, pp. 130-43; Floor, 1998, p. 87). Maḥmud Ḡilzāi with his Afghan tribal forces then moved to Faraḥābād, which he took without meeting any resistance. He next seized Julfa, where the inhabitants welcomed him with food and wine and accepted him as their new ruler. After a few days of panic in which the Afghans could have taken Isfahan proper, the inhabitants quickly reinforced the defenses, and a long siege ensued. The city soon ran out of food, and, especially toward the end of the summer, the misery grew to the point at which people first took to eating tree bark, leaves, and dried excrement and eventually resorted to cannibalism. After a six-month siege, the city fell to Maḥmud on 23 October 1722 (IOR, G/29/15, 20 October 1722, fol. 80; 30 November 1722, fol. 83; diary of the siege in Floor, 1998, pp. 83-176). Isfahan suffered greatly during the assault and the ensuing occupation. It lost a large part of its population, many of its buildings lay in ruins, and its economy was destroyed. The city survived but its revival would take until the 19th century, and it never regained its former importance.

viii. Qajar Period

The Qajar period (1794-1925) was marked by far-reaching political, social, and economic changes that were particularly evident in the major urban centers. The historical changes affecting the Isfahan of this period included the following: the loss of its status as the royal capital and its transformation into a major provincial city comparable to, and in competition with, Shiraz, Tabriz, or Mashad; the attempts by a succession of governors to gain control of its political and commercial affairs, culminating with Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s three decades of authoritarian rule in the latter part of the 19th century; restoration of Isfahan’s status as the country’s authoritative center of Shiʿism, highlighted by the direct influence enjoyed by the ulema in urban politics (dominated, in the early and latter part of the century, respectively, by the likes of Ḥojjat-al-Eslām Sayyed Moḥammad-Bāqer Šafti [d. 1260/1844] and Ḥājj Shaikh Moḥammad-Bāqer Eṣfahāni [d. 1301/1883-84]; the loss of its position as Persia’s preeminent center of industry during the 18th century and its resurgence as a major commercial center, with a crucial position in the growing international trade through the expansion of cash crops (particularly opium) and commercial control as the transit mart on the trade routes connecting Tehran with the Persian Gulf (Bušehr-Isfahan-Tehran and Moḥammara [present-day Ḵorramšahr]-Isfahan-Tehran). Isfahan played a key role in the boycott against the British Tobacco Regie, in contrast to its role during the Constitutional Revolution (q.v.), when the city, despite the 1909 Baḵtiāri occupation, followed an ambiguous, self-interested political agenda.

FROM THE ROYAL CAPITAL TO PROVINCIAL CITY

The civil wars of the 18th century had a destructive impact on the cities, yet also helped to transform them into strongholds against the political and economic chaos raging in the country. This contributed to the consolidation of an autonomous, self-determined urban nobility and the restoration of urban life, setting the stage for the active role major urban centers were to play in power brokerage with the central government in the 19th century.

The interim Afghan rule threw Isfahan into political and administrative chaos, but it remained the country’s political capital until 1736, when Nāder Shah Afšār (q.v.; r. 1736-47) moved his headquarters to Mashhad, the provincial capital of Khorasan. Although Isfahan retained its political influence until the end of the 18th century and continued to play a momentous role in the tribal civil war over political suzerainty, this event inaugurated the permanent loss of its status as the royal capital. Having won the civil war, Karim Khan Zand established his court in Shiraz, the traditional capital of Fars, in 1766-67, leaving the governorship over the old capital to Mirzā ʿAbd-al-Wahhāb Musawi as hākem and biglarbaygi. Under the rule of Karim Khan Zand as Wakil (deputy), Shiraz developed its position as a commercial, cultural, and political competitor of Isfahan in southern Persia, driving an ancient urban rivalry which outlasted the 19th century (Āṣaf, pp. 452-55; Waring, pp. 260-305; Ferrières-Sauveboeuf, pp. 288-291; Perry, p. 232).

Isfahan (like Shiraz and Tehran) played a strategic role in the Zands’ chaotic struggle over succession and the tribal war between the Zands and Qajars. After Karim Khan’s death in 1779, ʿAli-Morād Khan Zand (q.v.), who had been sent by Zaki Khan to Tehran in pursuit of Āqā Moḥammad Khan Qājār, rebelled and instead marched south to seize Isfahan. After the demise of the rival pretender, Zaki Khan Zand, who was killed by his own troops, ʿAli-Morād Khan took over Isfahan and appointed Bāqer Khan Ḵorāsāni as deputy governor (ʿAli-Reżā Širāzi, pp. 10-11; Moḥammad Kalāntar, pp. 71-72; Nāmi, pp. 223-28, 233-34; Ḡaffāri, pp. 473 ff., 487-89).

Ṣādeq Khan, who had ascended the Zand throne in Shiraz, appointed his son, Jaʿfar Khan Zand (half-brother of ʿAli-Morād Khan), as governor of Isfahan, and sent him there with an army. Receiving the news, ʿAli-Morād set out from Tehran to Isfahan. Jaʿfar Khan, unwilling to risk a battle, took Bāqer Khan hostage and retreated to Shiraz. ʿAli-Morād conquered Shiraz (in Rabiʿ I 1196/March 1782), staying there for a few months and then returning to Isfahan, where he languished for over three years before resuming his campaign against Āqā Moḥammad Khan Qājār. He reappointed Bāqer Khan as deputy governor (nāʾeb-al-ḥokuma) of Isfahan before leaving for the conquest of Astarābād/Estrābād in June 1784. When in 1784 ʿAli-Morād’s troops were crushed by the brother of Āqā Moḥammad Khan Qajar and fled to Isfahan, Bāqer Khan changed coats and betrayed the Zands. Finding ʿAli-Morād’s position hopeless, he refused the desperate troops entry into the city, leaving them to face their fate in the harsh winter cold (ʿAli-Reżā Širāzi, pp. 20-25; Moḥammad Kalāntar, pp. 77-79, 82-83; Nāmi, pp. 239-40, 244, 248, 251, Ḡaffāri, pp. 678 ff.; Hedāyat, IX, pp. 182-88).

ʿAli-Morād Khan died (Rabiʿ II 1199/February 1785) of a chronic illness on his way back to Isfahan. When his corpse was brought to the city, Bāqer Khan promptly appropriated the dead Zand prince’s royal insignia and money; backed by Isfahan’s political status, he crowned himself shah in the Tālār-e Tawila, and had coins issued and the Friday sermon (ḵoṭba) read in his name. The urban populace called him (perhaps cynically) Shah Bāqer, but his enthronement lasted about four and a half days (Āṣaf, pp. 58-59 and 447-49, speaks of a month). Uneasy about the usurpation, his troops deserted to Jaʿfar Khan Zand. Bāqer Khan managed to escape the first attempt on his life with a few wounds, taking refuge in Behešt Āʾin; from there he fled to Rudašt. At this point Isfahan’s aristocrats bid Jaʿfar Khan Zand into the city, where he was crowned. Bāqer Khan was caught two days later, extradited, and imprisoned (ʿAli-Reżā Širāzi, p. 24; Ḡaffāri, pp. 688-91).

Prompted by ʿAli-Morād Khan’s death, Āqā Moḥammad Khan launched another campaign to assert his control in the south; he was refused entry into Tehran, but routed the Zand princes in Qom and Kāšān. Intimidated by this news, Jaʿfar Khan gathered the royal treasures and retreated to Shiraz. Āqā Moḥammad Khan entered Isfahan, liberated Bāqer Khan, reinstalled him as governor, and returned to Tehran, where he proclaimed himself king on 11 Jomādā I 1200/12 March 1786; his actual crowning took place there ten years later (Hedāyat, IX, pp. 194-95, 200, 273-74.).

Jaʿfar Khan returned to Isfahan, where he captured Bāqer Khan and put him to death, but he left for Shiraz rather than face Āqā Moḥammad Khan, who entered the city without a battle and left it under his own brother Jaʿfarqoli Khan with an army of 6,000 men. Two years later, in 1788, honoring Bāqer Khan’s treason for the Qajar cause, Āqā Moḥammad Khan awarded the governorship of Isfahan to Bāqer Khan’s son, M oḥammad-Ḥosayn Khan, rather than his own brother Jaʿfarqoli Khan, who coveted the position and actually asked for it in 1790-91, the same year that the ever-suspicious Āqā Moḥammad Khan had him killed (Nāmi, pp. 292-93; Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, 1984-88, III, pp. 1401, 1407, 1412; Moḥammad Kalāntar, p. 100; Hedāyat, IX, pp. 201, 232; Eʿteżād-al-Salṭana, p. 37).

In 1796, in a strategic move closer to Qajar tribal territories, Āqā Moḥammad Khan moved his political headquarters to Tehran. The motivations and tactics of Isfahan’s elite in this process, though sparsely documented, were evidently driven by the protagonists’ strife for personal gain, but also by concern over the city’s fate as a political and commercial entity. There is textual evidence which insinuates that at least some of the city notables may have hoped that Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah would relocate the royal residence to Isfahan; however, aware of the historical precedence and the elite’s insubordination, he preferred Tehran and thus confirmed it as the permanent Qajar capital.

Traditions of writing on Qajar Isfahan contain the dimension of a chronological continuity, (i.e., the linear evolution of accounts since the 16th century and earlier) as well as the context of space, culture, and attitude of the 19th century. However, Isfahan experienced a difficult period of transition (which involved massive economic, demographic, and morphological changes) under the Qajars from a major center of power in the early 19th century to simply another provincial metropolis a century later. Like the other former Safavid capitals, it retained the royal title of Dār-al-Salṭana in the early part of the 19th century and continued to pride itself with the Saljuq (perhaps even older) epithet of neṣf-e jahān (half the world; also to be understood as midpoint of the world).

The city’s pre-Qajar topoi outlived the drastic politico-economic changes from the late 18th to the early 20th century with an indelible impact on its politics and self-perception. Historical themes stressing Isfahan’s special blessings—exceptionally fertile agricultural land, abundanceˈ of water, and healthy climate as well as the absence of natural disasters and pests—drove the Qajar city’s self-image (Ebn Rosta, pp. 151 ff.; Ebn Faqih, pp. 262-63, 266; Māfarruḵi, pp. 5-6; Moḥammad-Mahdi Eṣfahāni, pp. 82 ff.). In the tradition of narratives about the potency of the city’s land and water, dating back at least to Buyid times, most 19th-century Persian writers still attributed almost mystical or miraculous qualities to its water and soil. This was partly rooted in the enduring cosmological notion of Isfahan’s exceptional astro-geographical position in the Ptolemaic fourth clime, making it the “Navel of Iraq;” in the 19th century these concepts still explained the fecundity, affluence, and quasi-paradisiacal qualities (ḵold-e barin or ḵold-paykar) as well as its late 19th-century political aspirations.

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

Establishment of governmental control over Isfahan required balancing the conflict between the claims of suzerainty by the central government, the autonomous self-assertion of the local elite, and a modus vivendi with the city’s chief religious leader. The success that Ḥāji Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Khan Ṣadr Eṣfahāni and his son ʿAbd-Allāh Khan Amin-al-Dawla enjoyed in running the city government was partly due to their ability to marshal these elements of internal urban politics as well as the indispensable court diplomacy in Tehran. The combined legacy of Isfahan’s status as capital and the re-strengthening of the clerical and merchant elite often left an uneasy gap between the Tehran court and Isfahan’s local elite. Particularly during the early Qajar rule, Isfahan’s elite showed a tendency towards insubordination, culminating in recurrent insurrections and riots. In 1810, during ʿAbd-Allāh’s governorship, Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah granted Isfahan a 100,000 toman tax break, which was both an award and a bribe as a gesture of appeasement. On the pretext of a campaign against the Baḵtiāri tribe, Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah dispatched a large number of troops to Isfahan, which in reality was a move against the insubordinate religious leader Ḥojjat-al-Eslām Moḥammad-Bāqer Šafti. Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah’s last journey to Isfahan in 1834, which led to his death, was undertaken in the context of this confrontation, of Isfahan’s challenge against the suzerainty of Tehran, and in a wider sense the south’s resistance against the power of the Qajar north. Isfahan’s political and clerical leadership had not only refused to support Moḥammad Mirzā’s succession, but also conspired in the attempt to secure the throne for their candidate, Ḥosayn-ʿAli Mirzā Farmānfarmā (q.v.), the governor of Fārs. The latter’s rebellion in his bid for the throne was partly due to the inducement of the influential elites of Isfahan, including the prominent religious leader Moḥammad-Bāqer Šafti (for him, see Algar, pp. 60-63, 109-12) and the then deputy governor ʿAbd-Allāh Khan Amin-al-Dawla Eṣfahāni (Eʿteżād-al- Salṭana, pp. 191-92, 419, 432-34; Fasāʾi, ed. Rastgār, I, pp. 758-66; Hedāyat, X, pp. 89-95, 156-61; Anṣāri, pp. 44-45; Fowler, p. 201; Algar, pp. 108-10; ʿAżod-al-Dawla, editor’s notes, pp. 219-20, 236; for Šafti, see Eqbāl; Algar, pp. 60-63, 109-12).

In 1834, the first year of Moḥammad Shah’s reign, Isfahan was famine-ridden, which further intensified local popular resentment. Moḥammad Shah, once enthroned, moved to enforce his prerogatives of royal authority and undertook a campaign both retributive and pre-emptive against Isfahan. The confrontation led not only to drastic property confiscations, but also to the execution of members of the city’s aristocracy, including relatives of the high-ranking ulema (Anṣāri, p. 45). This deepened the already existing rift between Isfahan and Tehran, which reverberated throughout later Qajar rule.

Manučehr Khan Gorji was one of the few governors of the 19th century who managed to impose his authority with effective control on city politics. His successor, Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Khan Sepahdār, sent his deputy Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Khan Ḵalaj in advance to Isfahan, and he soon became embroiled in a major revolt in 1848-49, sparked by a brawl between a relative of the Emām Jomʿa and a government soldier. The disturbance spread and was further exacerbated through the instigation of Nawwāb Ṣafawi, a Safavid descendant, eventually leading to the death of the deputy governor at the hands of the mob. Sepahdār regained control with the help of the military contingent sent from Tehran, but only after a large number of people and soldiers had lost their lives in the conflict (Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, 1984-88, III, p. 1701; Ḵurmuji, pp. 77-79; Algar, pp. 126-28). Although the incident is generally known as the Nawwābs’ Revolt, its subtext and original cause was the ongoing conflict caused by the unwillingness of Isfahan’s elite to accept Tehran’s centralizing sovereignty.

Governors were nominated by the shah, who received a fee for the appointments; in 1869 the governor of Isfahan paid about 40,000 tomans as gratuity (piškeš) for his post and was entitled to collect 60,000 tomans as a special fee for the governorship in addition to the official revenue due to the central government. His principal responsibility (defined as such until the Constitutional Revolution, q.v.) was the preservation of political order and the remittance of provincial revenues. He was directly responsible for customs duties and the revenues of the telegraph, the post, and state properties (ḵāleṣa). The governor could choose his chief minister and financial administrator with government sanction. The important post of kārgozār, who was appointed by the foreign minister, required the payment of an annual lease for his office. The commander of Isfahan’s troops and the supervisors of the telegraph and post were also appointed by the central government, while the governor was independent and controlled the nomination of all other ministers and administrators. The implementation of the system allowed considerable latitude for personal political negotiation (see, e.g., Thomson Report, January-June 1869, FO 248/244).

Throughout the so-called “Qajar century,” the gubernatorial tenure in Isfahan was usually between one and four years. Yet, with the advantage of being natives of Isfahan, Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Khan Ṣadr and his son ʿAbd-Allāh Khan Amin-al-Dawla, managed to impose a dynastic element and governed Isfahan for about twenty-eight years; and the young Solṭān-Moḥammad Mirzā Sayf-al-Dawla, a prince from the favorite Isfahani wife of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah, was installed as governor in 1841 at the age of thirteen and held office for about ten years before he was recalled by Moḥammad Shah. For outsiders, however, governing Isfahan was an almost insuperable challenge, which is why Manučehr Khan Moʿtamed-al-Dawla’s over eight-year rule, and particularly Masʿud Mirzā Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s thirty-three year rule, were so atypical.

Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s tenure in Isfahan was never considered just a governorship but a regime, and his mentality has been compared, albeit inappropriately, to that of Āqā Moḥammad Khan (see, e.g., Saʿādat Nuri, 1956). Considering the parameters of power, his governorship was a significant achievement. Although the governorships of Borujerd, Luristan, Khuzestan, or Yazd had been granted before to various governors of Isfahan, Ẓell-al-Solṭān managed to gain gubernatorial control over more than half of Iran. By the late 1880s he had created a state within a state and held the provincial command of a large, capable military force that was a central and effective crucible in his political rationale. Considered a potential threat and a British sympathizer, he was dismissed from all governorships save that of Isfahan in a tacit but relentless confrontation with the new prime minister ʿAli-Aṣḡar Khan Amin-al-Solṭān, and his troops dismantled in Jomādā II 1305/February 1888, shortly after he had been honored by the British government (Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, 1977, p. 544; ʿAbd-Allāh Mostawfi, I, pp. 375-77; Browne, 1950, pp. 114-15; idem, 1966, pp. 106, 331; Curzon, I, pp. 416-18; Eḥtešām-al-Salṭana, pp. 221-24). This unexpected and dramatic demotion had a profound and long-term impact on the balance of power within Isfahan; now he was obliged to enter into constant negotiations and arrangements with the chief ulema (especially the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi).

RELIGIOUS STATUS AND THE HIEROCRATIC ELITE

Isfahan reconsolidated itself on the basis of its commercial position, fertile agricultural resources, and traditional status as a theological center. As such it asserted a position of almost semi-autonomous urban polity, dominated by strong merchant nobility and an extremely influential and independent-minded ulema. The extraordinary juridical and socio-political status of the mojtaheds (see EJTEHĀD) and the heavy domination of the religious establishment in the late 19th century gave Isfahan a reputation as one of the most Islamic cities of the time and as being filled with a population obsessed with religion and religiosity.

In response to the political insecurity and chaos during the Afghan occupation, Nāder Shah’s extortionate regime, and the wars of the 18th century, many of the ulema, scientists, artists, and intellectuals left Isfahan and emigrated to India, the ʿAtabāt (q.v.) in Iraq and other Ottoman centers, causing a massive decline of the madrasas, pious endowments (waqf), and landed properties, as well as intellectual life. Yet the city never completely lost its role as a theological center and managed to resurrect its status as the mainstay of Shiʿite power and theology in Persia. With the stabilization of the political and commercial conditions, and a demonstrative system of religious patronage in the early years of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah’s reign (r. 1797-1834; see, e.g., Hedāyat, IX, pp. 345-46, X, pp. 105-6), the ulema began to return to Isfahan from the Iraqi shrine cities, striving to establish their own preeminence while maintaining strong scholarly and social ties to the Shiʿite hierocracy of the ʿAtabāt. Personal connections to the ʿAtabāt’s ulema and the prestige of an ʿAtabāt education lent weight to Isfahan’s hierocracy in the pursuit of religio-legal eminence. The re-consolidation of Isfahan’s tradition as the self-proclaimed center of Shiʿism in Persia was essential for the renown of its status and image against Shiraz and Tehran in the 19th century.

The highest officials in the city, next to the governor, were the Emām-e Jomʿa and the Šayḵ-al-Eslām, who also acted as guardians of the largest waqf properties (Mahdawi, 1992, passim; Algar, pp. 23-35). Both positions were life appointments authorized by the shah; the title and position were usually inherited by the eldest son or closest male relative, creating a conspicuous dynastic element which consolidated the immediate control and economic position of certain clerical clans and enforced the theological authority of the city’s leading mojtaheds. This also accounted for the unabated power rivalry between the foremost ulema families, in particular the Emām(-e) Jomʿa and the Šayḵ-al-Eslām (the Āqāyān-e Masjid-e Šāhi), influencing clerical politics until the death of Emām Jomʿa Mirzā Hāšem b. Mir Sayyed Moḥammad (1834-1903), when the office of Emām Jomʿa elapsed (Moʿallem Ḥabibābādi, V, pp. 1378-79). Concomitant to the ulema’s reclaiming of the city was the expansion of pious endowments and madrasas.

In the early 19th century, Isfahan was the residence of Persia’s most sizeable hierocracy. With the death of Kāšef-al-Ḡeṭāʾ Shaikh Jaʿfar b. Ḵeżr (Rajab 1227/August 1812), successor of Sayyed Mahdi Ṭabāṭabāʾi Borujerdi Bahr-al-ʿOlum (d. 1797), as the leading Shiʿite and Oṣuli authority scholar of his time, Najaf lost some of its force of gravitation as the predominant center of Shiʿite theology. In the early 19th century, under the leadership of Mollā ʿAli b. Jamšid Nuri (d. 1830), Moḥammad-Ebrāhim Kalbāsi (or Karbāsi, d. 1845), and Moḥammad-Bāqer Šafti Rašti, the Šayḵ-al-Eslām (d. 1844), Isfahan reestablished its theological preeminence against the heavy authority of the ʿAtabāt. The reputation of Nuri, Kalbāsi, and Šafti, the most prominent Persian mojtaheds in the 1830s and 1840s, recognized also by followers in Iraq and India, was essential for the revival of the city’s theological significance and its emergence as an Oṣuli stronghold (Moʿallem Ḥabibābādi, IV, pp. 1264-267, V, pp. 1643-646; Eqbāl; Algar, pp. 59-63).

The re-emergence of Isfahan’s scholastic and educational renown in the early 19th century not only promoted the rise of the orthodox Oṣuli ulema, but also generated a milieu that fostered heterodox movements and less orthodox religious thought, philosophical schools, intellectual trends, mystic and proto-messianic circles, and early Šayḵi thought with roots in the Ḥekmat-e Elāhi Isfahan School of Philosophy (q.v.). Henceforth, at the fringes of Isfahan’s Oṣuli hierocracy, Bābism (q.v.) found a receptive audience for its messianic prophetism, with strong Bābi and later Bahāʾi and Azali Bābi communities in Isfahan, Naja-fābād, Sedeh, and other satellite towns and villages. There seems to have been a pervasive religious strife, particularly between the Bābi and heterodox fringes, which, however, was discernible only as political subtext as the Bābi persecutions became a major theme of the late 1800s.

The mojtaheds’ hegemony over local affairs of the city remained pervasive throughout Qajar rule, despite inter-mittent confrontations with the central government or Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s successful manipulation of their politi-cal interference, often by concessions and mutual deals with regard to material wealth. After Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s curtailment of power in 1888 (limiting his extended governorships to that of Isfahan and the dissolution of his military force), relations between Isfahan’s mojta-heds and the central government grew more contentious, strengthening the position of the ulema and the local urban nobility (Amanat, 1988, pp. 106-7; Arjomand, pp. 238-39).

By the 1870s the city’s lower rank mojtaheds were estimated at about 200, and the number of students (ṭollāb) were at about 2,500 (Mahdawi, p. 537; Jazi, 1969, p. 537; Balāḡi, passim). Among the most prominent and influential clerics of the Ẓell-al-Solṭān era were Shaikh Moḥammad-Bāqer Eṣfahāni Najafi and his sons (Shaikh Moḥammad-ʿAli, Shaikh Moḥammad-Taqi, better known as Āqā Najafi [q.v.], and Āqā Nur-Allāh), called the Āqāyān-e Masjid-e Šahi, as well as Mir Moḥammad-Hāšem Ḵᵛānsāri, known as Čahārsuʾi Širāzi, Moḥammad-Bāqer Fešārki, etc. (Moʿallem Ḥabibābādi, V, pp. 1662-66; Balāḡi ; Najafi, 1990; idem, 1992a).

By the latter part of the century, the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi, second only to Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s family in wealth and status, were the second largest landowners in Isfahan. Inherited through the patrimonial distribution of offices, titles and prestige, the family controlled large estates and waqf properties, and had acquired enormous private lands, villages, livestock in the city and its hinterlands, as well as company shares and ownership in undertakings like Isfahan’s salt mines. They thus controlled extensive resources and wealth, which provided considerable financial autonomy, independent of government sanctions and pensions.

Since the early 19th century land ownership and the growing personal wealth of the higher-ranking ulema impelled their vested interests in agro-business and commerce, which by the late century meant the methodical collaboration between the wealthiest clerics and merchants in politics and commerce. As landowners, the higher-ranking ulema benefited directly from the opium boom of the late Qajar period.

In the confrontation with the ever-growing European presence from the mid-1800s, the clerical circles contrived the urban epithet Qobbat-al-Eslām “Dome of Islam,” which had been used before as a designation of other cities. By the late 19th century this assumed a distinct programmatic connotation and was intended as the deliberate expression of the self-perception of Isfahan’s orthodox Shiʿite leadership, the leading ulema’s reassertion of their own importance combined with their aspirations of reviving the religious and ideological authority of Islam against a European modernity. Meaning both cupola and tent, the Arabic term qobba also connotes the navel of the heavens, creating a religious-ideological equivalent to the medieval principle of the graphical and political notion of Isfahan as “Navel of Islam” a Saljuq concept, which was an enduring presence in the 19th-century city’s consciousness and self-image.

ECONOMIC AND AGRICULTURAL FACTORS

Isfahan’s geo-strategic position was crucial for its political-urban restoration in the 19th century. Situated at the center of the country’s internal and, more importantly, long-distance trade routes, its commerce profited from the transit traffic of goods for the domestic as well as the international market. In the absence of a modern infrastructure, goods were transported by caravan along these longstanding trade routes well into the 20th century. In the 1860s the city had direct business links to Hamadān, Kermānšāh, and Baghdad in the west, Kāšān and Tehran in the north, Yazd in the east, and Bušehr in the south. The main trade routes from Isfahan to India, Java, Ottoman Arabia, and Egypt followed the road via Shiraz to Bušehr, which was the central link between the Persian Gulf and the country’s interior, and lasting competitor of the British planned Kārun route (from the late 1890s known as the Lynch or Baḵtiāri road). These caravan or trade routes were firmly established networks with central economic relevance, organized and controlled with systemic routine. Isfahan’s big merchants had direct and heavily vested interests in this network, which was absolutely crucial to the city’s commercial influence and vitality (for a detailed description of routes and villages and towns in the early 19th century, see Ritter, pp. 13-73).

The topographical and geo-climatic factors were vital preconditions for the city’s development, and the ecological factor of the Zāyandarud (meaning “life-giving” or “river of life”) was central for Isfahan’s geo-political and historical position. The supply of water resources was the source of life and prosperity sine qua non, facilitating one of Persia’s most productive agronomies. The city’s hinterlands were crucial for the wealth of the city’s elite (by the turn of the century also occasional foreigners), who owned most of the villages and arable land. Water and control over its supply, distribution, and use was a sign of power and status, also reflected in the water allotments for properties of owners with different social standing.

Water allocation directly influenced the development and morphology of the city, driving 19th-century urban expansion upstream. Favored by the aristocracy, the urban and suburban westward districts marshaled better access to water than those downstream. Consequently, hamlets on the city’s eastern fringe beyond the Qalʿa-ye Ṭabarak, despite fertile farmland, were unable to secure sufficient water and by the 1880s had disintegrated (Höltzer, “Beschreibung,” p. 99).

Using its agro-economic advantages and its geo-commercial position on the nexus of the central trade routes from east to west and from the Persian Gulf to Tehran, Isfahan managed to compensate for the decline of traditional manufacturing (silk, arms, etc.) and rebuilt itself as one of the most important commercial centers, which in the 1900s still had the country’s largest bazaar. The resulting affluence of the local elite sustained the city’s enduring political role as well as its sense of self-importance.

During the tribal civil wars of the 18th century, Isfahan’s guilds and artisans produced to a large extent for a war industry. Insecurity, the volatile political situation, and the extortions by the tribal militia further impeded extensive agriculture, giving little incentive for the redevelopment of fallow garden and farmlands or any viable agricultural investments, leaving even large, previously prosperous villages abandoned and fertile land along the Zāyandarud uncultivated.

The political stability of the early reign of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah generated a phase of economic revitalization. With the concomitant revival of Isfahan’s agronomy in the early 19th century, the economic premises changed. Ḥāji Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Khan Ṣadr Eṣfahāni, governor and grand vizier (ṣadr-e aʿẓam), and later his son ʿAbd-Allāh Khan Amin-al-Dawla, realized the potential and were among the first to reinvest heavily in land, amassing immense personal wealth at a time when the general zeitgeist was still troubled by the aftermath of civil war (Anṣāri, p. 44; Kinneir, p. 112). The redevelopment and change to a more intensive agriculture, especially during ʿAbd-Allāh Khan’s tenure as governor, brought renewed prosperity to the city and its hinterlands. In the two decades of his governorship, Isfahan was said to have more than doubled its inhabitants, and quadrupled its silk and brocade manufacture (Malcolm, p. 238-39).

This trend was halted and agricultural productivity suffered in the 1830s and 1840s under the strain of two wars with Russia, Moḥammad Shah’s attempts for the repossession of Herat, as well as recurrent frontier conflicts with the Ottomans and the concomitant impingement on peasants and land cultivation. By the accession of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah, countless villages in the vicinity of Isfahan had again disintegrated, posing a major challenge for the new governement’s aim of a systematic redevelopment of villages and agriculture.

