Shiraz
Shiraz, in Arabic script Shiraz, one of the historic cities of the southwest Persian province of Fars. It is situated in lat. 29؛ 36' N., long. 52؛ 32' E., at an altitude of 1,524 m/5,000 feet, at the western end of a large basin, some 130 km/80 miles long and up to 24 km/15 miles wide, though less in the vicinity of Shiraz itself. A river bed, which is dry for most of the year, bounds the northern part of the city and runs southwards towards Lake Mahalu.
The Islamic city is on a continuously-occupied site which may go back to Sasanid, or to even earlier, times. It was probably founded, or restored, by Muhammad, brother of the Umayyad governor of the East, al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf, or by his cousin Muhammad b. al-Qasim, towards the end of the 7th century A.D. or the beginning of the 8th century.
According to Mustawfi, there were eighteen villages, irrigated by qanats, in the surrounding district (awma) of Shiraz, which belonged to the city. A network of roads radiates from Shiraz (see Le Strange, Lands, 195–8). It is approached on the south from the Persian Gulf through high mountain passes, and on the north through a series of hills which separate it from the plain of Marwdasht. Its water supply comes mainly from qanats, of which the most famous is that of Ruknabad, made by Rukn al-Dawla b. Buya. July is the hottest month with a mean temperature of 85°, February the coldest with 47°. The annual rainfall is 384.6 mm. There have been several major earthquakes; those of 1824 and 1853 caused heavy loss of life and destruction of property. Over the centuries, the city has also suffered from floods, famines epidemics and sieges.
Throughout the middle Ages, Shiraz was a centre of learning, where Islamic theology, mysticism and poetry flourished. Ibn Khafif (d. 371/982), who founded a rib_ there, is buried in the city. Qadis, ulama and Sufis and, to some extent, the rulers of the city as well as the people generally, shared in the vigorous religious life which prevailed. Mustawfi mentions that the people of Shiraz were much addicted to holy poverty and were of strict orthodoxy. Ibn Battuta also states that they were distinguished by piety, source religion and purity of manners, especially the women (Rila, ii, 54, tr. Gibb, ii, 300). The Dhahabiyya order, established in the early 11th/17th century had, and still has, its centre in Shiraz (see R. Gramlich, Die Schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens, Wiesbaden 1965–81. The poet Hafiz, who lived in Shiraz under Shah Shuja b. Mubariz al-Din Muhammad (759–86/1357–84), is buried outside the city, as also is Sa’di, who flourished at the court of the Atabeg Abu Bakr b. Sa’d (623–59/1226–61).
In the early centuries, it was under caliphal governors. Al-Istakhri mentions the tax rates prevailing in Shiraz. He states that the land in the bazaars belonged to the government (sultan) and private persons paid ground rents. In the middle of the 3rd/9th century, Ya’qub b. Layth, the Saffarid, having seized Fars, made Shiraz his capital. His brother Amr b. Layth, who succeeded him, built a congregational mosque on the site of which the present masjid-i_jami stands. _Al b. Buya Imad al-Dawla took Fars in 321/933. He was succeeded by his nephew Adud al-Dawla b. Rukn al-Dawla, who ruled Fars from 338/949 to 366/977 and Iraq and Fars from 366/977 to 372/983. Under his rule, Shiraz became an important economic and cultural centre. The anonymous Hudud al-alam (written in 372/982–3) states that it was a large and flourishing town with two fire-temples. Adud al-Dawla built there a large library, a hospital, mosques, gardens, palaces, bazaars and caravanserais and a cantonment for his troops called Kard Fana Khusraw. This became a small town in which business flourished. It provided an annual revenue of 16,000 dinars. According to Ibn al-Balkh, Shiraz and Kard Fana Khusraw together accounted for 316,000 dinars out of the total revenue of Fars of over 2,150,000 dinars. After the death of Adud al-Dawla, Kard Fana Khusraw fell into decay and was nothing but a hamlet when Ibn al-Balkh was writing in the first decade of the 6th/12th century, and its estimated revenue (ibrat) was 250 dinars, though the sum collected was not more than 120 dinars. The hospital by this time was also in decay, but the library, which had been cared for by the family of the qadi al-qudat of Fars, was still in good condition.
