Silver in Iran’s Early Modern State-building Ina Baghdiantz McCabe … · 2006-07-05 · 1 XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006 Session 106 Silver in Iran’s

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XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006

Session 106

Silver in Iran’s Early Modern State-buildingIna Baghdiantz McCabe

Tufts University, Boston, USAe-mail: <[email protected]>

Persia is like a vast caravansarai which has but two doors, one is on the side ofTurkey through which silver from the the West come in, they are piastres whichcome from the New World to Spain, go to France through Brittany, cross throughFrance to Marseilles, where they leave for Turkey; then they come here where theyare melted and made into abasis which is money equivalent to a teston or a quarterof an écu. Some take their piastres all the way to India, there those Blacks don’trely on a touching stone, they brake them in half, if they are good they take them.If not they give you back the coins…the Bagnans will sooner discover a fakeabassi among a thousand than a dog would chase a partridge in an open field,since they are able sarraf and money testers. The other door is Bender Abassi orKommoron, on the Sinus Persicus, to go Surrat in the Indies, where all the moneyin the Universe is unloaded as if into an abyss as it does not come out since it isused for merchandise, you gain over Persia 5 or 6 per 100.1

As Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzzafar Alam have pointed out Shah Abbas’

reign(r.1587-1629) is given great importance in Safavid historiography, far surpassing even the

famous Mughal Emperor Akbar in Mughal historiography or Sultan Suleyman in the Ottoman

case.2 Many transformations occurred during his rule that justify his lion’s share in Iran’s history,

but economic changes and the new European presence due to the international silk trade partly

explain Abbas’ visibility. Yet this visibility has been a political one and the economic aspects of his

reign are slowly being noticed. There is a body of literature on Safavid economic history, but those

writing it would be the first to admit, my self included, that it is a very incomplete picture and that

much remains to be done to highlight the sophistication of Iran’s economic position or its domestic

economy, be it under the rule of its best known monarch. The sophisticated studies that exist for

the Ottoman Empire and Mughal India are scarse. This paper has no pretension to offer a remedy,

only to uncover a part of the picture on the role played by silver in Iran’s state-building.

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It is not only because of European observers that the first third of the seventeenth century,

Abbas’ reign has drawn so much attention, in fact most European observers like Rapahël du

Mans, who is quoted above wrote much later. Abbas’ initiatives and those of his entourage

brought major transformations that are worthy of such attention and scrutiny. A new capital with

splendid architectural buildings, the reform of the army, the flourishing of the arts all depended on

a new economic prosperity achieved under his reign. This demanded cash, which agricultural

revenue did not bring. A new flow of imported silver bullion reached Iran under Shah Abbas

because of Iran’s silk trade with Europe via the Ottoman markets. 3The usual prejudice that Iran’s

society remained entirely pre-capitalist runs through much of the scholarship produced on Safavid

Iran’s.4 Accepted views such as the one expressed by the Capuchin Raphaël du Mans’ that

Safavid Iran was simply a corridor for trade have cemented opinions that Iran was not a monetized

society and that silver flowed directly like a river to India, for a profit of around 5 percent. Silver

in Iran’s state-building has been eclipsed by studies on foreign trade. The silver trade to India was

certainly crucial, India was Iran’s main trading partner, there is no question about it, but I have

strived to show, that in addition to foreign trade, silver played a role in the domestic realm, that it

was crucial to Iran’s political economy and state building. Because of this influx of silver bullion

the first part of the seventeenth century was a uniquely prosperous and significant moment in

Iran’s early state building.5

Only less than a handful of people study the economy of Safavid Iran, there is no

equivalent for the Aligarh school, ior any other any other school for that matter, which has

successfully argued against similar notions of stagnation for the subcontinent, led by Irfan Habib’s

ideas a good number of scholars have shown that India was monetized as early as the sixteenth

century. Indeed a whole school would be needed to argue effectively against seventeenth century

Iran being a stagnant and pre-capitalist state, but as a beginning in several pieces of work I have

strived to do so, by concentrating on the Armenians in Safavid Iran. Because the Christian

i See for student for this school The making of history : essays presented to Irfan Habib. edited by K.N.Panikkar, Terence J. Byres, Utsa Patnaik. London : Anthem Press, 2002.

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Armenians were the main importers of silver into Iran,6 and some Muslim Armenians both played a

crucial role in the economic administration of Iran. Some of these Muslim Armenians were

ghulams or slaves of the shah7. One finds both Mulim Armenians and ghulam Muslim Armenians

in the mints and together with their Christian counterparts were crucial to Iran early state buidling8.

Today’s views on merchant diasporas and ethnic minorities and the projecting back of history

with the models of thought national histories have imposed have played no small part in some

resistance in accepting the major political role played by this group. Another issue has also been

an avowed resistance among some scholars of Iran, shaped by views on oriental despotism, to

accept Iran’s Safavid rulers as administratively sophisticated planners.

Coins and Silver in Iran

Since most of us here are not specialists of Safavid Iran a brief introduction to coins and

silver in Iran is de rigueur. Currency was part of the many reforms undertaken by Shah Abbas.