The most common agricultural crops cultivated in the vicinity of the Isfahan province were mostly for the city’s own supply and for the local markets, and included such staples as wheat, barley, green soybeans, lentils, rice, chick peas, millet, maize, fava beans, and cottonseed for local consumption. Opium, tobacco, sisal, and cotton were produced for the domestic and international markets. Until the middle of the century the bazaars traded mostly in goods from among the local indigenous production: silk and cotton stuff, various woolen cloth, weaponry, gunpowder, and jewelry as well as raw materials from the surrounding countryside, including cotton, medicinal drugs, tobacco, rice, and skins. Sugar, indigo, shawls, cotton prints, tea, spices, and chinaware were imported from India, China, and Indochina (Moḥammad-Mahdi Arbāb, pp. 19-20, 112-26; Taḥwildār, pp. 49-59; Blau, p. 44; Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers; Polak; Issawi, passim; Kalbāsi, passim).

Glassware continued to be produced for local supply. Iron, brass, and copperware also outlasted industrial imports and continued to be appreciated by 19th-century European artifact collectors. Isfahan’s famous qalamkār (cotton print), booming after techniques were introduced from India, remained in high demand. The latter, as well as chintz, brocade, and some silk were produced and traded mostly within Persia, but the pressure to keep prices competitive in comparison to European imports affected the quality. The loss of their reputation and change of fashion precipitated the decline of this domestic market, which gradually succumbed to foreign imports.

Cash crops, including opium, tobacco, cotton, and wheat, became progressively more important in the latter part of the century. The absolutely decisive and foremost change in Isfahan’s economy, however, was launched by the expansive opium cultivation, following innovations of the refining process in the 1860s. The steady demand in China and a growing market in Europe turned opium into the economic mainstay of the province and the city. Opium had traditionally been grown for the domestic market. In 1856-57 Moḥammad Mahdi Arbāb, founder of the Kompāni-e Teryāk-e Eṣfahān in the opium trade, returned from Bombay to Isfahan and together with a business partner introduced modern refinery and cultivation techniques adopted from the Indian Parsis. Cultivators and merchants in Isfahan began to invest in large-scale opium production. The new techniques spread rapidly, propelling Yazd and Shiraz as Isfahan’s most serious rivals in the opium business (Moḥammad-Mahdi Arbāb, p. 125; Höltzer, “Beschreibung,” p. 54; Okazaki, pp. 187-78; Najm-al-Molk, p. 177; Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, 1984-89, pp. 143-44; Houtum-Schindler, 1879, p. 53; see also AFYŪN).

In the 1850s the city exported about 23 chests annually, rising to 500 chests in 1865 and 1,000 chests two years later. Isfahan’s opium exports increased steadily, and by the late 1870s, European estimates put the annual cultivation of opium at about 130,000 pounds, roughly half of the entire country’s production, worth about 40,000 pounds sterling (equivalent to approximately 2.5 million pounds sterling in 2003). Opium production reached its height by the mid-1880s, when as much as 40,000 man-e šāh (1 man-e šāh = ca. 6 kg) were produced in years with no significant problems regarding pests or droughts, packed in boxes, each weighing about 140-155 pounds, of which about 4,000 boxes were annually sent to China (Moḥammad-Mahdi Arbāb, pp. 122, 124-25; Höltzer, “Beschreibung,” p. 57; Ballantine, p. 160). Due to soil depletion, internal competition, labor costs, falling international markets and regulations, Isfahan’s output declined from the 1890s (Accounts and Papers, Commercial Reports “Diplomatic and Consular Reports,” 1894, vol. 87, No. 1376, p. 66; Seyf, p. 242).

Opium directly affected the mercantile climate, business practices, and competition with landowners, dealers, retailers, wholesalers, and brokers. By the 1880s most trades and crafts were directly or indirectly involved in the production and sale of opium, and in the city the livelihood of at least a quarter of the population depended directly on the opium business (Höltzer, “Beschreibung,” p. 54; Gilbar, passim; Millspaugh, p. 190).

Also of significance with regard to the politics of agro-business was the fact that the production, trade, and export of opium generated profits, but for a few exceptions (such as the Anglo-Dutch Hotz and Co.), largely for the Persian merchants. British attempts to seize this market provoked protectionist reactions by the ulema and the merchants. Only in the 20th century did the Europeans manage to gain a greater market share. The greatest share of profits went to an exclusive number of large, generally absentee landowners and merchants, who acquired the entire harvest and processed it in wholesale quantities. Some of them even invested in the shipping companies, and a number of them also owned the ships (or shares of those) by which the opium was exported (Lewis Pelly to Mirzā Moḥammad Khan, no. 255, 24 November 1870; and response, 23 November 1870, FO 60/333).

In the long term, all opium-producing areas also emerged as large opium-consuming districts, and the traditional ways of opium consumption by taking pills and tonics was progressively replaced by smoking, the most addictive and debilitating form of consumption at that time. Statistical information is generally imprecise, but it is estimated that, by the 1900s, 40 percent of the annual production of opium was consumed domestically, with severe and pervasive social consequences (Gilbar, p. 330; Polak, II, pp. 241-55; Anṣāri, p. 49; Millspaugh, pp. 190-92; MacCallum, p. 12; League of Nations, doc. no. A.7. 1927. XI [C. 580.M.219.1926.XI], p. 41).

Isfahan’s soil and climate were also extremely suitable for the cultivation of tobacco, which until the early 1860s was an important cash crop, exported in large quantities chiefly to Baghdad and Istanbul. With the significant loss of the Ottoman tobacco market due to the imposition of import duties in 1866 and the expansion of opium poppy cultivation, growers and traders in the Isfahan area withdrew from major investments in tobacco. By the mid-1880s, when the Ottoman Porte revoked the heavy import taxes, Isfahan’s tobacco cultivation began anew (Moḥammad-Mahdi Arbāb, p. 125). Although a time-honored crop in the province and the catalyst for one of the most consequential political movements of 19th century Persia, culminating in the 1891-92 revolts against the British Tobacco Regie, Isfahan’s tobacco production never rivaled the economic and agricultural importance of opium.

Partly inspired by a large-scale monopoly like the British Regie, the cultivators, landowners, and merchants, many of whom were responsible for the termination of the British monopoly, re-intensified and expanded Isfahan’s tobacco production. This resulted in constant trade wars by the Isfahan ulema and merchants against the Societé du Tumbac, a French consortium, which received the curtailed export rights of the annulled 1892 British Regie.

The drop in world cotton supply due to the American civil war (1861-65) shifted attention to cotton as a potential cash crop, (Aqanoor to Dickson 24 December 1866 and 14 June 1867, FO 248/242) but problems of transportation, drastic price fluctuations in the international markets, and climatic factors hindered the long-term development of Isfahan’s cotton into a key primary cash crop that could equal opium. Although Isfahan’s economy was heavily invested in the opium business, there were limited incentives for large-scale investments in raw cotton. Determined by agro-commercial realities, production remained chiefly for the domestic market and the city’s tent manufacture, which at the time counted as the largest in Persia.

Entrepreneurial voices argued that the difficulties of cotton cultivation could be overcome with government support, turning it into another vital large-scale export product (Moḥammad-Mahdi Arbāb, pp. 122-23, 12). Facing lower yields of opium from the 1890s, landowners and merchants, in deliberate competition against British and Russian cotton imports, launched new campaigns to revive Isfahan’s cotton production and textile industry. In 1899 some of the city’s high-ranking ulema, merchants, and court elite founded the Šerkat-e Eslāmiya, which evolved as the precursor to the rise of Isfahan’s 20th-century textile industry. This was firstly a major large-scale business venture undertaken by a large group of financiers attempting to restore Isfahan’s traditional silk industry in deliberate competition against European industrial imports. Focusing on the restitution of Isfahan’s traditional textile manufacturing, it also reflected the city’s innate conflict between modernizing innovation and conservative restoration.

With the expansion of trade undertaken in the 1870s, commercial and economic factors dominated Isfahan’s political orientation even further. Despite the conventional silence of the chroniclers and biographers, the merchant elite was the second most influential group in the city’s socio-political hierarchy. In the 1880s supposedly about 400-500 merchants were known by name, headed by the tājer-bāši (chief merchant); and by the turn of the century the majority of Isfahan’s population was engaged in trade (Foreign Office, Report, FO 248/1029). About eighty merchants, representing renowned wholesale trading firms chiefly engaged in the wholesale business, held a name and reputation that spanned beyond Isfahan. Men like Moḥammad-Ebrāhim Malek-al-Tojjār, Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Kāzeruni, Ḥāji Moḥammad-Taqi Šāhrudi, the Qazvinihā brothers, and many others had accumulated enormous wealth and, prompted by the growing presence of British and Russian business in Isfahan beginning in the 1880s, became directly involved in city politics.

The late 19th century political and commercial changes and the victory against the British Tobacco monopoly engendered a new confidence. Driven by the idea of reviving the city’s traditional textile sector and the ulema’s endeavor of pushing Isfahan as the leading Shiʿite city, the mercantile clerical leaders emphasized Isfahan’s commercial, religious, and industrial weight, promoting the image of the dār al-ṣanāyeʿ (lit. “house of industries”), a publicist endeavor to proliferate the new industrial self-assertion against European competition.

SOCIO-POLITICAL STRUCTURE

The socio-religious and demographic matrix of 19th-century Isfahan was the outcome of its political power structure and had a direct bearing on political events, particularly in the late Qajar period. In the course of the century, the heterogenous religious and ethnic groups, consisting of important Jewish and Armenian communities, a growing underground Bābi following, a starkly diminished Zoroastrian population, a rising number of Hindu Indians, and different European Christian denominations submitted to the authoritative Shiʿite establishment. By the late 19th century the Zoroastrians, Turks, and Armenians who used to live in the city proper, pressured by a rising, politicized Shiʿite orthodoxy, moved largely to Julfa (q.v.), nearby villages, Tehran, the Ottoman empire, and India. Most Zoroastrians had left the city, contrary to the Jews, who, as the most important indigenous non-Shiʿite community, endured as the prominent minority within the city’s boundaries (see, e.g., Darāmad-i bar Tāriḵča, foll. 128-63; see also Saʿdvandiān, passim; Anṣāri, passim). The acceptance of the Jews’ longstanding presence in Isfahan since pre-Islamic times provided a sense of legitimacy to their enduring existence in the city. They were mainly concentrated in the quarters of Jubāra, Dardašt, Bāb-al-Dašt, Gowd-e Maqṣud Beyg, and the Meydān-e Qadim. This is in stark contrast to the Zoroastrians, who, pressured by the policies of some ulema, had moved to the city’s southern quarters and gradually emigrated to Yazd or India.

The shift in political control following the 1888 reduction in Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s power and domain caused several waves of persecutions against the Jews and pogroms against the Bābis, driven by inter-clerical rivalries and the personal motives of a few mojtaheds (especially the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāh). Discrimination against the Jews usually arose in the context of trade wars against British firms or crusades against the Church Missionary Society of London (C.M.S.), such as the very short-lived campaigns of 1889 against the Jews or in 1897 against Jewish hawkers (Walcher, 2007).

Toward the end of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah’s reign (r. 1848-96), the attention of organizations like the Anglo-Jewish Association, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, as well as missionary societies like the Society for the Promotion of Christianity Amongst the Jews and the Church Missionary Society of London, accounted for an international aspect and publicity in cases of political oppression and persecution. This enabled the Jews to muster a much greater religious immunity and protection than the tenacious community of Bābis, for whom it was virtually impossible to raise direct foreign protection or intervention, whilst they played a crucial part in the religio-political tug-of-war.

The division of Julfa was critical for late 19th century political history. The morphology, civic structure, and social hierarchy of the city were separate, though not independent, from Isfahan, and it functioned as a satellite rather than suburb. Julfa’s spatial separation facilitated the segregationist policy pursued by Isfahan’s conservative ulema until the early 1900s, enabling the elite to keep Europeans largely outside Isfahan proper. Until the late 1800s, Europeans took up residence in Julfa. It was only in the 1890s and in the face of major resistance that the Russian and British envoys, an Imperial Bank representative, and an Anglican missionary managed to take up residence in the city. As satellite and traditional domain for all Christian denominations, Julfa both conveyed and reinforced a corporeal as well as social dichotomy of the Muslim and Christian populations.

During Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s tenure as governor the Catholics maintained a low-key Jesuit mission, overseen by the French Pére Pascale, who frequently intervened as broker or intermediary in conflicts between the hierocracy and the Europeans. The Anglican C.M.S. officially established in 1871-72 played a more prominent and conflicting role in urban and international politics. Its educational and medical work afforded the necessary legitimacy, but its activities and proselytism caused unremitting conflicts with the Armenian, Jewish, and Shiʿite elite. Until the 1890s confrontations were largely religio-theological altercations, but with changes in the C.M.S.’s missionary tactics and Britain’s foreign policy, they acquired an imperialist dimension. Serious campaigns against the Anglicans, usually headed by Shaikh Moḥammad-Bāqer, or later by Āqā Najafi, took place against the Reverend Robert Bruce (director of the C.M.S.) from the 1870s and again in 1893, against the medical dispensary of Mary Bird (known as Maryam Ḵānom to Persians) in 1894, concerning the Sakina conversion case in 1895, and also against the Alliance Israélite in 1901. These confrontations became an innate part of foreign politics in Isfahan (British Foreign Office documents and documents of the Church Missionary Society archives; Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record, 1876-1890; Seeley et al., London; Waterfield, pp. 148-53, 155-57; Wright, pp. 118-22).

THE BAḴTIĀRI TRIBAL FORCE

The Baḵtiāri tribe was an essential part of Isfahan’s wider socio-political matrix, playing a critical role in the relationship of the city and its hinterlands, with both a symbiotic as well as confrontational and competitive element in the tribal-urban interdependence. Controlling extensive territory between Isfahan and Khuzestan, the tribe had commercial and military functions, which could both support and threaten the safety and the trade of the city. Based on their military capabilities, the Baḵtiāri chiefs of the late 18th century, such as Abu’l-Fatḥ Khan Baḵtiāri, the city’s beglerbegi in the 1760s, had phases of direct influence in Isfahan. The tribe could also muster a geo-strategic role and ally with both the governors of Khuzestan and Isfahan. The governor of Khuzestan, for example, employed Ḥosaynqoli Khan Ilḵāni in punitive expeditions to enforce tax payments in 1280/1862 and 1281/1863 as well as in other campaigns (Walcher, 2007).

Phases of strong autocratic government in Isfahan generally tended to a policy of conflict between the city’s government and the Baḵtiāris, conspicuously so during the governorships of Manučehr Khan Gorji Moʿtamed-al-Dawla (1254-63/1838-847) and Ẓell-al-Solṭān (1291-1325/1874-907). In the early 19th century Moḥammad-Taqi Khan Ilḵāni endeavored to fuse the various factions of the tribe, which caused unease in Isfahan and Tehran. He delayed a 10,000-toman tax payment to Isfahan and was accused by Manučehr Khan of conspiring with the exiled princes in Baghdad, dishonoring royal drafts, and tax evasion. In 1841, Manučehr Khan first visited, then attacked and arrested the fleeing khan, who was exiled to Tehran, where he died ten years later (Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, 1984-88, III, pp. 1657-60; Eʿteżād-al-Salṭana, pp. 518, 523; Hedāyat, X, pp. 513 ff.; Garthwaite, pp. 66-71).

A similar pattern of tribal-government strife occurred four decades later. Ḥosaynqoli Khan (see BAḴTĪĀRĪ), who had been appointed ilḵāni by the shah in 1846 for his services to Manučehr Khan’s campaign against his own uncle Moḥammad-Taqi Khan, pursued a policy of tribal and military consolidation. Suspicious about military prowess, his dealings with the British, and a possible collusion between Ẓell-al-Solṭān and Ḥosaynqoli Khan, Naṣer-al-Din Shah in 1882 ordered Ẓell-al-Solṭān to kill the ilḵāni. Ẓell-al-Solṭān had him seized and killed in 1882, when the latter was in Isfahan to pay Baḵtiāri taxes (Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, 1977, pp. 179, 210; Garthwaite, pp. 92-93) and held his sons ʿAliqoli Khan (later Sardār Asʿad II) and Esfandiār Khan (later Sardār Asʿad I) hostage in Isfahan. They were only freed after Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s demotion in 1888, when Esfandiār Khan was summoned to Tehran and reinstated as ilḵāni, demoting his uncle Ḥāji Emāmqoli Khan. Aiming to pit the tribe against Ẓell-al-Solṭān, Amin-al-Solṭān now also strove to split the Baḵtiāri leadership by investing them with competitive appointments. Baḵtiāri vengeance against Ẓell-al-Solṭān led to serious conflicts in the early 1890s, as they followed a relentless policy of containment. The khans’ direct presence or involvement in Isfahan during this time, reduced to the bare necessities, became rather intangible (Walcher, 2007).

By the advent of the 20th century, the leading Baḵtiāri khans, like the non-tribal elite, had emerged as landlords with vast landed property and estates, acquiring considerable fiscal control and living a rather sedentary lifestyle. During Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s rule, however, their presence and personal investments in Isfahan remained cautious. The khans may have owned properties and estates in or near Isfahan, but until their 1909 takeover of the city’s rule they seem to have favored their residences in places like Dawlatābād, Solṭānābād, Farādunba, Borujen, and others. Fatḥ-Allāh Khan Zayḡam-al-Salṭana, spent most of his time in Isfahan, but based his home estates in Sarisjān.

With Britain’s systematic policy since the 1880s of expanding her hegemonic position and influence in the south through alliances with the tribe, the Baḵtiāri khans’ political influence became progressively more consequential. The building of the Baḵtiāri (or Lynch) road in 1897 (a road built by Lynch Brothers, a British firm, linking Isfahan to Ahvāz; Garthwaite, pp. 104-7; Wright, pp. 85-86, 101-2) and the oil concession of William Knox D’Arcy (q.v.) in 1901 brought massive wealth and status to the tribe’s upper ranks. This had a long-term impact on the tribe’s social and cultural structure, and profoundly strengthened its political bargaining power, which was vital for the khans’ political rise in 20th-century politics (Eskandar Khan ʿAkkāša, passim; Awžan Baḵtiāri, passim; Sardār Asʿad and Sepehr, passim; “Notes on the Baḵtiari Tribes and their Chiefs,” Lieutenant Ranking, 1911, WO 106/5954; Garthwaite, pp. 103 ff.).

THE 1891-92 TOBACCO REGIE

Isfahan played a critical part in the cancellation of the 1891-92 British Tobacco Regie. Because of the city’s heavy clerical power, agronomic-cultural weight, and role as a commercial center, the Regie’s frictionless establishment there was the government’s foremost concern (Shah to Ẓell-al-Solṭān, Rajab 1308, in Kennedy to Salisbury, no. 69, 17 March 1891, FO 60/553; Townley to Grey, No. 196, 6 July 1914, FO 371/2059).

Under the simplistic premise of the antagonistic dichotomy between the ulema and the state, Ẓell-al-Solṭān has been portrayed as a categorical pro-British supporter of the Regie (for the concession, see Hurewitz, I, pp. 461-63). It has been argued that the Regie was particularly strong in Isfahan because of the Persian Gulf Trading Company and Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s staunch British partisanship intent on “shattering” the anti-Regie movement. At the inception of the protests he attempted at length to demonstrate loyalty and reliability (Ādamiat, pp. 51-52; Teymuri, 1981, pp. 79, 223; Ẓell-al-Solṭān to Nāṣer-al-Din Shah, Šawwāl 1308, communicated to the British Legation, 29 May 1891, FO 60/553). Following the first complaints in Tabriz, Isfahan’s tobacco merchants, supported by the Emām Jomʿa, presented a petition to Ẓell-al-Solṭān, who reacted with a demonstratively ruthless reply against the merchant’s “impertinence,” and forced them to send a collective letter to the shah, pledging order and submission (Isfahan merchants to Nāṣer-al-Din Shah, Šawwāl 1308, 29 May 1891, FO 60/553; Ẓell-al-Solṭān to Emām Jomʿa and merchants, in Kennedy to Salisbury, no. 210, 19 September 1891, FO 69/553; Keddie, pp. 90-91; Aqanoor to Kennedy, 12 September 1891, FO 248/535; Ẓell-al-Solṭān to Amin-al-Solṭān, tels. 21 and 17, September 1891, FO 60/553; Retranslation, Ādamiyat, p. 50).

Yet, the pro-Regie statements by Ẓell-al-Solṭān were mere, though effective, rhetoric. Driven by revenge for his 1888 dismissal against Amin-al-Solṭān and the shah, as well as pressure by the politicized mojtaheds, he in public avowed a pro-Regie stand, while colluding with the opposition. Without his endorsement of the boycott against smoking initiated by Aqa Najafi and Shaikh Moḥammad ʿAli, the Regie’s later collapse might never have happened. For months the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi, Āqā Najafi, and the Malek-al-Tojjār of Isfahan worked on a quiet, but organized, campaign against the Regie, corresponding with the ulema in Tabriz, Shiraz, Mashad, and the ʿAtabāt for the coordination of the protests. With Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s tacit approval, Shaikh Moḥammad-ʿAli and his brother Āqā Najafi launched the decisive attack against the Regie by the prohibition of smoking in Isfahan (Preece to Lascalles, no. 7, 13 February 1892; FO 248/548).

Demands went beyond the abrogation of the Regie concession, with the removal of the Imperial Bank of Persia as central objective. The concomitant goals of the city’s clerical-merchant elite were the summary expulsion of all foreign firms, the banishment of the Church Missionary Society from Isfahan and Julfa, and a ban launched by Āqā Najafi against foreign goods (Walcher, 2008, passim; Najafi, 1992, p. 52). By November 1891, they pronounced smoking water pipes forbidden (ḥarām), sowing and cultivating of tobacco doubly forbidden (ḥarām andar ḥarām), assistants of foreigners infidel and deserving death (kāfer wa wājeb-al-qatl), and foreigners’ servants and their relatives utterly impure (najes-al-ʿayn; Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s telegraph to Nāṣer-al-Din Shah, 19 Rabiʿ II 1309, in Ṣafāʾi, 1973c, pp. 20-23; Keddie, pp. 94-95; see also Preece to Kennedy, 20 November 1891, enclosure no. 1, in Kennedy to Salisbury, no. 241, 23 November 1891, FO 248/521, also in FO 60/553 and IO L/P and S/3/314).

A fatwa with Āqā Najafi’s signature calling for the boycott of the Tobacco Company was posted everywhere in the city. The tobacco trade essentially closed down, making Isfahan the first city to stage an open boycott and heralding the countrywide boycott a week and a half later (see Preece to Lascalles, No. 8, 22 November 1891, FO 248/535; FO 60/553; Ṣafāʾi, 1973c, pp. 40-41; Ādamiyat, p. 49; Lambton, p. 145).

Only the Emām Jomʿa, the major rival of Āqā Najafi, was on the side of the Regie in both his public position as well as his private sympathies. His brother Ḥāji Moḥammad-Hāšem Čahārsuʾi also followed a conservative position against the agitations of the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi. Moḥammad-Bāqer Fešāraki, one of the oldest and most respected mojtaheds, who maintained good relations with the British consul, swaying between identifying with the interest of the ulema at large, personal competition with other leading mojtaheds, and pro-government tendencies, seems to have been switching sides. While he later claimed pro-Regie sympathies, he was also reported as acting against the Regie (Ādamiyat, p. 55; Preece to Lascalles, no. 15, 11 February 1893, FO 248/572).

In the face of Āqā Najafi’s anti-Regie activities, demands by the British consulate and others for his banishment became more vociferous, and the shah responded with irate telegraphs threatening house arrest in Tehran or exile (Ṣafāʾi, 1983; Preece to Lascalles, no. 10, 28 November 1891, FO 248/535; Nāẓem-al-Eslām, I, pp. 19 ff.).

Striving to expand the tobacco embargo, Āqā Najafi and his allies enlisted the support of the Ḥojjat-al-Eslām Mirzā Ḥasan Širāzi for a countrywide boycott of smoking (Najafi, 1992, pp. 48-50, 52; Teymuri, 1982, pp. 78-79; Karbalāʾi, pp. 51-60). As disciple of Āqā Najafi’s father, Shaikh Moḥammad Bāqer, Širāzi had very close ties to the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi and their circles in Isfahan and Najaf, and as Ḥojjat-al-Eslām and leading Shiʿite authority (marjaʿ) residing in the ʿAtabāt, he was outside the Persian government’s jurisdiction. The fatwa against smoking, issued under the name of Ḥāji Mirzā Ḥasan Širāzi, first appeared in Isfahan in December. Confronted by the massive countrywide resistance, the shah withdrew the concession on 16 Jomādā I 1309 (18 December 1891). A few days later the Āqāyān-e Masjed-e Šāhi met with Ẓell-al-Solṭān, who congratulated them on the stupendous victory against the Regie, “which, although rock-solid, was dislodged by their power, which could now probably even overturn the Kuh-e Soffa” (Preece to Lascalles, no. 7, 13 February 1892, FO 248/548; Nāẓem-al-Eslām, I, pp. 19 ff.; Brown, 1966, pp. 31-58; Ṣafāʾi, 1973c, pp. 8 ff.).

The British were astounded as they slowly comprehended Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s shrewd multi-partisan tactics. Discovering his anti-Regie dealings with the Russians during the Regie protests, the British consul bemoaned his “defection” as a major blow to British interests in the south (Trade report, Preece to Salisbury, 24 July 1892, 248/541; Legation to Rosebery, no. 136, 1 September 1892, in: Confidential Print, Russian Affairs in Asia, Diary for August 1892, FO 248/543).

In Isfahan the victory against the Regie in effect inaugurated ongoing trade wars against British companies. Immediately after its annulment the circle around Āqā Najafi began to campaign against the Imperial Bank of Persia (Bānk-e šāhanšāhi-e Irān,1893-94; see BANKING IN IRAN), aiming to contrive a boycott as massive as that against the Regie (Preece to Lascalles, no. 7, 13 February 1892, FO 248/548). This was followed by inveterate price wars and embargos against foreign goods, including revolts, for instance, against the British consulate (1893), the Anglo-Dutch firm A. Hotz and Company (provoked by an incident of suffocation, 1896), the Russian consulate (1897), the Jewish peddlers (1897), and the Belgian customs reforms (1903).

With the cancellation of the Regie, its export monopoly rights were transferred to the French Societé de Tumbac, which became a major target of the Isfahan clergy’s enduring trade wars. Ignoring the latter’s monopoly, they founded the Šerkat-e Eṯnā-ʿašari (Company of Twelver Shiʿism), also called Kompāni-e tanbāku-ye Irān, incorporated in the period 1311-18 (1893/4-1900/1). Chief shareholders were Āqā Najafi, Ẓell-al-Solṭān, Ḥājj Moḥammad-Ḥasan Amin-al-Żarb (q.v.), Ḥāji Āqā Moḥammad Ṣadr (head of Isfahan’s merchant community), Amin-al-Dawla, and others. Realizing the goal of the scheme and some of the shareholders’ involvement in the Regie boycott, Nāṣer-al-Din Shah reacted with outright but ineffectual rage (the shah’s letter to Ẓell-al-Soltān, September 1894; see Teymuri, 1982, pp. 227, 223-31).

Endeavors of the elite to establish trade consortia, following the European models of shareholding corporations, was another reaction to the Imperial Bank and Regie concessions. In competition to the Bank, a local banking corporation was established in Shiraz in 1892 (General Gordon, in Confidential Print, Russian Affairs, Diary for November 1892, FO 248/543). Other corporations in Isfahan were the Šerkat-e Etteḥādiya, the Šerkat-e Eslāmiya, the Kompāni-e teryāk-e Eṣfahān, and the Šerkat-e Masʿudi (or Masʿudiya). Like similar firms in other cities (the Qāʾemiya Company in Yazd, Šerkat-e tejārat-e Fārs in Shiraz, and Šerkat-e tejārat-e Bušehr), these four all issued their own banknotes in deliberate subversion of the Imperial Bank’s monopoly rights, which resulted in endless commercial-diplomatic disputes with the British (Newell to Under-Secretary of State, 13 October 1899).

THE 1906-11 CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION

Given the city’s active role against the Regie, the Isfahani origin of prominent constitutionalists (e.g., Sayyed Jamāl-al-Din Wāʿeẓ, Ḥājj Mirzā Naṣr-Allāh Malek-al-Motakallemin, and the Dawlatābādi brothers), Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s dethronement from his thirty-three-year governorship, the Baḵtiāris’ occupation of Isfahan’s government, and their later march to Tehran in August 1909, Isfahan has been reckoned as one of the leading revolutionary centers with profound impact on both the internal situation of the city and the course of the revolution in Tehran. The city’s role, however, was by no means monolithic, and the leadership, particularly in the early phase, was less constitutionally minded and more concerned with internal urban affairs.

