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 …
Happy Yalda! Yalda is the longest night of the year – or, more positively, the night after which the days become longer, and the sun starts to win again. Although it’s on December 20 or 21st, I’ve put this posting up early, since SOAS are having a special Yalda night on the 17th and you …
Professor Edmund Herzig did this year’s BIPS AGM lecture on 23 November. I’m not even going to attempt to summarise it, but he made some fascinating points about the teaching and conception of history during and after the Islamic Revolution. I’m going to (very partially) summarise some of them here. During the Pahlavi dynasty, pre-Islamic …
Even if his splendid mustachios were his defining feature, many European travellers reported on the clothes that Shah Abbas wore. Many of the visitors specifically noted the Shah’s simple costume. Gouvea (visiting between 1602 and 1613) “had to have the King pointed out” as his seat (on the ground), his turban and his dress were …
I’ve already written a little about the tanab, the traditional rope-measuring device that Munajjim Yazdi and his team used to record the distances that Shah Abbas walked in 1601. As chief astrologer, Yazdi was a measurement expert – also using his astrolabe (click here to see a slightly later Safavid astrolabe) to compute how fast …
Ahuan is one of the places in Khurasan where, on the 1601 walk to Mashhad, Abbas stayed in a ribat (fort). Click here to see Herzfeld’s plan – though it’s also as clear as can be on the satellite image. The hilltop ‘settlement’ (it’s now really just a petrol station) also has a superb extant …
Everyone knows 999 caravanserais were constructed by Shah Abbas the First . . don’t they? Certainly, very many Iranians will – on the slightest provocation – tell one of the very many variants of the story: most commonly that the Shah thought that the number 999 was so precise that it should be believed, whilst …
Shah Abbas is often thought in terms of his luxuriant moustachios. But maybe we should instead be thinking about his eyebrows. In 1595, a renowned poet and boon companion of the Shah, one Mowlana Sa’ni, composed some verses in praise of Abbas, including: Whether it be friend or foe who quaffs the cup / He …
Robert Shirley, portrait before 1628. Wiki image Last week I included van Dyck’s painting of Robert Shirley dressed à la Persane. This week, when I was reading the (relatively new, go read it!) Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World 1400-1700, I was reminded of another image of him. This is the one that was …
Sefer Muratowicz was an Armenian merchant; sent to Persia by the King of Poland (Sigismund III) to buy tents, carpets, weapons and fine textiles. It was Muratowicz who described (in another posting, here) the greedy Russian ambassador and his party fighting over golden tableware and ripping up expensive textiles. He also tells some great tales …