Between 1615 and 1620 the shah made many monetary innovations. He revised the entire

accounting system to impose uniform currency throughout his realm. The ‘abbäsï was the new

coinage that was aiming to become the standard one across the country. This new coinage issued

by Shah Abbas existed both in silver and in gold. 9 Money and coins in Iran have been described in

passim in administrative manuals such as the Tazkirat al-muluk as well as by European travelers,

There are also Armenian sources: There were 50 ‘abbäsïs to the Persian tümän according to

Hovhannes’ account book, the tümäni n 1686 was equivalent to 306.4 grams of silver. Numbers

and coins are rare for this period so his testimony is important, by the time Hovhannes was

writing between 1682-93, the silver content of the ‘abbäsïs had been altered, as it was 384 grams

under Shah Abbas. Except for last years 13 years of the seventeenth century where it was hugely

devalued, the ‘abbäsï coins had remained rather stable throughout the century.10 From 1629-42

all ‘abbäsïs, both gold and silver, weighed 120 grains, from 1642 to 1661 they were struck at 120

and 144 grains, after 1666 the silver 144 grain ‘abbäsïs was discontinued and the 120 grain coins

remained. Before the major devaluation of the ‘abbäsï in 1687 when it started being struck at 114

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grains, Jean Baptiste Tavernier gives the equivalence of the 120 grain ‘abbäsï to French coinage:

réale or French ecu = 3 ‘abbäsï and one shähï (shähï or chayet is 1/4 of an ‘abbäsï ) réale= 60

sols and the ‘abbäsï = 18 sols and 6 deniers. If you go to Pierre Marteau’s well known site there is

a good converter established by Stephen Album that compares the ‘abbäsïs with smaller coinage,

the shahi and bisti11. The shahi was the main circulating silver coin.

The mints struck anything coming into the borders into‘abbäsïs and other local coinage.

All the coins were round, and as is common to Islamic usage, none of them had the portrait of the

king in the manner of European coinage. They simply bore the shah’s name on one side, the town

of the mint and the date on the other. What circulated most was copper. Copper money was more

oval, and was imprinted with a lion in Isfahan and a sun instead of the name of the Shah.

Olearius (1603-71) leaves us the best record of many local coins with different effigies” The

ordinary mark of it is a stag, a deer, a goat, a satyr, a fish, a serpent, or some such thing. At the

time of our travels, the kasbeki were marked at Isfahan with a lion, at Scamachie with a devil, at

Kaschan with a cock, and in Gilan with a fish”. 12 The only dissertation touching on silver

circulation in Iran studies the very end of the seventeenth century a period of silver penury on a

global scale.13

Despite the persistence of ‘abbäsïs the throughout the seventeenth century goods rarely

were counted in ‘abbäsïs, but in larins. Larins were the currency of Basra. They were in the

shape of a doubled up thread of silver, about two fingers wide on which the name of the ruler

appears.14 Adam Olearius visited Isfahan in 1636, about the same time Tavernier made his first

trip to Persia describes the money circulating within the domestic market, he sees silver and brass

but hardly any gold in circulation:

The ordinary money of Persia is of silver and brass, very little of gold. The Abbas, the garem-Abbas, or half-Abbas (which they commonly call Chodabende), the scahi, and bistri, are of silver.The former were so called from Shah Abbas, by whose command they were first made, being invalue about the third part of a rixdollar; so that they are about 18d. sterling though they do notamount by weight to above 15d. Shah Chodabende gave his name to the half-Abbas. The scahi are

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worth about the fourth part of an Abbas, and two bistri and a half make a scahi. Shah Ismail hadcoined in his time a kind of money which was called Lari, and it was made after the manner of athick Latin wire, flatted in the middle, to receive the impression of the characters, which showedthe value of the piece. The Persians call all sorts of copper or brass money, pul, but there is oneparticular kind thereof, which they call kasbeki, where of forty make an Abbas. When they are toname great sums, they accompt by tumains, each thereof is worth fifty Abbas. Not that there is anypiece of money amounting to that sum, but the term is only used for the convenience of accounting,as in Muscovy they account by rubles and in Flanders by thousands of livers. They will receivefrom foreigners no other money than rixdollars, or Spanish ryals, which they immediately convertto Abbas, and gain a fourth part by the money. The king of Persia farms out the mint to privatepersons, who gain most by it, and share stakes with the money-changers, whom the call xeraffi,who have their shops, or offices, in the Maydan, and are obliged to bring all foreign money to thepublic mint, which they call Serab-Chane.15

The passage makes clear that the mints must collect all incoming silver bullion and convert them to

‘abbäsï, and that these mints are farmed out by the shah to individuals. Nevertheless he makes

clear that the shah himself profited from the mints, indeed elsewhere I have studied these profits,

the were of 2%, from the mints and this currency conversion.16 . The shah collected profits even

from the craft of the money changers. Apart from moneys brought in through trade taxation

brought in money, the deported Armenians of Julfa brought in a substantial amount of taxation;

They yearly pay the King 500 Tomans, and have an Armenian to Govern them, whom theycall Kelonter, that is to say the greatest, and he is put in and turned out by the King whenhe pleases. They address themselves to this Kelonter in all their Affairs, andControversies, and it is he that Taxes them for raising the five hundred Tomans, whichthey yearly pay the King. But besides the Kelonter they have another Royal Officer, whois a Deroga, for judging their criminal affairs.17

Yet this is not their biggest contribution, I have demonstrated elsewhere that thanks to the silk trade

they were the chief importers of gold and silver to Iran.18

Tavernier writing in the 1670’s narrates that there were several mines of gold and silver in

Iran, but that their exploitation was so profitless that it had given rise to a general expression for

labor lost. There was a paucity of gold and silver in circulation in Iran and much hoarding. The

Armenians played a unique and crucial role in the economy of Safavid Persia—their trade with

Europe and the Ottomans was the only source for gold and silver,19 as Europe was Iran’s main

source of gold and silver:

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So all the gold and silver of Persia comes from foreign lands, and particularly fromEurope, as I have said in the chapter on moneys. Since the reigh of Shah Abbas I to thereign of Shah Abbas II, one saw more silver in Persia than presently; and the Armenianmerchants brought it from Europe to Persia where it was reduced to local money. Butsince a few years they only bring ducats and sequins as being more portable.20

The word qurûsh is used for the silver imported by the Armenians in an administrative manual

the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk. It refers to Turkish piastre, the most common coinage brought back by

the Armenian merchants from the Levant. During the second half of the century Iran went through

a silver scarcity that has been well studied by Rudi Matthee. Iran was no exception as it is well

known to economic historians that this was a global situation. Yet as we will see further in this

paper the Safavid administration took it upon itself to remedy this scarcity by taking some radical

domestic measures.

