Ispahan

Toponymy

The Old man-Persan name of the city in was Aspadana , become Spahān or means-Persan Espahān in then Esfahan after the Moslem conquest.

The Arabic alphabet not having the sound, the name of the city became Esfahan after the conquest by Arabic into 651. One also finds transcriptions such as Isfahan or Ispahan which originates in of the different accents.

A pun on its name makes say that this city is “half of the world” (in, Nesf-e Jahān ). The pronunciation of this phrase ( Nesf-e Jahān ) is indeed phonetically rather near to that of the name of the city ( Esfahān ). Adam, after it was driven out Paradis. -->

Geography

Situation

Ispahan is located in the center of the Iran, in the middle of the Iranian Plateau (), with 1574 meters of altitude, the east of the chain of the Zagros. Ispahan was founded in the plain of the Zayandeh rud (whose name means “river which gives the life”), at the edge of its banks. This site is a Oasis in the middle of the arid Iranian plate, with 340 kilometers in the south of Teheran.

Ispahan is located at the center of the roads which cross Iran of North to the South or of Is in West, on trade route between the China and the Ottoman Empire, and between the Persian Gulf and the Russia. This strategic position economically speaking, the fertility of the grounds surrounding the city, the climate - made fresher by altitude - as well as the presence of water in abundance in an arid country were crucial factors for the development and also for the maintenance of this city as an urban center which survived cycles of prosperity and decline.

Hydrography

Zayandeh rud, one of rare the large permanent rivers of the Iranian plate, is thrown in a lake salted (Lac Gavkhuni) in the desert. The basin of Zayandeh rud extends up to 90 kilometers in north from Ispahan and of the fresh winds blow since north and refresh the basin. This basin, which covers: 41500 km in the center of Iran, are attached to the history of Ispahan. Indeed, the town of Ispahan is the center of this basin. This position partially gave him its historical and economic importance in the history of the country. The water resource of river increased by 50% (representing 790 million m) during the last years of the 20th century thanks to the construction of two Aqueduc S which lead the water of Kuhrang towards Zayandeh rud.

Part of the water of Zayandeh rud was diverted in 2001 upstream of Ispahan, causing a clear drawdown of the river in the city.

Climate

The climate of Ispahan and the area which surrounds it is semi-desert with one period of Sécheresse extending from April at November. Precipitations annual averages are of 130 millimetres, the majority taking place lasting the winter months, between December and April, in the form of Neige or of Pluie. During the summer, there is no precipitation. The difference between the summer and the winter is sensitive, with an average of 30°C in July and 3°C in January. The annual evapotranspiration potential is of: 1500 millimetres per annum, returning any form of impossible Agriculture without Irrigation.

Administrative geography

The town of Ispahan is divided into eleven districts ( mantagheh ), each one equipped with an administrative center. Moreover, since the urban development and its extension during the 20th century, the towns of Najafabad, Khaneh Isfahan, Khomeynishahr, Shahinshahr, Zarrinshahr and Fulad-e Mobarakeh make from now on left the metropolitan zone of Ispahan.

History

Pre-Islamic period

At which time Ispahan was founded is still dubious, but the historians agree to say that within sight of its situation privileged in the center of the Iranian plate, the town of Ispahan would be one of the first urban centres established on the Iranian plate. A named city Gabe or Aspadana , whose existence is attested by sources Achéménides, could be former to Ispahan, but this assumption was not shown archaeologically. On the other hand, it is allowed that Ispahan was the center of one of the provinces of the empire Sassanide; a military seat in the center of the empire and which would have been called Aspahan .

Information on the town of Ispahan before the Islamic period is given by historians and Arab geographers of the beginnings of the Islamic period. Ispahan consisted then of two not very distant sites: Jay or Jayy , the seat of the governors sassanides, and Yahoudiyeh (or Yahudiyeh ), the Jewish city. Whereas Jayy was used as administrative and military center, Yahudiyeh accommodated the dwellings of the people. A whole of villages thrives all around Yahudiyeh in the oasis which this zone formed (Yaran, Khushiinan, Karan, Televajgun, Khujan, Sunbulan, Ashicaban and Felfelan). A satellite second was located at four kilometers of the first with two named villages Juzdan and Lublan.

