“Kirman town and the surrounding province are among the few areas for which we have information beyond the occasional remarks and observations left by passing travelers or the formulaic capsule written from the perspective of the court—which typically refers to the appointment of an official or his dismissal for “disobedience.” From the reign of Shah Safi until 1693, the region’s vicissitudes are covered in a rare provincial chronicle, the Tazkirah-i Safaviyah-i Kirman. For the period after the 1660s, we have extensive documentation from the Dutch sources, with Armenian VOC agents reporting on the city’s trade and politics.
Kirman had been a stronghold of the Afshar since early Safavid times The Afshar retained their hold on the region until Shah `Abbas I brought down the formidable Biktash Khan, who had expanded his power beyond Kirman to Yazd, after which he set his sights on Fars as well. `Abbas, determined to bring down the Afshar, moved a large number of Kurds to the area, appointing one of them, Ganj `Ali Khan, a trusted official, as its governor. In 1618 Qandahar was added to Ganj `Ali Khan’s domain. Upon his death in 1624, he was succeeded by his son, `Ali Mardan Khan. Both oversaw a huge area, all the way from Qandahar to Nayriz and from Birjand as far as Minab, about one million square kilometers in all.
The case of Kirman reminds us that it is hazardous to extrapolate from individual examples, however well documented, to conclude that the entire south went into decline following the death of Shah `Abbas I. Bastani-Parizi argues that from the reign of Shah `Abbas I no more good governors were sent to Kirman and that the appointees had far more limited financial and military jurisdiction than their predecessors. Other changes he sees as detrimental to conditions in Kirman include the extraction of local wealth by way of taxes, confiscation, and forced provisioning, an increase in clerical interference in local politics, growing intolerance vis-à-vis minorities, especially the Zoroastrians, and the religious tensions that came with an influx of large numbers of (Sunni) Kurds.
These trends are unmistakable in the long term, yet for decades after Shah `Abbas I’s reign the province continued to prosper. Several caravanserais were constructed in Kirman in the mid-seventeenth century. Responding to growing local demand, the city’s pottery industry saw an increase in production as of the 1660s. Kirman also drew outside commercial attention in the same period on account of its famous goat’s wool. The VOC and EIC, looking to expand their business in Iran, in the 1650s entered the trade in Kirman goat’s-hair (kurk) fleeces, which were produced in the region of Rayin and locally used for the manufacture of precious shawls. In 1656, a Dutch private merchant sought to invest the profit he had made selling cloth to buy kurk. A year or two later, the VOC decided to try its hand at the trade and sent an assistant merchant to Kirman. Both the VOC and the EIC were usually represented locally by Armenian brokers. Purchasing and handling kurk presented the Europeans with many problems concerning price and quality; yet, with interruptions, they would stay on in Kirman doing business long after the end of Safavid rule.
Several governors in this period are also said to have ruled benevolently and to good effect. These include Jani Khan Shamlu, who in the spring of 1637 became qurchibashi as well as governor of Kirman. He seems to have performed well in the latter function, even though he was mostly an absentee governor who let himself be represented by his brother, Ulugh Khan. Mashizi, for one, lauds Kirman’s stability and prosperity in this period and the good care Jani Khan took of the peasants. Another governor who worked to enhance the city’s well-being rather than to line his own pockets was `Abbas Quli Khan. Appointed in 1653, he built qanats and constructed caravanserais. Many people flocked to Kirman town and numerous houses were built while he was in power, so that his benevolent rule was remembered long after his death.
Conditions in Kirman seem to have deteriorated only in the second half of the century, following the region’s conversion to khassah land. Jani Khan’s demise in 1645 and the death of his brothers, Ulugh Khan and Qara Khan, entailed the confiscation of all his assets, including his landholdings in Kirman and Hamadan. As Kirman was turned into crown domain, Isfahan began to interfere in local affairs without being familiar with these, and especially with the life-giving qanat system.
The absence of responsible landowners made the agricultural yield fall. Ultimately, this destroyed the inherently fragile equilibrium of an environment in which the effects of frequent drought and famine could only be countered through judicious management of resources Trade seems to have diminished in volume. Tavernier claimed that traffic on the caravan route through Qandahar had fallen off by the 1650s compared with previous times.
The situation became particularly acute under Shaykh `Ali Khan, with his fervent attempts to increase central control and fiscal revenue. In 1671, the position of hakim was downgraded to that of vizier, presumably to curb autonomous tendencies. Shaykh `Ali Khan began to interfere not just in the choice of the city’s vizier, but also in the appointment of its other high functionaries, from the kalantar to the darughah and the mustawfi. Worse, under his administration Kirman was flooded with Kurdish officials connected to him, men who were obviously unfamiliar with the city and its ways. Shaykh `Ali Khan also sent to Kirman a stream of tax collectors and officials charged with the investigation of crimes. The town’s Zoroastrian inhabitants, in particular, suffered from increasingly onerous imposts, including the jiz´ya,poll tax, prompting them to file repeated complaints in Isfahan.