Isfahan’s political leaders and the principal ulema reacted with haphazard interest to the demonstrations, which forced Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah into granting the 1906 Constitution. As a commercial center, the city was preoccupied with the question of the Russian loans, the Belgian customs reform, and internal business. The disintegration of the absolutist royal government was firstly seen as chance to reassert greater political independence from Tehran.

In 1901, several eminent clerics of Isfahan died, including Shaikh Moḥammad-ʿAli, the political mind of the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi (allegedly by mistaken medication but possibly intentional poisoning; Aqanoor to Spring-Rice, no. 2, 1 February 1900; no. 1, 5 January 1901, FO 248/742). This facilitated the rise of his younger brother Ḥājj Āqā Nur-Allāh Ṯeqat-al-Eslām as the self-declared leader of the later, more revolutionary movement. Āqā Nur-Allāh’s political ambitions also provoked serious conflicts over leadership with his older brother Āqā Najafi.

Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah, fearing the proliferation of the Russian revolution of 1905 in Persia, requested a policy of appeasement to keep Isfahan’s clerics quiet, which was heeded by Ẓell-al-Solṭān. Unsure of political developments in Tehran, the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi deferred direct involvement and instead rallied against the Belgians and the Bābis (Preece to Hardinge, no. 7, 26 January 1905; No. 11, 15 January 1905; Aqanoor to Grant Duff, no. 58, 4 November 1905, FO 248/845).

In October 1905, Ẓell-al-Solṭān left for his first four-month journey to Europe, and Āqā Nur-Allāh, for the same length of time, went to Mashad, apparently acting on an accord. During the Tehran protests of 1323/1905-6, Isfahan’s political leadership (including the British and Russian consuls) was essentially absent. Relations between Āqā Najafi and Great Britain were unusually friendly, after he was offered a stipend from the Oudh Bequest (Preece to Hardinge, no. 7, 26 January 1905; no. 11, 15 January 1905; Aqanoor to Grant Duff, No. 58, 4 November 1905, FO 248/845).

The events of the Russian revolution and the protests in Tehran were keenly observed, and constitutional activists subscribed funds for propaganda and political education among Isfahan’s peasants (Aqanoor to Hardinge, no. 16, conf., 15 March 1905, FO 248/845; Aqanoor to Grant Duff, no. 13, 20 March 1906, FO 248/877). Yet, the bast (q.v.; see also CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION) at the shrine of Shah ʿAbd-al-Aẓim (called hejrat-e ṣoḡrā) did not cause riots or demonstrations of solidarity in Isfahan. In March 1906, Shaikh Mortażā Rizi threatened the impending expulsion of all Europeans from Isfahan, and the political insecurity fuelled grain speculations. This provoked death threats against both Ẓell-al-Solṭān and Āqā Najafi, customarily the chief speculators. People’s frustration and the sudden revolutionary drift of stating dissent, even against men of absolute authority, surfaced in acts of open confrontation. Following a coffeehouse murder, Āqā Najafi was attacked by a group of women, because he refused to exact blood money from the escapee murderer. Disapproval even led to an assassination attempt against him, which he only narrowly escaped (Barnham to Grant Duff, no. 41, 10 September 1906, FO 248/877; Monthly Summary, Isfahan, 11 October 1906, FO 247/868).

The politicized ulema, inspired by Tabriz, pushed for the creation of a local assembly in Isfahan. Ẓell-al-Solṭān, although recognizing the threat to his own power, compelled by the political landslide, found it expedient to profess to a constitutional monarchy and consented to the establishment of a local consultative assembly (Janāb, no. 3, 12 and 19 Ḏu’l-Qaʿda, 1324; Nāẓem-al-Eslām, II, pp. 34-35; Ṣafāʿi, 1984, I, p. 225; Baširi, I, p. 24). It was inaugurated as the Anjoman-e Moqaddas-e Melli-e Eṣ-fahān (Holy National Council of Isfahan), on 8 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 1323/3 January 1906. Different from the numerous semi-private anjomans (councils), Isfahan’s central anjoman assumed direct political function with consultative as well as executive power. Its membership consisted of the leading ulema, merchants, and government aristocracy, under the presidency of Āqā Nur-Allāh. There seems to have been no representative of either the Armenians or the Jews (list of the first members in Janāb, year 1, no. 3). It met twice a week in the Čehel Sotun, assuming administrative functions previously under the governor’s jurisdiction.

Constitutionalists in Tehran campaigned for the creation of an ʿedālat-ḵāna (house of justice), while the ulema and merchants in Isfahan began a campaign for local textiles by the Šerkat-e Eslāmiya and agitated against the Church Missionary Society. During the bast of July 1906 (Ḥejrat-e kobrā) in Qom, Isfahan’s leadership remained reserved, and no official delegation from Isfahan was dispatched. On the night of 25 Jomādā II/16 August 1906, however, only two days after the two basts at Qom and the British Legation in Tehran dissolved, Isfahan was illuminated as tribute to the accomplishment (Henry D. Barnham to Grant Duff, no. 32, 15 July 1906, FO 248/877; Nāẓem-al-Eslām, I, pp. 260-69 and 276; Dawlatābādi, II, pp. 71-76; Browne, 1966, pp. 120-22; see also Martin, pp. 87-112; Barnham to Grant Duff, no. 38, 18 August 1906, FO 248/877).

Once Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah granted the constitution and a parliament, (19 Jomādā II 1324/10 August 1906), about a thousand of Isfahan’s ulema and merchants assembled to discuss the neẓām-nāma (statute of procedure) with the regulations for the election of the first delegates to the national parliament. Wary about the course that events might take in the capital, the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi were not eager to elect representatives. This summit was, rather, about the determination of political emplacement, steered by the interests of the clerical and merchant elite. At this point Isfahan’s hierocratic-mercantile oligarchy saw the constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system as a foremost opportunity for the re-negotiation of their own bases of power.

Āqā Nur-Allāh rallied for their cause in the city’s burgeoning anjomans and encouraged the propagating ulema to support mašruṭiyat (constitutionalism). He now declared the creation of a national parliament as a “special favor from the Twelfth Imam” (extract of Shaikh Nur-Allāh’s address, in Barnahm to Spring-Rice, no. 63, 31 October 1906, FO 248/877). Yet, uncertain about events after the shah’s impending death, Isfahan adjourned the election of its delegates, and decided to comply only after the Majles was actually inaugurated (details in Barnham to Spring-Rice, no. 63, 31 October 1906, no. 78, 5 December 1906, and no. 81, 28 December 1906, FO 248/877; no. 15, 30 January 1907, FO 248/905; Nāẓem-al-Eslām, II, pp. 45, 71, 72).

Wary about the dissolution of his political alliances and the modus vivendi with the Āqāyān-e Masjed Šāhi, and hoping for a last chance to get the throne, Ẓell-al-Solṭān secretly left for Tehran on 17 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 1324/1 February 1907. Competing against Āqā Najafi and preempting Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s possible retaliation against him, Āqā Nur-Allāh immediately launched a campaign against Ẓell-al-Solṭān. A telegraph was sent to the shah demanding Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s dismissal from Isfahan’s governorship (Barnham to Spring-Rice, no. 29, 7 March 1907, FO 248/905; see also Barnham to Spring-Rice, no. 41, 13 April 1907, FO 248/905; Nāẓem-al-Eslām, II, pp. 103, 109-111). To enforce a reply to the telegraphic demand, he rallied over a thousand of his followers to take bast at the British consulate, while he himself and Āqā Najafi left the city (21 Moḥarram 1325/6 March 1907). Occasional gunfire by Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s partisans stirred excitement but posed no real threat. Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s overthrow was supported by the prince’s sister, Bānu-ye ʿOẓmā, as well as the Russian consul Dabija. Despite the shah’s and the Majles’ support for Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s governorship, leaders of the bast in Isfahan refused to lift the consulate’s siege until the official confirmation of his conclusive removal, and Ẓell-al-Solṭān preferred to step down on 16 March 1907. He did so upon an agreement with Āqā Najafi for his eventual later return, but following Akbar Mirzā’s murder of his mother (one of Ẓell-al-Solṭān’s wives) and the failed coup against the shah, he was forced by the British and Russians to leave for Europe in September 1908.

In the role of the Anjoman’s president and political leader, the government of Isfahan was effectively in the hand of Āqā Nur-Allāh and his cohorts. Ḥosaynqoli Khan Neẓām-al-Salṭana Māfi was appointed governor of Isfahan in March 1907. Facing the leadership of the Anjoman, he soon realized that it was impossible to gain any effective governmental control and resigned after only three months (Barnham to Spring-Rice, 19 April 1907, FO 248/905).

The Anjoman’s leaders resisted any government attempt to interfere in its newly found prerogatives. The central government was unable to regain control, and until the Baḵtiāri occupation of the city in January 1909, Isfahan’s governorship changed hands four different times. Solṭān-Ḥosayn Mirzā Nayyer-al-Dawla, replacing Neẓām-al-Salṭana, tendered his resignation after only a few months, which was rejected by Tehran (Barnham to Spring-Rice, no. 86, 10 August 1907, FO 248/905).

By the fall of 1907, Āqā Nur-Allāh went as far as propagating the creation of the Republic of Isfahan. Unequivocal about the importance of military power, the Anjoman began to draft a militia force with 500 recruits from the villages, which, together with the regular troops, constituted a contingent of about 2,000 men, called the Farrāš-e Melli-e Fedāʾi-e Majles (Barnham to Spring-Rice, no. 76, 3 July 1907; No. 80, 23 June 1907; no. 102, 29 September 1907; Lorimer to Spring-Rice, no. 83, 19 September 1907, no. 56, 18 May 1907, and No. 80, 23 June 1907, FO 248/905; Confidential print, no. 29491, FO 371/304, tr. in Baširi, I, pp. 54, 73).

At the same time there evolved a revolutionary movement beyond the politics of the clerical and mercantile chiefs who had seized political leadership. Activists constituted themselves in the thriving anjomans and the booming press. Mirzā Moḥammad Ṣadr, Mirzā Nur-al-Din Majlesi, Ḥāji Fatḥ-al-Molk, Mirzā Asad-Allāh Khan Wazir, Ḥāji Mirzā Bahāʾ, Mirzā Reżā Ḥakimi, Šayḵ-al-ʿErāqayn, Shaikh Ḥasan Neẓām-al-ʿOlamāʾ, Sayyed ʿAbd-al-Wahhāb Emāmi, and Ašraf-al-Wāʿeẓin were among the men who participated actively in the revolutionary discourse and action of Isfahan (for details, see Malekzāda, 1984, I, pp. 202-4).

The booming constitutional press was to some extent funded and controlled by the Anjoman and generally supportive of the local majles. Among the papers which were founded during the years of the Constitutional Revolution were firstly the official paper Anjoman-e moqaddas-e melli-e Eṣfahān (later also Anjoman-e moqaddas-e welāyati-e Eṣfahān and Anjoman-e Esfahan; q.v.); the short-lived al-Janāb (from 1324); Jehād-e akbar, (1325); Farj-e baʿd az šeddat, (1325), continued as Anjoman-e baladiya; Baladiya-ye Eṣfahān (1324-26); Eṣfahān (1325) and Naqš-e jahān; Nāqur; Kaškul; Mofatteš-e Irān; Najāt-e waṭan; and Zāyandarud (Malekzāda, 1984, I,, pp. 202-4; for details and publishers, see Ṣadr Hāšemi, I, pp. 177-83, 288-96, II, pp. 178-80, IV, pp. 62-64, 138-40, 231-34, 252-53, 308-9; Nuri Eṣfahāni, pp. 348-78; for al-Janāb, see Saʿidi Sirjāni, in EIr. VI, p. 207).

Education was considered the hinge for progress and a new political and national consciousness. Individual constitutional reformers and activists thus founded schools for the modern and political education of the populace; among them Āqā Sayyed Abu’l-Qāsem Dehkordi, Āqā Āḵund Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Fešāraki, Āqā Shaikh Maḥmud-Reżā Najafi; Āqā Ḥāji Mirzā Moḥammad-Ṣādeq Nāyeb-al-Ṣadr, Āqā Ḥāji Mirzā ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Sayyed-al-ʿErāqayn, Āqā Ḥāji Mirzā ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Najafi, Āqā Sayyed ʿAli Najafābādi, Āqā Sayyed Mahd, Āqā Ḥāji Shaikh Nur-Allāh Najafi (Janāb, p. 103).

In 1908 Mirzā Moḥammad Khan Eqbāl-al-Dawla was appointed governor, arriving intent to break up the Anjoman and re-establish central government authority. Determined to maintain political power and defy renewed control by the central government, Āqā Nur-Allāh organized the underground Komita-ye serri (Secret committee) and concluded a deal with the Baḵtiāri khans. Thus beckoned by the Anjoman’s chiefs, Ḥāji Ebrāhim Khan Żarḡām-al-Salṭan entered the city in January 1909 with a small contingent of Baḵtiāri cavalry. The governor’s ill-paid soldiers offered little resistance and dispersed, while the Eqbāl-al-Dawla took refuge in the British consulate (Dānešvar ʿAlawi, passim; Sayyāḥ, pp. 611-14). A few days later, on 12 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 1326/5 January 1909, Ebrāhim Khan’s cousin, Najafqoli Khan Ṣamṣām-al-Salṭana, supported by further Baḵtiāri troops, occupied the city and called for elections to the Anjoman-e welāyati. Out of tactical considerations, he did not declare himself governor and was endorsed as such only in July 1909 after the fall of Moḥammad-ʿAli Shah (Amir Ḥosayni, p. 211; Malekzāda, 1984, II, pp. 1088-89; Šarif Kāšāni, I, pp. 254-57; Sardār Asʿad and Lesān-al-Salṭana Sepehr, pp. 447-54; Garthwaite, p. 116).

Baḵtiāri rule: World War I to the coup d’état. The dissolution of an effective central power prompted the rise of the tribes’ direct military-political involvement and a far-reaching change in the tribal-urban balance of power. The complexity of the political situation in Isfahan was compounded by the imperial powers’ earlier manipulation of tribal politics, their attempt at maximum political gain in their zone of influence, as well as the effect of the Baḵtiāri (Lynch) road agreement and the oil concession on the wealth and ambitions of the Baḵtiāri leadership. The Baḵtiāri takeover (also as district governors, e.g., in Solṭānābād, Qomeša, and Yazd) not only was significant in its direct impact on Isfahan and the drastic changes that this meant for the tribe’s internal matrix, but also overturned the conventional relationship between the urban center and the nomadic tribe.

Baḵtiāri rule in Isfahan proved erratic and absolutist, rocked by the constant internal power struggle over inner-tribal leadership and the further polarization of power between Great Britain and Russia in progressively more formally defined zones of hegemony. Ironically the Baḵtiāris’ military capability was a crucial factor in their maintenance and implementation of power. The 1907 Anglo-Russian Agreement (q.v.; see also Hurewitz, I, pp. 538-41), leaving Isfahan in the Russian and Julfa in the neutral zone, in the long-term complicated politics further, especially once the Great Powers began to make full use of their hegemony after the outbreak of World War I.

The khans had little interest in collaborating with the Anjoman-e welāyati, and soon moved to monopolize political control in the re-establishment of an autocratic governorship. At the same time, they were not able to disregard the ulema’s power and, if necessary, paid various clerics (Ṣamṣām-al-Salṭana to the Šayḵ-al-Eslām; Haig to Legation, no. 90, 14 May 1917, FO 248/1189).

After their victory, the khans, forced by the tribe’s lower rank, had concluded the “Malāmir agreement,” stipulating that any madāḵel (incoming revenues) gained by the governor of Isfahan from the city had to be accounted and shared at 50 percent with the tribal leaders. This was particularly in the interest of the lesser chiefs, who were determined to enforce the agreement by all means, threatening Ṣamṣām-al-Salṭana, who uncompromisingly refused to pay his share (see consular correspondence, February-March 1911 in FO 258/1026).

Ṣamṣām-al-Salṭana, supported in his initial office by both the Russians and British, showed limited interest in politics for the benefit of the city, his favorite subject being the oil company’s financial details. One of his chief preoccupations was to get control of the city taxes, which were administered by foreigners employed by the central government (Haycock had been appointed the superintendent of finance department [piškār-e mālia] in Isfahan by Morgan Shuster). He demanded 6,000 tomans over the regular tax revenue, which ended in a major quarrel with the vizier Mirzā Asad-Allāh Khan, who refused on the justified plea about the empty treasury. Ṣamṣām-al-Salṭana harbored a serious antipathy against the clergy, and his erratic and self-aggrandizing conduct impelled growing popular discontent (Confidential Diary, Ahwaz consulate, 1.-8. August 1909, FO 248/967).

With the stalemate between the Anjoman and the Baḵtiāri governor, political and social security progressively worsened, and for the next decade the city and villages were under the constant sway of robberies, lacking personal and material safety. Safeguarding their own interests, the merchants and clerics founded their own associations, like the Etteḥādiya-ye Tojjār or the Etteḥādiya-ye ʿOlamāʾ (headed by the Dawlatābādi brothers); and to cancel out the Anjoman a counter-council, called the Majles-e or Edāra-ye welāyati, was founded and headed by Mobāṣer-al-Molk (later deputy governor of Loṭf-ʿAli Khan Sardār Ašjaʿ), which created constant quarrels with the Anjoman-e welāyati headed by Āqā Nur-Allāh (Isfahan News no. 2, 8 January, no. 4, 22 January, no. 5, 29 January, no. 20, 14 May, no. 21, 21 May, no. 23, 4 June 1910, FO 248/996. Isfahan News, no. 3, 1912, FO 248/1049).

Sardār Ašjaʿ, who was installed upon Russian request, took over the governorship in 1910, imposed further extortionate taxation, and suppressed any sort of constitutional rights. Enticed by his large salary, he tried to secure the governorship for the following year, which was opposed by all the city’s various factions. Sardār Qarib Khan (Rašid-al-Dawla from 1910, assassinated in 1915) went as far as offering the chief of police 1,000 tomans and a carriage to prevent his reappointment.

By January 1911 the prices of foodstuffs rose 80 percent, causing popular unrest, disillusionment with the constitution, and serious hatred of the Baḵtiāri regime; this was an excuse for the reactionaries to gather at the Masjed-e Šāh, while the governor endeavored to uphold order with a new cannon sent from Tehran (Grahame to Legation, telegraph no. 61, 8 May 1911, FO 248/1028; also FO 248/1029, passim). The beginning of Sardār Ašjaʿ’s re-appointment was challenged by a movement of “revivalism,” following, as was believed, the appearance of the light of the Twelfth Imam and a blind woman’s miracle-healing in the shrine of Hārun-e Welāyat. Masses of people flocked to the shrine, twice in large processions led by Āqā Najafi. It was understood by everybody that the attraction of these events was not naïve popular credulity, but carried a clear political message by Āqā Najafi, demonstrating his force and popular backing against the Baḵtiāri governor (which, however, did not foreclose tacit complicity in activities like grain speculations). Sardār Ašjaʿ closed all offices (edāra) and public councils; with his connivance, rice cultivators in Lenjān detained water for the whole summer and, despite fear for his personal safety, he relentlessly squeezed bakers, butchers, and other shopkeepers for extra fees. He also disregarded the new electoral laws and suspended the Anjoman in May 1911, which, however, re-opened under massive pressure, headed by the Moḥāṣeb-al-Dawla, in December (FO 248/1029, passim; Report on Isfahan, no. 139, 26 November, ibid). When the Sardār Ašjaʿ left after his third appointment in 1912, crowds of women openly cursed him as he made his way out of the city. Following his fourth tenure, he evacuated the government house, taking not only his private belongings, but also every moveable piece, including various antique Safavid doors (Isfahan News, no. 45, 8. November, 1913, FO 248/1070; see also Sardār Ẓafar Baḵtiāri, passim; ʿAliqoli Khan Baḵtiāri, passim).

Āqā Nur-Allāh, who under the pressure of the Russian and British consulates, as well as the competition with Āqā Najafi, had emigrated to the ʿAtabāt in 1911, returned at the death of his brother in July 1914 and emerged as the city’s paramount and most radical clerical leader. Post-constitutional politics brought a greater polarization of political groups along ideological lines and a sharper division between mellat (the populace) and dawlat (the government) or progressive nationalist and conservative reactionary factions. The parameters of the Anglo-Russian modus vivendi changed with the intensifying activities of the Germans, the outbreak of World War I, and the Russian Revolution. Isfahan’s anti-British clergy and ‘radical democratic’ circles showed widespread pro-German sympathies. Their collaboration with the German agents and the radical ulema’s attempt to mobilize a jihad against Britain as well as clerical pan-Islamic and pro-Turkish campaigns (decree [aḥkām] in Mofatteš-e Iran, no. 8, 27 Ṣafar 1333/14 January 1915) caused unmitigated tension, particularly in the British camp. In 1915 the widespread opposition against the Baḵtiāri regime required direct British interference to keep Isfahan’s governorship in Baḵtiāri hands

The German threat and the political chaos in Isfahan (as well as Fars) escalated to the point that both Great Britain and Russia agreed to the return of Ẓell-al-Solṭān from exile in France, hoping his old authority would have a stabilizing and anti-German effect. The British now made contradictory promises to both Ẓell-al-Solṭān and the Baḵtiāris. After months of negotiations, Ẓell-al-Solṭān returned via London and St. Petersburg, being well received by the shah in July 1916. He accepted a brief appointment in Fars, but, weakened and disillusioned, he retreated to his Isfahan estates. Aiming to forestall further German influences and the resumption of Baḵtiāri rule, both legations again supported the governorship of his son Akbar Mirzā Ṣārem-al-Dawla, provoking active opposition by the Baḵtiāris and Āqā Nur-Allāh, who stirred resistance by payments to the professional thugs (luṭi) and peasants. Despite support from the British, the Russians, and the populace, Akbar Mirzā eventually preferred to resign. In November 1917, the war caused widespread famine conditions and bread riots (Haig to Legation, no. 88, 11 May 1917; decypher 98, 21 May 1917, FO 248/1189; idem, decypher, no. 208, 1 November 1917, FO 248/1189)

The evolving revolution in Russia and the fear of a Bolshevik threat was a nightmare vision for Ẓell-al-Solṭān, while the belief that Russia’s new revolutionary government would cease political interference in Persia was cause for renewed Baḵtiāri agitation to oust Ẓell-al-Solṭān and his kin (Haig to Legation, Decypher no. 208, 1 November 1917, 24 April 1917, FO 248/1189). German presence and Pan-Islamic, pro-Turkish propaganda since 1914 led to a growing British opportunism. The war and the revolution in Russia again shifted the parameters of Great Power politics in Isfahan, affording Britain an excuse for even greater imperial interference.

The coup d’état of 1921 and the new military regime’s takeover was heavily resisted by the radical clerical circles around Āqā Nur-Allāh, who feared reprisals as well as the loss of their influence and relative local autonomy. For the next six years, the latter engaged in a tenacious resistance against Reżā Khan, the military leader of the coup and future Reżā Shah, while suspicions about unabated German influence prompted British pressure to strengthen Sardār Ašjaʿ’s position (Decypher no. 152, 10 August 1921, FO248/1329; Wezārat-e farhang wa eršād-e eslāmi; Morsalvand, ed.; Scheikh-ol-Islami; Cronin, passim; Bayāt, passim).

In March 1921 a large group of clerics around Āqā Nur-Allāh, including Dawlatābādi, Ṣadr-al-Eslām, Ḥāji Sayyed Jawād, Shaikh Ḥabib-Allāh, Ḥāji Āqā Mo-ḥammad Kalbāsi, and Šokr-Allāh Khan Lombāni took bast at the shrine of Šāh Reżā in Qomeša, joined by Sardār Eqbāl and other Baḵtiāri chiefs, who, facing the new regime’s rigid centralization and westernization, now found a common ground. Plans were made to cooperate with the opposition in Shiraz against Reza Shah’s new regime (Isfahan News, no. 13, ending 27 March 1921, FO 248/1329).

The various Baḵtiāri groups and lesser khans, who for a decade had resented the disregard and high-handed demeanor by the great khans, reacted more favorably towards the new regime. Most government offices such as the kārgozāri (filling diverse bureaucratic functions), the police, the treasury, and the gendarmerie showed loyalty to the Qajar king and reacted favorably to Reza Shah’s takeover, while the democrats, radicals, republicans, and the circles headed by Āqā Nur-Allāh opposed the new government’s scheme, deriding Sayyed Żiāʾ-al-Din’s new program. While skeptical about assurances of reform, most merchants and the general population responded with reservations, waiting to see the results of the new ministers’ promises (Isfahan News, no. 8, for the week ending 20 February 1921, no. 13, for the week ending 27 March 1921, FO 248/1329).

SOURCES

The historiographical traditions of writing on 19th-century Isfahan, profoundly intertwined with European texts and descriptions, have been crucial in their influence on the popular image as well as on scholarly approaches to Qajar Isfahan. The extensive travel literature of the 19th century was imbued with nostalgia for the old Safavid grandeur and commonly described the city with the premise of Qajar depravity and decline. This influenced 19th-century histories and chronicles of Europeans as well as Persians, and on it hinged the conception and understanding, and misconception, of 19th-century Isfahan.

Traditions of writing on Qajar Isfahan contain the dimension of a chronological continuity (i.e., the linear evolution of accounts since the 16th century and earlier) as well as the context of space, culture, and attitude of the 19th century, heavily influenced by European viewpoints. Both dimensions compound the indelible comparative element of Isfahan as Safavid capital, and most ignore the city’s evolution in the 18th century.

The rising political interest in Persia of England, France, and Russia was paralleled by the intensive reprinting and republishing of early geographies, travel and country descriptions in the 19th century by previous generations of writers such as Kaempfer (in Isfahan in 1684-85), de la Valle (there in 1619), Herbert (there in 1628), Chardin (there in the 1660s-70s), Fryer (there in 1677), Olearius, Krusinski, and numerous others. Following the themes and constructing their descriptions of Isfahan on these works, 19th-century narratives perpetuated the perspectives and orientation of these earlier works.

Although almost every traveler to Qajar Iran makes some mention of Isfahan, 19th-century accounts are highly stereotypical, and information on the city’s form as well as its contemporary internal urban and social structure remains elusive despite its prominence. Travel publications as well as unofficial diplomatic and political reports frequently summarized Isfahan in a few paragraphs with reference to the comprehensive descriptions of preceding writers, especially that of Chardin. Narratives as well as pictorial representations were often anachronistically nostalgic or inordinately negative, and most writers contentedly relied on the already published stereotypes. Approaching Isfahan with this kind of historicism, 19th-century travel books, magazines, etc. portrayed a sentimental picture of Safavid magnificence and empire, which reinforced the sense of cultural decay and political decline of Qajar Isfahan. This is significant, as the high popularity and wide distribution of travel books had a lasting influence on later European as well as Iranian perceptions and historiography on Isfahan.

The leading accounts of early Qajar Isfahan were produced by the French and British political missions, namely John Malcolm, J. MacDonald Kinneir, William Ouseley, Alfred Comte de Gardane, and Guillaume Antoine Olivier. These descriptions rely extensively on 17th and 18th-century accounts, and most contain positive comments on the governor, Mirzā Ḥosayn Khan, but also emphasize the contrast between the city’s imagined Safavid grandeur and its contemporary reality. The singularly most influential publication of the late 19th century was George Curzon’s two-volume description of 1892; it included one of the most comprehensive 19th-century accounts on Isfahan, albeit heavily subjective and with a distinct air of imperial condescension. Curzon harbored unconcealed disdain for the Qajars and a personal dislike of Ẓell-al-Solṭān. The wide distribution of his account lastingly reinforced the topos of Isfahan’s 19th-century decay and profoundly influenced both European’s and Persian’s image of Qajar Isfahan (e.g., Moḥammad-Mahdi Eṣfahāni, pp. 135-36, 178-79).

The most important Persian account of Isfahan is Shaikh Jāberi Anṣāri’s Tāriḵ-e Eṣfahān, a chronology covering medieval times (based on the Arab geographies) to the 1940s, including topographic and architectural history as well as international news. This book is based on the author’s earlier work, Āgahi-ye šahān az kār-e jahān, and 19th-century histories, including Neṣāf-e jahān fi taʿrif al-Eṣfahān, written by Moḥammad-Mahdi Arbāb Eṣfahāni, one of Isfahan’s wealthy merchants, and it is strongly influenced by the format of European accounts. Mir Sayyed ʿAli Janāb’s al-Eṣfahān as well as Jāberi’s two works, include translated excerpts of Chardin’s account. The monograph of Mirzā Ḥosayn Taḥwildār was written in 1294/1877 upon the order of some state’s dignitaries (ba-mawjeb-e ḥokm-e omanāye divān-e dawlat), with a heavy focus on market forces and geographical questions, while Afżal-al-Molk provides only a general travel account, and ʿAli Jawāher-Kalām gives descriptions of the canals branching off the Zāyandarud. Louis Ferrières-Sauveboeuf and John Perry provide some information, which is not of primary significance for Isfahan under the Qajars.

ix. The Pahlavi Period and the Post-Revolution Era

The Pahlavi period saw the development of a modern nation-state, rapid urbanization and population growth, establishment of a modern system of national education, and a stronger state-directed economic policy. These all had some repercussions in the province of Isfahan, but most of all in the city itself.