The foundation of the town of Jayy is without any doubt ascribable to Sassanides. Heinse Gaube suggests that it is Khosro I {{E}} which would have made build buildings inside the strengthened enclosure which had turns all the forty or fifty meters like four doors located on the seasonal trajectory of the sun (named Khur, Isfis, Tir and Yahoudiyeh). The structure of Jayy, according to the Arab historians, comprised already a central place and a market located in the vicinity.

The name Yahoudiyeh originates in the Jewish settlement of the city. Its origin is older than that of Jay. Certain sources say that the city would have been rested by a queen sassanide who would have installed Jewish families there. According to other sources, the Jewish colony would date from the time of Nabuchodonozzor when Jews would have settled in a place called Ashkahan , which is always the name of one of the districts of old Ispahan. It is also very probable that the emperor sassanide Shapur I {{E}} off-set several thousands of Jewish families since the Arménie until Ispahan towards 386 of our era, in order to be able to sit its capacity on Arménie.

Urban development of the Islamic period

In 644, Arab troops originating in Al Basra easily conquer the urban centres of Jay and Yahudiyeh with Ispahan whose defense was organized little. Agreements made to save the life of the inhabitants and to make safe their possessions in exchange of the payment of a tribute. Arabic then installs a garrison with Jayy which loses its political importance then.

The Abbasid governor of the area establishes his seat with Khāshinan from 772, one of the villages of the periphery of Ispahan located near Yahudiyeh. It is at that time that the first mosque is built. A little later extension of Khāshinan like Yahudiyeh led to their meeting: the construction of a Masjed-e Jomeh (“Mosque of Friday”) is necessary and a Bazar is established from 773.

Ispahan, capital of Iran of Safavides

King in 1588, Shah Abbās I {{er}} is interested quickly in the city, for which it orders since 1590-91 the construction of a new bazaar and a great place. Isfahan is then a " place; for the recreation, in particular the chasse". It finti by moving in 1597-1598 the capital of Qazvin in Ispahan, preferring a site less exposed to the threats of the Ottoman Empire and also more central in Iran unified by its ancestor Ismail I {{er}}, first king safavide who decided the conversion of Iran to the Chiisme Duodécimain.

Ispahan then faded all which she had known at the time Seldjoukide, being never concerned with the devastations made by Tamerlan a few centuries before. Abbās Shah, energetic administrator, take in hand the urban development. It starts by moving of force several thousands of Armenians since Jolfa in the North-West of Iran where they were badgered by the Othoman Turks, and installs them in a district on other side of Zayandeh Rud, authorizing the construction of their churches to them and cash to make use of their talents of traders.

Abbas Shah, by planning the city, preserves the existing elements and integrates them into its overall project. meydān-e kohneh (which will be called meydān-e qadim - “old place” thereafter), it takes again the principal functions in the place which it creates, meydān-e Shah (“place of the king”), near an old garden of the time seldjoukide which bore the name of Naghsh-e Jahān (“chart of the world”; the place is indifferently called besides meydān-e Shah or meydān-e Naghsh-e Jahān ). This new place, being 510 meters long on 164 meters broad, is surrounded of the functional buildings which existed around the old central place: two mosques (Masjed-e Shah in the south and Masjed-e Sheikh Lotfollah in the east), a palate in the west, Naqsh-e Jahan, opened by the house Ali Qapu, and an entry towards the bazaar (entered called qeysariyyeh ), which is increased to arrive until the northern end of the place. The boulevard was then bordered on each side by rectangular closed gardens, called “Gardens of the Viziers”, equivalent size and a depth compared to the boulevard of approximately 180 meters. These gardens was had by eminent members of the court and had a whole a house in their center. All these creations were organized by Shah Abbas according to a town planning considered as “rigorous and authoritative” by Henri Stierlin.

During the 17th century, Ispahan, called Nesf-e Jahān (“half of the World”) by the Persan ones, account, according to the travellers of the time, more than six hundred and thousand inhabitants and is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful cities of the world.