Towards the end of the Buyid period, there was much disorder in the neighbourhood of Shiraz. Samsam al-Dawla Ba Kalijar, fearing attacks, built a strong wall round the city. According to al-Maqdis, the city had eight gates, though some authorities mention eleven. The accounts of Fars during the early years of Saljuq rule are somewhat confused. In 439/1047–8 Abu Kalijar b. Sultan al-Dawla made peace with Toghril Beg and governed Shiraz on his behalf. He was succeeded by his son Fulad Sultan, who was overthrown in 454/1062 by Fadluya, the Shabankara Kurd leader, who was, in turn, defeatedin the following year by an army from Kirman under Qawurd. Shiraz was repeatedly plundered during these years. After the death of Malik Shah (485/1092), Saljuq control over Fars weakened, but various of the Saljuq governors, in spite of frequent struggles between rival amirs for control of the province, appear to have established a degree of security and good government in Shiraz. Among them were Chawl Saqaw, Qaracha, Mengü-Bars, and Boz-Aba. The first-named was assigned Fars by Muhammad b. Malik Shah in 502/1108–9 or 503/1109–10, and he went there with Chaghr, Muhammad’s infant son, to whom he was Atabeg. Qaracha, who was Atabeg to Saljuq Shah b. Muhammad, built and endowed a madrasa (school) in Shiraz, which was still one of the great madrasa (school)s of the city in the 8th/14th century.
Mengü-Bars also built a madrasa (school) in Shiraz, and during his government Abu Nasr Lala founded a madrasa (school) near the Istakhr Gate, which was in excellent condition when Zarkub was writing his local history, the Shiraz-nama. After the death of Mengü-Bars, Boz-Aba took possession of Fars in 532/1137–8. He was turned out by Qara Sunqur, but retook the province in 534/1139–40. He died in 542/1147. His wife Zahida Khatun is reputed by Zarkub to have governed Shiraz for twenty-one years (this must have been both during Boz-Aba’s life-time, when he was presumably often absent from the city on campaigns, and thereafter). She built a magnificent madrasa (school) in the city and constituted numerous awqaf for it. Sixty fuqaha received allowances daily and many pious and learned men dwelt there. It had a high minaret but this, Zark_b states, was in ruins when he was writing.
The Salghurids established themselves in possession of Fars by the middle of the 6th/12th century. Under their rule, Shiraz flourished. They and their ministers made many charitable foundations in the city. Sunqur b. Mawdud (d. 558/1162–3), the founder of the dynasty, built the Sunquriyya madrasa (school) and a mosque, and a minaret near the latter and a siqaya near the former. His tomb was in the Sunquriyya mosque, and 208 years after his death the people of Shiraz were still seeking fulfillment of their vows at it and the shari judge accepted oaths invoking the name of his tomb. Zang b. Mawdud (d. 570 or 571/1175–6) constituted several large villages and pieces of land into waqf for the shrine of Ibn Khaff. He also built a ribat in Shiraz. Amin al-Din Kazaruni (d. 567/1171–2), the wazir of Tekele b. Zangi, who succeeded Zangi b. Mawdud, built a madrasa (school) close to the Atiq mosque and a ribat. After a period of internecine strife, during which agriculture was ruined and famine and pestilence broke out, Sa’d b. Zangi (591–623/1195–1226) established his supremacy, and prosperity was restored in the early years of the 7th/13th century. According to the historian Wassaf, Sa’d’s tax administration was lenient. He built a wall round the city, a splendid new jami and the Atabak Bazaar. His wazir Amid al-Dn Abu Nasr Asad also built a madrasa (school) in the quarter of the Istakhr Gate. Sa’d, who had extended his rule to include Kirman, made an expedition into Iraq in 613/1216–17 but was defeated by the Khwarazm Shah Muhammad. On his return to Shiraz, his son Abu Bakr, displeased with the terms he had made with the Khwarazm Shah, refused him entry into the city. In the fighting which ensued, Sa’d was wounded, but the people of Shiraz let him into the city by night. He seized and imprisoned Abu Bakr. However, on Sa’d’s death in 628/1230–1, Abu Bakr succeeded him.
