KIRMAN (Kerman) is a city of southeastern Persia. It is situated in lat. 30° 17' N., long. 57° 05' E. at an altitude of 1,750 m/ 5,740 feet, and at the point of junction of three valleys which are surrounded by mountains, those to the south of Kirman rising to 4,374 m/14,346 feet. Kirman province was accounted by the Arab geographers as mostly garmsir, i.e. a warm region, but the mountainous regions as sardsir, i.e. cold regions with an extreme climate. Kirman city has a warm to hot-type climate with a January average of 13 °C/ 55.4 °F and a July one of 27 °C/80.6 °F, often with high surface winds in the spring.
In Sasanid times the province was governed by an official who held the title of Kirman Shah. The Arab conquest of Kirman province proved difficult, given the mountainous topography and extreme climate there. The caliph Umar’s governor of Basra, Abu Muslal- Ashtari, is said to have sent al-Rabi b. Ziyad against Sirajan and Bam (al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 315, 399 ff.). Zoroastrianism long persisted there, and in the 2nd/8th century the radical Islamic sect of the Kharijites was strong there.
In succeeding centuries, Kirman was ruled by governors for the Mongols (including those of the Qutlughkhanid line, of Qara Khitay origin) and Timurids, and by the Turkmen Aq Qoyunlu. Under the Safavids, Kirman city enjoyed a period of tranquillity and florescence; thus the governor for Shah Abbas I, Ganj Ali Khan (governor 1004–30/ 1596–1621) built many caravanserais and markets. In the 12th/18th century, however, the city was affected by the chaos brought to Persia in general by the Afghan invasions. In 1171/1758 Karim Khan Zand conquered Kirman, but his son Lutf Ali Khan had, after being besieged in 1208/1794, to surrender the city to the Qajar chief Agha Muhammad, who inflicted terrible massacres and devastatations on the city and its inhabitants.
Only gradually did it recover in the early 19th century, when Fath Ali Shah rebuilt the city, albeit on a reduced scale, slightly to the northwest of the former site. A good water supply could be obtained by means of qanats or subterranean irrigation channels from the nearby mountains. It now became famous for its workshops which manufactured for export shawls and other woollen fabrics, felts and, above all, carpets. Some of the transit trade between India and Central Asia that shipped via Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf coast contributed to Kirman’s prosperity.
Although the population of Kirman had become Shi’ite after the advent of the Safavids, the city had in the 19th century groups of Shaykhis and and the Nimatallah dervish order had the domed shrine of their Shaykh Nimatallah, at Mahan to the southeast of Kirman city. There were clashes and riots involving the Shaykhis and the Balasars. There was also still a remnant of the earlier Zoroastrian community surviving into the early 20th century, and very small Jewish and Hindu ones.
Browne travelled from Yazd to Kirman during his stay in Persia of 1887–8. He states that in no town of Persia which he visited did he make so many friends and acquaintances at all levels of society, from the Prince-Governor Nair al-Dawla down to dervishes and beggars. He had profound theological and philosophical discussions there, but seeking a palliative for his painful eye trouble, fell under the spell of opium smoking, from which he only with difficulty broke free (A year amongst the Persians, Cambridge 1926, 469–693).
The modern city of Kirman is the administrative centre of the ustan or province of that name. The weaving of shawls and carpets continues to be important there. Communications with Tehran and northern Persia have improved with the construction of roads which link Kirman with the capital via Yazd and Qum, skirting the southwestern fringes of the great Desert, whilst the railway which already links Kirman with Isfahan and the main line northwards to Tehran, is being extended beyond Bam to Zahedan. Kirman has an Islamic Azad University and a University of Medical Sciences. The population of the city in 2000 was ca. 400,000.
Clifford Edmund, Bosworth-Historic Cities of the Islamic World-Brill, Academic Publishers (2008), PP 284-285.