The city is however always covered with gardens at the time Qajar E and it is always compared with the paradise. The metaphor of khold-e barin/khuld-i barin or khold-e paikar (“the most paradise”) is used at that time to indicate Ispahan. This expression was used by Rostam Al Hukama, a native chronicler of Ispahan, which indicates Ispahan equal to the khuld-i barin at the time of its conquest by Aga Mohammad Khan at the end of the 18th century. At the time qajare, Ispahan is the seat of the governor of the province: most famous is Zell-e Soltan, one of wire of Nasseredin Shah. Zell-e Soltan (“shade of the King”) will remain governor of Ispahan of 1874 with the constitutional revolution. The governor reigns hard on the province of Ispahan (he is also governor of the Fars and Mazandaran until 1888) and the city is in prey with disorders, either because of the economic condition of the country, or because of fights between the Ouléma S and the prince for the control of the city. Ispahan being also a city where the population Baha' IE is important after 1874, the policy of persecution of Baha' is by Oulémas shiites and the government also forms part of the disorders that knows the city: a rising Baha' I takes place in 1874, of the pogroms directed against those are organized in 1903. The town of Ispahan, throughout the time qajare, remains an important provincial city like attest its economic or artistic importance of it. In 1891, a consulate-general of the United Kingdom is created in Ispahan.

The town of Ispahan and its area are implied in the constitutional revolution of Iran. Already, before the revolution itself, of the demonstrations of merchants ispahanais take place in the city between 1900 and 1905. In 1906, after the creation of the Iranian Parliament, is founded the provincial Council of Ispahan, sitting periodically in the city. Initially called Anjoman-e moqaddas-e melli-ye Esfahān (“crowned National council of Ispahan”), its name becomes Anjoman-e velāyati-ye Esfahān (“the provincial Council of Ispahan”). Its objective was to consolidate the first assets of the constitutional revolution and to work for the city and the economy of the area. January 5th, 1909, in full constitutional revolution, the Bakhtiaris take the control of the city with a group of thousand men led by Samsam bone-Saltaneh. This takeover by force on behalf of Bakhtiaris, which lined up as regards constitutionnalists, aims at ensuring that their voices will be heard better within the central government. The takeover by the tribal forces in the Iranian provinces will force the British to send troops to Ispahan in 1910-1911.

After the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, Ispahan is assigned to the Russian zone of influence. In 1916, following the political disturbances which follow the constitutional revolution, Sir Percy Sykes, with the head of the South Persia Riffles , organizes a joint parade with the Russian troops on the place Naghsh-e Jahan in order to show alliance between the two powers which support the central capacity in Persia.

After the takeover of Reza Shah in 1925 and his modernization program of Iran, a screen of broad boulevards is built in Ispahan as in all the big cities of Iran during this time. These boulevards are bored through existing urban fabric. The factories (textile for example) are built on the site of gardens safavides on Chāhār bāgh-e Bālā , of the southern part of Zayandeh Roud.

The foregrounds of urbanization are set up in the years 1950-1960 in all Iran. The need to build roads in a planned way is then made strongly feel because the motor vehicle traffic increased much. Under the third development plan of the country (1962-1968), a general plan of urbanization of Ispahan is developed by the French architect Eugene Beaudoin and Organic Consultants (an Iranian company) according to Western methodologies. This plan aims at rationalizing the highway network, the land use and the height of the buildings. It envisages to build a network of streets and avenues rectangular without any consideration for the architectural heritage. This plan also envisages to equip each block with a residential center and space for schools. Separately the major road axes, this plan will not be carried out completion. Another plan of urbanization was carried out in the years 1980 by Naqsh-e Jahan Pars Consulting; this one aimed to better respecting the historical structure of the city.

Ispahanaise population and company

Demography

According to the accounts of the Western travellers at the 17th century, Ispahan was the most populated city of Iran with estimates between: 200000 and: 500000 inhabitants. The first official census of the population of Ispahan took place in 1870 and gives a population of: 76000 inhabitants. The following census, considered as more reliable, gives a population of: 204000 inhabitants. The data are regarded as reliable per H. Zanjani starting from the census of 1956. The figures collected at the time of the decennial censuses show a multiplication by five of the population between 1956 and 1996. The design and the deployment of this project made it possible to test new approaches and methods in bond with family planning. This study provides some figures on the questions of family planning to Ispahan in the years 1970: more than 80% of the people having answered the investigations knew a means of contraception, and the women were more with the current than the men. The figures are even higher in the city even of Ispahan. More than 90% from the men and 95% of the women approve the family planning with Ispahan in 1970. Following the preliminary studies, the program of communication called upon various mediae: radio, Press, Films, messages diffused by trucks, exposures. This study made it possible to better include/understand how to make a success of the communication on a subject like family planning in a country like Iran.