The Mongols were meanwhile advancing on Persia, and so Abu Bakr sent his nephew Tahamtam to Ogedey offering submission and agreeing to pay tribute. Shiraz was thus spared devastation by the Mongols, though Mongol shinas or military governors came to Shiraz and lived outside the city. However, the favorable tax situation which had prevailed under Sa’d b. Zangi did not continue. The demands of the Mongol commanders, and the establishments of the Mongol princesses, together with the needs of Abu Bakr’s army and administration, increased. A new settlement, the mirathi settlement, was drawn up by Imad Din Mrathi, the head of Abu Bakr’s diwan al-insha. Under it, new and higher taxes were imposed on Shiraz, including house taxes (darat), tayyarat (the meaning of this term is uncertain; it may have meant in this context water taxes), imposts upon the import of cloth, taxes on horses, mules, camels, cattle and sheep, and tamgha taxes on foodstuffs apart from wheat and barley. Despite higher taxation, Abu Bakr is well spoken of by the sources. He made many charitable bequests. He built a hospital in Shiraz and a siqaya at Atiq mosque, and constituted many awqaf for them. Two of his ministers, Amir Muqarrab al-Din (d. 665/1266–7) and Fakhr al-Din Abu Bakr, emulated him; the former built a madrasa (school) in the Shiraz bazaar and a ribat adjoining the Atiq mosque, a dar al-hadith and hospital and a siqaya by the Atiq mosque, and constituted many awqaf for them, while the latter built a jami, dar al-hadith, hospital and siqaya. The jami was in good repair when Zarkub was writing and the Friday prayers were held in it.
On Abu Bakr’s death in 659/1261, Fars fell into a state of disorder. Finally, the Mongol Il-Khan Hülegü sent an army to Shiraz to avenge the murder by Saljuq Shah b. Salghur Shah of two basqaqs whom Hülegü had sent to Shiraz. He was defeated and killed in 662/1263–4. The last of the Salghurids was Abish bt. Sa’d (d. 685/1286–7). She was married to Tash Mongke, Hülegü’s son, and was given estates in Shiraz and a grant on the taxes of the city as her marriage portion (mahr wa shir baha). At the beginning of 665/1266, two Mongol officials were sent to Shiraz to take what was in the provincial treasury and to collect the annual taxes, a task which they were unable to carry out. The next few years were troubled by much disorder. In 680/1281 Abaqa died. Tegüder appointed Tash Mongke as governor of Shiraz with orders to dismiss Bulughan, Abaqa’s basqaq. Bulughan fled, and Fars submitted to Tash Mongke. When Tash Mongke returned to the ordo in 682/1283–4, his wife Abish was made governor of Shiraz by Tegüder. Her appointment coincided with the outbreak of three years of drought and famine in 683–5/1284–7, during which, Wassaf alleges, over 100,000 persons died. After the death of Abish in 685/1286–7, disorders broke out in the city. Jo_, who was sent by Arghun to restore order, made heavy exactions on the people.
Under the Il-Khanids, repeated demands for alleged arrears of taxation by ilchis and others were made on the province of Fars and there is no reason to suppose that Shiraz was exempt from these demands (Lambton, Mongol fiscal administration in Persia, II, in SI, lxv [1987], 104–15). The situation was further worsened by natural disasters. Spring rains failed again in 698/1299; pestilence broke out and an epidemic of measles (surkhaja), from which, Wassaf alleges, 50,000 people died in Shiraz and the surrounding districts. Under Ghazan, various steps were taken to reform the administration of the province, but according to Wassaf these measures were not successful. Mustawfi mentions the absence of justice in Shiraz in his time. He states that the taxes of the city were levied as tamgha and farmed for 450,000 dinars. There were 500 charitable foundations (buq’a) in Shiraz, which had been made by wealthy people in the past and which had innumerable awqaf, but, he continues, “few of these reach their proper purpose: for the most part they are in the hands of those who devour them”. He states that the city had 9 gates and 17 quarters (114). Ghazan made a dar al-siyada in Shiraz and in 702/1302–3 a yarligh was issued for a high wall and deep moat to be made round the city. Five tumans of gold from the taxes, presumably of Shiraz, for that year were allocated to this purpose, and when this proved insufficient, the order was given for the revenue for the whole year to be allocated. Whether the work was ever completed is not stated.