The Reza Shah period, 1925-41. This period, as pertains to Isfahan, consists of two distinct phases: the consolidation of central authority in the 1920s, and social and economic development in the 1930s. In the process of consolidating his power in Isfahan, Reza Shah managed to constrain two powerful social groups: the Shiʿite clergy and the Baḵtiāri tribesmen; in both cases he adopted the same tactics: an initial stage of compromise and then, when the central authority had established its control, the adoption of much harsher measures.

It was hardly surprising that the local clergy, who had played a leading role in the socio-political life of Isfahan in the decades prior to the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty (Najafi, passim; Owrang; Anṣāri, pp. 41-51), were vociferously opposed to the social reforms introduced by Reza Shah in the early part of his reign. The conscription law of 1925 resulted in a general strike in the bazaar of Isfahan, and dozens of mullahs led by Ḥājji Āqā Nur-Allāh Fešāraki, Āqā Najafi, and Sayyed-al-ʿErāqayn set out for Qom to express their protest (December 1927). The dispute was finally settled by the government’s concession of a short-term draft relief for the mullahs (Najafi, p. 233; M. Hedāyat, p. 479; Makki, 1980, p. 767; Sayfpur, pp. 640-45). Likewise, the implementation of the uniform dress code from 1928 meant deculturation in a city where not only the clergy but also the members of some guilds wore the turban and the gown, thus giving Isfahan a more palpable aura of religiosity than other Persian urban centers. Another vexatious measure, the 1936 law that prohibited women from wearing the veil, meant that many women avoided appearing in public until they were at liberty to use the veil again after the end of Reza Shah’s reign. In the latter years of Reza Shah the reform-minded residents of Isfahan would even dare organize annual carnivals to compensate for the excessive mourning rites of Moḥarram that had been banned nationwide (Sayfpur, pp. 995-97). The chief advocates for the reform policies of the central government were local newspapers such as Ṣedā-ye Eṣfahān, Aḵgar, Mokrem, and Ḡorreš (Sayfpur, p. 651). The secularization of the judiciary system and the legal and registry offices (maḥżars), which documented transactions, contracts, marriages, and divorces (see DAFTAR-E ASNĀD-E RASMI), deprived the clergy of part of its financial revenue. The traditional madrasa students lost their income from established religious endowments when the revenue from these began to be officially earmarked by the state for restoring historical monuments (Sayfpur, pp. 631-52). To undermine further the influential role of the leading madrasas such as Nimāvard and Kāsagarān, in 1927 a new high school of religious sciences (Madrasa-ye ʿolum-e maʿqul o manqul) was established in the Safavid madrasa of Mādar-e Šāh (the Queen Mother; Nurṣādeqi, p. 144). Notwithstanding these policies, Maurice Pernot, in his vivid evocation of the town not long after Reza Shah’s accession, recalls the high degree of appreciation among the townspeople towards Reza Shah’s policies, particularly in regards to the establishment of security, while the residents of the capital held a more critical view of the new regime (Pernot, 1927a, pp. 109-11; idem, 1927b).

Another major challenge was the Baḵtiāri tribe (q.v.), whose summer pastures were not far from the city to the west and south, and whose chieftains had ruled Isfahan and adjoining provinces since the Constitutional Revolution (Gehrke, 1961). Reza Shah began to end their supremacy by appointing his own officials and officers to run the administration of the city and the province. The tribe reacted in the spring of 1929, when the Baḵtiāri khans launched an assault on Isfahan by bringing 30,000 armed tribesmen to Najafābād, 30 miles west of the city, causing many frightened residents to leave Isfahan. Peace was restored only when two senior khans, Ṣamṣām-al-Salṭana and Sardār Asʿad, were sent from Tehran to mediate. They invited all the khans to the city and granted them an amnesty from the shah. A week later Major General Moḥammad Šāhbaḵti arrived in Isfahan to crush those warlords who had not surrendered. His troops repelled the Baḵtiāris from the city hinterland and took control of their strongholds in Tang-e Bidegān and Qalʿa Safid by mid-July (Sayfpur, pp. 660-67; Anṣāri, p. 76; Gehrke).

Having suppressed the rebellion, the state continued its policy of detribalization, as the tribal system and way of life were considered incompatible with modernization and progress. The enforced sedentarization was pursued through the posting of troops in the migration routes to prevent access. Moreover, the shah launched another series of attacks on the Baḵtiāris, beginning with imprisonment in 1933 of his war minister Sardār Asʿad, resulting in his death. Many other Baḵtiāri khans were detained, exiled, and executed in the remaining years of Reza Shah’s reign (Sayfpur, pp. 784-94). Their significance in the affairs of Isfahan was further curtailed when the shah bartered the numerous villages owned by the tribal chiefs with those in Kāšān, Ḵᵛār, Varāmin, and Azerbaijan, far from the Baḵtiāri territory. In addition, the shah himself bought, for a fraction of its real value, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (q.v.) shares that the Baḵtiāri khans had been awarded as compensation for the conversion of their pastureland to oil fields as well as for their undertaking to maintain the security of the petroleum installations. The abolition of the titles ilḵāni and ilbegi in 1933, the partition of the Baḵtiāri territory between the provinces of Isfahan and Ḵuzestān in 1936, and the refusal to give the tribe a voice in the parliament from the eighth session of the Majles onwards, were further measures taken by the government to destabilize the tribe. These policies led to the devastation of the tribal confederacy, as indicated by the loss of their livestock, the main source of meat and dairy products of Isfahan during the rule of Reza Shah. However, the sedentarization project was never fully realized, as the migrating Baḵtiāri clans would bribe the gendarmes in return for crossing to their seasonal quarters (Sayfpur, pp. 656, 873). The nomadic way of life returned after the shah’s abdication.

The 1930s witnessed major progress in bureaucratic reforms and urban development in Isfahan. As the former municipal order established by the Qajar prince-governor Ẓell-al-Solṭān had virtually vanished by the time of Reza Shah, new provincial and municipal administration, law enforcement, and financial, judicial, and educational systems were created (Anṣāri, pp. 37-39, 389-92; Sayfpur, pp. 958-63). The successive governors appointed by the shah, namely Noṣrat-al-Molk, Solaymān Meykada, Amir Eqtedār, Mošār-al-Dawla Dabir Aʿẓam, Faṭan-al-Molk Jalāli, Reżā Afšār, Ṣur-Esrāfil, Amir-Noṣrat Eskandari, and ʿEzz-al-Mamālek Ardalān, were on the whole men of resolution and accomplishment and were instrumental in encouraging the merchants to invest in textile industries and fund philanthropic institutions such as the branch of the league of the Red Lion and Sun (the Persian equivalent of the Red Cross) which supported an orphanage housing 500 children (ibid, pp. 801, 841-45, 962; Nurṣā-deqi, p. 139). As the two existing hospitals (founded by the British Missionary Society and by Amin-al-Tojjār, a leading merchant) proved inadequate given the rising demand, the public hospital Ḵᵛoršid was established (Sayfpur, p. 960). Moreover, the artistic and literary communities of the town, as well as the religious minorities, hitherto isolated and alienated, were welcomed to participate in the social and cultural affairs of the city (ibid, p. 705).

The modern urban planning carried out in this period changed the old layout of the city. The introduction of mechanized transport required wide and straight thoroughfares, the construction of which seems unthinkable, in retrospect, without the uncontested authority of Reza Shah, for these modern arteries invaded the organic texture of the old town by uncompromisingly cutting through the mud structures, markets, and narrow, twisting alleys. The Safavid avenue of Čahārbāḡ (q.v.) was further extended northward and remodeled to become the principal thoroughfare of the town, causing a profound shift of economic activity from the main and local bazaars (cf. Sayfpur, pp. 840, 958). New administrative buildings introduced a metropolitan look to the city: the architecture of the Isfahan branch of the National Bank stands out to this day in sharp contrast to the poorer styles of later periods. Equally impressive in its architecture was the new industrial suburb built with German assistance south of the Zāyandarud. Then, due attention was paid to rehabilitation of historical monuments, notably those of the Meydān-e Naqš-e Jahān (Royal Square) that had suffered from decades of neglect (Sykes; Honarfar, pp. 722, 849).

The crowning achievement of this period was industrialization, and most notably the expansion of the textile industry, which grew so successfully that Isfahan became known as the Manchester of Persia. By 1941 there were at least ten large textile mills employing some 11,000 workers, a sizeable proportion in a city of 210,000 inhabitants. Many wage earners worked in modern factories making paper, matches, cigarettes, and boots, a hosiery, an electric plant, and a grain silo (Floor, p. 59). To this new blue-collar class one may add an equally sizeable white-collar group (about 10,000, according to ʿAbedi, p. 49) of administrators, educators, and healthcare employees, as well as law enforcement agents and armed forces. Thus, within the span of one generation, a whole new working and middle class emerged, financially secure with fixed wages, and new economic needs and social preferences. The large-scale units replacing small workshops and their impersonal bureaucracy brought to an end the erstwhile face-to-face relationship, the patriarchal foundation of the family was undermined, and old norms such as polygamy were rendered socially unacceptable (Anṣāri, pp. 184-87). The streets of Isfahan began to witness rush hours filled with bicycles thrice a day, shortly before and after the simultaneous sound of a dozen factory sirens announcing the change of shift—the fixed rhythm Isfahan followed for most of the twentieth century.

The 1941-53 period. Following the occupation of Persia by the Allied forces in September 1941 and the forced abdication of Reza Shah, Isfahan became an arena of struggle between different local powers. Nomadic and clerical influence resurfaced and the Qajar Prince Akbar Mirzā Masʿud Ṣārem-al-Dawla, heir to Ẓell-al-Solṭān, reappeared as the city’s elder statesman. While Isfahan was in the sphere of influence of the British who controlled the southern half of the country, the pro-Soviet Tudeh (Tuda) party entrenched itself in the city, leading the labor movement of 1941-47, which became a political tradition of the city in the subsequent decades.

Outside the city, it did not take long for the Baḵtiāris to reassert their power in their tribal stronghold. Mortażāqoli Khan, the only surviving major chieftain, proclaimed himself patriarch of his Hajji Ilḵāni branch (bastagān) and forced the rival Ilḵāni branch to accept his authority. By 1943 he had reclaimed his expropriated estates and persuaded the military and the gendarmerie to withdraw from the Baḵtiāri territories, extending from Dezful in the west to Čahārmaḥāl in the east, and from Rāmhormoz in the south to Faridan (Fereydan) in the north. Eventually, the governorate of Čahārmaḥāl and Baḵtiāri separated from Isfahan province. Another conciliatory measure towards the khans was the restitution of their properties in 1945. Moreover, Mohammad-Reza Shah’s marriage in February 1951 to Soraya Esfandiāri, daughter of an Ilḵāni chief residing in Isfahan, was considered a sign of favor to the Baḵtiāris (Abrahamian, p. 196; Sayfpur, pp. 658, 873-76).

The rise of the Tudeh party. Having become a major industrial city, Isfahan proved a fertile ground for the Tudeh party, which emerged in the town immediately after Reza Shah’s downfall and quickly recruited members from a wide cross-section of the urban society: factory workers, bazaar wage earners, intellectuals, modern middle class, and the religious minorities (Abrahamian, pp. 330-31). Very soon the Tudeh party was able to organize mass demonstrations and street parades on May Day, in which tens of thousands took part. Among its many newspapers in Isfahan was Āhangar, edited by Mortażā Rāvandi (idem, p. 304). The most notable success of the Tudeh party was in the labor movement, a detailed study of which, based on the British Foreign Office documents, is provided by Ervand Abrahamian (pp. 354 ff.). Assisted by the survivors of the early labor movement, the Tudeh party began to unionize some 10,500 workers of nine large textile factories of the town; it proved successful largely because of the hardship experienced by the workers as a result of the economic impact of high inflation in the early 1940s. The Union of Isfahan Workers (Etteḥādiya-ye kārgarān-e Eṣfahān), formed in August 1942, conducted two strikes that won an unprecedented settlement: not only were the wage demands met but it also gave factory workers an 8-hour workday, monthly medical checkups, food subsidies, two suits per year, and one month’s bonus taken from company profits, as well as a ban on child labor. Another major strike was won in July 1943, reconfirming the previous achievements (cf. Sykes, pp. 311-14).

The presence of the Tudeh party and the tribes brought together the rest of the competing forces which were loosely organized under the banner of the royalist National Union party (Ḥezb-e waḥdat-e melli) and Sayyed Żiāʾ’s Fatherland party (Ḥezb-e erāda-ye melli). The power distribution was reflected in the electorate’s choice of the three Majles members from Isfahan: Taqi Fadākār, the only one of the eight Tudeh members of the 14th parliamentary session who was not from the Soviet-backed north; Sayyed Ḥāšem-al-Din Dawlatābādi, son of a prominent religious leader, supported by the elders of the guilds and bazaar merchants (especially those who had acquired part of the land confiscated from the Baḵtiāri khans during Reza Shah’s reign) and the National Union party; and Ḥaydar-ʿAli Emāmi, a wealthy merchant and industrialist, backed by prince Akbar Masʿud and the Fatherland party. Additionally, Faraj-Allāh Meṣbāḥ Sayfpur Fāṭemi, with his family newspaper Bāḵtar, won the Najafābād seat with the help of the Baḵtiāris; and the elections of Šahr-e kord and Dezful were won, respectively, by Aḥmadqoli Khan, the son of Mortażāqoli Khan Baḵtiāri, and his cousin Moḥammad-Taqi Khan Asʿad, who had spent a decade in prison (Abrahamian, p. 195; Anṣāri, pp. 324-28).

The power struggle in Isfahan reached its zenith in 1944-46, mostly in reaction to the Tudeh party, which not only kept radicalizing the labor movement but also made a concerted drive into the countryside by organizing the peasants against their landlords. The latter and the mill-owners, who had been retreating in the face of demands, initiated a counter offensive by helping the Fatherland party to create the Union of Peasants and Workers. They also sparked off a major crisis in April 1944 by abruptly locking out workers from factories and mill granaries, thereby depriving them of their source of income; this was followed by a week-long battle in the city, characterized as a “worker’s revolt” by the national media. It had major consequences in local and national politics. Qašqāʾis sent contingents to help put down the revolt and formed an alliance with the Baḵtiāri and Ḵamsa tribal chiefs and the government against the Tudeh party (Abrahamian, p. 206). After a short period of suppression, however, the Tudeh party recovered when Aḥmad Qawām (Qawām-al-Salṭana) became prime minister in 1946. In the same year the Union of Isfahan Workers reached its peak, claiming to have 40,000 members (ibid, p. 352). It led a general strike in April and brought out as many as 40,000 supporters into the streets on May Day. By August, according to the report of the British consul, the party controlled much of the local administration and was “ready to seize power in Isfahan as completely as the Democrats had done in Tabriz” (apud Abrahamian, p. 359). Nevertheless, the reoccupation of the northern provinces, the tribal revolts in the south, and Qawām’s apparent swing to the right, began a period of intermittent repression for the Tudeh party. In Isfahan, armed tribesmen looted party headquarters and the unionists were drafted into the army (Abrahamian, pp. 305, 366).

Another politically eventful period for Isfahan occurred during the nationalization of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, reflected in the appearance in the city of 70 to 80 periodicals, mostly politically charged newspapers, from 1950 to 1953 (Ābedi, pp. 234-38; Anṣāri, pp. 341-45). The Tudeh party reemerged as a major political force under the guise of the Coalition of Worker’s Syndicates, which organized a series of strikes in Isfahan in conjunction with the strike of refinery workers in Ḵuzestān (Abrahamian, pp. 368-69). The new development in this period was the emergence of the National Front that filled the gap between the traditional royalists in the far right and the Tudeh party in the far left. Formed around the charismatic personality of Moḥammad Moṣaddeq, the Front gained popularity among the modern middle-class, a segment of the intelligentsia and, more particularly, the middle layer bāzāris of Isfahan who not only foresaw economic interests therein but also a political voice they had previously lacked. The popularity of the National Front in Isfahan is reflected in the drastic repercussion the resignation of the prime minister Moṣaddeq in July 1952 had in the city. During 17-21 July the city witnessed the closure of the bazaar, widespread street demonstrations, and a general strike in the factories; according to a report by the chief of police, one thousand men crammed into the Telegraph Office in a show of support for Moṣaddeq (Torkamān, p. 199; Makki, 1987, pp. 254-59). In the course of the next year, as the stalemate in the power struggle dragged on and economic hardship caused by the country’s inability to market its oil worsened, many of Moṣaddeq’s former supporters lost their enthusiasm. Finally, on 19 August 1953, upon the departure of the shah, the National Front and the Tudeh party organized a large demonstration in Isfahan and the royal statue was brought down in the main square; the turmoil was brought to an end three days later, without any reported resistance.

The period 1953-78. The political arena remained largely calm in these years. Parliamentary elections were generally rigged and hence a mere formality, and the municipal and provincial administration were appointed by the central government, as in the rest of the country. Baḵtiāris retreated for good to their tribal territories and were gradually absorbed into the expanding industries. The major political event of the period was the Land Reform Program, one of the six reform measures of the White Revolution proposed by the shah and backed by a referendum conducted on 26 June 1963. It led to violent protests by a front composed of the ulema, bazaar merchants (bāzāris), and landowners at major urban centers. On 5 June urban riots broke out in Shiraz, Tehran, Qom, Mashad, Isfahan, and Kāšān to protest against the reforms; they were suppressed on the same day (Ruḥāni, pp. 492-94, 528, 567, 576).

This was the longest period of prosperity marked by social and economic progress. The national economic boom of 1953-59 resulted in the expansion of Isfahan’s textile industry and other privately sponsored factories manufacturing consumer goods for local and national markets. But a profound transformation of production systems and social relationships came with the White Revolution and the two successful economic plans in the period 1963-73, when Isfahan emerged as a major industrial center of the country with a large steel mill, cement and sugar factories, an oil refinery and defense and petrochemical industries. The construction of the Shah Abbas dam on the Zāyandarud and the extension of the national railroad network into the province had a strong impact on its economy (see ISFAHAN xiv.). As these state-sponsored projects brought to Isfahan a large amount of development funds in addition to its usual budget, the city could absorb immigrant workers from all over the country. In the 1970s, Soviet and American employees also had a notable presence in the city, estimated at more than 10,000 families (Anṣāri, p. 102).

In this period Isfahan saw rapid population growth and urbanization, and the expansion of communication, transportation, and education induced radical changes in the social and economic conditions of the city. The urban infrastructure was bolstered by the construction of pipeline water supply and sewage systems in the 1960s, and the province was connected to the national gas network in the ensuing decade. New bridges spanned over the Zāyandarud and its branches and canals were retrofitted to modern needs. The city was outfitted with recreational clubs, theaters, and sport stadiums. Construction activities expanded to what formerly were gardens and farmland encompassing the city, and middle-class neighborhoods flourished on the banks of Zāyandarud; two-story modern houses became a norm, providing a contrast to the inward-oriented older residences (Gulik). Julfa, once a separate town, was now joined legally and physically to the town, as were several surrounding villages like the medieval Jey on the east. Satellite towns such as Šāhinšahr, Malekšahr, and Ḵāna-ye Eṣfahān, with planned geometric layouts, were constructed on the north, and the steel-makers’ town of Āryāšahr was connected to the city via a broad freeway. Parallel with industrialization, slums also began to grow around the city, with little urban design or facilities.

The old neighborhoods, on the other hand, had to deal with a clash of the old and the new, where the new had not evolved from the old. The city’s master plan attempted in its first five-year program to adapt the old city to the needs of modern citizenry and to keep it alive by placing it inside the future expansion (Shirazi). But these measures could not prevent older quarters such as Jubāra, Dardašt, Šahšahān, Ṭowqči, and Bidābād, with tightly-packed mud-brick houses, to turn into overcrowded shantytowns (cf. Anṣāri, p. 439, Schafaghi, 1979), although the main bazaar survived as a shopping center for cheaper commodities, many of whose items were made on the spot (Anṣāri, p. 307). Moreover, the strictly enforced construction codes, such as those restricting building heights in central Isfahan to four stories, minimized interference with the architectural heritage landscape and skyline. Meanwhile, the extensive restoration of the city’s historical monuments continued with the assistance of Maxime Siroux and André Godard (q.v.), and it led to the emergence of a new generation of tile makers, miniature painters, and calligraphers, among other artists (cf. Borjian et al.) As the city grew into a center of tourism, traditional handicrafts flourished once again. They made Isfahan one of the focal points of the Iranian tourist industry from the late 1960s until the Islamic Revolution of 1977-79.

On the whole, Isfahan seemed to have been well equipped with a modern urban infrastructure and the institutions of modern times. But the city was really a developed island surrounded by backward environs, and those who actually benefited from the socio-economic growth were limited to the privileged social groups who did not make up the majority of the residents.

THE POST-REVOLUTION ERA

The 1977-79 Revolution. Isfahan played an important role in the Islamic Revolution. It actively joined the Revolution on 4 August (14 Mordād) 1978, commemorating the fortieth day of mourning for the martyrs of Tabriz. Riots broke out, notably in the older quarters of the city and the rural periphery, where the inhabitants were known for their religious zeal. In the following days, such places as liquor stores, banks, hotels, and cinemas were targeted. As a result of the gravity of the threat, military rule was announced on 8 August, setting a precedence that was followed in other cities. The autumn of the same year saw widespread sabotage and terror. Endemic work stoppages culminated with a strike by thousands of personnel of the steel mill (8 October). The devoutly religious groups that usually organized Moḥarram processions now marshaled political demonstrations. In the winter of 1978-79 Isfahan and other major towns of the province followed the revolutionary course in the country by mobilizing sporadic urban riots, demonstrations, and strikes (ʿĀqeli, I, p. 352, passim).

As the regime began to disintegrate in the course of the upheavals, power passed gradually into the hands of the local ad hoc “revolutionary committees,” the first of which was set up by Ayatollah Ḥosayn Ḵādemi, a longtime opponent of the shah who took a moderate position on social issues, and was approved of by the bāzāris and the traditional middle class (cf. Abrahamian, pp. 526 ff.). But he soon found a rival in another leading mullah, Jalāl-al-Din Ṭāheri, who showed his loyalty to the Islamic Revolution and his leadership skills in promoting mass mobilizations both during the Revolution, and later during the war with Iraq, drawing support of young men from the slums and the countryside (cf. Anṣāri, pp. 78, 317). Although he was eventually appointed to lead the Friday congregational prayers (emām-e jomʿa; q.v.) in Isfahan, he could never subdue his rivals entirely, and, even after the death of Ayatollah Ḵādemi, polycentrism continued to be the norm in Isfahan. Commensurate with the liberal tendencies of the mainstream townspeople, reflected in successive parliamentary elections, Ṭāheri gradually shifted, over a span of two decades, from his position as a faithful revolutionary with leftist-fundamentalist tendencies to an advocate of liberalism and tolerance. His long tenure came to an end in 2002 with a passionate letter of resignation (published in the newspaper Nowruz, 8 July 2002).

As with other cities in Persia, Isfahan experienced a post-revolutionary decade of hardship and regression. As a part of the proscribed “cultural revolution” (enqelāb-e farhangi), universities were closed down for three years, many educators and public employees were dismissed, and professional associations came under attack. Intellectual and recreational life suffered and the number of cinemas, a dozen before the revolution, was halved. Many modern businesses were confiscated; department stores and supermarkets were turned into warehouses, and the traditional small market system emerged once again. The disappearance of foreign tourism resulted in the decline of indigenous arts and crafts.

During the Iran-Iraq War (see IRAQ vii.), Isfahan suffered from recurring bombardments; and a niche at the Friday Mosque dating from the Saljuq era was destroyed in one of the Iraqi bombardments. The war participation rate from Isfahan was exceptionally high, reflected in countless streets and alleys bearing the names of war martyrs. A whole class of family members of martyrs emerged, and they were granted special economic and educational privileges by the state. Isfahan also had its share of war refugees from Ḵuzestān, reported to be in the region of 160,000 in the province in 1982 (Anṣāri, p. 63). The influx of villagers into the town was quantitatively unprecedented, many replacing the middle-class and professional families who either moved to the capital or emigrated abroad (ibid, pp. 60, 75). All in all, an unsophisticated air of provincialism replaced the town’s urbane charm.

The most remarkable trait in Isfahan during the last quarter century has been its physical expansion and overpopulation. New satellite towns have been added to the south and north, interconnected with a beltway and a Metro line (under construction) longitudinally traversing the city and its satellites. The widening and extension of older streets and alleys are not sufficient to meet with the ever-growing traffic volume, which is also responsible for considerable air pollution. A striking facet has been the extension of green zones and parks along the Zāyandarud and elsewhere, e.g. the park surrounding the Safavid pavilion-palace Hašt Behešt, the private estate of a Qajar prince before the revolution. Not only horizontal expansion but also vertical growth has been used as a measure to meet the growing demand for housing created by the sudden increase in childbirth immediately after the Revolution. The real estate and construction industry has become extremely profitable, benefiting from cheap construction labor from Afghanistan, and former family dwellings are being systematically replaced by multi-story apartment buildings (cf. Gozāreš, 2002, pp. 390-95).

In this regard, the municipal policies are characterized by preservationists as being excessively utilitarian and detrimental to the historical morphology of the city. A major concern is systematic violation of construction codes, such as building of a high-raised shopping center near the Royal Square (renamed Imam Square). Another recent dilemma was the sale of thousands of acres of gardens surrounding textile factories south of the river to real-estate developers; the battle was finally lost by those who tried to save not only an attractive part of the town but what was perceived as monuments of the glorious age of the industrialization of the country (for the arguments, see the local civil engineering quarterly Dāneš-nemā, nos. 83-85, 2000-2001). Moreover, for the same social reasons, the implementation of development plans concerning the extension of the street network within the old quarters has proved more difficult than ever before; for instance, the age-old dispute over a Safavid bathhouse near the Royal Square was finally brought to an end in 1995 when the concerned archeologists found it razed to the ground overnight by the municipality. Even the hallowed old cemetery, Taḵt-e pulād, has seen itself intersected by streets. The social confrontation between preservationist intellectuals and pragmatist planners and builders will likely recur in the city for decades to come.

The development of the countryside has been substantial. Soon after the revolution, men of the Construction Corps (Jehād-e sāzandagi) arrived in almost all villages of the province and began to build roads, bridges, schools, and houses, brought electricity and telephone lines to villages and set up a network of producer-and-consumer cooperatives. Thus, rural conditions have changed during the Islamic Republic period beyond recognition. Even the identity of many villages has been subject to change by coining many new Islamic toponyms, arbitrarily imposed on the older “pagan” names to a confusing degree (Mehr-yār, passim; Borjian, 2005).

x. Monuments

In the course of centuries of urbanization, Isfahan has gained a large number of significant monuments. According to the French traveler Jean Chardin, in the late 17th century Isfahan housed some 162 mosques, 48 theological colleges (madrasa), 1,802 caravansaries, and 273 bathhouses (see ḤAMMĀM; see Chardin, VII, pp. 343-53, 454-57, 363-67, 463, 321-22, 394; VIII, p. 134; XIX, pp. 198-200). Chardin’s numbers reflect the extraordinary expansion of the city begun in 1590-91, when Shah ʿAbbās I the Great (q.v.; r. 1587-1629) embarked on the reconstruction of medieval Isfahan in anticipation of its designation in 1598 as the capital of the Safavid Empire (1501-1722; see vii, above; see also McChesney, pp. 114-15). The magnificent architecture of Isfahan soon gained the city the honorific title of “Isfahan, half the world” (Eṣfahān, neṣf-e jahān; Eskandar Beg, p. 544), and a number of Isfahan’s monuments have been designated by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. Unfortunately, only some of this rich architectural heritage has withstood the test of time and survived into the present. This entry will be divided into the following sections:

xi. School of Painting and Calligraphy

The “Isfahan” school of painting and calligraphy generally refers to works of art associated with the city of Isfahan from about 1597-98, when the city was chosen as the Safavid capital, until the Afghan invasion of 1722. The term was originally coined in the late 1950s as part of an effort to identify and classify Persian painting of the first half of the 17th century, especially the works of Reżā ʿAbbāsi and his followers (Robinson, pp. 153-61). In the second half of the 17th century, many Isfahani artists departed from Reżā ʿAbbāsi’s style of painting and began experimenting with Europeanized pictorial concepts, such as modeling and shading. Their distinct work can be described as the second phase of the “Isfahan” school of painting.

One of the most distinguishing features of 17th-century Isfahani style is its format, which, in turn, encouraged the development of new techniques and subject matter. Artists began to focus increasingly on individual drawings and paintings, most of which no longer related to a specific text as in the case of manuscript paintings (PLATE I). Many were assembled in albums (moraqqaʿ), together with calligraphic examples (qeṭʿa). Although such compositions date back to the late 15th-century, they became a viable alternative to manuscript illustrations only after the 17th century.

