We know relatively little about the life of Safavid women, but we do know something about the elegant Jahan Nama Palace. This Palace was designed for the royal women of Shah Abbas the Great.
It’s name translates as “Reflection of the World”. Although they would have been hidden behind finely wrought, trellised windows, the Safavid women were able to look out on all the sauntering and social preening going on along the Chahar Bagh promenade.
We know the Palace’s location – it’s shown on Engelbert Kaempfer’s famous Planographic (it’s the cubic building in top right corner). The Jahan Nama is up at the non-river end of the Chahar Bagh promenade. It’s close to the Daulat Gate, one of principal entry points to Isfahan. It’s been described as marking this area with ‘imperial significance’.
But no-one really knows exactly what it was like.
Europeans often produce quite different reports of specific Safavid buildings, and Jahan Nama is no exception.
Pietro della Valle described “una piccolo casa”: a “small building with windows and ayvans all around”.
Chardin reported a three storey ‘pavillon carre’.
While Tavernier described a “pavilion or tabernacle forty feet square, which joins to the hinder part of the Kings House, with a double storey, to which several give light, clos’d with wooden lattices very artificially wrought”.
I’ve included the Jahan Nama here because I think it’s the probably most romantic building in Safavid Isfahan. It’s a good example of us not-quite-knowing, but wanting to peek into the most private buildings, the most intimate lives of Safavid women. The palace was also a key part of Shah Abbas’ urban plan.
Only a few remnants of this plan are still visible. And I think it’s completely appropriate to highlight how little we really know about Shah Abbas’ plan – even though modern Isfahan is often described as Shah Abbas’ masterpiece.
The foundations of Jahan Nama palace were apparently found during the recent construction of a subway. According to the archaeologists who found it, the Zel-ol-Soltan gave orders to destroy it, claiming that the site provided a view of Hasht Behesht Palace, where his sister lived.