The French and English commercial envoys both had an audience with the Shah [Safi II] on the 21st of September 1671. They were taken at 8 am from their lodgings by their relative conducteurs, and made to dismount 150 paces from the Royal Palace, before being led in. The Frenchman had his “second”, his surgeon …
Engelbert Kaempfer was a German physician who traveled to Persia with a Swedish embassy in 1683. He is best known, in Persia, for his descriptions of the court of Shah Abbas II and of Persepolis, where he was the first person to identify the inscriptions as a form of writing. He lodged in Isfahan for …
When I visited Bedasht, I was taken to see a very lovely little namaskhane (literally ‘prayer house’) – with images of Abul Fazl (just in case any of you still think images are taboo in Islam), and with much more space for women than for men. There’s also a mosque – this was the only …
In 1896, three British men set off on “the longest bicycle ride ever attempted, just 19,237 miles over continuous new ground” – including a ride through Persia. John Foster Fraser’s account of the two year trip is full of colonial-style anecdotes (many of which are a little too close to racism for many modern readers). …
Michele Membré was a Venetian Cypriot, tasked by the Venetian Doge with delivering a letter. This letter, hidden in a book binding, urged Shah Tahmasp to help Venice by attacking the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman from the East. Membré (eventually) reached Tahmasp’s military camp (urdu), and his description of this is uniquely detailed. Membré recording seeing …
I’ve been told, at the shrine in Arbabil, that no-one really knows where Shah Abbas is buried. Apparently, after he died, three coffins were prepared – maybe to ensure that his bones couldn’t be disturbed by enemies after his death, or perhaps to signal that he ruled over the whole of Iran. One coffin was …
Three of the men who travelled with the Sherley brothers wrote accounts of their trips. George Manwaring (who also wrote about the jewels he saw) describes arriving in Kashan in 1589: So that night we went twelve miles to a gallant city called Cason [Kashan], spending time by the way in hawking and hunting, and …
Last week I wrote about Jonas Hanway, the Caspian Trader, and his account of Shah Abbas advising the Ottoman Sultan that he would stop the Persians wearing green stockings if the Sultan stopped dogs in Turkey from pissing on the grass. When I was looking for images of Hanway, I found several (for example here …
Today the commonest tale told in Iran about Shah Abbas concerns the 999 caravanserais he is supposed to have constructed. Jonas Hanway, in his Historical account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea, tells lots more. My two favourites stories are about the shrewdness of Shah Abbas. The first is about Abbas’ supposed “method …
I’m fascinated by the area around Ahuan. Isidore of Charax’s Parthian Stations run through it. It’s near where Darius was killed by his men as he tried to escape from Alexander. And the Seleucid King Antiochus chased Arsaces across here too, with both forces trying to take control over the water supplies. Now, there’s a …