All of this created conflict between the various constituent groups in the city: between ethnic “Iranians,” who were mostly Shi`i, and Kurds, who were predominantly Sunni; and between local Muslims and Zoroastrians. Conditions in the city worsened to the point where thieves and robbers roamed freely in the streets, forcing people to organize their own neighborhood watches. Tensions between the religious and civil authorities, involving the shaykh al-islam, the second most prominent official after the vizier and a local magistrate with landholdings in Bam, exacerbated the situation. Muzaffar Husayn, the incumbent of the hereditary post of shaykh al-islam, was a venal type who enriched himself at the expense of the common people. He also got on badly with the vizier, the kalantar, and other local officials. In 1676, Muzaffar Husayn became embroiled in a conflict with the vizier, Hatim Beg, causing the latter to try and oust him through slander. Muzaffar Husayn also schemed against the sadr-i mamalik, who was married to an aunt of the shah, associating this religious official with a portrait that depicted Sulayman as a donkey. He was found out and exiled to Shiraz, but managed to stage a comeback with the assistance of Shaykh `Ali Khan, as a result of which the vizier of Kirman was put under arrest and his goods were confiscated. The shaykh al-islam, meanwhile, was rehabilitated.
In 1690, Mirza Tahir Vahid succeeded Shaykh `Ali Khan as grand vizier. With his appointment came an order to investigate Kirman’s account books and the need to select a new governor. Yet several years went by before Shah Virdi Khan was appointed, chosen from a pool of five candidates. This delay corresponded to the time it had taken Tahir Vahid himself to succeed Shaykh `Ali Khan, and reflects administrative paralysis as much as efforts to cut costs. Unsurprisingly, the resulting power vacuum created a decline in administrative order and safety. Matters became so dire that the officials of the vizier no longer dared to go into the bazaar or the alleys. The shah thereupon consulted with Tahir Vahid so that finally, after four years of pleading and bribery, the appointment of Shah Virdi Khan as vizier of Kirman was approved in May of 1693.
Kirman’s proximity to the eastern border zone created additional problems. The city served as a jumping-off point for the repeated campaigns that the Safavid army undertook against the Mughals and, with increasing frequency, against the Baluchis of Kitch and Makran. Each time the region was called upon to fulfill its tax obligation by provisioning troops and supplying resources in the form of cereals, lead, and gunpowder. Regional alliances grew weaker, too. The tyrannical behavior of Kirman’s darughah, Mansur Khan, alienated the rulers of Bam, who were vital to the defense of the hinterland of Baluchistan, stretching all the way to Qandahar.
Chardin tells the story of Jamshid Khan, the qullar-aqasi, a favorite of the shah and very cunning, who set out to recruit troops against the Mughals shortly after he had successfully schemed to be appointed governor of Qandahar and military commander (sardar) in the early reign of the shah, having fostered rumors about an impending Indian attack. After arriving in Qandahar he began to behave as a despot, causing alarming reports to reach Isfahan. He next made the mistake of demanding a girl in marriage from an unnamed local Baluchi ruler, who happened to be tributary to Isfahan. When the ruler refused, Jamshid invited him to a banquet and had him killed during the course of it. Chardin claims that 300 Iranians and 700–800 Baluchis perished in the ensuing battles.
During the final years of Sulayman’s reign, the long-term repercussions of these developments became fully apparent. Roads became unsafe. In 1673 the governor of Qandahar, Zal Khan, was put on trial for being an accomplice to the robbery of a caravan crossing his territory, an incident in which millions had been lost. Not just moving caravans but villages and oases became the target of highway robbers and roaming bands of Baluchi tribesmen. Recurrent droughts may have driven the nomadic forces into settled territory.
The first of these struck in 1652; the next occurred in 1666, to be followed by another in 1677. In 1689 the region experienced its first major Baluchi attack, directed against the town of Khabis. A year later the Afghans staged their first raids into the area, robbing a caravan coming from Isfahan. In October 1691 the Baluchis attacked Kubnan and Zarand. More than 200 people were killed in the various skirmishes. In late 1692 a Baluchi chieftain named Pur Dil Khan attacked Rudbar, plundering its inhabitants. When he realized that the central government lacked the resources to resist him, he threatened to move on and lay siege to Kirman itself, demanding 5,000 tumans, one for each of his warriors, as the price for desisting.
In Isfahan, little serious attention seems to have been given to these threats. Local leaders, left to their own devices, therefore entered into their own negotiations with the Baluchis. The ruler of Rayin, Giyas al-Din Mansur, fearing that his town would become the next target and despairing of any assistance from Kirman, engaged in talks with Pur Dil Khan. He saved his own city from assault and persuaded the Baluchi chief not to attack Kirman either. Not only did the central government neglect to mobilize an adequate force to counter the Baluchis and the Afghans but, in a reflection of the lamentable state of the administration, officials did their best to hush up the various incidents. Local authorities falsely claimed that Pur Dil Khan and his son had written a letter stating that if Isfahan would recognize them as leaders of the Baluchis they would take responsibility for regional security.”
- Rudi Matthee, Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012. pp. 159-163.