PLATE I. Barefoot youth, signed by Reżā ʿAbbāsi (ca. 1565-1635), probably Isfahan, ca. 1600, opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper. Courtesy of Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Lent by the Art and History Trust, LTS1995.2.78.View full image in a new tab

Without the stricture of the written text, artists were now able to experiment more freely with different techniques, in particular line drawing. Using both the pen and the brush, they combined sweeping, undulating lines with short, staccato-like strokes, highlighted with washes of color. Their works ranged from spontaneously conceived sketches to meticulously executed compositions and gave a new autonomy to the art of drawing (PLATE II). Like folios of calligraphy, these images were valued as much for their technical virtuosity as for their subject matter.

PLATE II. The pilgrim of Mashad by Reżā ʿAbbāsi (act. 1580s-1635), Mashad, dated 1589, ink on paper. Courtesy of Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Purchase F1953.12. Available at www.asia.si.edu.View full image in a new tab

The repertoire of themes largely comprised idealized and elegantly dressed men and women, as well as elderly male figures in a contemplative mood. The figures are often shown in languid poses with certain props, such as wine bottles, cups, books, or writing materials, which help to identify them as the cupbearer, the scribe, the learned sheikh, and recall well-known poetic conceits. The portrayal of certain well-established types, already familiar from poetry, suggests that association with literary tradition was not completely severed but was now expressed in a different pictorial manner (Babaie, 2001). At the same time, the new format encouraged the development of naturalistic portraiture, and artists began to choose ordinary men and women as their subjects.

Notwithstanding the growing popularity of line drawing, Safavid artists of the 17th century did not abandon the creation of lavish manuscript illustrations and independent figural paintings. The palette is notable for its bright and saturated color scheme, often combining half tones such as purple, orange, and earth colors, lending the compositions a new visual boldness. Many 17th-century works were frequently signed and dated, suggesting the painters’ growing sense of independence and self-awareness. An important factor contributing to this development was a shift in the system of patronage. Many Isfahani artists no longer relied on court patronage alone but created works for members of the affluent middle classes, who actively collected the less costly single-page drawings and paintings.

The most celebrated painter associated with the Isfahan school is Reżā ʿAbbāsi, also known as Āqā Reżā (fl. ca. 1565-1635), who worked intermittently at the court of Shah ʿAbbās I throughout his career. Known for his remarkable use of line and harmonious color schemes, his style became synonymous with Isfahan and Safavid artistic efflorescence during the first half of the 17th century (Canby, 1996a). His students and followers emulated his technique and compositions and often added his name to their work to enhance their importance and value.

Among Reżā ʿAbbāsi’s most accomplished followers was Afżal Ḥosayni (q.v.), also known as Afżal Tuni, whose compositions have been often erroneously attributed to the master. Moʿin Moṣawwer, active from 1040/1630 until the early 12th/late 17th century, is Reżā ʿAbbāsi’s most prolific and well-known student, who created numerous single-page figural compositions and contributed to several illustrated texts (Farhad, 1990). His style remained remarkably consistent throughout his long career, eschewing Western pictorial concepts that became increasingly popular among his contemporaries (PLATE III). Traditionally, artists, such as Moḥammad-Qāsem, Moḥammad-Yusof, and Moḥammad-ʿAli, all of whom worked between 1040-60/1630-50, have also been identified as representative of the “Isfahan” school, although they probably worked in other centers, such as Mashad. Nevertheless, their work was indebted to the style and subject matter that flourished in Isfahan in the early 17th century.

PLATE III. Couple, attributed to Moʿin Moṣawwer (act. ca. 1630s-90s), Iran, dated 1642, ink on paper. Courtesy of Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Purchase F1953.41. Available at www.asia.si.edu.View full image in a new tab

In the 1640s, a number of Isfahani painters turned to Indian art as new sources of inspiration. Mughal and Deccani paintings offered Safavid artists, such as Shaikh ʿAbbāsi (q.v.) and Bahrām Sofrakeš, new themes and pictorial conventions, which they adapted and integrated into their work. While Shaikh ʿAbbāsi continued to explore the potential of line drawing in a more “Indianized” style, Bahrām Sofrakeš’s naturalistic floral studies were clearly modeled after mid-17th-century Mughal painting (Soudavar, cat. no. 145).

For other artists, European works of art offered new themes and pictorial concepts. The large Christian Armenian community in New Julfa, a suburb of Isfahan, as well as numerous Italian, Flemish, and Dutch visitors to the Safavid court ensured the availability of Western paintings, drawings, prints, and decorative objects in Isfahan. The presence of several European painters further contributed to the development of a “Europeanized” mode of painting, best represented in the work Moḥammad-Zamān and ʿAliqoli Jobbadār (q.v.; see also Canby, 1996b). This pictorial idiom, which flourished during the reigns of Shah Solaymān (1077-105/1666-94) and Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn (1105-135/1694-722), marks a dramatic departure from the more traditional painting style of Reżā ʿAbbāsi and Moʿin Moṣawwer. Selectively adapting Western pictorial ideals, such as perspective, modeling and shading, Safavid artists developed an innovative, hybrid style that echoed the growing internationalism of the Safavid court towards the end of the 17th century (Plate IV).

PLATE IV. Majnun visited by his father. Signed by Moḥammad Zamān, Ašraf, 1676, opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper. Courtesy of Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Lent by The Art and History Collection, LTS1995.2.120.View full image in a new tab

Safavid Isfahan is also associated with the art of wall painting as is evident from the extant decoration of the Čehel Sotun and Hašt Behešt (qq.v.) palaces, as well as several Armenian private residences in New Julfa. The compositions depict reception scenes, idealized male and female figures, or iconic literary compositions, known from works on paper, but now adapted to the larger surfaces. Many of the lifesize figures are dressed in European fineries, further attesting to Persia’s growing political, diplomatic, and artistic contacts with the West. During the latter part of the 17th century, artists also experimented with oil painting, a technique that was introduced from Europe and became popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. These large-scale compositions, frequently created in pairs, depict idealized Armenian and Georgian couples, who must have played a prominent role in Isfahan’s economic and cultural life.

Shah ʿAbbās and his successors were avid patrons of calligraphy, and during the 17th century, scripts such as ṯolṯ and nastaʿliq (see CALLIGRAPHY) reached new levels of refinement and sophistication. The art of qeṭʿa flourished, and Isfahan’s many newly erected public monuments were adorned with bold inscription panels. ʿAli-Reżā ʿAbbāsi (q.v.), one of the leading calligraphers of the period, who was appointed head of Shah ʿAbbās I’s library in 1598, designed the monumental inscriptions of the Shaikh Loṭf-Allāh Mosque and the Masjed-e Šāh among others (Honarfar, pp. 401-2, 407-10, 428-29, 468). Written in large ṯolṯ, these inscriptions are notable for their densely stacked and complex designs that became a powerful visual symbol of later Safavid architecture. Although ʿAli-Reżā ʿAbbāsi also excelled in nastaʿliq, it was his rival Mir ʿEmād Ḥasani (q.v.), who is considered the unequaled master of this script (PLATE V). Reserved for poetry since the early 15th century in the Persian-speaking world, Mir ʿEmād brilliantly explored the potential of scale in his calligraphic compositions. His technical skill is most apparent in his monumental nastaʿliq, where letters change from fluid, broad strokes to razor sharp lines with utmost control and elegance. Like the painter Reżā ʿAbbāsi, Mir ʿEmād had numerous followers, who emulated his style of writing throughout the 17th century.

PLATE V. Folio of calligraphy, signed by ʿEmād al-Ḥasani (Mir ʿEmād), ca. 1610, ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. Courtesy of Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Lent by the Art and History Collection, LTS1995.2.101.View full image in a new tab

xii. Bazaar: Plan and Function

The bazaar (see BĀZĀR) of Isfahan is one of the best-preserved examples of the kind of large, enclosed, and covered bazaar complex that was typical of most cities in the Muslim world prior to the 20th century. The oldest areas of the present-day bazaar date from the early 17th century; its first stone was laid in 1603. Prior to this date the bazaar of Isfahan was concentrated around the Meydān-e kohna, the old town center (see PLATE II in X [1] above). In 1590 Shah ʿAbbās had decided to move his capital to Isfahan, and although he initially renovated the old bazaar, he later decided to construct a new city center of palaces, mansions for his dignitaries, mosques, and other functional buildings around a new meydān, the so-called Meydān-e Naqš-e Jahān. In 1602 work on the new meydān began (Blake, p. 23; but 1590-91 according to sources discussed by McChesney, pp. 114-19). First, a one-story façade of arches and porticoes was built, which faced the new square. Through a number of large and small gates people could access the square and the covered bazaar complex behind them. Secondly, an upper-story (bālā-ḵāna) was built, with commercial offices and artisan shops that were open to the square. Initially, some 200 shops surrounded the square; each was two stories and about five meters high. The lower-story each contained two shops, and the upper-storey four smaller shops, two facing the square and two at the back, which had a small balcony with a protective brick railing. Most of the original floors were made of marble, while the floors added later were colored tiles and stone (Jonābādi, pp. 759-60). It took, of course, a few decades before the bazaar finally acquired its critical mass. Because the new bazaar at first had to meet the needs of the royal palace complex, the mansions of the Safavid elite as well as of their visitors, the bazaar is often referred to as the royal bazaar. The bazaar at the old square continued mainly to serve the needs of the general population, but it gradually fell into disuse and its entire function was absorbed by the new bazaar (for a discussion and maps see Blake, 103, map 9; Soltani-Tirani, p. 4, fig. 1).

The bazaar still forms the commercial heart of Isfahan, because of its location and continued central commercial function. Its importance is further enhanced by the fact that it is surrounded by a number of public shopping thoroughfares which, although formally not part of the original bazaar complex, nevertheless are now an integral and dynamic part it. Like all bazaars it has no residential function at all, for it is only dedicated to a large variety of commercial and socio-religious functions. As to the commercial use of the bazaar there are a great variety of trades, crafts and service providers that work in its many shops and sarāys. There are both itinerant and stationary retail activities, private and public services (which include mosques, bathhouses, coffeehouses, public kitchens and simple inns). Wholesale, commissionaires, export and import, finance and credit, crafts and trades as well as the related brokerage activities are to be found there. One may roughly distinguish three major commercial complexes as to the retail trade: (1) the textile sector, from raw material to finished product; (2) food products and spices; and (3) household needs. Furthermore, there is a commercial branch that deals with the needs of the rural areas. There has, of course, been a shift in the relative composition of the trades and crafts that work in the bazaar. Much of the wholesale and import and export trade has moved to other parts of the city, and even to a great extent to Tehran, during the last 50 years. Also, modern Western style shops and supermarkets have drawn away some of the bazaar’s business to the various residential quarters of the city. One major positive development is that the bazaar has acquired a new commercial function as a tourist destination, visited for its sights and sounds as well as its goods and services. This has resulted in the proliferation of shops that specifically make, buy and sell products for tourists, while some crafts have even survived largely because their main clientele is tourists (metal work, inlay-work or ḵātam, for example; see xiii. below).

Location is, of course, very important. Those shops that sell products with a high unit-value, for example, jewelers, are mostly found at the entrance to the bazaar and at other easily accessible location. Those crafts and traders who are involved in low-unit value production are usually found in less desirable, less accessible locations (e.g., shoemakers, barbers, coffee-houses). Another characteristic is the fact that a variety of different locations account for where a product is sold, traded and stored. For example, an important wholesale company most likely has an office at a prime location in one of the best sarāys, but it usually stores its goods in a warehouse in a less well-maintained sarāy at a less desirable and less expensive location, i.e., more to the periphery. In addition, the goods that the company trades in are made by artisans who work at another different location in the bazaar (for detailed discussion of the location of shops in the bazaar with maps, see Soltani-Tirani, p. 22-31).

The bazaar complex consists of a large number of bazaar buildings, generally referred to as bazaar or when smaller as bāzārča. Next there are the sarāys or caravanserais, and their smaller version, the so-called timčas. Often a sarāy, which is a uniform, independent construction, usually with an inner court of arcades that is situated within the bazaar complex, includes timčas (small arcaded courtyards or halls) with vaulted entrance halls (dehliz). All these buildings are interconnected with covered market streets (rāsta) and passageways (dālān). These streets and lanes are not only market streets, but also communication routes for people and goods to enter and exit the bazaar. Goods, previously brought by caravans of loaded camels, donkeys and mules, now arrive by lorries, and after storage are carried on the back of porters to the various workshops and sales points (Bakhtiar; Gaube and Wirth, pp. 63-66).

In order to create space and light through openings in the dome, so-called domed crossroads or čahār suq were built where market streets crossed one another. A similar dome was also built when the bazaar market street gave access to a mosque or madrasa. Gaube and Wirth have identified three types of such domes, which are related to Central Asian models. Constructions peculiar to the Isfahan bazaar are domed cellars or windowless, pillared halls that are half subterranean. This type of construction is usually a later addition to a sarāy, most of which seem to have been constructed in the 19th century (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 72-74, fig 24). Nowadays these are mostly occupied by workshops using modern machinery. The advent of electricity (see BARQ) has made it possible to work in these dark spaces. Therefore, it is surmised that originally these cellars were used as storage space.

The bazaar in other Iranian towns mainly consists of a number of smaller bazaars each of which is made up of a large, central sarāy with a number of courtyards, timčas, halls, bazaar market streets, dehliz, and domes that make up a multi-functional, multi-layered construction. The most impressive of these large hybrid buildings date back to the 19th century. However, the number of such hybrids is rather few in Isfahan, probably due to the fixed (endowment) nature of much of the property rights in the city, which did not allow for real estate development as it did elsewhere. However, due to soaring land prices, this seems to be changing somewhat and many buildings that have lost their original function, such as bathhouses, have been torn down and replaced with others serving a different purpose. This shows that the bazaar complex remains a dynamic organism that reacts to the pressures of the world around it (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 66-74; Soltani-Tirani, p. 111 f).

When the bazaar was expanded over time, the original regular, linear structure slowly and subtly adapted itself to the demands of each historical period. The combination of streets, passageways, sarāys, timčas, mosques, madrasas etc., were reproduced many times over within the growing bazaar complex over the course of the centuries. Also, the pattern, whereby each sector of the bazaar was occupied by a single trade or craft, was less strictly adhered to, while there were also movements of trades and craft within the bazaar complex. Moreover, the streets in the newer parts sometimes were not covered, especially in the 20th century, while other vaulted older parts (outside of the central section) have become dilapidated, especially towards the periphery of the bazaar. Over time the bazaar has undergone many changes, including the destruction of parts of the bazaar during the Afghan occupation (1722-29; Floor, 1998, p. 262) as well as during the sacks of Isfahan by various contenders for the throne in the 1750s (Perry, pp. 22, 52, 63). Also, the loss of Isfahan’s status as the capital in 1722 as well as the downturn in the economy in the century following the fall of Isfahan negatively impacted the bazaar’s condition. Some Safavid parts have disappeared, while later additions have created hybrid mixtures. This makes it difficult to identify the time period when the original vaulted streets were built due to repairs, changes, and extensions, resulting in the presence of several styles belonging to different time periods. For example, regarding the vaulted cover of the bazaar market streets, Gaube and Wirth identified eight different types, of which four clay vault types were only found in Safavid era buildings, while the other four belong to the post-Safavid period, one type of which dated as late as 1900 (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 90-94, fig. 25). These sarāys are all of a standard type of construction, and have been used for all kinds of functions including as warehouses, offices, workshops, garages, stables, or even as simple inns to provide sleeping quarters for people from outside Isfahan. The Isfahan bazaar has fewer timčas and also of a smaller size than bazaars in other Iranian towns.

Gaube and Wirth have made a similar typology for caravanserais, where they identified five different types: (1) The Safavid or arcade group, the main characteristic of which is the arcade in the upper-story. This type of sarāy has an ayvān (q.v.) that rises above the building elements; it often has a hall (dehliz) at the entrance and barrel-vaulted arches as covering of each wall section. Also, they are decorated with geometric patterns with glazed tiles, while later buildings have ceramic mosaics or painted tiles. (2) The one-story Golšan group (named after its first known model, the Sarāy-e Golšan), construction of which was begun during the Zand period. This type of construction is characterized by a one-story alignment, tile decoration in the upper parts of the wall sections, wreathed moulds that surround the courtyard, dehlizes and cloistral arches above a long, and rectangular ground plan as roof for the wall sections and recessed corners. (3) The one-story group in the bazaar’s periphery. In contrast to the Golšan group, which is the result of historical development, this type of building was functionally determined. They are all to be found at the periphery of the bazaar, and serve as a place for the transshipment of goods. They therefore have very large courtyards for (un)loading, and additional side courtyards where the caravan animals were stabled. This type of construction was built in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. (4) The mahtābi (terrace) type of the 19th century; these are all two-storied, but they do not have a surrounding arcade in the upper-story. The recessed upper-story has a terrace facing the courtyard. Moreover, they all have recessed corners, and covering of the wall sections by cloistral arches over a long-rectangular ground plan. (5) The late Qajar tārom (wooden roof) type, which is a product of the early 20th century. The side facing the courtyard has an upper-story that has a wooden roof supported by stone or wooden pillars. This type is divided into two groups—either the upper-story is recessed, or it is aligned with the ground floor (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 94-101; figs. 26-29).

Similarly there are six different types of timčas or domed halls (1). The one-story open- or flat-roofed type; (2) the two-story arcade type; (3) the two-story mahtābi type; (4) the two-story tārom type; (5) the two-story equilateral octagonal type; and (6) the two-story stretched octagonal type. It is only natural that these types were similar to that of the sarāy as a timča is but a ‘small tim,’ which is another word for sarāy (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 101-3). These timčas are relatively rarer in Isfahan than in the bazaars of other cities in Iran. Gaube and Wirth have suggested that the qaysÂariya of Isfahan was the forerunner and model for the later timčas because from an architectural standpoint it is a more elongated bazaar hall than a bazaar street. The qaysÂariya was emblematic for the Isfahan bazaar. It functioned both as the gateway (darb) to the many streets and passageways of the inner bazaar complex and, at the same time, it was the richest and largest bazaar of Isfahan where merchants sold rich fabrics and cloth. Hence it was also referred to as bazzāz-ḵāna or mercers hall. It was a pentagonal semi-circular building around a pond and construction began in 1603 and was completed in 1619. Although it was said to have been modeled after the qaysÂariya of Tabriz, it may also have borrowed design elements from the qaysÂariya of the bazaar around the old square of Isfahan that it replaced. It has been suggested that many of the later caravanserais that were built in Iran borrowed their basic design from the gateway of the Isfahan bazaar (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 66-68; Blake, pp.107-10).

Many buildings in the bazaar were decorated, either by mural paintings and/or by tile decorations. There is a large variety of geometrical designs, all variations on cross, diamond, and graded patterns. The mosaic bricks for the post-Safavid period are all smaller and flatter and less color intense. They are quadrangular or bar-shaped. There are also post-Safavid words in mosaic form, albeit barely legible. Another form of decoration was that of tiles, often used on the heads of the wall sections making nine different geometric patterns. The face of the QaysÂariya gateway had been decorated with tiles, while in the upper recesses there were mural paintings of Shah ʿAbbās hunting, Shah ʿAbbās defeating the Uzbeks, male and female Europeans having a party, and finally the symbol of Isfahan, the Sagittarius. In the center on top of the gateway there was a clock that was still functional in 1638, but no longer worked in 1670. Within the bazaar complex the vaults of the streets or wall panels were also decorated with epic scenes as well as with arabesques (Floor, 2005a, pp. 122-23, 126; Blake, p. 110; Gaube and Wirth, pp. 105-12, figs. 32-36).

All buildings have a name. Frequently, in the case of bazaars, it indicates a professional group or guild (often of those who traded and worked there), while in the case of sarāys it is usually a person, normally the patron-builder. Others are known by a particular characteristic (e.g., sarā-ye dālān-darāz or ‘the sarāy with a long entrance passageway’), the name of the quarter or of the patron (Masjed-e Sāru Taqi), or some other qualifier. The names have changed over time, of course, just as the function and use of buildings have changed. In the qaysÂariya, for example, instead of rich fabrics all kinds of tourist products are sold, and the same holds for the bāzār-e čitsāzhā (the bazaar of the chintz makers), although there are still some shops that also sell chintzes (Gaube and Wirth, pp. 116-260).

Life in the bazaar is not always about business. Although the bazaar complex is the commercial heart of Isfahan, there are buildings that serve a function other than a commercial one. Today, there are still ten madrasas in the bazaar whose design is very much like that of the sarāys, eight of which date from the Safavid period and two are from the 19th century. In these madrasas religious youths as well as older males receive advanced religious instruction which may lead to a religious career or to serve one’s own edification. One also could find some refuge from the hustle and bustle of the bazaar inside a madrasa’s courtyard, which is often lined with trees and has a large pond in the middle (Bakhtiyar, pp. 328-31, figs 9-12; Gaube and Wirth, pp. 103-5).

Also, there are a number of mosques, most of which were built in the 17th century and some in the late 19th century. These mosques are characterized by different designs and some, like the Ḥakim Mosque, are as beautiful as the Royal Mosque on the Meydān (see x above). Here the population of the bazaar undertake their daily prayers and participate in religious ceremonies. Some of these mosques had a special relationship with one particular guild that either was its patron and/or had (co-)financed its construction. Such is the case with the Masjed-e ḵayyāṭhā (tailors and dressmakers mosque), which, apart from its religious function, also served as the administrative office of the said guild. How well integrated these mosques are in the commercial life of the bazaar is evident from the example of the Bāḡča-ye ʿAbbāsi Mosque, which has shops flanking its entrance hall. Whereas religion was experienced in an individual and enclosed manner in the mosque and the madrasa, this was different in the takiya, a type of building where communal rawża-ḵānis were held, and where during Moḥarram and Ṣafar the Shiʿite passion play (taʿzia-ḵāni) was performed, often combined with a procession of religiously significant symbols, players, and the general public (Floor, 2005b).

Apart from endowing funds to build mosques, madrasas, and takiyas, people also did this for saqqā-ḵānas of water spigots and maqbaras or mausolea in the bazaars and elsewhere. Also part of the religious functions were the bathhouses (see HAMMĀM) constructed in the bazaars, where believers regularly came to wash away their impurities so as to be ritually clean and be able to perform their religious duties such as prayer. In addition to the bathhouses where men congregated for relaxation, there were also all kinds of itinerant and shop-based sellers in the bazaar of a large variety of the foods and drinks that made up the supplies for social gatherings. For example, a few shops in Isfahan in the 19th century supplied the entire city with beriāni food, all of which was made in one cook shop in the bazaar, (Taḥwildār, p. 119). There also were itinerant sellers of coffee, tea, water, and smokes as well as coffee-houses (qahvaḵāna), where the same services were offered. Moreover, these were popular gathering points to exchange news, gossip, and to listen to poetry and story tellers. “Hither repair all those covetous of News, as well as Barterers of Goods; where not only Fame and common Rumour is promulgate, but Poetry too, for some of that Tribe are always present to rehearse their Poems, and disperse their Fables to the Company” (Fryer, III, p. 34; Du Mans/Schefer, p. 244; for coffee-houses in the 19th century, see Floor, 2004). On festive days, shopkeepers would additionally burn oil lamps and decorate their shops so that the entire bazaar area was a sea of light (see ČERĀḠĀNI).

There was also a public government side to the bazaar. North of the qaysÂariya gateway was a large intersection (čahār suq), which led to two major buildings, namely, the żarrāb-ḵāna and the sarāy-e šāhi (see Plate I), which each had a gateway, albeit less lofty than that of the qaysÂariya. The żarrāb-ḵāna (the Mint), as its name indicates, was the location where until 1877 silver and copper coins were struck by hand, thus providing the means of exchange for facilitating commercial transactions. On two sides of the qaysÂariya gateway balconies protrude (known as naqqāra-ḵāna), which were used by the royal music band. This band played at sunrise and sunset as well as after important events had taken place, such as victories. Often condemned men were led through the bazaar, or even executed in a čahār suq, in order to convey the government’s vigilance to the general population.

PLATE I. Bazaar Plan, North of Meydān-e Šāh. Courtesy of John Donat, Iranian Studies 7/1-2, 1974, p. 336.View full image in a new tab

Despite the fact that the royal bazaar has long since lost any semblance of its prior courtly association, the bazaar of Isfahan remains a vibrant centerpiece of the city, a place with wide-ranging functions, from the obvious shopping environment to its religious, educational, social, and recreational roles. Because of this, the state of disrepair suffered by many of the bazaar’s less central areas, while an unfortunate consequence of the wounds of time and history, have not undermined the bazaar’s singular importance, both to the citizens of the city and to outside visitors newly acquainted with its many charms.

Plate I. Bazaar Plan, North of Meydān-e Šāh.

Plate II. Aerial view of the bazaar.

PLATE II. Aerial view of the bazaar. Courtesy of John Donat, Iranian Studies 7/1-2, 1974, p. 346.View full image in a new tab

Plate III. Entrance of the Royal Bazaar.

PLATE III. Entrance of the Royal Bazaar. Courtesy of John Donat, Iranian Studies 7/1-2, 1974, p. 342.View full image in a new tab

Plate IV. Plan and entrance of Mahyār Caravanserai.

PLATE IV. Plan and entrance of Mahyār Caravanserai. After M. Siroux, p. 370.View full image in a new tab

xiii. Crafts

Isfahan has maintained its position as a major center for traditional crafts in Persia. The crafts of Isfahan encompass textiles, carpets, metalwork, woodwork, ceramics, painting, and inlay works of various kind. The work is carried out in different settings including small industrial and bazaar workshops, in the homes of craftsmen and women, and in rural cottage industries.

Isfahan’s crafts are clearly rooted in the city’s royal past, but to suggest a direct and uninterrupted link to the Safavid era would be too simplistic an assumption. The passing of skills from one generation to the next has been disrupted many times, beginning with the Afghan invasion of 1722, and by later wars, famines, plagues, tribal pillages and the resulting depopulation. During the Qajar period there was a steady outflow of skill and talent from Isfahan to Tehran and Tabriz, where the Qajar court and administration were major consumers and patrons of various crafts (Philipp). Equally detrimental to the crafts of Isfahan was the cheaper mass-produced European merchandise that flooded the Persian markets in ever increasing quantities throughout the 19th century. Mirzā Ḥosayn Khan Taḥwildār reports repeatedly on how the pressure to maintain competitive prices vis-à-vis imports had an adverse effect on the quality of various local products and dented the reputation of Isfahani artisans (p. 97, passim). Some crafts disappeared or were significantly reduced due to changes in fashion, market demand, and technology. In particular, changes in fashion hurt those crafts that produced various kinds of embroideries that were only used in traditional clothes and home decorations which were no longer worn or used after 1925 (Floor, 1999a). Changes due to market demand had consequences, for example, for those making helmets, swords, guns, and chain-mail, which given the suppression of the possession of firearms, the development of better modern arms and fighting techniques, and the imposition of general security, had become obsolete (Floor, 2003). This also held for those making copper pots, and of those who tinned them, due to the import and/or local manufacturing of mass-produced metal pots and pans, although by 1920 there were still 200 copper workers (mesgar) and 40 tin smiths (safidgar; see Janāb, p. 79). Other crafts became obsolete because of the quasi-disappearance of their product such as the water pipe, which was almost entirely displaced by cigarette smoking (Floor, 2002). Other crafts were transformed, such as those that made products for animals, like saddles and horseshoes. These have all disappeared and been replaced by other crafts that serve modern means of conveyance such as carts, cars, and lorries. In short, the result was that in number, output, and quality the craftsmen in Isfahan, like elsewhere in Iran, were on the verge of extinction (for a discussion of these and other crafts in the 19th and early 20th century see Floor, 2003; and 2006).

In the 20th century new social currents and market forces began to interact with traditional techniques and styles to produce new types of objects as well as variations on existing features. In the 1930s, in an attempt to preserve and encourage the local production of handicrafts, the government established a school of arts and crafts (Honarestān) in Isfahan. The growing economy after 1950 had a further positive impact in the area of handicrafts. Between 1952 and 1962 the number of craftsmen doubled, while their output almost quadrupled. To provide structural support to the craftsmen, the government established the Handicrafts Center (Markaz-e ṣanāyeʿ-e dasti) in 1963, to provide loans to craftsmen for the purchase of raw materials and other inputs, organize training courses to acquaint craftsmen with the latest technical developments, to provide them with new designs and other ideas on how to improve their products, and to assist them in marketing their products around the world. In 1974 the Center’s export of handicrafts represented ten percent of the total export of handicrafts. The Center’s formula of promoting traditional designs and crafts, produced with better quality using traditional as well as modern techniques, worked both abroad and at home (Echo of Iran, Iran Almanac, Tehran, 1974, p. 243).

The emphasis on tradition received fresh impetus in the 1960s when Western-educated art students began to return home, eager to revive some of the styles and techniques of the past. Moreover, for emerging middle-class consumers, decorative value was as important as functionality of the crafts. Architectural decoration, which had begun with restoration of public monuments, was sustained by market demand on the part of neo-traditionalism. As the city grew into a center of tourist attraction, handicrafts flourished. Master craftsmen, working with their apprentices in small ateliers along the bazaar, the Royal Square (Meydān-e Naqš-e Jahān), and Čārbāḡ avenue (see Č(AH)ĀRBĀḠ-E EṢFAHĀN; and Soltani-Tirani, pp. 29 ff.), became a tourist attraction themselves.