This project takes place for the demographic transitional period of Iran. Fruitfulness remains high in Iran in spite of the development policies installation as from the years 1960. The demographic transition from Iran is completed tardily in the middle of the years 1980, without knowing bending due to the institutionalization of religious rules on the Iranian politico-legal scene after the revolution of 1979. Marie Lalier-Fouladi showed that progress in the social domains and cultural in Iran during years 1960-1980 was the “keystone” of the fall of fruitfulness.

It remains a Jewish community with Ispahan, but she was strongly reduced: whereas it counted: 10000 members in 1948 (whose majority emigrated in Israel), this manpower passed from: 3000 people the day before the Iranian Revolution with: 1500 in 2003.

The Bakhtiaris, tribe of Iranian language of the South-west of Iran, were fixed partly at Ispahan.

Higher education

Ispahan is one of the first towns of Iran to develop modern teaching. At the 19th century, schools with the methods of modern teaching are founded following Dar-ol Fonoun with Teheran. A school of this type is opened in Ispahan in 1882, the madrasa-e homayuni . In same time, private schools, rested most of the time by Christian missionaries, make their appearance in Iran. The Carmelite nuns were already present since the time of Shah Abbas; the missionaries roman catholics, presbytériens and Anglicans arrived to Iran in general and at Ispahan in particular starting from half of the 19th century.

A training center of the professors, among the first of Iran, is open since 1935 to Ispahan within the framework of the standardization of the methods of teaching in Iran. A university is created in 1950 in Ispahan under the impulse of the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

The universities of the metropolis of Ispahan are:

University of Ispahan;
University of medical sciences of Ispahan;
University of technology of Ispahan, one of five the best of Iran in its field. ;
University of art of Ispahan;
University of sciences of the rehabilitation and social protection;
Islamic free University of Ispahan;
free Islamic university of Khomeinishahr;
free Islamic university of Khorasegan;
free Islamic university of Mobarakeh;
free Islamic university of Najaf Abad;
academic Institute Ashrafi Isfahani;
University of technology Malek Ashtar;
University of sciences and technologies of defense.

The city also counts schools and Séminaire S.

There exists also more than fifty training centres and of orientation managed by the Isfahan Technical and Vocational Training Organization .

Armenians of Ispahan

From 1603 to 1605, during the program of Shah Abbas Ier in Azerbaïdjan in war against the Ottoman Empire, the Persian sovereign adopts a policy of the “ground burned” to prevent the projection of the enemy. In addition, it decides to move the populations of the areas and cities which it crosses. Thus of Géorgiens and the Armenians (at least: 75000) are forced to migrate towards south-east. Three to six thousand Armenian families which survived the deportation install with the Nouvelle Djoulfa (Armenian: hy ՆորՋուղա), on southern bank of Zayandeh roud. The Armenian district is named thus in memory of the town of Jolfa from where a very great number of the deportees were originating.

In this suburb, in the South of the Zayandeh-Rud river, they live in quasi-autonomy and take part effectively in the development of their new city. By building churches, schools and scriptoriums, by creating a printing works, a place of theater, they harmoniously maintain their identity Christian and cultural out of ground Islamic.

The Nouvelle Djoulfa shelters today thirteen more Armenian churches of which most known is the cathedral Saint-Saver, named Kelisa-e Vank into Persan.

A certain number of Armenian emigrated in the years 1980-1990 following the Iranian Révolution of 1979. They would be minority today in this district, which keeps however its special character in the town of Ispahan.

Ispahanais famous

Arthur Upham Pope, archeologist and historian of the Iranian art of American origin, is buried with his wife Phyllis Ackerman in a mausoleum close to the Pol-e Khaju .

The town planning of Ispahan, a quite specific aspect

Henri Stierlin recalls in the introduction of the work Maisons of Ispahan that the specific aspect of Ispahan is due to a series of characteristics which struck the Western visitors of the 18th century and the 19th century. Indeed, the Western travellers such Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Jean Chardin, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Pascal Coste, Eugene Flandin or Pierre Loti all are struck by this drowned of greenery and well irrigated city which rises in the middle of desert extents.