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Iran’s political economy and a new elite

I have argued at length elsewhere that the Christian Armenians of Julfa renown exporters of

Iranian raw silk even before they came to Isfahan in 1604 became central to the shah’s state-

building as they were to become the chief importers of the silver into Iran21 In the seventeenth

century the Julfan Armenians imported glasses, telescopes, clocks and glass beads and broadcloth

to Iran, but never enough to cover the cost of silk sold to Europe. Consequently, large quantities of

silver bullion were transported back into Iran after the sale of raw silk on the Ottoman markets.

22This thirst for silver held true throughout the East, from Persia, to India and the Islands of South

East Asia, as well as China and it was a very profitable trade become more lucrative as bullion

traveled East. It is for their established skills in the trade of silk for silver that they were settled in

Iran. A more obscure, but central economic role was played by converted Armenian and Georgian

ghulams, the slaves of the shah in this trade conjuction with the Christian Julfan Armenians. 23

Both groups are central to Iran’s political economy and state building. This new elite

played both a political and economic role which lies at the heart of Iran’s political economy

between 1604 and 1661. I have demonstrated through Safavid sources that the silver obtained

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through Julfan Armenian raw silk exports was important to the financing of the administration of

the Royal Household or khasse, which acquired unprecedented importance under Abbas I. Most

of the silver which entered Iran was brought in by the Julfan Armenians once they arrived in the

borders of Iran. 24 Also clearly demonstrated elsewhere was that the Julfan Armenians and the

ghulams were both attached to the Royal Household, one branch of the Safavid government, the

trade of the first group helping to finance the salaries and incomes of the other.25 Iran had no

major exploitable silver mines and needed to export silk in order to obtain cash. The key to the

political role of the New Julfans, is spelled out in Safavid royal edicts.26 The Christian

New Julfans had an active role in the Safavid palace structure and formed an elite with the Muslim

Armenians and Georgians as they too were attached to the same branch of the government. The

Royal Household or (khasse-i sharifeh )was one of the two branches of Safavid

administration, the other being the Mamalek, sometimes called the State in opposition

to the Private Royal Household.27.

The move to Iran provided the Julfan silk merchants with a small state within a state while

their commercial skill enriched the Safavids and helped them consolidate their power. It has been

demonstrates that in Iran the Julfans were also integrated into the political elite, within the court,

and had a very high rank as did some Armenian converts to Islam, the ghuläms, yet that

despite this the Christian Julfans remained the relatively independent political rulers of an

autonomous small Armenian merchant oligarchy, an Armenian city-state granted to them as a

franchise, New Julfa. Isfahan and New Julfa would become the hub of the international silk trade

in the seventeenth century, even though many scholars have contended that Abbas failed in his

initial plan of making Isfahan the capital of silk by not succeeding diverting it from its Ottoman

route.28 There is little proof, despite the Shirleys’ and other English testimony, that Abbas

actually wanted to avoid the traditional Ottoman routes of the silk trade.29 Silk was Iran’s main

export and almost the sole source of much needed import of silver bullion. The Ottomans were

long established customers of raw silk themselves on the Ottoman markets where many European

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merchants, the Englsih, the Dutch, the French and the Italians bought Iran’s silk from the New

Julfans.

Studying silver brought in against silk holds the clue to this relationship between the shahs

and the New Julfans far better than silk does, silver also links the Armenians to the ghulams. The

silver imported by the Armenians was administered through the ghulams in charge of the mints.

Muslim Armenians seem to be predominant in the mints, handling the silver once it was within

Iran. The Provost of New Julfa participated with many important officials belonging to the Royal

Household in the organization of the silk for silver trade not only on the Ottoman markets but

within Iran. Ghulams were also Caucasian deportees like the Armenians of Julfa on the Aras,

mostly Georgian and Armenians, many of them had come to Iran in the successive deportations

that took place between 1530 and 1630,some were to become part of the ghulam elite. Unlike the

Julfans, however, the Armenian ghulams were converts to Islam. The Christian Julfan Armenians

were settled in New Julfa, an entirely Armenian suburb of the capital, where they had thirteen

churches and were given the privilege of their own religion, which the shah even protected against

Catholicism. Looking for the way silver and gold brought in by Armenian traders were channeled

within Iran makes the tie between Iran’s early state building under the Safavids and the Armenian

“outsiders” clear. Abbas many reforms demanded cash flo. It is significant to note as we have

earlier that his fiscal reform and his introduction of a new coin to impose common currency dates

between 1615-20, when the Armenian trade of Iran’s silk actually got etablished.

Jean Baptiste Tavernier, states that Armenians prefer selling their merchandise to the

French rather than to the other nations of Europe because they pay in silver as

opposed to the English or the Dutch who obligate them to taking half of their payment

in cloth. A little further he writes that:

As one is obliged in entering the kingdom, either in Erivan or in Tauris where currency is coined todeclare all the silver one has for it to be melted and coined in the kings name, under penalty of aheavy fine for the countering parties if they are to be discovered. But if a merchants affairs do notpermit him to stop either in Erivan or in Tauris, and it is more practical for him to take his silver to

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the mint in Isphahan, he can just take a bill from the master of the mint in Erivan or Tauris bywhich it is attested that he has duly made his declaration 30

These major mints at the border, Erevan and Tabriz in the capital mints played a major role in

imposing the abbasi as coinage after collecting all the silver and gold entering Iran. There were

three main mints at the time in Iran, but there were others, all the silver entering the

kingdom absolutely had to be recoined with the king’s effigy under penalty of a heavy

fine for false declaration or failure to declare. The mint at Huwayza, close to the port of

Basra was studied by Rudolph Matthee was especially active in the second part of the

century.31

Silk was a ready cash business, and the Europeans often had trouble obtaining silver, in

Iran measures were taken so that the Dutch would have to sell against goods and not require silver.

32 The trade of silk for silver would be the specialty of the New Julfans in seventeenth century

Iran. Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Empire both had a very important demand for raw silk for their

own weaving industries. The Europeans were by no means the only consumers of silk.