PLATE I. Ornamental ceramic at one of the light slits on the dome of Shaikh Loṭf-Allāh Mosque. After R. Baḵtiār, p. 19.View full image in a new tab

Architectural decoration. In the past, Isfahan was home to many craftsmen who excelled in the decoration of buildings such as plaster molders, mirror makers (āʾinasāz), colored-glass window makers (orusi), and tile makers (kāšipaz), but whose crafts had languished during much of the 19th century. Although the building crafts and their related ancillary crafts in general had seen improvement in their numbers during the second half of the 19th century, the insecurity reigning between 1900 and 1920 stifled their development. For example, in Isfahan in 1920 there were only six tile makers, six mirror makers, and 12 master builders (meʿmār; see Janāb, pp. 77-79).

PLATE II. Mosaic panel with calligraphy (a poem of Saʿdi), Shaikh Loṭf-Allah Mosque, by H. Moṣaddeqzāda Kāšikār, 1950. After Gluck, p. 393.View full image in a new tab

PLATE III. The portal of Shah (Imam) Mosque. After R. Baḵtiār, p. 77View full image in a new tab

The history of the revival of this craft is closely related to the restoration of the Saljuq and Safavid monuments that had been left to decay for centuries. One of the earliest cases was the refurbishment of the Shaikh Loṭf-Allāh Mosque at the Royal Square in 1926, and the subsequent replication of its dome at the Marmar Palace in Tehran, reviving the abandoned art of mosaic faience (moʿarraq) in the process (Gluck et al., pp. 392-93). Many kilns flourished through tile-making in the ensuing decades when a new generation of tile makers, miniature painters, wood-carvers, calligraphers, and other artists emerged thanks to the extensive and longterm program of rehabilitation of the city’s historical architecture (Wulff, pp. 118-71).

A milestone in the history of architectural decoration was the renovation and conversion in the 1960s of the Mādar-e Shah caravanserai into a modern hotel named after Shah ʿAbbās the Great—the present-day ʿAbbāsi Hotel (Borjian, 2002). In contrast to the restoration work on mosques, which were carried out by traditional masters, the craftsmen and artists who took part in this project were mostly graduates of the Honarestān. The latter tended to promote innovative techniques and motifs within the framework of traditional decorative arts such as geometric mirror-mosaics, stucco, stained glass, wood, and various combinations thereof that succeeded in welding modernity with tradition, and transformed the modern hotel into a veritable museum of the contemporary and vibrant decorative arts of Isfahan (see Arthur Upham Pope’s letter in Borjian et al., p. 10). The hotel decorations were soon imitated in other public buildings, and have had a growing influence on the interior design of private residences as well (Borjian et al.; Gluck et al., pp. 400-402 ff.).

PLATE IV. Isfahan carpet, the central blue lobed medallion on an ivory scrolling vine, forked-leaf and fan palmate design, approximately 11.4 x 9.6 feet. After Sotheby, NY, sale number 4265, p. 156.View full image in a new tab

Carpets. Contrary to popular belief, carpets had never been a major export item of Iran, but when almost all other crafts experienced a downturn in their output and numbers in the 19th century, demand for carpets fortuitously increased enormously after 1873 due to a boom with the arrival of a new client—the European and American middle class (Floor, 1999a; Wirth; see CARPETS). The boom spread from the northwestern provinces, and by the 1920s Isfahan had become a major center of carpet weaving (Camb. Hist. Ir. I, p. 550; Soltani-Tirani, pp. 75-76 ff.) In this process of renewal, the carpet-weaving tradition in Isfahan adapted itself to new market realities and the requirements of commercial production, leading to Isfahan’s own characteristic design that had distinguished itself by 1940. In that year there were 2,000 looms in the city and 500 in its environs (out of some 70,000 looms in the country; Floor, 1984, p. 32). During World War II the carpet industry of Isfahan suffered heavily from the loss of the international market. In the early 1950s the number of looms in the city had fallen to a mere 400, established in about 300 home factories that wove 5,000 m2 of carpets annually (ʿĀbedi, p. 138). It regained a foothold in the market due to the increasing demands of Tehran market (Edwards, p. 308), and by the 1980s mass production had seen a substantial increase. Among the districts of the province, only Isfahan and Nāʾin produce quality carpets suitable for export (Table 1). Silk carpet weaving workshops are mainly located around Qom, Isfahan, Kāšān and Nāʾin.

View full image in a new tab

The production techniques and organization and commercial practices vary within the province itself (Soltani-Tirani, pp. 75 ff.). Larger factories employing weavers in double figures are few; cottage production has been the norm and is sponsored by subcontractors who supply labor from their own families or other sources, while less than a third of weavers worked for themselves in the early 1980s (ibid, p. 95); weaving of carpets as well as gelims (see KELIM) and jājims (q.v.), chiefly by women, constituted the bulk of the home industries that existed in 14.1 percent of the houses in the province (Markaz, p. 13; Soltani-Tirani, p. 7). As the importance of the cottage industries diminished in the city of Isfahan, where workers preferred the higher wages in other and more modern industries, Isfahani businessmen began to invest in the surrounding rural areas (Farhang, p. 18 passim) where the carpet industry continues to play a dominant role. It seems that only rug weaving has outlasted the vanishing rural handicrafts. In recent decades, however, the carpet industry of Isfahan has experienced a major setback (Ansāri, pp. 157-60) and machine-made carpets have increasingly replaced hand-woven ones (see CARPETS).

PLATE V. Qalamkār, blocked and painting by Ḥosayn Faḵḵāri, ca. 1955, 130 x 270 cm. After Gluck, p. 189.View full image in a new tab

Qalamkār or the craft of woodblock-printing on cotton tablecloths, bedspreads, and curtains has been a specialty of Isfahan for the last two centuries (Gluck et al., pp. 186-88). Indian imports had dominated this branch of the textile industry in the pre-1800 period. Impoverishment and insecurity in the 18th century had created a situation where domestic output had to compensate for the shortfall in imports. As a result there was an initial increase in the output of the textile industry in general, and of qalamkār in particular, during the early part of the 19th century, when security returned to Iran. However, this period of growth did not last, for after 1840 domestic qalamkār production suffered a structural decline, albeit less so than all other branches of textile crafts, due to the import of fabrics of cheaper and better quality (Floor, 1999a).

In the 1870s the guild of the qalamkār makers had four connecting bazaars and between the bazaars there were five caravanserais and timčas with 284 shops and offices, but not even half of their number have remained, because trade had declined sharply due to foreign competition and lack of demand at home (Taḥwildār, p. 94). The reason was that the Isfahan output of qalamkār was not comparable in quality and price with British and later Russian imports. Production could initially only survive by importing unbleached fabrics from Great Britain and India that were then printed in Iran. This delayed the inevitable decline of the craft for some time, but lack of innovation, continued inferior quality, and the use of chemical dyes meant that by the beginning of the 20th century the craft had all but disappeared (Floor, 1999a). In 1920 there were only 46 čitsāz left in Isfahan, where once there had been hundreds (Janāb, p. 78).

Government support seems to have helped another short-lived revival of this labor-intensive craft in the 1920s, just before it declined to the verge of total extinction (Phyllis Ackerman in Survey of Persian Art, pp. 2155-56). The craft of qalamkār was revived again after World War II thanks to the US Aid program and demand from the international market (Gluck et al., p. 192). In the 1950s in Isfahan and Najafābād, there were about thirty qalamkār workshops with an annual production of 40,000 pairs of drapery, and 10,000 tablecloth pieces (ʿĀbedi, p. 139). Supported by the Handicrafts Organization, the number of workshops and guild masters multiplied in the bazaar in the next twenty years and new products and techniques were put into practice (Gluck et al., p. 192). The implementation of anti-pollution laws in the 1970s led to another slowdown of the qalamkār industry, but as a result better dyes were developed and production was standardized. Limitation on imports after the 1979 Revolution resuscitated the industry, and qalamkār resurfaced as perennial favorites in the bazaar of Isfahan. The main firm involved in the qalamkār manufacture is the Čitsāz Company, exporting large quantities of merchandise (see also CRAFTS).

PLATE VI. Silver ewer, engraved, H. 52 cm., 1976. After Gluck, p. 129.View full image in a new tab

Metalwork. Isfahan’s prominence in decorative work on metal objects continues today, achieving the highest standards within the country in the past century. The revival of the art in Isfahan was achieved partly thanks to an exodus of artisans from Kerman and Yazd. The metalwork in Isfahan is mainly embossing and engraving (qalamzani) on various metals such as iron, copper, brass, and nickel alloys as well as gold and silver (Wulff, p. 35; Westphal-Hellbush and Burns, p. 90).

PLATE VII. Various metalwork on an ʿalam. After Gluck, p. 143.View full image in a new tab

New market demands in the second half of the 20th century encouraged Isfahani engravers to shift their efforts to silver objects. In the 1950s, chisel work in silver was practiced by more than 800 skilled craftsmen in 110 workshops, while there were 86 silversmith shops with 450 workers making utensils, vases, mirror framing, and the like to be carved or incised by engravers (ʿĀbedi, p. 140-43). Unlike other crafts, that of goldsmiths (zargar) did not suffer very much decline, as they were able to compete effectively in both price and product with any foreign import; they also adapted and changed their output in line with market conditions. In 1920 there were still 160 goldsmiths in Isfahan as well as an unknown number of related craftsmen such as gold- and silver-wire drawers (Janāb, p. 78). This number compares favorably with the 500 workers in 169 shops employed by the goldsmith industry in the 1950s, the most notable of which were situated in the Armenian quarter of Julfa (ʿĀbedi, p. 141; Gluck et al., pp. 126-28). A more recent development in the metalwork of Isfahan is the production of large-scale copper sheets for use as interior wall decoration in public and private buildings in the city, and in Tehran. However, the production of copper pots and pans is in decline (Soltani-Tirani, pp. 55-64).

PLATE VIII. Ḵātamkāri, table-top, by Golriz, 1976, D. 50 cm. After Gluck, p. 361.View full image in a new tab

Ḵātamkāri or ḵātamsāzi. This most typical of Persian wood-inlay work has been a specialty of Shiraz and Isfahan since the time of the Zand dynasty in the latter half of the 18th century. During his visit to Persia in 1811, Sir William Ouseley (q.v ) writes that ḵātam “ensured considerable profit to many artists of Shiraz and Isfahan” (Ouseley, III, p. 65). By 1877, the industry had declined: Taḥwildār reports low quality and poor sales, so much so that European artifact collectors sought old ḵātam pieces, and exports were limited to Anatolia and Istanbul (Taḥwildār, no. 130). However, inlay work was slowly but surely falling out of favor, mainly due to the changing tastes of the elite who wanted fashionable European implements rather than traditional Persian ones. Because the elite were the main market for high-quality inlay work, this had serious consequences for the craftsmen who did not adapt their product. Like Tahwildār, in the beginning of the 20th century Radimsky opined that the quality of work left much to be desired (Radimsky, p. 55). As a result, the craft dwindled, and by 1920 only six master inlay workers remained in Isfahan (Janāb, p. 78).

The industry began to flourish again when Reza Shah awarded high wages to master ḵātamkārs for the decoration of the walls and furniture of Tehran palaces. But the dominant position of Isfahan was largely due to the migration of the Shirāzi master, Golriz, to the city where he taught at the Honarestān for 36 years, re-establishing the craft in Isfahan (Gluck et al., p. 368). In the 1950s Isfahan had about 100 ḵātam craftsmen working in 40 workshops (ʿĀbedi, p. 144); the numbers had increased to 256 craftsmen and 81 workshops by 1975 (Markaz-e āmār-e Irān, pp. 719-20). According to another estimate there were some 50 masters and 300 skilled workers engaged in the ḵātam industry just prior to the 1979 Revolution (Gluck et al., pp. 362-68). In addition to commercial production, Isfahani artists have decorated several Shiʿite mausoleums with ḵātam decorations and coverings, either through royal benefactions, commissions by wealthy patrons, or at their own cost as an act of faith and devotion (ibid). Ḵātam is also widely used in decorating musical instruments, the prominent maker of which at the outset of the Pahlavi era was Yaḥyā, an Armenian from the Julfa district who later moved to the capital. (See also Faryād; Soltani-Tirani, pp. 65-75.)

PLATE IX. Dome interior of Shah (Imam) Mosque, enamel plate, adaptation with gold medallion, by Šokr-Allāh Ṣaniʿzādeh. After Gluck, p. 165.View full image in a new tab

Enamel and painting. Practiced since the 18th century in Isfahan, the art of enamel (minākāri) thrived in Isfahan under the Pahlavis. In the early 1950s there were 15 workshops with 20 enamellers who painted on utensils, vases, frames, bottles, badges, and other objects (ʿĀbedi, pp. 143-44). The trade expanded enormously owing to increasing demand, so that by the 1970s some 500 skilled enamel painters in Isfahan were engaged in decorating a wide variety of objects, from earrings to vases and chandeliers. Many of these artists were apprentices of the master miniaturist Šokr-Allāh Ṣaniʿzāda, who set the standard of the art, and introduced new motifs. Many holy shrines in Persia and Iraq received enamel decoration, some commissioned by the royal family (Gluck et al., pp. 164-66).

PLATE X. Painting on embossed leather, signed Ḥosayn Ḵata, 1961, W. 80 cm. After Gluck, p. 381.View full image in a new tab

PLATE XI. Painting on parchment for book cover. After R. Baḵtiār, p. 69.View full image in a new tab

In previous centuries, Isfahan had been a major center of the art of painting, where paintings of all kind (miniature, canvas, water colors, lacquer, fresco) were produced for the market, including the tourist trade, and as a consequence the trade employed scores of painters. In particular, the painting of pen-cases (qalamdān) was a very popular craft in which many were employed (Floor, 1999a; and 2005). However, this craft was also hit by changes in fashion and a downturn in the economy due to political upheavals between 1900 and 1921, which was inimical to a trade that mainly served the middle-class. As a result, by 1920 only 35 master painters were left in Isfahan (Janāb, p. 79). Government support for this traditional craft prevented its disappearance until the expanding economy and the resultant growth of the middle-class re-ignited the market for Isfahan’s painters.

As a result, Isfahan is home to professional painters from different schools of painting, from traditional miniature to modern designs that are painted on canvas, bone, ivory, wood, and other materials. The number of professional artists—some 100 painters in 28 workshops in the early 1950s (ʿĀbedi, pp. 142-43)—rose noticeably with increasing interest from the growing middle-class residents of the city (cf. Gluck et al., pp. 381-82).

PLATE XII. Needlework on leather hammock, 1976. After Gluck, p. 239.View full image in a new tab

PLATE XIII. Golābduzi on wall hanging material, story of Joseph, 19th century. After Gluck, p. 225.View full image in a new tab

Needlecraft. Isfahan is known to have excelled in a wide variety of needlework that was often produced in the context of home industry.

In the late 19th-century list of Taḥwildār, however, we find zaribāf, golābatunduz, naqdaduz, qollābduz (nos. 39-42), naqšduz, and dahyakduz (nos. 56-57) among the professions practiced in Isfahan.

After a period of decline, the art of embroidery was revived in 1920s in Isfahan where traditional designs were applied to homemade or imported materials in old and new techniques (Wulff, p. 219). In the mid-20th century needlework (sokmaduzi, qollābduzi, maliladuzi, naḵduzi, etc.) was performed in about 500 homes by individual women, typically widows who would sell their artwork to dealers who were mostly Jewish (ʿAbedi, p. 145; for marketing, see Anṣāri, pp. 137-46). Production has been on the rise in recent decades as national demand has risen for luxurious drapery, tablecloths, bedspreads, and the like. At the same time, imports from South and Central Asia seem to be flooding the domestic market. Older pieces are traded as artifacts that have been handed down from generation to generation in Isfahani families as marriage dowry (see also Gluck et al., pp. 217-35).

xiv. Modern Economy and Industries

This sub-section is divided into the following parts:

(1) Modern Economy of the Province.

(2) Industries of Isfahan City.

xv. Education and Cultural Affairs

(1) Education

Foreign schools. The presence of European educators in Isfahan dates as far back as the reign of Shah Abbas I, when the Carmelites (q.v.) were permitted to open a school for the education of the children of foreign residents in the city (Pietro Della Valle [q.v.] apud Falsafi, III, pp. 68-72). Not until the mid-19th century, however, did Christian missionaries resume their activities in the city. The schools opened in Isfahan by the French Catholics and British Anglicans were often in stiff competition with each other.

French schools. Educational activities by the French began in Qajar Persia through the efforts of a devout Roman Catholic layman, Eugène Boré (1809-78). He successfully established a school in Tabriz in 1839, in competition with the American Protestant missionaries who had already established themselves in northwestern Persia. Having obtained permission to open schools in Persia on the strength of an edict issued in April 1840 by Moḥammad Shah Qajar, Boré opened a school in Isfahan in the same year. To compete with the American missionaries in attracting native students, Boré excluded religious instruction in his school; the four-year curriculum consisted of French, Persian, arithmetic, geography, and philosophy. Of the total of 31 students enrolled in the Isfahan school, five were Muslims and the rest Armenians. Notwithstanding the good reputation Boré had gained and his insistence on a secular curriculum, he encountered severe opposition from the Armenian Church as well as from the ulema, and he was eventually forced to close the school and leave the town. Nevertheless Boré persuaded the French Lazarist Catholics to come to Isfahan (Yadgār 3/6-7, 1947, pp. 60-66 Ringer, pp. 113-21; Nāṭeq, pp. 160-63; Hāj Sayyāh, p. 60; CHRISTIANITY viii. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN PERSIA).

The Lazarists established themselves in Isfahan in the early 1860s. With the support of the prince-governor Masʿud Mirzā Ẓell-al-Solṭān, they founded in 1875 schools for both boys and girls and an infirmary (Nāṭeq, pp. 182, 191-92). These appear to be the predecessors of the boys school L’Etoile du Matin (Setāra-ye ṣobḥ; opened in 1910 by Father Dimuth) and the girls school Rudāba (from 1904), both closing down completely shortly after the start of World War I (Qafāri, p. 155; apud Qāsemi, pp. 533-34). These schools were reopened later, offering a curriculum in both French and Persian. L’Etoile du Matin was an elementary boarding school for boys with about 100 students, and Rudāba was a twelve-grade school for girls, appended by a unisex kindergarten (ʿĀbedi, p. 224; FRANCE xv. FRENCH SCHOOLS IN PERSIA). They failed to survive the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Aside from the Lazarists’ activities, a Francophone Jewish School was founded in Isfahan by Alliance Israélite Universelle in 1901. The number of male students, initially 220, grew to 400 in three years, and during the same period 270 girls were studying in a separate school (FRANCE xv. FRENCH SCHOOLS IN PERSIA). The curriculum for boys included Hebrew, religion, French language and literature, history, physical and natural sciences, mathematics, and Persian, while for girls the emphasis was placed on learning about personal hygiene and home making skills. The Alliance encountered opposition from the local rabbis whose role in education had been undermined by the modern schools. To keep a balance, the teaching of religion was entrusted to rabbis (Ringer, pp. 135, 36). Later on, schools run by the ORT and Otser ha-Torah were opened. In 1961, 150 pupils attended Jewish high schools and 897 attended elementary school; other Jewish children attended non-Jewish schools, while there were about 50 Jews at the University of Isfahan (“Isfahan,” Encyclopaedia Judaica IX, Jerusalem, 1971, pp. 78-79; ʿĀbedi, p. 220).

British schools. The Church Missionary Society of London (CMS), the most active of all British Anglican missionaries across the Middle East, administered the most successful foreign schools during its presence of more than a century in Isfahan. Competing with their French Catholic and Armenian Orthodox counterparts, the British Anglicans became a close ally of the American Protestant missionaries. An agreement between the CMS and the American Presbyterian mission in 1895 divided the Persian territory into southern and northern halves, preserved for the British and American missionary activities, respectively. Isfahan, though in the center, fell under the influence of the British (Wright, pp. 118-19; Borumand, 2002, pp. 143-45; White, 1996).

The pursuit of the CMS in Isfahan began in the Armenian quarter of New Julfa in 1862 through the efforts of Reverend Robert Bruce and his wife. On behalf of CMS, he took over the Armenian George Joseph school in Julfa, which absorbed, a year later, another Armenian school named Batavian. Despite the ongoing dispute between the CMS, the Armenian Church and the ulama, by 1875 the CMS school had 135 students of a variety of backgrounds, including Catholics, Armenians and as many as thirty Muslim boys. The prince-governor Ẓell-al-Solṭān lent the school official protection against possible provocations from the clergy and even ordered some of his courtiers to enroll their sons there. A decade later, the Society’s schools for boys and girls altogether had three hundred students. As the number of the missionaries in Isfahan rose to seventeen by the mid-1890s, more schools were established by the Society in Julfa as well as in Jubāra, the city’s Jewish quarter (Ringer, pp. 126-27; Wright, pp. 118-19; GREAT BRITAIN xv. BRITISH SCHOOLS IN PERSIA).

After a period of inactivity during World War I, the Society resumed its activity in 1920, when Bishop William Jameson Thompson reopened the Stewart Memorial College with 27 students in Isfahan with boarding option for nonresident students. It soon gained a good reputation and the enrollment grew steadily. Its faculty rose to some 30 members, 20 of them British. The staff taught some 150 students using a curriculum based on the British secondary school system. The British Oil Company and British Royal Bank offered scholarships to those students who agreed to join the Oil Company at the end of the eighth grade. In order to compete with their European counterparts, including the French schools, the college arranged a contract with London University to accept Persian students upon finishing the twelfth grade as MA prospects (Sayfpur, p. 335). The College placed a strong emphasis on physical education, and annual soccer games with the American College of Tehran were held alternately in each town (Sayfpur, p. 332). The CMS also sponsored the Stileman Memorial College for girls in Isfahan; it became Behešt-āyin high school after the nationalization of foreign schools.

Following the governmental decree in 1939 to close foreign schools and to purchase their properties, the Stewart Memorial College was handed over in July 1940 to the government and placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Education. It eventually became a somewhat mediocre public high school called Adab. The Church Missionary Society itself survived by continuing with its charitable institutions, including a major hospital. Many local and national leaders in various positions were educated in Isfahan College (Sayfpur, pp. 372-77, 589, 622; Thompson, pp. 38-39; Dehqāni-Tafti; cf. Mināsiān; Waterfield, 1973).

Other foreign schools in Isfahan included a finance school (Madrasa-ye māliya) founded in 1912 by the local Belgian finance advisor. It was later renamed Melliya, and eventually Saʿdi public high school (Anṣāri, p. 334; but cf. Sayfpur, pp. 840-41). The joint Perso-German secondary school Deutsch-Persische Gewerbeschule (Madrasa-ye ṣanʿati-e Irān o Ālmān) was founded in Isfahan in 1925, offering a combination of science-oriented secondary education, with German as the first foreign language, and technical apprenticeship in several professions. Several years later, the German pastor Ernst J. Christoffel opened a home for the blind in Isfahan. After a period of inactivity during and after World War II, the school resumed its activity in 1955 and eventually joined the Episcopal Church of Persia in 1972 (GERMANY ix. GERMANS IN PERSIA). It was taken over by the Government after the Islamic Revolution.

Educational reforms. Apart from the foreign schools, which involved no more than a tiny fraction of Isfahani children, the educational system of the city remained as a whole under the control of the Shiʿite clergy attached to the traditional curricula. The measures taken during the later Qajar period to introduce modern schools and training facilities, including the establishment of a Ministry of Education in 1910, had little impact on Isfahan. It was not until the rise of Reza Shah that drastic reforms of the educational institutions took place. In 1921 the High Council of Education was created to carry out the necessary reforms, based mainly on the French system. In the same year the first modern secondary school in Isfahan was founded by the Qajar prince Ṣārem-al-Dawla. Ten students graduated from it in 1925. Among its faculty were such eminent scholars as Jalāl-al-Din Homāʾi and Aḥmad Ārām. Several more high schools appeared in the Reza Shah period, including two for girls. In the 1930s the government integrated and centralized the educational system and established a national, tuition-free modern school system. These reforms were most effective in loosening and gradually removing the clerical grip on the educational system and promoting secularism, but they also ended the hitherto existing diversity provided by foreign and minority schools (see BRITISH SCHOOLSabove; cf. Chaqueri, ed., p. 391). By 1937 the number of primary schools in the city of Isfahan had reached 19 for boys and 12 for girls (Imāniya, pp. 202-12; Anṣāri, pp. 331-36). The state also founded, with German assistance, a technical-vocational institute in 1936 (cf. GERMANY ix. GERMANS IN PERSIA), where young artisans were trained in the areas of metalwork, carpentry, and painting, among others. Three years later it was split into two institutes: Industrial (Honarestān-e sÂanʿati) and Fine arts (Honarhā-ye zibā); the latter was aimed at protecting and revitalizing native industries and crafts (ʿĀbedi, pp. 227-30) and achieved some success in its mission over the years.

In the following decades the Isfahan saw the expansion of the educational system as a result of the allocation of human resources to education. The enrollment in all levels grew substantially and women’s access to education expanded (Table 1). The percentage of relevant age groups enrolled in primary and secondary schools rose from 12.9 in 1966 to 22.3 in 1986 (Sāl-nāma, 1972, pp. 114, 124; 1988, pp. 106-8; SAOE, 2002, Table 15.2). The drop in enrollment by the turn of the century is apparently due to the drop in the demography of school-attending age group, a consequence of the deceleration of population growth. The adult-literacy program, introduced first in 1936 (Banani, p. 105), grew slowly until the early 1960s, when the establishment of a literary corps in rural areas proved effective in reducing illiteracy.

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Table 2 shows the literacy rates as percentages of the age group 6 and older; it also bears witness to the gradual tapering of the gender gap. Official statistics claim the literacy rate for the age group 6-39 to have approached 98 percent in 2002 (Gozāreš, 2002, p. 263).

Higher education. The Junior College of Medicine and Public Health (Āmuzešgāh-e ʿāli-e behdāri) was opened in 1946 (ʿĀbedi, p. 232) and later expanded its program and was integrated into the University of Isfahan in 1950 as College of Medicine (Dāneškada-ye Pezeški). The University expanded to include schools of pharmacy (1954), literature and the humanities (1958), and sciences (1964). It grew rapidly in the 1970s to a full-grown university with an enrolment of 8,000 in the early 1980s. The university embraces seven faculties with thirty departments as well as an evening school. It is located in a vast campus of 4.5 km2 in Hazārjarib at the foot of the Kuh-e Ṣofa.

The other major institute of higher education in the city is the Āryāmehr University of Technology (now Dānešgāh-e Ṣanʿati-e Eṣfahān), founded in the 1970s on a secluded piedmont west of the town (Amin). Its 3,000 students in the early 1980s grew threefold by the mid-1990s (Gozāreš, 1995, p. 86). Moreover, a teacher’s college was opened in 1965, followed by several higher vocational schools both by the state (nursing, accounting, horticulture, food hygiene) and by private investors: Madrasa-ye ʿāli-e Kuroš-e kabir (from 1972) with about one thousand students, granting associate degree in accounting, statistics, surveying, etc. (Iran, p. 102; Anṣāri, pp. 357-63; Āmār-nāma, 1977, pp. 20-21).

The post-revolutionary decades saw a boom in higher education, mostly due to the high rate of unemployment, similar in this respect to other developing nations experiencing population explosion. Branches of the semi-private Islamic Open University (Dānešgāh-e Āzād-e Eslāmi; see EDUCATION xvii) appeared throughout the province, in Nāʾin, Dehāqān (near Šahreżā), Najafābād, Mobāraka, Falāvarjān, Ḵomeynišahr (formerly Sedeh), Ḵᵛorāsgān, and the Majlesi township near Isfahan. In the academic year 2001-2, the total enrollment in the open universities of the province was 60,000, compared with the 67,500 students who enrolled at the higher institutions under the jurisdiction of the ministry of higher education. The respective figures for the next academic year were 66,500 and 72,600, showing an enormous growth, if the data is to be trusted, with females constituting half of the students (Gozāreš, 1995, pp. 86-94; Gozāreš, 2002, pp. 279-87; Bank Markazi, pp. 150, 157).

(2) Cultural Affairs

Isfahan is distinguished among Persian cities not only for its size, centrality, position in a riverain plain, and numerous historical monuments, but also for the idiosyncratic characteristic of its inhabitant. Their Persian accent is generally perceived as a provincial accent par excellence, and their characteristics: wittiness, thriftiness, and industry, attested also in historical sources (Jamālzāda, 1974; Borjian, 1993), are often cited in popular media and jokes. The objectivity of these stereotypes, however, has been questioned by some authors (e.g., Mir-ʿAlāʾi). Indeed, the findings of a national survey, conducted in provincial capitals of 28 provinces in 2001 (Wezārat-e ershād) shows no meaningful pattern that would distinguish values and orientations attested by Isfahanis from those of the inhabitants of other Persian cities of comparable size and status. The private and public life in Isfahan is portrayed by two famous writers from the region, Moḥammad-ʿAli Jamalzāda (q.v.) in Sar o tah yak karbās yā Esfahān-nāma, in a traditional setting, and Hušang Golširi (q.v.) in his last novel Jenn-nāma.