Kürdünjin, the daughter of Abish Khatun and the eldest of Tash Mongke’s many daughters, was given a permanent contract (muqat’a_a-i abadi) on the taxes of Fars by Abu Sa’d, the last of the Il-Khans, in 719/1319–20. Wassaf praises her care for the people. He records that she paid particular attention to the upkeep of the buildings made by her forbears, including the Adudi madrasa (school) in Shiraz. This madrasa was built by Terken Khatun, the wife of Sa’d b. Ab Bakr, and possibly named after her son Muhammad, who had the laqab or honorific title of Adud al-Din. Wassaf states that the revenues of the awqaf of the madrasa (school) amounted to over 200,000 dinars when he was writing (i.e. in 727/1326) and that Kürdünjin expended them on their proper purposes and increased them.
During the reign of Abu Sa’id, Mahmud Shah, the son of Muhammad Shah Injü, who had been sent to Fars by Oljeytü to administer the royal estates, succeeded in making himself practically independent in Shiraz and Fars. He was succeeded by his son Mas’ud, who surrendered Shiraz to Pir Husain, grandson of Oban, in 740/1339. He was driven out two years later by his nephew Malik Ashraf. On the latter’s withdrawal in 744/1342–3, Abu Is’haq, the youngest son of Mahmud Shah, established his rule. It was during his reign that Ibn Battuta visited Shiraz for the second time in July 1347. In spite of the extortion and financial disorders there under the Il-Khanids described by Mustawf and Wassaf, there seems to have been a revival under the Injüids. Ibn Battuta states that the revenue yield was high (ii, 65–6, tr. ii, 307). He speaks highly of the bazaars of Shiraz. He describes how Abu Is’haq conceived the ambition to build a vaulted palace like the Aywan Kisra at Ctesiphon and ordered the inhabitants to dig its foundations. When he saw this edifice, it had reached about 30 cubits from the ground. Among the sanctuaries of Shiraz, Ibn Battota mentions especially that of Ahmad b. Musa, which was highly venerated by the Shirazis. Tash Khatun, the mother of Abu Is’haq, built at his tomb a large college and hospice, in which food was supplied to all comers and Quran readers continually recited the Quran over the tomb. The traveler states that the Khatun made a practice of going to the sanctuary on the eve of every Monday, and on that night the qadis, the doctors of the law and sharafs would assemble there. He was told by trustworthy persons that over 1,400 shar_fs (children and adults) were in receipt of stipends. The tomb-mosque of Ahmad b. Musa was known locally as Shah Chiragh. It was rebuilt in 1506 and again later, but by then the madrasa and hospice no longer existed. Ibn Battota also mentions the mausoleum of Ruzbihan Baqli (316) and the tomb of Zarkub.
In 754/1353 the Muaffarid Mubariz al-Din Muhammad captured Shiraz. Abu Is’haq fled, but was captured and executed in 758/1357. Timur invaded southern Persia in 789/1387 and placed the Muaffarid Shah Yahya in control of Shiraz, but after Timur’s withdrawal, Shah Mansur wrested the city from him. In 795/1393 Shah Mansur was killed in an encounter with Timurid forces outside Shiraz. There appears to have been a cultural revival under the Timurids. Iskandar b. Umar Shaykh (r. 812–17/1409–14), made a number of new buildings ( J. Aubin, Le mécénat timouride à Chiraz, in SI, viii [1957] 75–6), and during his government and that of Ibrahim b. Shahrukh, who was appointed governor of Fars in 817/1414, a new style of painting flourished in Shiraz.
The later Timurids disputed possession of Fars with the Qara Qoyunlu and the Aq Qoyunlu. During the reign of Uzun Hassan, who eventually defeated Jahan Shah, the last of the Qara Qoyunlu in 872/1467, and the Timurid Abu Sa’id in the following year, Shiraz once more became a thriving city. Josafa Barbaro, the Venetian, whose travels spanned the years 1436–51, states that it was a great city, full of people and merchants, with a population of 200,000, and that it had a prosperous transit trade. Large quanties of jewels, silks and spices were to be found there. The city had high mud walls, deep ditches and a number of excellent mosques and good houses. Security prevailed in the city (Travels to Tana and Persia by Josafa Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, London 1873, 74). Ludovico di Varthema (who set out for the east in 1502) also states that large quantities of jewels were be found in Shiraz (Travels . . . A.D. 1503–1508, tr. J.W. Jones and ed. G.P. Badger, London 1863, p. iii).
