Shah Abbas I is credited with this enormous and extraordinary enterprise, but many others played crucial roles. Two of those imported Jabal Amil scholars of Twelver Shi’ism – Sheikh Baha’i and Sheikh Lotfollah — were known for their guidance and involvement in all aspects of the initial plans for the capital.
Isfahan was billed as the new capital of a Twelver Shi’a empire and not just a new political centre. In its urban planning, the two members of the ulema (a body of Muslim scholars) — both highly regarded for their theological writings as well — were joined by the ghulam (servant) members of the royal household to finance and build an enormous urban project.
The principal features of the city were laid out in the form of a public square, the Naqsh-e Jahan Square, known presently as Imam Square, and a promenade known as the Chahar Bagh Street (Four Gardens Boulevard).
Commerce was represented in the form of a royal marketplace on the north side of the square, which facilitated through a covered bazaar artery access from the old city of Isfahan and its old centre near the Seljuk Friday Mosque to the new urban centre. Arcaded shops formed the peripheries of the vast rectangular square.
On its east side, two thirds of the way from the Qeysarieh (Royal Bazaar), a small, single-domed mosque was built in the name of Sheikh Lotfollah, who was not only the father-in-law of Shah Abbas I, but also served as a high priest for the court. This mosque served the royal household as a signal of the Safavid king’s personal piety.
It stood across from the palace of Aali Qapu, which also served as a ceremonial entrance into the royal precinct. Originally conceived as a two-storey edifice, the Aali Qapu was eventually developed into a five-storey tower with spaces for the judiciary and the special guards, as well as for court receptions.
In the time of Shah Abbas II, in 1644, a wooden pillared space, a talar, was built in front of the Aali Qapu by one of the viziers, a vast stage which had a view over the square and could be seen by the populace, where massive feasts were held at which the Shah played host.
From the outset, the urban plan included the construction of a congregational mosque, the first to be built by a Safavid royal patron. This was the New Congregational Mosque, rising with its elegantly proportioned entrance portal and minarets and its large, blue-tiled dome on the south side of the square.
The two mosques in Isfahan are oriented towards the Qibleh, the direction of prayer, and thus provide a visual and spatial reminder of their place on the religious axis of empire, here interlinked with the economic and political symbols of the imperial structure.
The second congregational mosque in Isfahan but the only one in the newly designed city met Islamic legal requirements for the ‘city’ as an entity to have only one large congregational mosque. It also met, finally, the obligation for the Safavids to sponsor the building of a congregational mosque after the legal debates about legitimacy were resolved by the ulema, the religious learned men.
In building this mosque, the tutor of the ghulams joined Shah Abbas in financing the massive undertaking, and we know of two architects whose names appear alongside that of the king and the ghulam patron on the foundation inscription.
Safavid Isfahan was laid out as a city with premeditated quarters for new populations. The Armenian merchants from historical Julfa were forcibly moved to Isfahan and resettled in the urban enclave famed as New Julfa. They amassed enormous wealth on account of their mercantile skills and their near monopoly on the trade of silk in Europe and Asia, which helped finance the building of Isfahan but also their own city with numerous gorgeously decorated churches and beautifully appointed stately mansions.
The above is a lightly edited version of part of a chapter entitled, ‘The Safavid Era – A Sense of Place’ from a book entitled, ‘IRAN: Five Millennia of Art and Culture’, edited by Ute Franke, Ina Sarikhani Sandmann and Stefan Weber, published by Berlin Museum of Islamic Art. The photos were taken from the book.
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