A city garden and a particular architectural continuity

In Ispahan as in many towns of Iran, the vernacular Architecture is containing cob and of bricks. The houses all are of the individual dwellings, with flat roof, on one even two stages and fitting in a continuous urban fabric. All the houses are built according to the same plan: the rooms surround a space with open sky and themselves are surrounded by high walls, only an external small door authorizing the access to the family intimacy. Central space with open sky which is the interior court concerns prehistoric uses to the Proche and the the Middle East which find besides in the Roman Atrium . In Ispahan, these courses were irrigated by a complex system of channels located in the street which made it possible to cultivate plants and trees bringing of the shade and freshness lasting the summer. It is with these trees cultivated in all the courses that Ispahan owes its aspect of “forest”, of garden city. The ornamentation of Faïence is always laid out on the walls of the buildings as if those were boxes, rough with the outside, but forming an invaluable ECRIN with the inside. The courses of the houses or the mosques, with the Ceramic S representing of the trees and more generally nature, are arranged like gardens symbolizing the paradise. The Iwan S of the mosques are conceived like caves, often decorated in blue and sometimes filled of Stalactite S. Stierlin thinks that the representation of the iwan is that of an artificial cave which must lead to the source of life, to the door of the sky. The decorations of the domes of the mosques and the madreseh are trees with the bunch green and comparable with the Eastern tree of life.

Interpretations of Stierlin are corroborated by work of Henry Corbin on the theosophy Shiite. The “emerald cities”, to which can be compared Ispahan, are regarded by the Shiite mystics (Tabari, taken again by Sohrawardi or Sheikh Ahmad Ahsā' I) as the border with the other world. The symbolism of the Tubā tree and that of the mirror (symbolized by the ceramics decorations or the water levels in the buildings of Ispahan of the Safavide time) are also used in philosophy Shiite.

A threatened architecture

The specific aspect of the Urbanisme of Ispahan is threatened by modernity. Indeed, the traditional lifestyles are opposed by the appearance of modern architectural criteria. Thus the arrival of electricity by allowing air-conditioning, disturbed the behaviors like the practice to sleep on the platform roofs at the beautiful season. Moreover, the modern economic criteria try to rationalize space: the traditional houses (with court) indeed require a consequent space, which if it is used for the construction of a building makes it possible to place several families.

In the same way, the running water was fatal with the traditional hydraulic networks and by consequence with the interior gardens and the green aspect of the city. The brick, one of the best natural thermal regulators, was replaced by the Béton, under the pressure of the economic rationalization.

The absence of laws of protection of the traditional architecture, public decisions and the little of means allocated with the protection of the hot areas of the city endangers this form of particular town planning of Ispahan. At the 17th century, Ispahan is besides the first place of reception of the Indian diaspora which counts between 10 and: 15000 merchants in this city.

Since the rebirth safavide, Ispahan acquired an economic importance in Iran. The situation of the city in the middle of an oasis made it possible this sector to have a Agriculture irrigated, still facilitated by work of drain undertaken by Shah Abbas the Ist craftsmen always produced articles and ustensils useful for the populations, but the establishment of the capital of the safavides with Ispahan, as well as the cultural radiation of the city, made it possible to create an industry of the Luxe at that time: Jewelry, textiles, carpets, objects decorative and Manuscrit S was produced in abundance at the time safavide.

The Opium افيون|Afyun is an important source of income of Ispahan as from 1850 once imported of India the techniques of production of opium with large scales. The production of this area was so important for Iran which the culture of opium survived the first ministerial decree of 1938 prohibiting the production in almost the whole of the provinces of Iran, except for the provinces of Ispahan and of the Fars, two principal producing areas. However this production will stop with the prohibition of the trade of opium in all Iran in 1946.

Industry and High technology

The industrialization of Ispahan dates from the period Pahlavi as in all Iran, and was marked by the strong growth at that time of textile industry; what was worth at the city the nickname of “Manchester of Persia”. This strong growth followed the boom of the years 1953-1959 to Iran and gave place to the expansion of the industry of the textile of Ispahan and other private factories producing of the consumer goods for the local market and national. During the white Revolution, Ispahan becomes a major industrial center with the establishment of large a Aciérie, of cement factories, sugar factories, of a Raffinerie of Pétrole petrochemical and industries and defense. The production of the steel-works of Ispahan (Isfahan Steel Co.) was of 3,6 million tons in 2005, for which it is necessary to add them: 700000 tons produced by the Sheba Steel Complex located near the city. The saving in Ispahan also produces: 710000 tons of Cement per annum as of the gasoline since the city accommodates one of the six oil refineries of the country.