In 909/1503 Shiraz fell to the Safavids. Under the early Safavids, it was ruled by Dhu ’l-Qadr governors. However, Abbas I appointed the qullar aqasi Allahwird Khan (d. 1022/1613) governor in 1004/1595–6. He was succeeded by his son Imam Quli Khan. Under their rule, Fars enjoyed a considerable degree of independence, and Shiraz prospered. Allahwird Khan built the Khan Madrasa for the philosopher and theologian Mulla sadra, who returned to Shiraz and taught there during the last thirty years or so of his life. Imam Quli Khan built a palace in the maydan and walls round the city and planted cypress trees on both sides of the Isfahan road in imitation of the Chahar Bagh of Isfahan. He entertained the English envoy Sir Dodmore Cotton at Shiraz in 1628. He was suspected by Shah Safi (1038–52/1629–42) of harboring rebellious intentions, and was murdered on the latter’s orders in 1042/1632. The administration of the city was then placed under the control of the central diwan under a wazir, Mu’in Din Muhammad.
Many European travelers passed through Shiraz, which was on the direct line of communications from the Persian Gulf to Isfahan, the Safavid capital, and recorded their impressions of the city. Among them were Della Valle (1612–21), Thomas Herbert (1628), Tavernier (1632–68), Thévenot (1663), Chardin (1666–9, 1672–7), Fryer (1676–8), Kaempfer (1683), and Cornelius de Bruin (1702–4). When Herbert passed through the city, parts of the old walls were still standing, but they had disappeared by the time Tavernier and Chardin visited the city. In 1617 the English East India Company set up a factory there, but by the middle of the century trade had been much reduced as a result of the rivalry of the Dutch East India Company. A Carmelite house was established in Shiraz in 1623. It was temporarily closed in 1631 and reopened in 1634 (A chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia, London 1939, i, 322, ii, 1056–7).
In 1630 and 1668 the city was partially destroyed by floods, which on the latter occasion were followed by pestilence, but when Fryer visited Shiraz in 1676 the town had largely recovered. Several European visitors mention ceramic manufactures in the 11th/17th century. Some wine was exported to Portugal. It was made mainly by Jews, of whom there were some 600 families in Shiraz according to Tavernier (Voyages en Perse, repr. Geneva 1970, 309–10).
After the fall of the Safavids in 1722, Shiraz suffered in the fighting between the Ghalzay Afghans and Nadir Quli (later Nadir Shah). In 1723 an Afghan force marched on the city. The governor refused to yield. The city held out for nine months before famine compelled its defenders to surrender in 1136/1723. Nearly 100,000 persons are said to have perished during the siege see L. Lockhart, The fall of the Safavid dynasty and the Afghan occupation of Persia, Cambridge 1958, 203). In 1729 Nadir, who had driven the Afghans out of Isfahan, defeated an Afghan force near Shiraz, which then fell into his hands. He gave orders for the city to be restored, part of the city and practically all of the gardens having been destroyed in the course of the final struggle with the Afghans. He contributed 1,500 tumans for the restoration of the Shah Chiragh mosque (Lockhart, Nadir Shah, London 1938, 46). In 1733–4 Muhammad Khan Balu rebelled in Fars, declaring in favor of the Safavid pretender Tahmasp. He was defeated by Nadir and escaped to Shiraz and thence to Qays Island. Nadir reoccupied Shiraz and appointed Mirza Taqi Khan Shirazi b. Hjj Muhammad, mustawfi of Shiraz, as deputy governor of Fars. His family had held in their possession from generation to generation the office of mirab of Qumisha and Shiraz. In January 1744 Taq Khan rebelled. A force sent by Nadir laid siege to Shiraz, which fell after four months. The city was then sacked and many of the population put to the sword. Two towers of human heads were erected and the gardens round the town devastated. lague broke out after the siege and allegedly carried off 1,400 people.