Consumption of raw silk for the looms in Iran and in the Ottoman Empire is often forgotten at the

expense of exports to Europe, mainly because of reliance on European sources in the study of the

silk trade. For the silk exports to Europe the small Armenian town of Julfa on the Aras was so

important in the sixteenth century that it was marked on Ortelius’ 1570 Atlas of the World.33 . It

claimed its place on the map, quite anomalously, among capitals and major towns like Jerusalem

and Istanbul under the Europeanized name of Chinla.34

Abbas’ move was to secure the silk trade within Iran via the Julfans was not a small

victory, according to Halil Inalcik, the European demand for Iranian silk cannot be overestimated,

because profits from it formed the structural basis of the development of both the Iranian and

Ottoman economies. For this reason even during proclaimed blockades and during Safavid

Ottoman wars silk continued to cross the Ottoman border, and reached the main Levant markets

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of Aleppo, Bursa and later Izmir.35 Therefore the silver flow to Iran was not interrupted by war.

Julfan prominence in the silk trade, their knowledge of the Ottoman and European markets, their

established network, their ability to bring in gold and silver, made them important to Abbas’ state-

building ambitions. The Shah also took substantial measures as did most monarchs in the

seventeenth century to forbid silver and gold from leaving the borders of his realm.

The socio-political transformation brought about by European silver

In Iran the social basis of the ruling class was modified not by these massive deportations

from the Caucasus, but because of a new elite of Caucasian origin. Economic planning was part

and parcel of this reorganization of the elite in Iran as in turn prosperity was a sine qua non for

the political planning that marks the reign of Abbas I. The new Caucasian ghulam governors of

provinces were an important element in establishing Safavid royal control over the production of

silk from 1619 to 1629 and before that in the integration into crown lands, the khasse , of all of the

major silk-growing regions—the provinces of Guilan, Mazandaran, Qarabagh. The rule of these

governor dependant on the shah opened an era of unprecedented control over silk production.

Shirvan was conquered last in 1607 but never became crown land even though its governors

subsequently were ghulams like the rest of the silk producing provinces. The first to have a

ghulam vizier, Mazendaran , had Aqa Muhammad Abhari appointed by Abbas in 1599, later the

famous Saru Taqi would govern Mazendaran and Guilan.36 Access to them and the whole region

was also a priority that was achieved by the construction of major roads for the transport of silk.

A 250 kilometer road ran from Kvar south of Teheran to the town of Farahabad and a 500

kilometer road was built to run the entire Caspian shore from Khurassan to Azerbaijan.37 Local

governors and feudal families were replaced by ghulams in a systematic fashion. 38 The forced

settlement of scores of Armenian and Georgian silk workers to Guilan and Mazandaran in 1604

was another step to tighten control at the lower level, it established a foreign group of workers as a

device to disrupt the local feudal loyalties. The local peasants were resettled elsewhere, and skilled

and unskilled Armenian silk workers alike were installed in their place. 39

The status of merchants in Safavid Iran

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Studies on Iranian merchants are sorely lacking. It is important to discuss the Mulsim merchants in

Iran, as there are some major changes for Iranian merchants that can be traced not by any work

done on Iran but by work done on Iranian migrating to India or even Thailand, more specifically

families have been studied in the Deccan and Golconda. The term merchant itself may lead to

misinterpretation because of European models. It has been argued by Vladimir Minorksy and

others that the Armenian were a bourgeoisie. That indeed would have been a major social

transformation, but it is an error of mirroring European realities onto Asia. In Europe there was a

division between the landed warrior elite and he merchant bourgeoisie, in fact France made

substantial reforms under Richelieu so that its landed nobility, a traditional warrior class, would

not lose their titles if they traded abroad in the new commercial companies he intiated. The

European model was projected on scholarship on Asia, thereby dividing merchant and warriors and

landed nobility in different groups. Again since Iran there is scant scholarship on the matter we

have to turn to work done on India that addresses the issue. Nearly two decades ago, C.A. Bayly

and Sanjay Subrahmanyam wrote a seminal article about merchants in both Northern and Southern

India. 40 In both regions they described wealthy merchants as “portfolio capitalists”, importantly

they demonstrated that in both regions the division between a warrior and merchant class, so dear

to European historiography does not hold true in India. After a close scrutiny of the lives and

preoccupations of Armenian merchants in Iran, as well as a study of the economic role of the

ghulams, previously only seen as political administrators, I have argued the same thing after much

detailed scrutiny 41. In Iran there was no clear division between warrior landowners and

merchants, and that not only feudal lords were often merchant princes, but that the Armenian

merchant diaspora was also landed owning and armed, and sometimes maintained armies.42 The

traditional view that a merchant diaspora could not play an political role has also attracted my

attention and elsewhere I have written at length about how it does not hold true for the Julfans in

Iran and how the model for diasporas was initially based on the Julfans by Philip Curtin should be

amended after we know more about their role in Iran.43 A precursor to my views about Iranian

merchants can be found in the work of Jean Aubin on Azeri merchants, who were land owners,

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warriors and merchants all at once. What was true as a social reality for merchant networks in

India and Iran is equally true of the Armenians, whose provost was a prince. He ruled the

networks both commercially and politically and as I have demonstrated elsewhere he even bore the

Persian title of shah on top of his own Armenian princely title. Beyond the fact that they are

Christian little else differentiates the wealthiest New Julfans from the “portfolio capitalists” in

Asian networks studied by Subrahmanyam and Bayly working on India. Ina Iran’s political

economy the Julfans played the same role as the “portfolio capitalists” found in India.