Set up in 1982, the center of nuclear engineering of Ispahan is a nuclear site of research which currently manages four small Nuclear reactors of research, provided by the China. It is supervised by the Organization of the atomic energy of Iran. The site of uranium enrichment of Ispahan converts uranium concentrated in the form of Yellowcake (uranium concentrated in the U₃O₈ form) into uranium hexafluoride (UF₆). At the end of October 2004, the site is operational to 70% with 21 workshops out of 24 under operation. There exists also not far a factory from production of Zirconium, which produces the ingredients necessary to the Nuclear reactors. These two sites take part in the Iranian Nuclear program.

Ispahan also accommodates the seat of HESA (industrial Company of production of planes of Iran) which produces IR. AN-140, a production of the Antonov Year-140 under license.

Tourism

The province of Ispahan is the third province of Iran in terms of reception of tourists. The fact that the place Naghsh-e Jahan is registered with the world heritage of humanity and more generally the tourist offer of the city (historical buildings, craft industry, etc) attracts many Iranian tourists and foreign tourists.

The tourist offer of Ispahan develops quickly (forty projects in progress in 2002) and aims at attracting tourists of the whole world. The number of visitors in 2002 exceeded: 200000 tourists what represents an increase of 300% compared to the previous year. This increase would be due to the increase in the tourist infrastructure of the city and to the reasonable prices compared to other countries.

The municipality of Ispahan set up a certain number of measurements to develop tourism in the city: international cooperation, improvement of the offer of lodging, improvement of transport, plan of communication.

Transport

The Métropole of Ispahan experienced a very significant development of the automobile traffic, proportional to the growth of the population. This increase in the traffic caused an increase in pollution and congestions.

Studies undertaken into 1986 concluded with the need for creating a transport system jointly underground. The realization of a joint transport system in the form of Métro was entrusted to the Esfahan Regional Subway Company (ERMC), transformed into Esfahan Urban Railway Organization (EURO).

The subway of Ispahan is in construction since June 2001. It includes/understands a line of 12,5 kilometers between the North and the South of the city (between the two terminals of bus, the Kaveh terminal in North and the Soffeh terminal in the South) and whose construction is led in two phases. The first is the construction of the northern part, normally completed in 2007, and the second the construction of the southern part, started in 2005. The railway transport system of Ispahan could be supplemented by a suburban line, in order to connect Ispahan to the industrial complex of Mobarakeh and the town of Majlesi, in the south-west of the city.

Ispahan also lays out of a railway station, integrated into the Iranian network and which is the terminus of the Teheran-Qom-Ispahan line. Currently, the mosque the Iranian plan to four Iwan with a room of prayer under Coupole follows which owed, to the origin, being separate of the architectural unit. Bordered of arcades on two levels, it is surrounded by multiple small rooms under coupolettes.

Place de l'Imām

The palates safavides

The palate of Chehel Sotoun

The palate of Chehel Sotoun is a royal palace Safavide in the North-West of the complex of Ali Qapu. Measuring 57,80 by 37 meters, this major monument of the reign of Shah' Abbas II was used for the ceremonies of crowning and the reception of the foreign ambassadors. The palate is located in the middle of a garden, which made in the beginning seven hectares, is located between the meydān-e shāh (Place Naghsh-e Jahan) and the chāhār bāgh . To the east a long basin (115 by approximately 16 meters) extends, in which it is reflected.

This building, which the dating remains very discussed, was undoubtedly high under the reign of Shah Abbas II, then redécoré in the years 1870. According to a poem registered on the building and another of Muhammad Ali Sahib Tabrizi, it would have been created in 1647-1648 and so certain researchers think that this building was built in several stages, the majority incline to think that it was built in only one jet, because it is rather coherent. It is about a rectangular building, comprising twenty columns which are reflected in the basin facing the building ( chehel soutoun means “forty columns” into Persan).

In this palate, Shah Abbas II and his successors received the dignitaries and the ambassadors, on the terrace or in one of the halls of reception.

The chehel Soutoun is decorated with great historical paintings, exciting the magnanimity or the warlike courage of the various large sovereigns of the dynasty.

The palate of Hasht Behesht

The Hasht Behesht (the “eight paradise”) consists of a house comprising eight small entities laid out around a big room under cupola to four iwans. Small vaults crown the secondary rooms, decorated with mirrors which make surfaces moving. The external ceramics decoration is remarkable by the extensive use of the yellow. One locates this building in the years 1671.