Nadir Shah died in 1747. Between his death and the rise of Karm Khan Zand, Shiraz was repeatedly plundered by the contending parties. By 1179/1765 Karm Khan had emerged as the undisputed ruler of Persia apart from Khurasan (see J.R. Perry, Karim Khan Zand, Chicago 1979). In 1180/1766–7 he made Shiraz his capital, which thus became the capital not simply of a province but of the kingdom, a position which it had not held since the death of A_ud al-Dawla. Under Karim Khan’s rule, security, by all accounts, prevailed there. The city was repopulated and prosperity returned. Commerce and foreign trade were encouraged. Customs dues were paid on all goods coming into the city. Provisions were cheap and their price regulated by the darugha. Glass was made in Shiraz and great quantities exported to other parts of Persia. Wine was also made, chiefly by Jews and Armenians, and exported to the Persian Gulf for the Indian market.
Prosperity was temporarily interrupted by famine which affected southern Persia in 1775, and after Karim Khan’s death decay set in. According to Muhammad Hashim Rustam al-Hukama, the price of wheat bread in Shiraz rose during the famine to 250 dinars per Tabriz man. The state granaries were not opened there because it was thought wise to keep the stores for the army, but grain was brought to Shiraz from diwani granaries elsewhere. Although the cost of this is alleged by Rustam al- Hukama to have worked out at 1,400 dinars per Tabriz man, Karim ordered the wheat to be sold for 200 dinars per Tabriz man and barley for 100 dinars. All livestock were sent to Ray, Qazvin and Azerbaijan because of lack of fodder.
Karm Khan undertook a massive building program in his capital, to take part in which craftsmen and workmen came from all over Persia. He built a new wall and a dry ditch round the city. William Francklin, who was in Shiraz in 1786–7, shortly after Karim Khan’s death, states that the wall was 25 ft. high and 10 ft. thick with round towers at a distance of 80 paces from each other and that there were six gates. According to Rustam al-Hukama, 12,000 laborers were employed in digging the ditch. Karim Khan also built, or repaired, the fortress (qal’a) of the city and built a citadel (arg), in which his successor Ja’far Khan resided, a diwan-khana, artillery park (tup khana) and a magnificent brick-built covered bazaar, known as the Wakl Bazaar, the shops of which were rented to merchants by the Khan at a monthly rent. The foundations for a splendid mosque and associated buildings were laid but not finished before Karim Khan died. Karim Khan also built several thousand houses for the Lurs and Laks who belonged to his army. The city had eleven quarters, _ ve of which were aydar quarters and _ ve Ni_mat. The eleventh quarter was inhabited by the Jews, who had grown in number. The Armenians, who were mainly engaged in the wine trade, had also increased in number.
On the death of Karim Khan, Agha Muhammad Khan Qajar, who had been held hostage in Shiraz, escaped. In 1204/1789–90 he made an expedition to the south. Lutf Ali Khan Zand, who had succeeded Ja’far Khan in 1203/1789, fled to Shiraz, where he was besieged. After three months, Agha Muhammad Khan raised the siege, his attention being required to deal with disorders by the Yomut and Goklan Türkmens. In 1205/1791 Lutf Ali Khan made an abortive attempt to recover Isfahan, leaving Hajj Ibrahim, the kalantar, in charge of Shiraz. During Lutf Ali Khan’s absence, Hajj Ibrahim seized the city and entered into negotiations with Aqa Muhammad Khan to surrender the city to him. The government of Fars under the Qajars, as that of other major provinces, was for much of the time in the hands of Qajar princes. Shiraz remained the provincial capital, but the governors were frequently absent on military expeditions or visits to the court. The administration was largely in the hands of the wazirs of Fars (see appendix in H. Busse, History of Persia under Qajar rule translated from the Persian of Hasan-e Fasi’s Farsnama-ye Naseri, New York 1972, 422–5, for a list of governors and wazirs of the province of Fars under the Qajars). The distance from Tehran made control by the central government precarious and intermittent. In Jumada II 1209/December 1794–January 1795, Fath Ali Mirza (Baba Khan) was appointed governor of Fars, Kirman and Yazd by Aqa Muhammad Khan. He proceeded to Shiraz. On the murder of Aqa Muhammad Khan in 1797, he returned to Tehran. Having established himself as Shah, he appointed his brother Husayn Quli Mirza governor of Fars. The latter arrived in Shiraz in Rabi I 1212/September 1797. In the following year he rebelled, but submitted almost immediately. The governorship of Fars was then conferred upon Muhammad Ali Khan Qajar Qoyunlu. He was succeeded in 1214/1709 by Fath Ali Shah’s son Husayn Ali Mirza Farman-Farma, who was accompanied to Fars by 800 musketeers (tufangchis) from Nur in Mazandaran. They were joined two years later by their families and took up residence in the Murdistan district of Shiraz (which had been inhabited by Laks in the time of Karim Khan and then destroyed by Agha Muhammad Khan). They were unpopular and committed many disorders, and in 1244/1828–9 were ordered to return to Tehran.