Wealthy Muslim merchants in Iran y have not been notice or studied within iran, but those

who were displaced by this new elite of Caucasians have been noticed in the same article and

elsewhere. Since wealthy Iranian merchants were often feudal lords, their power was a threat the

Safavids as demonstrated by a ten year war of succession; after 1590 the shah wary of feudal

opposition and rivalries relied on a new power base which had no ties to the Iranian lords.44 The

political use made by Abbas of these new comers, the Julfan Armenians, who rose to the highest

posts, as Sanjay Subrahmanyam has argued in another article was tied to the departure to

Thailand, the Deccan and Golconda of important Iranian feudal families wh traded with India,

who at this juncture were deprived of power. 45 He argued that the success of the Armenians might

be responsible for the departure of the Muslim Iranians to India a land of opportunity. Now in the

present state of our knowledge it is clear that it is the political use made of this whole new elite

and the shah’s use of these new arrivals that confirm the tie between the two events, the rise of a

new elite and departure of a previous one. One example of such an exiled wealthy merchant and

feudal lord is found in Golconda, from a ruling family, originally dislodged from the Caspian

shore by Shah Abbas’ reforms and resettlement of the silk producing regions.46 Other major

Iranian families, who left and became “portofolio merchants in India” are discussed in some detail

by C.A Bayly and Sanajay Subrahmanyam. It is hard to imagine they would start with nothing they

must have brought their wealth from Iran. Deaprture was not unique to Muslim merchants, all

who fialed to be in this protected new elite chose to go and explore better opportunities, one famous

Julfan Armenian provost who lost his bid for power in the administration in Iran left for India, he

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was many Armenian merchants who did so even in the first third of the seventeenth century.47

Very little work has been done on Mulsim Iranian merchants in Iran for this period, leaving the

false impression that they were not important. There existed a similar problem for Turkish

merchants who are beginning to be better studied after being equally invisible to scholarship.48

Moreover, the merchants and the aristocrats were not two different groups in Iran, but one.49

Describing an Armenian Iranian merchant a French document has to explain: “ he occupied himself

with the most considerable trade of the East Indies. This occupation is to his greatest advantage as

it is without exception that the nobility of Persia, Armenia and all of Asia is engaged in trade,

without it implying anything derogatory.’50 There existed no equivalent class to the European urban

bourgeoisie in Iran until the twentieth century, yet Iran had many merchants. Some were Muslim

merchants were prominent in the silk trade in the sixteenth century.51

The shahs themselves engaged in trade. There is a very clear example of the

shah iiacting as venture capitalist associating himself with other merchants. A

document, first described by Charles Melville defines the rules imposed by the shah in 1619 for a

royal monopoly on silk. It shows the clear tie there was between the appointed ghulams , the shah,

and the merchants in the silk trade.52 The edict states that no one is to be allowed to buy be it a

mann of silk without permission from the viziers and kalantars of the provinces.53 The royal

decree is addressed to the administrators of the provinces of Guilan, Shirvan, Ganja, Qarabagh,

Tabriz and Ardabil.54. It is very precise as to the shah’s prices of the next season’s production: a

kharvar of silk (290 kilos) would be purchased from the producers for 30 Tabrizi Tumans. This

decree proves the importance of the silver brought in from the Ottoman markets by the Armenians

and some other merchants from the Caucasus: Wealthy Georgian and Armenian merchants were

given an advantage by this royal decree. An entire region’s production of silk was clearly reserved

for them by the shah. The silk of Guilan was consigned by decree to a Georgian Jew, Khwaja

Lalazar Yahud, residing in Farahabad, but originally from Kakheti Geeorgia. The silk of Shirvan

and Qarabagh was consigned to Khwaja Safar and Khwaja Nazar of Julfa, now residing in New

ii

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Julfa.. Most interesting is the clear tie established in this 1028/1619 royal decree between Khwaja

Nazar , provost and ruler of New Julfa, and the shah’s silk factor Muhib Ali Beg Lalah. The

decree clearly states that the silk reserved for the Armenian Provost Khwaja Nazar should be sold

in the realm of the Ottomans[ Dar al-Saltanah of Istanbul], Khwaja Nazar was the appointed the

treasurer of the cash raised for the silk sold. Once bought the equivalent in scarlet , gold, and

Turkish textiles Nazar should send the proceeds to Muhib Ail Beg ( Lala Beg) in Isfahan.55 Lala

beg was called the shah’s treasurer and silk factor by Pietro Della Valle.56 Lala Beg collected the

benefits of the silk trade from Khwaja Nazar for the shah, a lucrative post which was not without

its dangers. Nazar was head of a highly organized network of Armenian merchants who employed

factors to travel and sell the silk for a commission.57 The permitted sale of silk to merchants

coming from Anatolia for forty six Tumans, sixteen Tumans higher than production price, shows

that the customary purchase of merchants coming in from the Ottoman Empire to the Caspian

shore remains an important source of silver. Nevertheless the role played by the Armenians is

clear in European sources, mainly through observers like Tavernier and Della Valle.

In his letters Pietro Della Valle summarizes the role of the New Julfans:

“[Gli Armeni] sono in somma al Re di Persia appunto come I Genovesi al Re di Spagna,che né essi posson vivere senza il Re, né Re senza loro.”[“They are to the king of Persialike the Genoese are to the King of Spain, neither can they live without the king, nor theKing live without them”]58

That the Genoese were the bankers of the King of Spain is common knowledge59 but that

the New Julfan Armenians were the financiers of the Shahs has remained unnoticed because

scholars have been concentrating on their role as silk exporters and not as importers of silver and

gold. Even less noticed is the economic role of the ghulams. Many converted Armenians and

Georgians, in high administrative posts, would actively help Shah Abbas both in the mint and also

as intermediaries in the royal silk trade with Europe.60 The real protagonists in Iran for this

European silk trade were ghulams, they dictated the terms. Govenors of provinces were also in a

position of intermediaries in the silk trade. Allaverdi Khan, was the famous general

who conquered the Caucasus for Abbas, he was made governor of the province of

15

Fars, this was a mjor province for trade. He would leave a dynasty of ghulam such as

Imaam-quli Khan and Davud Khan who continued to hold high positions not only

politically but posts that had crucial economic meaning to the silk for silver trade. Silk

had to be expedited through their territories of Fars and Lar,. A governor who was not

in the shah’s service could bring obstacles by demanding fees, which he had the

authority to do and slow down the trade. 61 Therefore in addition to ghulams directly

involved in trading there were ghulam governors of provinces whose role in taxation

and expedition was crucial to the shah’s monopoly and to the enrichment of his royal

treasury. Allaverdi Khan’s family in Fars were the authority that the English and Dutch factors

working for the Companies had to deal with.