Madreseh Mādar-e Shah

The madreseh Mādar-e Shah , or Madreseh of the mother of the Shah, also called madreseh-ye Shah Hussein is on Chāhār Bāgh and is gone back to 1706 - 1714, under the reign of Shah Soltan Hossein. She does not bring any architectural innovation: a plan with four iwans and a dome pointing out the mosque of the Shah constitute the major part of its architectonic elements. The decoration, very geometrized, is on the other hand a little different from the decorations of the 17th century, by a pallet where the yellow, the green and gold dominate, and a vegetable network denser than in the mosque of the Shah.

Bridges

The oldest bridge dates from the time seldjoukide on the foundations of a bridge of time sassanide. The others date from the time séfévide. The bridge Allahverdi Khan ( Pole Allahverdikhan ), also called bridge “with the thirty-three arches” ( If-O-pol. in Persan) was set up by order of the first Georgian minister of Shah Abbas, Allahverdi Khan, about 1608. It is placed in the continuity of Chāhār Bāgh. With its arcades, in the sides and the base, it thus offers a possibility of walk to several levels, according to the height of water. It is used obviously as stopping but crossing point, also to control the course of the river. While crossing it, water produces an effect of large fountain thanks to emmarchements. At side is a talār, the kiosk of the mirrors , from where the sovereign could observe the river.
The Khaju bridge is the second large bridge of Ispahan, built fifty years after the Bridge Allahverdi Khan. It has a structure identical and slightly complexed with brise-flots in allowing range of the more spectacular effects of water. It is equipped with twenty-three arches, for a length of 105 meters and a width of 14 meters.

Menār Jombān

Menār Jombān, or the “moving minaret”, is an architectural curiosity of Ispahan.

A Iwan surmounted of two Minaret S.A. set up above the tomb Amu Abdollah Soqla (or Amu Abdollah Karladani), a hermit buried there at the beginning of the 14th century. The iwan measurement ten meters in height on ten meters broad; the minarets exceed it of seven meters for four meters of circumference. The minarets date a priori from the time safavide. These minarets have an architectural characteristic which explains the name of the building: when one is pressed on the wall of one of the minarets to make it stir up, the second starts to move simultaneously like that perhaps noted at sight of eye. This phenomenon also exists with the Pakistan (visible on the monument named Jhulta Minara with Ahmedabad). Specialists think that this characteristic is due to certain properties of dimensions of the building as to the wood beams of the base of the minarets. However, the abundance of the tourists who want to check the phenomenon endangers the building. For a few years, the setting in swing of the minarets has been exclusively carried out by the personnel of reception, and takes place only every half-hour to the maximum.

Arts and the craft industry with Ispahan

The town of Ispahan is a major center of Artisanat traditional Iranian since the period safavide. The produced objects are varied: textiles (especially printed textiles), carpet, ceramics and earthenware, work of wood, metal and engravings.

The craftsmen work under various conditions, that is to say in workshops of the bazaar or outside of the city, or also in their own houses.

With the installation of the capital with Ispahan at the end of the 16th century, the royal kitab khana moves. Develops then an important activity of painting and penmanship, dominated by the figure of Reza' Abbassi (v. 1565 - v. 1635), one of the rare artists protected by Shah' Abbas. This school marks a complete rupture with works produced before: in the place of large illustrated manuscripts pages of albums ( moraqqa' ), intended are carried out to be collected. Novel methods are employed, in particular the pen-and-ink drawing and the washings light. The style is first of all largely marked by the influence of Reza' Abbassi: typical painting represents a character in foot, anonymity, with the elegant silhouette and longiligne. But in second half of the 17th century, the artists of Ispahan undergo many European influences and mogholes. Their painting evolves to a strong Europeanization, with in particular the arrival of the prospect and a renewed treatment of volumes.

The school of painting of Ispahan at the time qajare is sometimes regarded as the best of Iran and the city is a great production center of qalamdān (boxes enamelled in Papier chewed, generally intended to contain Calame S).

Carpet

It is generally allowed among the specialists that in fact the Safavides made pass the carpet of an artisanal production ensured by wandering tribes the statute of “national industry” whose products were exported towards the India, the Ottoman Empire and the Europe. On the basis of account of travellers and other textual sources, it appears that workshops of royal carpets existed in Ispahan, Kashan and Kerman. Since the Safavide time, Ispahan remained an urban center of production of important carpet. After a bad patch between the Afghan invasion and the end of the time qajare, the production of the carpet of Esfahan began again and this one remains one of the principal exported products of the city.