Scott Waring, who was in Shiraz in 1802, states that at least a fourth part of the city was in ruins (A tour to Sheeraz by the route of Kazroon and Feerozabad, London 1807, 33); Sir William Gore Ouseley, who passed through the city in 1811 on his way to Tehran, also notes its apparent decay (Travels in various countries of the East, more particularly Persia, etc., London 1819, ii, 17). James Morier estimated, with reservation, the population of Shiraz in 1810 to have been not more than 19,000 (A second journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816, London 1818, 110–11).
Husayn Ali Mirza’s governorship of Fars, and the 19th century in general, were marked by natural disasters, the spread of family and tribal rivalries and financial maladministration. Pestilence (waba) broke out in 1237/1822, and Fas’a alleges that, in the space of five or six days, 6,000 people died in Shiraz. Outbreaks of cholera were frequent. In 1247/1830–1 the city suffered famine as a result of locusts, which ravaged southern Persia, and plague (Tau’n). Severe famine again set in 1860 and continued until 1871–2 (see C.J. Wills, In the land of the Lion and the Sun, or Modern Persia, London 1893, 251–5). On this occasion, Muhammad Qasim Khan, who was appointed governor of Fars in 1288/1871, prepared a number of workhouses (gada-Khana) in Shiraz, each with a capacity of 50–60 persons. He undertook responsibility for six of these himself and made several others the responsibility of the great men of the city.
Farhad Mirza Mu’tamid al-Dawla, who was appointed governor of Fars for the second time in 1293/1876, made an attempt to regulate the building trade in Shiraz. At the beginning of the year the brick makers, stucco workers and cement workers were assembled, and the number of bricks, their cost and the amount of cement needed, and the due of the master bricklayer (ustad), were fixed. In 1299/1881–2, on the orders of Fath Ali Shahib Diwan, wazir of Fars, the streets of the city were stone-paved, and on the orders of Qawam al-Mulk, a brick roof was made for the coppersmiths’ bazaar and the shops from the Isfahan gate to the Wakil Bazaar.
By the beginning of the Qajar period, Hajji Ibrahim had become the leading man of Shiraz. He became Agha Muhammad Khan’s first minister. When he was seized and put to death with many of his family by Fath Ali Shah in 1215/1801, the family suffered a temporary setback. However, in 1226/1811–12, his son Mirza Ali Akbar was made kalantar of Fars and in 1245/1829–30 given the laqab Qawam al-Mulk. He and his descendants, who became the leaders of the Khamsa tribal federation, played a major role in provincial and city politics.
Their main rivals were the ilbegis and chiefs of the Turkish Qashqa’i tribe. The ulama also played an important part in city politics.
Morier mentions that there was great discontent in Shiraz in ca. 1811 over the price of bread, which had risen because of the cornering of grain by an official believed to have been acting together with the prince governor’s mother. The populace had recourse to the Shaykh al-Islam and expressed their grievances in a tumultuous way. The price of bread was lowered for a few days and the bakers were publicly bastinadoed. A variety of tolls and dues was levied in the city by different officials. Scott Waring states that the commander of the citadel (kutwal) levied a toll on every beast of burden which entered the city carrying a load. R.M. Binning, who was in Shiraz in the middle of the century, states that each craft and trade paid a lump sum in taxation to the government, which sum was apportioned among the members of the craft by mutual agreement (A journal of two years’ travel in Persia, Ceylon, etc., London 1857, i, 278–9). He also gives a list of prices of commodities in Shiraz ca. 1857. Consul Abbott, writing in the middle of the 19th century, states that the bazaars there contained about 1,200 shops. A few articles of hardware and cutlery guns, swords, daggers and knives, and khatam work were produced (Cities and trade. Consul Abbott on the economy and society of Iran, 1847–1866, ed. A. Amanat, London 1983, 88).