The first periodical in Isfahan was the official newspaper Farhang (q.v.; 1879-90), founded on orders from the Qajar prince-governor Ẓell-al-Solṭān. It was followed by about 39 serial titles initiated during the Qajar period; 27 more during the Reza Shah’s reign; and 87 more from 1941-53, of which some 80 percent belonged to the four concluding years alone. No new newspaper was initiated in the ensuing decades. In spite of the impressive quantity, the majority of these newspapers exhibited a lack of professional skills and were a one-man enterprise, which goes some way to explain their short span of publication, their irregular daily appearance, and their inability to maintain even a weekly run. In the mid-1970s there were only four newspapers: Rāh-e nejāt, Mojāhed, Eṣfahān, and Awliāʾ, the most enduring and consistent of which were Eṣfahān, published from 1942-77 by the noted journalist and scholar Amirqoli Amini, and Awliāʾ, run by the Awliāʾ family since 1950. None of these papers, however, could compete with those from the capital, save for their local official advertisements and public statements. Professional journalism never took roots in Isfahan (ʿĀbedi, pp. 234-38; Amini; Anṣāri, pp. 338-47; cf. Moḥammadi, 2003).

More notable were perhaps the literary reviews that have flourished in Isfahan sporadically since the Constitutional Revolution. In the active period of 1933-35 the second series of Dāneškada-ye Eṣfahān (q.v.) was published by the poet and calligrapher Mirzā ʿAbbās Khan Dehkordi Šeydā, and the magazine Bāḵtar (q.v.) published by the influential Sayfpur Fāṭemi family; the editorship of the latter was entrusted to Amirqoli Amini, who then owned the newspaper Aḵgar. These periodicals enjoyed the literary and scholarly advice of Moḥammad-Taqi Bahār (q.v.), who was then living in internal exile in Isfahan (Sayfpur, pp. 771-74). Moḥammad Ṣadr-Hāšemi, an eminent local educator and historian, published Čehelsotun in the early 1950s. Notwithstanding these figures, for most of the 20th century Isfahan suffered a brain drain in favor of the capital city of Tehran, yet remained a hub of traditional Persian literature centered around the literary societies such as Ḥaqāyeq, Adib-e Farahmand, Šeydā, Kamāl Esmāʿil, Ṣāʾeb, Saʿdi, Sarā-ye soḵanvarān (sponsoring the literary review Nāma-ye soḵanvarān-e Sepāhān), and many less-recognized circles that often met in the residences of their founders and sponsors. Linked with these circles were scores of poets of various genres, predominantly traditional and, more exclusively, satirists and humorists (cf. Anṣāri, pp. 368-86), with the poet Mokrem as a famous figure.

A modernist circle was formed in the 1960s and published Jong-e Eṣfahān, eleven issues of which appeared from 1965-81 (Ḥoquqi, p. 439). Among the members of the circle were such prominent writers, poets, and translators as Hušang Golširi Moḥammad Ḥoquqi, Abu’l-Ḥasan Najafi, Żiāʾ Mowaḥḥed, Aḥmad Mirʿalāʾi, Moḥammad Kalbāsi, Aḥmad Golširi, Moḥammad-Reżā Qānunparvar, Jalil Dustḵᵛāh, Moḥammad-Raḥim Oḵowwat, and Majid Naficy. The circle re-emerged in the late 1980s with the quarterly Zendarud.

On the religious side there were Hājia Ḵānom Noṣrat-Bēgom Amin, a leading female mojtahed who wrote a fifteen-volume study of the Koran, and equally prolific Sayyed Moṣleḥ-al-Din Mahdawi with mastery in the genre of necrology (taḏkerat al-qobur “account of the graveyards”).

Isfahan is also known as a center of traditional artists. It has its own school of Persian classical music and its contemporary figures have been the vocalists Ḥosayn Ṭāherzāda and Jalāl Tāj and instrumentalists ʿAli-Akbar Šeydā, Jalil Šahnāz and Ḥasan Kasāʾi. Of many painters of the town, Maḥmud Farščiān has gained international recognition owing to his distinguished style. A whole new generation of miniaturists, calligraphers, tile makers, and other visual artists emerged during the restoration of historical monuments and, as the city grew into a center of tourist attraction, handicrafts flourished. Worth mentioning is also the performing arts, most notably the theatrical comic group led by and named after Arḥām-e Ṣadr (Kušān et al., passim).

The Armenian cultural contribution to the city has been demographically disproportional to this small community of a few thousand. The Vank museum and research library were the only ones of their kind in Isfahan until recent past. Several Armenian residents of the town have gained prominence in painting, music, and cinema. The department of Armenian language and literature at the University of Isfahan, founded by the Gulbenkian Foundation in 1974, is the only center of Armenian studies in the country (Mināsiān, pp. 23-28; Lāzāriān, passim; see JULFA).

xvi. Folklore and Legend

Systematic collection of the folklore of Isfahan is mostly due to Amirqoli Amini, whose first publication was a collection of Persian dicta entitled hazār o yak soḵan. He followed this book with a more extensive collection of Isfahan’s narrative folklore, which led to his best known publication, Dāstānhā-ye amṯāl. Amini’s approach was to interview mostly illiterate informants, whom he asked about any proverbs or stories associated with proverbs that they might remember; he would then record the data in writing. During eighteen years of research, Amini managed to collect 3,000 proverbs, of which nearly 250 were associated with some explanatory narratives (Amini, 1954, pp. 4-5). In 1935, Amini brought his entire collection to the attention of ʿAli-Aṣḡar Ḥekmat (q.v.), then the minister of education, who concluded an official contract with Amini and charged him with preparing both proverbs and folktales of Isfahan for publication by the Ministry of Education (Amini, 1954, p. 5). Amini arranged his data into three volumes, and turned over the manuscripts to the Ministry of Education in the fall of 1937. Shortly afterwards, however, Ḥekmat was replaced, and Esmāʿil Merʾāt, the new minister, showed no interest in having them published. Amini tried for several years to persuade the ministry to either honor its contract and publish his book, or to return the manuscripts to him so that he could arrange for their publication himself. The officialdom finally relented after seven years, and returned his manuscripts. Eventually, two volumes of his Dāstānhā-ye amṯāl were published by the Eṭṭelāʿāt Press (Tehran, 1945), but they soon became difficult to find due to their popularity and also a fire at the press, in which many of them perished. The enlarged second edition containing 277 proverbs and tales (i.e., 34 more than the 1st ed.) was published in 1953. A year later, Amini published another revised edition with 10 additional items, all arranged in alphabetical order. Each proverb was followed by a story that purported to explain its origin and was also provided with the context in which it may be used. Amini also published a collection of thirty Eṣfahāni tales (Si afsāna), a number of which he recorded in literary Persian rather than in the dialect he had heard (Amini, 1960, p. ii).

It is true that almost all Iranian studies of folklore name Āqā Jamāl Ḵᵛānsāri (d. 1121/1709 or 1125/1713), a Shiʿite cleric of the 18th century, as the first one to collect the folklore of Isfahan’s women (e.g., Enjavi 1972, p. 13; idem, 2002, pp. 234-35; Katirāʾi, pp. 136, n. 3), but in reality Ḵᵛānsāri’s short treatise, called Kolṯum Nana, is a satirical work in which the author intended to ridicule these beliefs rather than collect them. The book was Ḵᵛānsāri’s way of combating superstitious customs and practices, which he, a respected theologian, disliked (Bolukbāši, 1961, no. 19, p. 177). Therefore, one cannot always distinguish between factual folk practices and their caricatures in his account. Authors, such as Mirzā Ḥabib Eṣfahāni (d. toward the end of the 19th century in Istanbul, q.v.) and Moḥammad-ʿAli Jamālzāda (1895-1997), who are often mentioned in connection with the folklore of Isfahan, are in reality novelists and social critics, who either peppered their writings with folk expressions as a matter of prose style, or used folklore as a vehicle for expressing social and cultural criticism.

Isfahan’s folklore has the rich diversity of the folklore of those areas of Iran where different cultures and populations made contact. Natives of Isfahan have themselves become objects of general Persian folklore from very early on. They have been portrayed in folklore as being very clever, business-minded, and thrifty. The association of Isfahan’s population with thriftiness must have been a popular notion at least as early as the 10th century, since, according to the 10th-century geographer Moqaddasi, they had been referred to as one of the most tight-fisted people in a text where the Sasanian monarch Qobād described the character of the lands under his rule (Moqaddasi, pp. 257-58, tr, II, pp. 372-73).

Isfahan’s reputation as a land of abundance, has been explained by the legend of the refusal of its people to assist Nimrud in his rebellion against God. According to other legends, Nimrud’s army was destroyed near Isfahan, whose natives were blessed by Abraham, and thereby the city will always have thirty men to whom God grants every wish they ask for (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 40; Ebn Rosta, tr. pp. 179, 190; Moqaddasi, p. 397, tr., II, p. 593; Māfarruḵi, pp. 35-36, tr. pp. 80, 82, 144). It is said that ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz ʿEjli in the 10th century found in a village of Isfahan a fully armed man in a tomb, whose body had remained intact. The tomb also contained various artifacts that were turned to dust as soon as they were touched, though the corpse stayed intact (Māfarruḵi, p. 11, tr. p. 22). This is a well known motif that has been related about the Safavid Shah Esmāʿil I (q.v.) and others (Balāḡi, II, p. 24).

Many prominent historical and legendary figures are said to have hailed from Isfahan or to have met their end at or near the city. According to these legends, Anōširvān was born in Ardestān, a village near Isfahan (Ebn Rosta, p. 153, tr. p. 181), as was Moses’ pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Bahrām Gōr, and the Prophet’s companion Salmān Fārsi (Māfarruḵi, pp. 22-23, tr. pp. 66-67). The legendary king Kay Ḵosrow is said to have been the first king to have held his coronation ceremony there and to also have disappeared in snow near Isfahan at the end of his reign. Likewise, Ardašir Bābakān, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, was crowned king of Iran there and it was also he who named the city’s famous river Zarrinrud (i.e., Zāyandarud) and established the system for the orderly use of its waters in irrigation (Enjavi, 1975, pp. 276, 279, 283, 292; Ebn Rosta, pp., 155, 196, tr., 183, pp. 232-33). Of the heroes of the Šāh-nāma, the chief hero, Rostam, lived in Isfahan as a child and Gōdarz (q.v.) held the region as a fief (Māfarruḵi, tr., p. 79; Enjavi, 1975, p. 100). The tomb of the legendary king Ṭahmuraṯ is said to be atop a mountain called Bandarāb near Isfahan, where there is a room of lapis lazuli in which Adam’s ring and Eve’s diadem are kept (Hama-dāni, p. 187).

Many festivals and folk ceremonies held in Isfahan have been reported. One, associated with the Nowruz celebration, was held in one of the bazaars near the city at great expense. The varieties of food, dress, and unusual decorations associated with this festival, which continued for seven days, amazed the Arab traveler, Ebn Ḥawqal, in the middle of the 10th century (Ebn Ḥawqal, p. 364, tr., p. 107). Later on, the Buyid monarch ʿAżod-al-Dawla (q.v.), tried to recreate this festival in Shiraz because of his fond childhood memories of it (Māfarruḵi, pp. 93-94, tr., p.17; Faqihi, p. 594). Gardizi in the 11th century reports a popular water festival in Isfahan that commemorated the relief from some ancient draught (Gardizi, pp. 239, 247).

Nowruz festivities in the more recent times involved many folk entertainers such as ʿamu nowruz, ādam-e čubi, bear and monkey handlers, and wondering musicians who would entertain people for small fees (Moʿezz-al-Din Mahdawi, p. 66). Religious festivals have also been observed with great relish in Isfahan. Mourning ceremonies associated with the martyrdom of Imam Ḥosyan b. ʿAli (q.v.) were publicly held in a number of predominantly Sunni cities such as Isfahan during the Saljuq period (Faqihi, pp. 452, 457; cf. ʿAbd-al-Jalil Qazvini, p. 371). Under the Qajars, groups of thugs, who had friends in the city jail would go to the governor’s house and vigorously self flagellate with of a small sword called qama. They used to vow to continue until either they die or the governor would agree to release their imprisoned comrades. It has been reported that this was no idle threat as some of these would continue the flagellation until fainting or death from blood-loss. Sufis would publicly demonstrate their piety during some of these holy periods by placing chains around their necks and limbs while strolling in the streets. Many would use the occasion to extort money from the passers by (Moʿezz-al-Din Mahdawi, pp. 50-51, 66).

There are many landmarks around Isfahan that are believed to have magical power. A field, called Fās, near Harāskān village is said to have been charmed. No wild animals would bother domesticated beasts that might be grazing there. It is said that a rooster that had escaped its coop lived there for four years without being molested by any wild animals (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 31; Māfarruḵi, p. 16, tr., p. 37; Ebn Rosta, tr., p. 188). A type of water with curative powers oozes out of one of the mountains in the ardahar region near Kāšān. The natives collect the water on the day of Tir of the month of Tir, while, according to Māfarruḵi (pp. 16-17, tr. pp. 37-38), calling upon the mountain saying: “O Biḏ-doḵt give me of your water, which I need for the cure of such and such a disease (cf. Moqaddasi, pp. 396-97, tr., II, p. 593; Ebn Rosta, tr., pp. 186-87). There is a different kind of magical water in one of the springs called “The spring of the locusts” (ʿAyn-al-jarād),” near Isfahan, which is used as a charm against locust infestation. When farms are attacked by swarms of locusts, two pious individuals take some of this spring’s water and spray it over the infested farms; thereby thousands of birds will appear and destroy the locusts (Fozuni, p. 455). A variety of beads called mohra-ye taḏark, “hail beads,” found in another village of Isfahan is a potent charm against hale (Abu Noʿaym, I, p. 32; cf. Māfarruḵi, tr., p. 37). Other villages use two rings that are affixed to poles as charms against the devastating power of hailstorms. These rings have the power of turning hail to rain (Ebn Rosta, tr., p. 187). Another village in the vicinity of the city produces a special apotropaic potion that can cure the evil effects of magic as well as madness, provided that it is mixed in the milk of a reddish cow and administered to the victim in one of the three last nights of the lunar month (Māfarruḵi, tr., p. 41). In the past, Eṣfahāni girls who were seeking matrimony would have recourse to several magical practices. The most famous among these is the following: On the last Wednesday evening of the year (Čāhāršanba-suri, q.v.), they would go to a shrine (emāmzāda, q.v.) that had a minaret called Monār-e Sar-berenji. Once there, they would climb the staircase in the minaret, place walnuts on each of the stairs and sit on it hard enough to break the shell, while reciting a verse expressing their wishes (Hedāyat, p. 158; Moʿezz-al-Din Mahdawi, p. 92). They might alternatively draw a string across a cross-section and would wait for the passers-by to tear it while passing through (Purkarim, p. 21), or would pour water of an old bathhouse called Ḥammām-e Šayḵ Bahāʾi upon their heads, using a special bowl called jām-e čel kelid “the bowl of forty keys” (Hedāyat, p. 159).

Divination by the aid of the tombstone of a saint (Hedāyat, p. 159), tea-leaves (Nafisi), and by interpretation of dreams (Ketāb-e hafta 13, pp. 134-35), as well as by other means are common in the folklore of Isfahan. Other magical practices and beliefs, such as those associated with the protection of the newborn infant and its mother from the demoness Āl (q.v.), or protecting a frightened child against becoming a stutterer abound (Moʿezz-al-Din Mahdawi, pp. 8, 10).

Perhaps what natives of Isfahan are most famous for in Persian folklore is their sense of humor and ability to produce clever repartees. Riddles, short folktales, and satires in verse abound in Isfahan’s verbal folklore (e.g., see Moʿezz-al-Din Mahdawi, p. 59, who quotes Moḥammad Rāvandi’s Rāḥat al-ṣodur).

xvii. Armenian Community

See JULFA.

xviii. Jewish Community

The beginning of the Jewish settlement in Isfahan is mixed with legends, but there are fragmentary source materials that enable us to reconstruct the major historical events concerning its Jewish community. According to The Standard Jewish Encyclopaedia (s.v. Isfahan), “The Talmud ascribes the foundation of Isfahan to Jews exiled by Nebuchadnezzar.” Muslim geographers such as Moqaddasi/Maqdesi (p. 388), Ebn al-Ḥadwqal (pp. 366-67), Ebn al-Faqih (pp. 261-62), and Yāqut Ḥamawi (I, pp. 295 ff., IV, pp. 1044-45) report the tradition that the town of Yahudiya (lit. the town of Jews), the center of Isfahan, was so called, because the exiled Jews of Babylonia chose to settle in that area, which probably would mean during the first phase of the Achaemenian Empire. Ebn al-Faqih records a tradition according to which “When the Jews emigrated from Jerusalem, fleeing from Nebuchadnezzar (Boḵt-al-Naṣr), they carried with them a sample of the water and of the soil of Jerusalem. They did not settle down anywhere or in any city without examining the water and the soil of each place. This they did all along until they reached the city of Isfahan. There they rested, examined water and soil and found that both resembled Jerusalem. Upon that they settled there, cultivated the soil, raised children and grandchildren, and today the name of this settlement is Yahudiyah” (Ebn al-Faqih, pp. 261-62; cf. Ebn al-Ḥawqal, pp. 366-67, tr., II, p. 358). According to Guy Le Strange, the medieval Yahudiya is the same town that was enlarged under the Safavids (Le Strange, p. 204).

According to Armenian sources, (Moses Khorenatsʿi, tr. Thomson, p. 293) the Sasanian Šāpūr II (r. 309-79) transferred many Jews from Armenia and settled them in Isfahan. According to the Middle Persian text Šahris-tānihā ī Ērān, the Sasanian king, Yazdegerd I (r. 399-421), settled Jews in Jay (Gay) at the request of his Jewish wife Šōšan-doḵt. Šōšān-doḵt, who is also credited by the same source with the founding of Šōš (an obvious anachronistic identification) is called the daughter of exilarch (rēš-gālutak ī Yahudān šāh) and the mother of Bahrām V Gōr (q.v.; Šahristānihā ī Ērān, secs. 47, 53; Darmesteter; Gray). This particular exilarch who is mentioned as the father of Šōšan-doḵt is not known otherwise. He may have been either Mar Kahana I, Mar Yemar, or Mar Zuṭra I, who successively filled the position of exilarch (reš galuta) for brief periods about that time. According to Ḥamza Eṣfahāni, half of the Jewish population of Isfahan were killed and their sons enslaved by the order of the Sasanian king, Pērōz (r. 459-84), when there spread the rumor that Jews had flayed alive two Zoroastrian priests and used their skins in their tanning industry (Ḥamza, ed. Gottwaldt, pp. 55-56; Levy, tr., pp. 144, 147-48; Widengren, p. 143). This incident—if it happened at all, since it is not related by other known primary sources—might have taken place in 472 C.E.

In anticipation for the coming of the Messiah, the Jews of Isfahan celebrated the conquest of the city by the Arabs. According to Abu Noʿaym (I, pp. 21-22) the Jews of Isfahān, while dancing and playing music, went to the gate of the city to receive the Arab conquerors. About a hundred years later, a Jew from Isfahan by the name Abu ʿIsā (q.v.) declared himself a messenger of the expected Messiah (rasul al-masiḥ al-montaẓar) and charged by God to rescue the children of Israel from the rule of insubordinate people. He prohibited divorce, eating of meat, and wine drinking and acknowledged the prophethood of Jesus, and Moḥammad. He gathered many thousands armed Jews and rebelled against the rule of the last Omayyad caliph, Marwān II (r. 744-50). Neither the details of his rise are known nor the exact date of his revolution, which is given differently in sources. According to Abu’l-Fatḥ Moḥammad Šahrestāni, he founded a sect called ʿIsawiya after him and was eventually killed along with his followers near Ray (Šahrestāni, p. 168; tr. Haarbrücker, I, pp. 254-55; tr. Ṣadr Torka, pp. 168-69; Pines). The rise of Abu ʿIsā is recorded as an important Messianic movement in Jewish history (Qerqisāni, tr. pp. 382-83). This event together with the report of Abu Noʿaym indicates that Isfahan must have been populated with a large number of Jews who could allow themselves to take hazardous actions. Around the year 1179, another Jewish Messianic movement originated in Isfahan under the leadership of certain Abu Saʿid b. Dāwud. It was reported that Maimonides had sent a special messenger to Isfahan, allegedly to inquire about this movement (Baer, pp. 155 ff.). Benjamin of Tudela (pp. 82, 88), who visited Persia around the 1160s, stated that Isfahan was the seat of the chief rabbi called Sar Šalom, who was appointed by the exilarch of Baghdad over all Jewish communities of Persia. According to this source Isfahan had a Jewish population of 15,000 souls.

At the beginning of the 17th century, Isfahan, located almost in the center of the Safavid kingdom with easy access to the Persian Gulf and at a safe distance from the Ottomon threat, was in the ideal position to become its administrative, political, religious, and commercial center. In 1005/1596-96, Shah ʿAbbās I the Great (r. 995-1038/1587-1629) made it the capital city of Persia and did not spare any efforts to rebuild, beautify, and enlarge it. He turned Isfahan into “the most famous and romantic of the cities of the east” (Curzon, II, p. 22), a cosmopolitan metropolis that became the residential and meeting place of Christian minorities, and European travelers, envoys, emissaries, diplomats, and missionaries, many of whom have left a record of their stay there. Thus we possess more information about the Jews of Isfahan during the Safavid period (1501-1736). According to Ketāb-e anusi, a versified history by the Jewish poet of Kāšān, Bābāʾi ben Loṭf (q.v.), Jews of Isfahan, like the Jews of many parts of Persia, were severely persecuted under the Safavids (Seligsohn; Bacher; Fischel; Spicehandler; Netzer; Moreen). Nevertheless, they continued to conduct their religious life and cultivate their culture. ʿEmrāni (1454-after 1536, q.v.), one of the two great Judeo-Persian poets, flourished in Isfahan (Netzer, 1973, p. 41; Yeroushalami). In the colophon of an Armenian manuscript written in Isfahan in 1646, the Jews of Isfahan are praised for their knowledge and scholarship: “They know by heart the whole Bible, men and women, boys and girls. For they are very learned and of an inquiring disposition; they ponder over the deep laws of God; they do not pay heavy taxes as is being done in our land of Armenia, nor do all of them devote their time to handicrafts like our own people, for their art is of reading and learning, and to this only do they dedicate their time. Great and small are given to asking questions as did the old Athenians (Ajamian, p. 120). When Nāder Shah Afšār (r. 1148-60/1736-47) decided to have the Bible, and the Qurʾan translated into Persian, the rabbi Bābāʾi ben Nuriʾel (q.v.) of Isfahan was the one chosen to translate the Pentateuch and the Psalms of David from Hebrew with the help of other rabbis.

The number of the Jews of Isfahan decreased to an average estimated of 300 families, or about 1,800 souls (d’Beth Hillel, p. 109; Benjamin, II, pp. 183 ff.), even though, Isfahan in 1889 was considered as the largest of all Jewish communities in Persia (Neumark, p. 85). The turning point for modern education in Isfahan was the opening of the Alliance (q.v.) school in 1901 for the Jews of the city. According to the Alliance, Isfahan was the home of about 6,000 Jews in 1903-4 (Tsadik, 2005, p. 275). In 1948 there were an estimated of 10,000 Jews living in Isfahan, the majority of whom emigrated to Israel. At the beginning of the Islamic regime in Iran, there lived in Isfahan an estimated 3,000 Jews. The Jews of Isfahan bury their dead in a place called Ester (Esther) Ḵātun near Pir Bakrān village, some 30 km southwest of Isfahan (Honarfar, pp. 26, 28-29). The place is known in Hebrew as Seraḥ bat Ašer in the name of the granddaughter of Jacob the Prophet (Genesis 46:17; Targum Yerushalmi on Genesis 49:21, on Numbers 27:46), and as such is revered by Jews all over Persia. Ernst Herzfeld suggested the Jewish origin of the tomb of Pir Bakrān. “In the floor a rock is shown with the impression of a horse’s hoof, with which the name of the prophet Elijah is linked … The rock, perhaps, originally meant to replace the rock in the temple of Jerusalem. The Sūfī has usurped the Jewish sanctuary” (Herzfeld, quoted by Godard).

According to the report prepared by the Jewish Central Organization (Anjoman-e kalimiān) in Tehran, there were 1,500 Jews living in Isfahan in 2003, of whom 700 resided in the Jewish neighborhood (maḥalla) in Jubāra quarter (see Figure 1 and Figure 2), and the rest were living around the main thoroughfare of Čahārbāḡ. Religious services are carried out in nineteen synagogues, of which eighteen are located in the Jewish quarter and one in the city center; the latter is used for social affairs of the community as well. The Jewish school, now called Madrasa-ye Etteḥād (formerly Alliance) and run by a Muslim principal, is divided into two separate sections, one for boys and one for girls. It provides education from the first to the ninth grade and has the total of about 800 enrollment in each section.

FIGURE 1. Distribution of Jewish households in the 1970s in the Jewish neighborhood (maḥalla) located in Jubāra quarter and other quarters of Isfahan. Adapted from Šafaqi, facing p. 402.View full image in a new tab

FIGURE 2. Distribution of various religious and public facilities in the Jewish neighborhood (maḥalla), located in Jubāra quarter. Adapted from Šafaqi, facing p. 410.View full image in a new tab

xix. Jewish Dialect

Introduction. The dialect spoken by the Jews of Isfahan (henceforth IsfJ.) belongs to the Central Dialect (CPD) group (also called Median dialects by some scholars) of Northwestern Iranian languages (NWI). The original speech form of the city of Isfahan (see also xxi. PROVINCIAL DIALECTS and xx. GEOGRAPHY OF THE MEDIAN DIALECTS OF ISFAHAN) was probably very similar to IsfJ. and remained in the Jewish community but died out in the Muslim community, not without leaving its influence, however, on the type of Persian spoken in Isfahan. According to Ehsan Yarshater’s informants in 1970, there were about 2,500 Jewish residents in Isfahan at the time, a decrease from possibly 13,000 in the heyday of the community, and there were over twenty synagogues, some of which by 1970 were in disuse. The Jewish population is centered in the section of Isfahan known as Jubāra as well as throughout the city. Donald Stilo’s notes were also provided by a local rabbi in a synagogue in Jubāra in 1964. While the Jewish community of Isfahan has been greatly reduced, IsfJ. is still spoken among various generations there. In the diaspora, the dialect is still spoken by the older generation in Israel, Los Angeles, and New York City and sporadically in other large urban centers.

History and classification. The Jewish dialects of Isfahan, Kāshān, Hamadān, Borujerd, Yazd, Kermān and others belong to the Central dialect group of Northwestern Iranian. All of Northwestern Iranian languages, in turn, are descended from Median, whereas Persian (including Middle Persian or Pahlavi) belongs to the Southwestern Iranian (SWI) group and are descended from Old Persian. Since Persian and modern “Median” dialects are two completely different linguistic groups within Iranian that diverged over 2,500 years ago, the term “Judeo-Persian,” which is sometimes applied to IsfJ. (as well as other dialects spoken by the Jewish communities listed above), is to be considered a misnomer. “Judeo-Persian” is more accurately applied specifically to Persian dialects as spoken (or written) within Jewish communities in different locales and especially at different time periods, beginning with the earliest forms of New Persian in the 8th century C.E. Since IsfJ. and other Central dialects have borrowed extensively from Persian, especially within the lexical domain, they may seem to be very similar to Persian, but a closer look at the diachronics, the native lexicon and grammar as laid out below will suffice to show the radical differences between Persian as opposed to IsfJ. and other Northwestern languages and dialects.

Diachronics. Important differences in the development of proto-Iranian consonants in Median/NWI and Old Persian/SWI show that they were already distinct from each other before the time of the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenian period. The two groups diverged even more in the Middle Iranian and early Modern Iranian periods. Thus, to take one characteristic example, proto-Iranian *dz (corresponding to Skt. j-) yields different reflexes in Old Persian (and its descendants in modern SWI) from those of Median (and its descendants in modern NWI). Words that had a proto-Iranian *dz-, such as “to know” and “son-in-law,” yielded words that begin with d- in Southwestern languages (cf. Persian dān- and dāmād) as opposed to words with z- in the Northwestern family (Av. zan- “know” and zāmātar “son-in-law,” cf. Skt. jān- and jāmātar-, respectively). In examining a sampling of the Central dialects, as well as other Northwestern Iranian languages outside the Central dialects, we find the following forms, all beginning with z- and meaning “know (present/past stems)” and “son-in-law,” respectively: IsfJ.: zun-/zunā and zumāz; Hamadāni Jewish: zun-/zunā and dumād (the latter a borrowing from Persian); Gazi: zun-/zunāšt and zomā; Anāraki: zon-/zono and zomā; Ḵᵛānsāri: zun-/zunā and zumā; Yazdi Zoroastrian: zon-/zonod and zomād; Āštiāni: zān-/zānā and zāmā; and beyond the Central dialects, Semnāni: zun-/zuni and zomā ~ zumi; Tāleši (Māsulaʾi): zon-/zonoss and zemā; Gilaki: dān-/ dānəst (borrowed from Persian) and zāmā; Baluchi: zān-/zānt and zamās; Kurdish (Kurmanji): zān-/zāni and zāvā. There are many more examples of the differences in sounds that distinguish Persian and other SWI from all NWI languages and dialects, including IsfJ., Gazi, and other Central dialects, some of which are given below.