The Christian Armenians of the khassa played the role of financing the ghulam

administration and providing cash salaries. A Safavid royal decree make clear that the gold and

silver brought in by the silk trade is collected then delivered by the provost of the Armenians,

Khwaja Nazar, to the Royal Household, this remained true after Abbas’ death in 1629 after the

monopoly was broken. 62The royal edict proceeds to renew the order by Abbas I to Khwaja Nazar,

still the provost and kalantar of New Julfa (r. 1618-36), to take all the gold and silver imported by

the Armenians and deliver it to the Royal Household, as dues. 63 Most importantly, it states that

the revenue of the silk exports, silver and gold went to pay of the administration of the Royal

Household. This essentially makes the Armenians exporter the financial wing of the khassa

administration to which they were themselves attached. The bullion imported by the Armenians

paid for the salaries of the some of the officials employed within the government as a passage in

the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk attests the bullion imported by the Armenians paid for the salaries of the

some of the officials employed within the government, as the following passage attests:

During the reign of former monarchs the whole of the profits from the vâjibî of the Mint[was as follows]: in the best years, when merchants brought from outside masses ofqurûsh coins and when, at the time of particular prosperity (‘ayn-i ma‘mûrî) of Isfahan,400 workers, all present, were daily employed in the Nine Departments of the Mint, andthe fabrication of [plated] silver thread (naqda-sâzi?) and copper coins (fulûskârî?)wasfarmed out (ijâra) for 500 to 600, or 700 tumâns the farm holder, on behalf of all thefarm [given to him by] the Divan used to send to the Treasury 1000 ashrafîs [silver coins]

16

and 100 dastaja kila [sic] [large ashrafî coins], which at the [given] rate were worth 250tumâns approximately, and moreover used to pay 350 tumâns as salary to the Mu‘ayyir,the Darrâbî-bâshî and other persons of the Private Household who were in possession ofdrafts (arbâb-i avâlât). Apart from the above mentioned sum, nothing else was sent tothe Treasury. From ancient times until now, one sixteenth of the sum entering the PrivateHousehold had been assigned to the Mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik.64

The above is excerpted from the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk regarding the mint.,65

After describing the silver brought in by Armeniana trade the manual states that it was “used to

pay 350 tumâns as salary to the Mu‘ayyir, the Darrâbî-bâshî and other persons of the Private

Household who were in possession of drafts (arbâb-i avâlât). Apart from the above mentioned

sum, nothing else was sent to the Treasury. From ancient times until now, one sixteenth of the sum

entering the Private Household had been assigned to the Mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik.66 The mints acted

as a central bank for salaries, drawn by ( havaleh)drafts. In addition to this direct salary for the

administrators, there are several commissions, given as a form of taxation on that money, among

them the seignorage of the shah himself (usually 2% on the whole sum).67 The fees of the

mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik, were also a commission, one-sixteenth of the whole sum that entered the

Royal Household, the profits from farming out the mint to private persons. The salary of the

mu‘ayyir, the darrâbî-bâshî a are clearly named. Other salaries based on the drafts held by

additional members of the household are mentioned, although who thye were is not specified in the

passage.

Under Abbas the army was being paid in cash. Troops of ghulâmân, never supplanted

the troops of the feudal amîrs., but the shahs sustained an army of their own. Chardin writes of

twelve thousand soldiers with muskets which he calls mousquetaires thinking of the French

example but Abbas the Ottoman model in mind: “ he thought that the Turcs had found it necessary

in their conquest to form a large infantry which they called Yengichery or Jannissaries, which in

Turkish means new army, or new troops, that he would form a similar one to oppose

the.”68Dependent on the palace alone, they were paid directly in cash from the royal treasury of the

administration of the Royal Household.69 There were other revenues for the Household including

taxes, among them taxation on silk paid by the Armenians at five tumâns per load.70 However, the

17

author of the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk is correct in pinpointing that the piastres brought in by the

Armenians, was by far the largest source of cash. These Safavid sources establish beyond any

doubt the financing of the Safavid state by Armenian trade both under Shâh ‘Abbâs I and his

successor.

All of the gold and silver entering Iran had to be minted, the mint also being one of the departments

(buyûtât) under the Royal Household. Under Abbas the head of the mint was a protegé of Lala

beg, a certain Mullayim Beg. Mullayim Beg was the mint master and his mentor Lala Beg also has

been called the treasurer of the shah. Pietro Della Valle describes the great autonomy he had in

managing the silk trade, he wrote that the shah let Lala Beg, grow fat on the silk trade just so long

as he ran it well.71 As the 1619 decree demonstrates Lala Beg received the proceeds of the Levant

silk trade from Khwaja Nazar of Julfa. They did not do the accounting , however which was done

through an elaborate administration and well recorded.

Every Armenian Christmas the Armenian Provost received the Shah in his home and

offered him gifts. After the feast came annual presents to the shah, worth at least four or five

thousand French écus a. If Tavernier is correct and twenty tumâns were equal to 300 écus, this

astronomical sum is the equivalent of 300 to 360 tumâns. Grandees also received gifts, the

eunuchs in particular. Tavernier then tells us that this is nothing much compared to the principal

gift that goes to the shah’s mother on Christmas day. According to the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk, fees

and presents, called pîshkash, are counted as part of the salaries of the officials. One can attempt

to give these sums offered by the Armenians a sense of scale by comparing them to the salaries

given in the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk. The vizier, the highest-ranking official, collected annual fees of

830 tumâns, and the head of the aram, also of very high rank, earned 300 tumâns per year,

although it was not the whole of their income as this passage makes clear..72 These wages were in

cash but there were other gifts in kind as the tradition of gifts is an important element in Safavid

economy.73 Every gift was also recorded in an elaborate and highly oranized system of accounting.