The Gas , a culinary characteristic of Ispahan

The Gaz is a culinary speciality of Ispahan, a candy prepared starting from gas angobin , of water, egg whites and of Pistache S or Amande S. the gas angobin is a sweetened Exsudat produces by shrubs of the kind Astragalus. The gas angobin is comparable with honey and it is used in Iran since centuries.

The gas are produced as a large majority with Ispahan, starting from gas angobin collected in Kānsār, in the province of Ispahan.

The gas angobin east dissolves in a volume equivalent of water then carried to boiling. The mixture then passed in order to withdraw the impurities and of the egg whites are added before beating the mixture. Sugar is then added to the mixture and the whole is heated until obtaining a consistent paste. Pistachio glares or almonds are then added to the mixture to which one gives the shape of rectangular or round parts and punts from two to three centimetres thickness. The gas is preserved in a little flour to prevent that the pieces are not stuck. The exact receipt and proportions differ in each manufacturer.

This candy is characteristic of Ispahan and he had already been noticed by Edward Frederick, a British traveller who had gone to Iran during the 19th century.

Ispahan in arts and the folklore

Ispahan in the Iranian folklore

The natives of Ispahan early made acquire an image in the Iranian folklore: they are depicted by other Iranian as being intelligent, having the spirit trading, treasurers, having the direction of humor and distributed intelligent: following the large commercial companies (the English East India Company is present in the capital safavide as of 1617) and of the missionaries (the fathers Capucins French obtain in 1628 the authorization to open a mission with Ispahan), Jean-Baptiste Tavernier undertakes in 1632 a voyage for the East which passes by Ispahan where he becomes “companion of drinking bout of the shah of Iran”. A few years later, in 1644, the father Raphaël of Mans arrives in the Iranian capital and until its death in 1696 resides at it, sending to Colbert a report/ratio on the State of Persia in 1660 .

In 1666, the French Protestant Jean Chardin, regarded later as the “more important traveller who ever visited Iran”, between for the first time in Ispahan. Chardin draws “an excavated and admirably moderate picture of the Persia safavide of which it sense of smell decline. ” This table was to influence Montesquieu in its development of the theory of the influence of the climates on the political regimes, like on the nature of the Eastern despotism

In 1824, the English writer James Justinian Morier, which lived nearly six years in Persia as a diplomat, publishes the adventures of Hadji Baba of Ispahan in three volumes. Regarded as most popular of the Eastern novels in language English E, it contributes, through its main character, to fix the stereotype of the “Persan national character” of the modern time.

Thirty years later, it is with the turn of the count of Gobineau to go on mission diplomatic to Iran where it remains of 1855 to 1858. It returns from there with the matter of an account of voyage, Three years to Asia , in which it is question of Ispahan: it is a city weakened since its setting with bag by the Afghans at the previous century that it describes, a city whose “all magnificence is nothing any more but the shade that of the past. ”

In May 1900, of return of India, Loti undertakes to cross Persia and to go to Ispahan, travels that he tells in Towards Ispahan , published in 1904. It reports that silence and insulation around the city are such as one wonders roads whether carry out to it: one sees there only “large abandoned cemeteries where the goats feed, of limpid brooks which run everywhere of the ruins of old notched enclosures, and nothing more. ” Inside Ispahan, the French writer notes that the buildings which, first aspect, “still play splendor” actually “with half are stripped of their mosaic earthenware patients and seem corroded of a gray leprosy. ”

Nicolas Bouvier goes there to its turn in 1953 in a voyage which leads it Belgrade to Kabul and which he tells ten years later in the Use of the world . As Parcelled out and Gobineau, it cannot be prevented from thinking of the last glory of the city which Chardin knew and to oppose it in its state present.

Appendices

List mayors of Ispahan

Twinnings of the municipality of Ispahan

The following municipalities are twinned with that of Ispahan:

since May 7th, 1989.
since June 23rd, 1997.
since October 28th, 1997.
since September 13rd, 1998.
since May 10th, 1999.
since January 14th, 2000.
since April 27th, 2000.
since June 19th, 2000.
since March 8th, 2001.
since July 22nd, 2004.
since November 10th, 2004.

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