Irregularity in the collection of the provincial taxes gave rise to frequent disputes with the central government. In 1244/1828–9 Fat_ _Al came to Shiraz to look into the question of arrears. He accepted 200,000 tumans from Husayn Ali Mirza in settlement. In 1247/1831–2 a remission of taxes was given on account of ravages by locusts and plague. Failure to remit the provincial taxes, however, continued and in 1834 Fat_ _Al again set out for Shiraz to collect arrears. He fell ill in Isfahan and died there on 23 October 1834. Husayn Ali Mirza thereupon read the khutba in his own name in Shiraz and marched on Isfahan. His forces were defeated near Qumisha. Rioting broke out in Shiraz. Husayn Ali Mirza surrendered and later died. Muhammad Shah meanwhile appointed his brother Firuz Mirza governor of Fars.
During the 19th century, there were frequent outbreaks of disorder in Shiraz. An insurrection, provoked in part by the conduct of the Azerbaijani Turkish soldiers in the city and fomented by Shaykh Abu Turab, took place in 1254–5/1839 and led to the dismissal of Fardin Mirza Farman-Farma, who had been appointed governor in 1252/1836. In 1261/1845 Sayyid Ali Muhammad declared himself to be the messianic figure of the Bab. He was arrested and expelled from the city. Consul Abbott remarks on the unruly nature of the population of Shiraz, and states that during the government of Bahram Mirza (1264–6/1848–9) the city was often the scene of riotand bloodshed. He also notes that the Haydars and Ni’mats indulged in frequent factional strife. In 1853 there were reports that the venality and oppression of the local authorities were alienating the sympathy of the people from the Shah and his government. Communications with the capital were improved when the Indo-European telegraph line from Tehran to Bushire, which passed through Shiraz, became operational in March 1865.
The Qajar prince, _ill al-Sultan, who had been made governor of Isfahan in 1874, was given the government of Fars in 1881 also, and until he was deprived of all his governments except Isfahan in 1887, most of southern Persia, including Fars, was virtually independent of the central government. He continued to have his seat in Isfahan and governed Fars and Shiraz through subordinate officials. According to the census made in 1301/1883–4, there were 6,327 houses in Shiraz, and the population of the eleven quarters numbered 25,284 men and boys and 28,323 women and girls. In 1891, at the time of the Tobacco Régie, there was violent opposition to the Régie in Shiraz (see Lambton, The Tobacco Régie, a prelude to revolution, in SI, xxii [1965], 127, 131–2, also in eadem, Qajar Persia, London 1987, 230–1, 234).
The movement for constitutional reform at the beginning of the 20th century spread to Shiraz as to many other cities, though it did not become one of the major centers of the movement. There were disturbances there in 1906 and riots in March 1907. Much of Fars was in a state of turmoil, and during the First World War disorders continued. The officers of the Swedish gendarmerie were favorably disposed towards the Central Powers; and in the autumn of 1915 the Qashqa’i and mutinous gendarmerie seized the British consulate, the offices of the Imperial Bank of Persia (which had been opened in May 1891) and the Indo-European Telegraph Company in Shiraz, and took members of the British community prisoner (Sir Percy Sykes, A history of Persia3, London 1969, ii, 445–7, Sir Clarmont Skrine, World War in Iran, London 1962, pp. xx–xxi). In 1916 and 1917 order was to some extent restored in Fars, and the Southern Persian Ri_ es were formed and officially recognised by the Persian Government in March 1917. By May 1918 the situation had again deteriorated, and in the summer of that year the Qashqa’is invested Shiraz but were defeated in October. In the influenza epidemic of 1918 10,000 persons in Shiraz lost their lives. In the 1920s the tribal areas in Fars were in a state of turmoil until Rida Shah reduced them. During his reign, Shiraz did not have a major share in the industrial developments which took place in some parts of Persia, but in the years after the Second World War there was considerable development. By 1961–2 the population of the city had risen to 129,023 and to ca. 325,000 by 1972; the latest census figure (2006) is 1,271,000.