18

The Royal Treasury

The economic adminstration of the Khassa has been explored elsewhere. 74The royal

workshops, buyutat, and the artisans employed within them, were the also units of the khasse.

All of the workshops were under the authority of the supervisor of the royal workshops (Nazer-e

buyutat )with the exception of the mint, where the controller of the essay, also called mint master,

Mullayim Beg under Abbas, reported directly to court.75 Samples of the goods the workshops

produced were put yearly under seal by the Nazer, so that what was consumed and paid for by the

Royal Household would conform to what had been approved. Each year expenditure for the Royal

Household were calculated for the six months to come The Nazer, although he kept accounts for it,

could not enter the royal treasury but controlled all entries and debits, among the most important

of all the holdings of the royal treasury were textiles, and jewels.

The issue of the circulation of silver and silver scarcity is often thought about with amounts of f

Spanish and Japanese silver obtained for the European Asian trade. Issue of hording really

impeded circulation. Hording silver and gold was common in European courts as well as in Asia.

If we believe him Chardin describes the great honor he had to have a rare and very rapid glimpse

of the treasury while examining jewels for the shah. He describes priceless pearls and rubies the

size of an egg while visiting in 1673, in a period which is not the height of silver entry into Iran,

he wrote the following: “When I was at the Treasury, they drew a curtain in front of a wall, which

I saw all covered up with bags, stacked upon each other all the way up to the ceiling. There could

have well been three thousand bags, that I judged from their shape to be bags of silver.” He goes

on to say that he was told that all the walls were covered like this and that each bag contained fifty

Tumans of silver which he counts as seven hundred and fifty French écus. He was also told that

sometimes some of the bags were exchanged for ducats which he qualifies as the only gold that

entered Iran.76 Chardin’s contention that only one twentieth of what entered the shah’s treasury

ever left it, and that it was a “gouffre”, a cave, that swallowed all the precious metal is as well

known as his affirmation that the Safavid shahs were richer than the Sultan and the Grand Mughal.

19

Nevertheless the royal treasury sustained the Royal Household, salaries were paid with it, the shah

with the monopoly engaged in trade himself and therefore invested, and it is a cliché that no use

was ever made of it. It stems perhaps from the view that capitalism could no grow in an Asian

society like Iran, as the idea of a surpluses being reinvested in trade or infrastructure does not fit

Marx’s much quoted views on the Asiatic mode of production, which imply an eternally stagnant

pre-capitalist phase for the continent of Asia.

Save for the very famous and visible Saru Taqi, who was not a eunuchs in the traditional

sense but was punished into becoming one, the important economic role played by the Eunuchs

has been overshadowed by the fantasies engendered by the haram in European writing. The

Eunuchs played the foremost role in the treasury. Once again Chardin, who had better access to the

economic mechanisms of the Royal Household than other foreign, writes that the royal treasury

was the exclusive and reserved domain to Eunuchs, that in the accounting department of the

khasse, neither the Grand Vizier, nor the Nazer, had any information about the contents of the

royal treasury because it was inaccessible to anyone but the Eunuchs. “ The Nazir, or great

intendant of the Royal Household [khasse], is the Controller of the treasury, he has to know what

everything that enters it and everything that leaves it , but it is forbidden for him to set foot in the

different rooms reserved for the treasury.” He goes on to write that the treasury “ is guarded by a

Eunuch and all the officials that have the right to enter it are all Eunuchs.”77

The black eunuch in charge of the treasury was called the Sahib-i jam and was equal in

rank to the chief of the haram.78 The important silver trade from Iran to India, Safavid Iran’s

main trading partner, and the gem trade from India to Iran, both mostly in the hands of Indian and

Iranian and Armenian merchants. The Europeans di not penetrate it until well into the eighteenth

century. This trade has prompted writer such as Raphaël du Mans to erroneously compare Iran to

a corridor for silver.79 Another erroneous image also prevails, that of the Indians as simple

moneychangers who were responsible for starving Iran by depriving it of its silver. Silver was

always said to disappear by the European travelers, into the “cave” of the royal treasury of in

20

India. It has been said one in the treasury it never reappeared, yet, as demonstrated it went beyond

the royal treasury and was a great use was made of silver for cash payment to a ghulam

administration. In Iran’s political economy as a whole this new service elite was now paid cash

salaries.80.

The Importance of Muslim Armenians in the Mint

The Armenian trade diaspora in Iran has always been looked at as if it were only

comprised of the Christian New Julfans in the silk trade. Muslim Armenians should be included in

Armenian Diaspora, eventhough arguably very quickly after their conversions their intial identities

were not important. I have argued elsewhere because of networks formed in the powerful elites

that rules Isfahan that this identity remained after conversion and similar work has been done on

the Georgians. Mulim Armenians, sometimes ghulams, sometimes not, played a major economic

role with the silver imports through the administration of the mints where silver had to be

deposited. The crucial role of the ghulams in the mints remains to be studied. As a preliminary

insight is offered through one extraordinary career. During the reign of Shah Abbas II illustrates

the many problems that concern us here, the preeminence of ghulams in the mint, the ties between

New Julfa and the ghulams, and the importance of ghulam economic power at court. Perhaps

better than any other example Mohammad Beg’s career may point to the preeminence of Muslim

Armenian converts in the mints. His destiny also highlights the previously unnoted importance of

the ghulams in the administration of Christian New Julfa.

