Junabadi, although he wrote later[1], was clearly aware that the maydan was originally intended as a sportsground[2]:
“the Isfahanis had laid out a spacious rectangular maydan measuring some 300 jaribs in area… Any observer casting his glance on it would be filled with delight. In the very center of the maydan was [erected] a sublimely lofty pole for the game of spearing the ring [but], much of the time the ‘shah of time and space’ had the maydan’s playing field set up for polo and looking as good as the fourth celestial sphere”[3].
Junabadi also included more detail about the later commercial phase. In the chahar-bazar market there were:
“excellent large shops … built of brick and stucco … On the upper levels of these buildings and the chahar-bazar market, pleasant white-washed apartments were built as residences and lodgings for merchants and artisans. Most of the floors of these apartments were laid with marble and alabaster. The walls were faced with coloured tile and cut stone”[4].
Junabadi specifically noted the commercial value of the later developments: “Each year from these commercial establishments, parks, shops, caravanserais, and hot baths a substantial sum of money is deposited in the public treasury”[5].
[1] Folio 135b mentions the date of writing as 1026 (1617), but the later dates of 1028 and 1042 are also mentioned. Robert McChesney, “Four Sources,” 105.
[2] It is not clear whether he was aware that the commercial use of the maydan was not a part of Abbas’s original plan. Robert McChesney, “Postscript,” 137.
[3] Robert McChesney, “Postscript,” 137. Folios 314a-b “leaves no doubt that it was not the Maydan-i Harun Wilayet [up near the thousand year old congregational mosque] that Abbas turned into a polo ground, but the Maydan-i Naqsh-i Jahan, or Maydan-i Shah, the square in front of the palace complex”.
[4] Robert McChesney, “Four Sources,” 113.
[5] Robert McChesney, “Four Sources,” 114.