NWI developments from proto-Iranian in IsfJ. include: *dz > z, as in IsfJ. zun/zunā “know,” zumāz “son-in-law” (as discussed above), ezerí “yesterday”; *tsv- > sp-: IsfJ. išpiš “louse,” esbez “white”; *dzv- > zb in IsfJ. ozun “tongue,” where –b- was probably absorbed into the u much later (e.g., zbān > zvān > ozvun > ozun, or some similar process); *dv- > b-, as in bar “door,” abi “other”; *y- remains as y- (vs. SWI j-) as in IsfJ. ye “barley,” yuš- “boil”; *v- remains as v- (instead of SWI g-) in IsfJ. veyše “hungry,” v(e)zer-/v(e)zašd “pass,” and as v- (vs. SWI b-) in IsfJ. vāzum “almond,” vārun “rain,” vij-/vit “sift,” viye “widow,” viΘ “twenty,” vāz “wind”; initial *j- remains as j- (vs. SWI z-) in jan “wife, play (instrument),” jande “alive”; medial *-č- > -j- (vs. SWI z-) as in tej- “run,” vij- “sift,” vājār “bazaar, market,” jir “under, down” (< *haca adara-); *xw > x as in xunt “read,” xox “sister,” xow “sleep (N),” but note also: *xw > ø in owΘ-/ofd- “sleep.” The typical NWI change *-xt > -(h)t ~ -(t)t, is represented in IsfJ. sowt “burned,” dot “daughter, girl,” rit “poured,” vit “sifted,” vāt “said.” The usually parallel development of *-ft > NWI -(h)t ~ -(t)t, however, either did not occur in IsfJ. or its absence is possibly due to an effect of Persian or other SWI influence: dar-kaft “fall,” i-ofd “sleep,” i-geft ~ gift “take” (but cf. Gazi i-git).

*fr > r as in kāre~gāre “down” (< Av. gufra-, ǰafra-) and possibly *fr- > i- in the IsfJ. preverb i-~e- (see “Preverbs” below). Eṣfahāni Jewish and the dialects of the immediate Isfahan area (specifically Gazi, Ḵorzuqi, Sedehi, and Sagzāvi) have an i- ~ e- preverb in the same verbs in which other NWI have the corresponding preverb hā- < *fra-. Compare IsfJ. i-gi(r) “take, get,” i-ni “sit,” i-owΘ “sleep,” e-tā “give,” e-n- “put,” e-band “hit,” e-parΘ “ask” with the same verbs in: Kafrāni (hā-gir, hā-ning, ā-xus, hā-t, hā-nā, —, —), Anāraki (ha-gir, ha-nik, ha-wsi, ha-t, ha-nā, hab-end, —), Alviri (a Tāti language) (hā-gir, hā-neš, hā-xös, ā-d, hā-nā, —, —), Vafsi (a Tāti language) (hā-gir, hā-nešin, —, hā-d, hā-ni, —, hā-pars) and Māzanderāni (hā-gir, he-niš, —, hā-de, —, —, hā-pers). Other cases of original *fr- are seen in IsfJ. only as fr-, which is typical of SWI (ferāš/ferāt “sell,” feresn/-ā “send”); *Θr > r: pir “son” and ār-ci “hand mill” (cf. the root minus the diminutive suffix -ci with: Ḵᵛānsāri, Jowšaqāni ār, Meymaʾi or “mill” < Av. ārΘra-, but IsfJ. āsiow “mill” < SWI); *xr- > IsfJ. ir-: *xrin- “buy” > irin-/irint, but other examples of this development in initial position were not found. Medial *-xr- > IsfJ. -r-: Θir “red.” See also a longer discussion of the reflexes of *fr-, *Θr-, *xr- under Diachronics in xxii, below.

IsfJ. is conservative in preserving medial and final *d, both medially and finally as δ~z and medially occasionally also as -d- (equivalents are also given in other Central dialects, where these consonants are either weakened to -y, -v or are lost): IsfJ. vāzum ~ vāδum~vādum “almond,” cezor~ceδor “chador,” xód-e~xoz-e ~ xoδ-e “with” (Farizandi vāyom, cāyür, xāy), bezār ~ beδār “brother” (Ḵᵛānsāri berā), keze ~ keδe “house” (Meymaʾi kiye), ruze ~ ruδe “intestine” (Sedehi ruve), v(e)zer/v(e)zašd- ~ v(e)δer/v(e)δašd- “pass” (Yārandi viar/viašt-), diz ~ diδ “smoke,” zumāz~δumāδ “son-in-law” (Zefra’i dü, zomā), esbez ~ eΘbeδ “white” (Sedehi esbe), māz ~ māδ “mother,” vāz ~ vāδ “wind” (Naṭanzi māy, vāy).

Original *ū, even in Arabic borrowings, is generally fronted to i as in xin “blood,” pir “boy, son,” miš “mouse,” diz “smoke,” Θir “red,” āris “bride,” haΘit “jealous,” til “length.” This change, however, is not universal in IsfJ.: Θuδue “it burns,” dušnue “he milks,” gušd “meat.” Original *ā changes to u before nasals: ume “come,” zumāz “son-in-law,” (ve-) mun/mund “stay,” un “that,” vun “there.”

Phonology. IsfJ. consonants are p, b, t, d, c, j, k, g, q~γ, f, v, s, z, š, x, h, m, n, r, l, y, but note that: a) z, s alternate freely with interdental δ, Θ respectively: δunun~zunun “I know,” bépez ~ bépeδ! “cook!,” eδeri~ezeri “yesterday,” tarsue~tarΘue “he fears,” véroΘ ~ véros “get up!”; b) medial -d- sometimes alternates with -δ (and occasionally –z-): pírodun~píroδun “your son,” xód-e~xóδ-e ~ xoz-e “with,” vāzum~vāδum~vādum “almond”; c) č and j (= ǰ, which in IsfJ. includes ž of other languages) are palatalized to ć and ¦: ćirići “sparrow, chick,” bi¦an “man’s name.” Noteworthy in the vowel system (i, e, a, u, o, ā, ey, ew) is the ew diphthong, resulting both from an original glide as well as from the change of b, f > w: mew “vine,” kewk “partridge,” lew “lip,” kewš “shoe,” kelews “celery,” cf. Persian mow, kabk, lab, kafš, karafs, respectively.

Stress in Eṣfahāni Jewish is mostly word-final, but some morphemes, particularly in verbal categories, cause the stress to shift away from final position: the prefix bé- (bé-m-bart “I carried”) and the preverbs of the subjunctive, imperative, preterit, and perfect tenses; the person endings in the present (ār-ún-e “I bring,” ber-úv-e “he carries”); the participial element in the imperfect (umó-un-e “I would come,” baΘté-š-e “he would hit,” ve-garté-nd-e “they would return”). Stress usually contrasts between the present and subjunctive forms with preverbs: ve-krúne “I open” vs. vé-krun “that I open.”

The stress-pitch system of IsfJ. is quite a rare case in that it seems to be the exact opposite of the situation found in most languages of the world: in IsfJ. unstressed syllables have high pitch and the stressed syllables have low pitch. This unusual situation in effect makes the pronunciation of a word sound to the uninitiated ear as if the stress is placed on the unstressed syllable due to the higher pitch. This author thus first heard the words pírom “my son” and beδāˊrom “my brother” as piróm and béδārom with the stress incorrectly assigned due to the unusual pitch system; compare Rubène Abrahamian’s círi “sparrow,” āˊlā “now,” éšnide “you hear,” instead the expected cirí, ālāˊ, ešníde, possibly incorrectly notated for the same reasons. This unusual pattern is also shared by Isfahani Persian, probably as a leftover from the original dialect of the city. Compare the following parallel patterns of two simple sentences in Tehrani Persian and Isfahani Persian:

Tehrani (3 levels): Example 1

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Isfahani (2 levels?): Example 2

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"Where are you going? Is your house nearby?"

A more careful and detailed analysis of the unusual stress-pitch system patterns of the Persian and NWI dialects in the area from Isfahan to Yazd needs to be conducted.

Noun phrase. Number: IsfJ. nouns and pronouns do not indicate gender or formal case (but see the discussion of -(r)ā, below). There is one type of plural ending in -ā: doδδ-ā “thieves,” gorg-ā “wolves,” guš-ā “ears,” kenisā-ā “synagogues.” The two indefinite markers occur either separately or together: ye “one” and/or an unstressed -ì: xurúΘi, ye xuruΘ, ye xurúΘi “a rooster.”

Object marking. Definite direct objects are marked with unstressed -(r)ā, but less commonly in the tenses of the past system (see Fronting below for a discussion of this phenomenon): bid hāmā-rā bévenid “come see us,” dandunā-š-ā be-am bé-š-xerāšā “he pressed (i.e., gritted) his teeth together.” The combination of the preposition še + the short pronominal suffixes (Set₂, see Table 1) also marks (1) direct objects either (a) alone: še-m bandíe? “Will you hit me?” or (b) še + Set₂ along with the full pronoun marked by -(r)ā: mun tó-rā še-d nébandune “I won’t hit you,” and (2) indirect objects (pilā-m-ā še-d nétune “I won’t give you my money”). As will be shown below (see Person endings, Fronting) the Set₂ endings that indicate the past subject are rather mobile and very commonly move off the verb and shift forward in the sentence, hence the designation “Fronting.” Thus when a Set₂ subject ending is moved from the verb to še that already has a Set₂ possessive ending, two Set₂ endings will then occur together: še ₁ -š ₂ -om ₃ baΘ ₄ “I₃ hit₄ him_1-2,” še ₁ -š ₂ -oš ₃ dā ₄ “he₃ gave₄ (it) to₁ him₂.” With indirect objects, the Set₂ ending sometimes also moves to an earlier word in the sentence, in which case še then stands alone: še-d “to you” > xeδā omr-od še é-tā “may God give you (long) life.” See also Prepositions below for more information on indicating indirect objects.

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Set₂ ending inserted between the suffixes for person (Set₁) and tense (-e) in the present also optionally indicates pronoun direct objects: band-ún-ešun-e “I’ll hit them,” keš-end-ed-e “they’ll kill you,” but in the subjunctive, optative, and imperative, Set₂ as object comes either just before the verb stem (bé-d-beru "[that] he takes you,” xeδā bé-š-kešā “may God kill him,” bé-š-ārid “bring [pl,] him,” bi-šun-gi “grab them!”) or occasionally at the end: bétarsen-eš “frighten him!”). In addition, according to Irān Kalbāsi (1994), two short form pronouns (Set₂) can appear together to indicate both subject and object in past tenses: be-šun ₁ -oš ₂ -ferāt “they₁ sold it₂,” pušd-om-oš-e “I used to wear it,” but this construction is not found in any other published sources or field notes for IsfJ., and it may represent a very recent innovation in IsfJ. (most likely under the influence of colloquial Persian among the younger generation, and possibly only from elicited, i.e., translated, examples; it would be informative to track the frequency of this construction in spontaneous speech among speakers of different ages). If only one Set₂ ending occurs in a past tense, it obligatorily indicates the subject, never the object. Thus while peydā-mun kard in colloquial Persian means “he found us,” the equivalent in IsfJ., peydā-mun kart, can only mean “we found (him/it).” In sum, to show pronouns as direct objects in the past tense, either the full form of the pronoun or a second Set₂ ending is possible: āmā-rā peydā-š kart ~ peydā-š-omun kart (the latter in Kalbāsi only) “he found us,” but the former seems to be preferred, at least in older sources.

As in Gazi (q.v.), IsfJ. also quite commonly indicates full direct objects doubly by both the full noun or pronoun plus the Set₂ endings: doδδe-rā še-š ne-band “don’t hit the thief!,” un-ā be-š-ven “see him!,” mun tó-rā še-d nébandune “I won’t hit you.”

Modifiers follow the noun generally connected by an eżāfa, for instance, possessives: dím-e vece “the child’s face,” váxd-e deróv-e šemā “the time of your harvest,” bár-e keniΘā “the door of the synagogue,” but the eżāfa often drops (see also Gazi), especially after a vowel: keδé xóx-om “my sister’s house,” buvā vece “the child’s father,” beletarā mahalle “the great (people) of the neighborhood.” Possessive pronouns are either full forms or Set₂ suffixes: pír-e mun~pír-om “my son,” but the latter are by far more common: beδār-om madreΘe nešue “my brother doesn’t go to school,” pír-od key be xune yue? “when will your son come home?" anšew kami hāl-oš veytar-u “he feels a little better tonight.” Adjective Modifiers with the eżāfa: nasihát-e xab “good advice,” moallém-e pārisi “Parisian teacher,” xox-e kuculi dārun “I have a younger sister,” but the eżāfa may occasionally drop (vece-širi “nursing infant”). The plural suffix may shift from the noun to the adjective: vece-iΘrāel-ā “the Jewish children.”

Demonstratives in IsfJ. are in “this,” un “that,” amin/amun “this/that very (same)”: in mard “this man,” un kār “that work,” gumā-bu amin amšew béšim “we must go this very night.”

Pronouns. Table 1 gives three types of pronouns: full pronouns for subject (and various other uses), full direct object forms, and Set₂ suffixes with various functions (described passim throughout this entry), as well as the Set₁ person endings on the verb.

Reflexives are xo-, xoc- + Set₂ endings but the difference between them, if any, is not clear. Both are used in IsfJ. after prepositions (píš-e xó-š “to himself,” déwr-e xóc-aš “around himself”), as possessives (vece xo-d-u? “Is he your own child?” bešā-š fekrhā-ye xóc-aš-ā amali karu “he can realize his (own) thoughts),” and as emphatics (xó-mun šíme tu xarman “we’ll go to the harvest ourselves,” mo xóc-am ún-ā tu maδra’e bi-m-di “I myself saw him in the field,” xóc-aš yúve “she’ll come by herself”). Only two examples of reflexives as direct objects were found in the available corpora: mun xóc-am-ā be in kār ādat-om e-dā “I have accustomed myself to this (work)” (Kalbāsi), amšew gumā-bu xoc-am-rā be ša:r bereΘnun “I must get (lit: deliver) myself to the city tonight” (Borjiān). Prepositions. Other than aδ “from,” še, be “to,” dā~tā “until,” tu, der “in” etc., prepositions usually require an ezāfa: xód-e “with,” píš-e “at, to (person),” dím-e “on,” etc. Exx: aδ jir “from below,” dā šew “until night,” xód-e cu “with a stick,” xód-e jan-om “with my wife,” dím-e áΘb-oš “on his horse.” še, be and píš-e indicate indirect objects: be āmā buvāid “tell us,” mun píš-e pír-od bé-m-vāt “I told your son,” pil-oš-ā še-š de! “Give him his money!” Prepositions may also take Set₂ endings: xód-om, xód-ot, xód-oš “with me, you, him,” gu-m-e xód-ot béngārun “I want to speak with you.” With “to be” of location, especially be3 (see below), the prepositions indicating “in” are often left unexpressed: sebāh šew mon keδe der-un “I’ll be home tomorrow night.”

Verb phrase. Verb stems. IsfJ. generally has the usual types of past formations seen in other Iranian languages, e.g., gir-/gifd~gi “take, catch,” band-/baΘΘ “hit,” k-/kafd “fall,” rij-/rit “pour,” al~ arz-/ašt “let,” ven-/di “see,” but most past stems follow two regular patterns: 1) a smaller group in -t after an -r or -n of the root: jār/-t “chew,” emar/-t “break,” xešār/-t “press,” birin/-t “cut,” xun/-t “read,” jan/-t “hit” (final -t is possibly a conservative feature; very few stems take the past formant -d, e.g., mund-an “stay”); 2) a much larger group in -ā: zun/-ā “know,” var-veδ/-ā “jump,” tanj/-ā “drink,” kelāš/-ā “itch.” Sometimes a slight change in the root vowel also occurs: ber-/bart “take away,” xuΘ-/xoΘ(Θ) “throw.” Roots originally beginning with a vowel often accrue an initial -r from a preverb, e.g., *ver-oΘ ~ ver-ows > ve-rows “get up,” as seen from the negative forms: venéroΘune “I don’t get up” (= *ver-oΘ-un-e > ve-roΘ- > ve-né-roΘ-). See also the same process with this root in Caspian languages: Gilaki (Langarudi) vi-ris (< vir-is) vs. neg: vi-n-ris, but the original -r is not shifted to the root in Māzanderāni her-est! / néstā!, “get up! / don’t get up!"

Preverbs create finer nuances, lexical extensions, or total meaning changes of a verb root: bí-gi “grab! catch!” vs. vé-gi “pick up!” vs. í-gi “get! buy!”; gartúne “I walk around” vs. vé-gartune “I return”; mālúne “I rub” vs. var-mālune “I flee,” cinúve “he picks (fruit, etc.)” vs. var-cinúve “(bird) pecks at (seeds)”; vé-m-nāšt “I extinguished” vs. é-m-nāšt “I seated.” Sometimes the same verb root may occur both with and without a lexical preverb with no real difference in meaning: dar-kaft ~ bekaft “he fell.” There are two types of preverbs: type 1 (ve(r)-, var-, dar-) appears in all tenses and with negatives; type 2 (e-~i-) appears only in the affirmative and only in non-durative forms (subjunctive, preterit and the perfects). Note the use of e-~i- in the affirmative imperative (í-gi “buy!" é-parΘ “ask!”) and preterit (í-m-gift, é-m-parΘā), but not in the durative (i.e., present and imperfect) tenses: (present) gir-un-e, parΘ-un-e, or negatives of any tense (preterit affirmative/negative: í-m-gift/ná-m-gift, é-m-parΘā/ná-m-parΘā). Although both types of preverbs have precedents elsewhere (cf. Māzanderāni, Vafsi where preverbs only appear in non-duratives; and Gilaki, Zefraʾi, Gorāni, Tāleši, where the preverb appears in all tenses, no NWI language beyond IsfJ. and three or four immediate neighbors seems to have both types).

The preverbs i- and e- actually seem to be one preverb whose forms alternate before high and low vowels of the verb root respectively, as the following contrast shows: í-ni “sit!” vs. é-nān “seat!” Type 2 preverbs only appear in a few roots: (before high vowels) í-gi(r) “take,” í-ni “sit,” í-owΘ “sleep,” (before low vowels) é-de “give" é-ne “put,” é-nān “seat,” é-band “hit,” é-parΘ “ask” (see also Diachronics above).

Negation. né- ~ ná- comes just before the stem in all present forms and the intransitive preterit (dar-né-k-un-e “I don’t fall,” né-reΘā-un “I didn’t arrive”), but the subject marker (Set₂) in the transitive preterit comes between né- and the stem: ná-š-di “she didn’t see” (the latter, however, may also be fronted out of the verb altogether: vecé-š-ā né-di “she didn’t see her child”). Negatives occur with type 1 preverbs in all tenses (dar-né-gin-un-e “I won’t light/kindle,” ve-né-roΘā-un “I didn’t get up”). Since the negative particle suppresses both be- (subj. bé-frāš-un/né-frāš-un “that I sell/not sell”) and type 2 preverbs in those tenses, where they occur, verbs with different preverbs (and hence different meanings) merge in the negative: bé-gir- “catch/grab” and í-gir- “buy/get” both yield the negative forms né-gir-un-e “I don’t catch/buy.” The negative imperative is formed with either mé- ~ má- (mé-vāid “don’t say!” dar-mé-ki “don’t fall!”) or né- ~ ná- (ná-koš “don’t kill!”)

Non-finite forms. Infinitives consist of (preverb) + past stem + -án: vāt-án “to say,” dar-kaft-án “to fall,” und-án “to come.” The -ā of a past stem merges with the -a of the infinitive: kešā > keš-án “to pull.” Monosyllabic roots ending in a vowel usually retain an original -z~d~δ in the stem before the infinitive ending: še-, dā-, be-, also um(o)- > še-δ-an “to go,” dā-d-an “to give,” be-δ-an “to be,” und-an “to come” (< um-d-an). The infinitives in Ḥabib Borjiān’s fieldwork are exclusively formed with the ending –āmun, but this formation is not found in other sources (but see xxii, below for examples of this formation: vāt-āmun, dar-kaft-āmun, etc.). This formation some-times also includes the (unstressed) non-durative marker be- in some cases: (b-ārt-āmun “to bring,” b-irint-āmun “to buy,” but paxt-āmun “to cook,” cint-āmun “to pick,” reΘā-mun < reΘā-āmun “to arrive,” ve-roΘā-mun < ve-roΘā-āmun “to rise, get up,” i-ništ-āmun “to sit”), and in some cases this formation is based on the present root: ve-gir-āmun “to pick up.”

The past participle consists of (preverb)/be- + past stem + -é after consonants (dar-kaft-é “fallen”), but the final -ā of the stem merges with the -é of the participle to form -á: be- + reΘā + é > be-reΘá “arrived.” The present participle consists of (preverb) + pres. root + -andé: bar-andé “winning, winner.”

Tense markers. General comments. a) The present and imperfect are formed with a suffixed, unstressed -e, also called the durative marker (pres.: band-ún-e, band-í-e, “I hit, you hit,” etc.; imperf.: ārté-d-e “you used to bring,” še-nd-e “they used to go”). The suffix -e remains on the verb when Set₂ is moved off past transitive verbs to the object, e.g., xorté-m-e “I used to eat” vs. nun-om xort-e “I used to eat bread,” engliΘi-šun-am xunt-e “they used to study English, too” (for a fuller discussion of the suffixed -e and the formation of the durative tenses, see xxi. PROVINCIAL DIALECTS). b) The prefix bé- is used to form the IsfJ. subjunctive, optative, imperative, preterit and perfect tenses, but it is suppressed when either type of preverb accompanies the verb root (bé-gartā “he walked around,” but vé-gartā “he returned”; bí-š-gi “he caught, grabbed” but í-š-gi “he took”), or when the verb is in the negative (see above). It has four alternate forms, bé-, bí-, bú-, and b-, of which bé- is the most common: bé-m-ārt “I brought,” bé-brun “that I carry,” bé-rew “sweep!,” but bí-arzu “that it be worth,” b-ārun “that I bring.” The conditions for bú- are not totally clear: búvā “say!”; (Yarshater) bévāun “that I say,” but (Kalbāsi, Borjiān, Stilo) búvāun.

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Person endings. As with all Central dialects and most Northwestern Iranian languages, IsfJ. makes a crucial distinction between intransitive and transitive conjugations in all past tenses (see Table 1 and Table 2). The intransitive forms in all tenses of the past system (preterit, imperfect, and the various perfects) are formed by placing the Set₁ endings consistently after the past stem (preterit: i-níšd-own, imperfect: nišd-own-e, pres. perf.: i-nišdówn, past perf.: i-nišde-bo. The tenses of the transitive past system, however, differ from intransitive verbs in three important ways: a) all past transitive tenses are formed with Set₂ endings rather than Set₁; b) the Set₂ endings come before the past stem in the preterit and the perfect tenses; c) the Set₂ endings are much more mobile than Set₁. Note the difference in the preterit conjugation of intransitive tej-/tejā “I ran, you ran, etc.” vs. transitive puš-/pušd “I put on, you put on, etc.” (Example 3).

Example 3: transitive vs. intransitive past tense formsView full image in a new tab

The position of the Set₂ endings of the past system is variable according to tense: (1) between the prefixed bé- (or the preverb) and the verb stem in the preterit, as we see with bé-m-pušd above, or (2) between the verb stem and the suffixed -e in the imperfect (pušdé-m-e “I would put on”). The position of Set₂ endings seems to depend on the stress placement within the verb and will therefore differ not only according to tense but also according to affirmative versus negative forms due to different stress patterns; that is, they move to that syllable within the verb where the stress falls. The two types of crucial examples that show this phenomenon are those cases where the stress and Set₂ endings follow the stem in the affirmative but precede the stem in the negative: a) (affirmative/negative) imperfect: pušdé-m-e/ná-m-pušd-e, and b) the forms of the “to want” (all tenses, see Modals below): (present) gú-m-e/ná-m-gu-e “I want/I don’t want,” (past) past: gumāˊ-m-e/ná-m-gumā “I wanted/I didn’t want.” Note that since bé- is always stressed, the stress pattern in other past transitive tenses does not change and the Set₂ endings are consistently placed before the stem: Preterit: bé-m-pušd/ná-m-pušd, pres. perf.: bé-m-pušd-e/ná-m-pušd-e, past perf.: bé-m-pušd-e bu/ná-m-pušd-e bo. Stress is not a determining factor for intransitive verbs as we saw above since the position of Set₁ is always constant.

Important points in the IsfJ. Set₁ endings are: (1) the 1st sg. -un, ending in -n rather than -m, is common within Central dialects (Ardestāni, Meymaʾi -un; Gazi, Sedehi, Ḵᵛānsāri, Hamadāni Jewish [q.v.] -ān; Delijāni -on; Kermāni Jewish -in), but other Central dialects have a final -m (or no nasal); (2) the 2nd sg. -e changes to -i when followed by the durative marker -e: subjunctive bé-parΘ-e “that you ask” but present parΘ-i-e “you ask” (= ask-2sg-durative); (3) the 3rd sg. -u is typical of Ḵᵛānsāri, Gazi, Sedehi, Zefraʾi, Vānišāni, Ḵuri, (-o in Kermāni Jewish) and of several other, but not of all, Central dialects (note also Gōrāni -o~-u).

Fronting. As shown in the previous section, Set₂ endings indicating the subject of transitive verbs are located in a different position in the preterit (be-m-xo “I ate”) than they are in the imperfect (xorté-m-e “I used to eat”). Set₂ endings are actually quite mobile and the general (but optional) tendency is for Set₂ to move forward in a sentence, hence the term “Fronting.” Fronting indicates that the Set₂ person endings move off the verb in the various past tenses of transitives to a preceding word, often the direct object (but never to the subject): (preterit) bí-š-gi “he caught” > xurúΘ-oš bí-gi “he caught the rooster”; (imperfect) xorté-m-e “I used to eat” > nāštāi-m-em xort-e “I used to eat my breakfast,” (present perfect) guΘpand-omun né-gifte “we haven’t gotten a sheep.” As the above example (nāštāi-m-em) also shows, fronting of a Set₂ ending to a word that already has a Set₂ possessive marker is also possible (see also še-š-om baΘ above), as opposed to other languages such as Hamadāni Jewish or Vafsi where this is not allowed.

As mentioned above, direct objects more commonly occur without -(r)ā in the past tenses than in the present tenses: mun-od Θedā baΘ “you called me.” The reason for the lack of -(r)ā in the past tenses is that fronting is the most common way of forming sentences with past transitive verbs and it seems that the fronting of Set₂ to the object is incompatible with -(r)ā marking of the object: neΘf-e xorāk-om bexorte-bo “I had eaten half of the food.” When the person ending of a past tense transitive verb remains with the verb or is fronted to any element other than the direct object, it is then completely permissible for the object to be marked by -(r)ā: (remaining on verb) xár-ā be-šun-bart “they took the donkey away,” rassi-ā piš-oš ve-m-vāte-bo “I had told him the truth”; (fronted to element other than direct object) pil-oš-ā še-š-om dā (= pil ₄ -oš ₃ -ā še ₅ -š ₆ -om ₁ dā2) “I₁ gave₂ his₃ money₄ to₅ him₆.” Since fronting is always optional, there are very often alternate forms of a sentence with -(r)ā (and no fronting) and without -(r)ā (but with fronting): gorgā guΘpandā-rā be-šun-xo ~ gorgā guΘpandā-šun boxo "The wolves ate the sheep (pl.),” kudum keδe-rā xoc-aš be-š-sāxt? ~ kudum keδe-š xoc-aš be-sāxt? “which house did he himself build?” mun un-ā bi-m-di “I saw him” ~ mun un-om ne-di “I didn’t see him.” It should be noted that there are cases where -(r)ā does co-occur with the Set₂ in the past tense (e.g., nāhār-om-ā be-š-ārt “he brought my lunch”), but the first Set₂ (-om) in this sentence has a possessive function and the Set₂ as subject (agent) marker (-š) remains on the verb as in other examples above and thus no fronting occurs in this sentence.

Note also that there is a somewhat common phenomenon for the subject (agent) Set₂ marker to be repeated both on the verb and fronted as well (with no meaning change): ongoΘ-om-om bi-m-birint (= ongoΘ ₄ -om ₃ -om ₁ bi-m ₁ -birint ₂) “I₁ cut₂ my₃ finger₄,” in perhan-e qašang-ā eδ kuvāy-dun bi-d-irint “(from) where have you bought this beautiful shirt/dress?” The use of 2nd sg. (-d) and 2nd pl. (-dun) endings in the latter sentence may eithe