Dombi – and the Ribat Qazi Ahmad

When Shah Abbas set out from Daulatabad with the “six hundred handsome young men” witnessed by Muratowicz, the first stop properly outside Isfahan on the thousand kilometre walk (in 1601) was at Ribat Qazi Ahmad.

Melville couldn’t find this ribat (fort) on the War Office Quarter-Inch maps he worked with to retrace the walk – but wondered if it was perhaps at or near a village called Dombi.  When I was trying to trace the 1601 route, I therefore visited Dombi and the surrounding area.

In the village, I found a Safavid-era caravanserai.  This was where Olearius stayed: “On 29 [October 1637] we travelled four leagues further [southwards towards Isfahan], passing over a great mountain, and lodging in a caravansera called Dombi”.  When I visited, I could see that this building had been severely damaged (I was told, within living memory) by an earthquake.  It had obviously also been used as a brick ‘quarry’ for nearby local houses.

I was also looking for a building that Siroux had described as a ‘Mongol-era barracks’.  Kleiss (and now I, too) think that this is actually a Safavid building similar to several others along the Safavid ‘Royal Highway’ from Isfahan up to Ashraf / Farahabad (look at the dotted line on the sketch-map here).  No-one could help me – until I asked a shepherd.  This old man, who was illiterate and spoke a very local version of Persian, immediately (and very impressively, I thought!) understood the technical floor-plan I had – and came with me to show me where the remains of the building were.

The Agha had never, however, heard of Ribat Qazi Ahmad.  Asking other men on the road back to Isfahan, I was told that Ribat Qazi Ahmad was the old name for a village now called Bagherabad.  There, I found an (undated) ribat.  Back in Isfahan, looking at a contraband copy of Google Earth (not officially accessible in Iran), the distances recorded by Yazdi to and from the neighbouring stopping places worked much better for the fort in Bagherabad, than for Dombi.

So that seemed to confirm the location of Ribat Qazi Ahmad.  But why would the Shah have walked so far out of his way (see how unstraight his route – the big dots – is on the map here)?  When I looked again at the Quarter-Inch maps, I noticed marshy land marked between Isfahan and Dombi.  Maybe Abbas was simply avoiding this?