The first part of Abbas II reign would have a strong Muslim Armenian component among

its high administrators. The political ascendancy of a Muslim Armenian from Tabriz, the second

ghulam Grand Vizier of the century after Saru Taqi, is just as intriguing if not as colorful. His

career owes much to another Armenian convert Allaverdi Khan from. Son of the Armenian

ghulam Khusrau Khan, Allahverdi Khan had been master of the hunt (amir-shikarbashi) since

1644, when the shah was eleven years old. He is not to be mistaken for his famous namesake,

another Armenian, his namesake Shah Abbas I’s general and governor of Fars. The master of

21

the hunt was an office that was held exclusively by Armenians in the seventeenth century. This

member of the household had a direct link to the New Julfans, he represented their interests to the

shah.81 This link between the Christian suburb and a high official of the palace has not been

stressed, but it is an important one. It once again highlights the interdependence of the ghulams and

the Armenians in the palace system. This administrator had a most privileged position for gaining

the shah’s ear as the hunt was a favorite sport. He later brought the strategic skills he used to

organize the royal hunt to the office of general (qullar-aqasi), which he held until his death in

1663. This high position as head of the army gave him the power to install at court a newly

converted Armenian protégé, who took the Muslim name of Muhammad Beg.

Muhammad Beg was a Tabrizi Armenian who is often erroneously said to be of modest

origins, the son of a tailor. He is always called a recent convert to Islam, however it seems his

father was already converted. He was from a ghulam family who had occupied high posts at court.

He himself occupied the post of head tailor in the royal workshops (qaychachi-bashi). 82This

important post had also been occupied by another Armenian convert the ghulam general

Qarachqay Khan. 83 His very first political post , however, was within New Julfa. His father’s

post must have helped get him to become the darugheh , or city vizier, of the Christian suburb of

New Julfa, the second highest post after the provost. It is not clear if this appointment was also due

to Allaverdi Khan, as the master of the hunt was close to New Julfa’s administration as the

intermediary between the suburb and the shah, or if this post marks the beginning of their

encounter. Mohammed Beg would rise through the intervention of his patron . First he was the

harbor master of Banddar Abbas, an economically important post, then shortly after in 1648

occupies the high post of controller of the essay (mo’ayyer al-mamlek) where his accomplishments

led through Allaverdi Khan’s recommendation to the post of supervisor of the royal workshops or

(nazer-e-boyutat).84

Next Allaverdi Khan sponsored him to succeed his own rival at court: the orthodox

Grand Vizier Sultan al-Ulama, and thanks to this in 1653, the Armenian convert became grand

vizier.85 The desperate demand for cash makes one wonder if any single reformer could have

22

changed the situation. When he was controller of the essay he had issued a new abbassi coin,

lighter in weight by at least ten percent, in great part because cash had become scarce. His

appointment as a grand vizier was prompted by economic considerations and it was believed that

the Muslim Armenian vizier , who had close ties with the mints as well as the New Julfans would

bring his economic expertise to court and solve some of the urgent need for silver.

The war with Mughals over Qandahar, the enormous architectural projects such as the expensive

construction of many palaces and caravansaries had made Abbas II’s royal treasury desperate for

cash. Abbas II investments truly argue againt the image of hording monarchs and a stagnating

economy, yet his ambitions caused a major crisis at a time well know to economic historians as a

time of world wide silver scarcity. Hailed as the official, who could come up with new reforms to

enhance the revenues of the royal treasury, he had a formidable task ahead. His new abbassi coin

had changed little to the real situation.86

As corporate manager would do today, he first downsized, eliminating posts the

administration. His efforts to raise cash and curb expenditure involved eliminating some high posts

reserved to ghulams, the army was paid in cash since Abbas I, such as the post of general

(Sepahsalar ) of the entire army, to save on those high cash salaries. He tried to mine silver within

Iran, and even engaged a French charlatan by the name of Chapelle de Han , a self-styled

mineralogist to assess the resources of the mines in Iran. This was to no avail. He also instituted a

mercantilist policy of a ban on silver and gold exports, which was strictly supervised by the essayer

of the mint who was none other than is own son Mohammad Amin Beg. To aquire control his

kinsmen were given the monopoly of two posts that he had previously occupied himself, harbor

master at Bandar Abbas, a lucrative post for tolls and controller of the essay where his son

succeeded his brother.87 Some of these measures only served to amplify to the difficult economic

situation that ensued from his mismanagement.88 Nevertheless, more importantly for our prupose

here, it is important to note that his family was now in the key posts that controlled the economy.

After he failed to compensate for the lack of silver by his measures, Allahverdi Khan,

put an end to his protégé’s administration in 1661. During this entire period, the orthodox sharî’a-

23

minded jurists greatly resented the rule at court of these Armenian converts to Islam at court. In the

course of their careers Muhammad Beg, his brother Hasan Beg and his son were all three

controllers of the essay, although there are several other examples, in this brief overview their

careers illustrate the preeminence of converted Armenian ghulams in the highest posts in the mints.

In Ottoman territory, the role of the Ottoman Armenians in the mint is well known. Much more

needs to be done on the mints in Iran before the structure of power that led to these successions

within Muslim Armenian families is uncovered.

Conclusion:

These salary system temporarily created an embryonic middle-class changed the social hold of a

landed feudal lords, it was not a bourgeoisie as these were maily administrators and soldiers.

Beyond the elite many less prominent members of the khassa profited from the silver imports and

the cash flow created by the silk trade. The perfect example but it exists for administrative posts

as well is the pay of the army, with a major officer like the generals having such salaries that

Mohammad beg sought reform by having these cut down, to the last soldier being paid in cash. It

is once again Chardin who gives us a description of how the soldiers and artisans of the household

were paid by the treasury of the royal household. He writes that under Abbas I, the Royal

Household had a ghulam force of ten thousand men, although further Chardin gives this number as

twelve thousand under Abbas II. This army was, however, greatly diminished under Shah Safi,

and even more so under Abbas II, who when he ordered a general review saw the same men and

the same horses march in front of him ten to twelve times . Either the shah or the provincial

governors paid the soldiers and their descendants as a gratification, whether there was a war or

not, whether they ever even served or not. Young boys are entered in the payroll at age two, for the

sum of half a Tuman per year. When there was a possibility of service because of a vacancy in the

army they are presented to the general or if there is no vacancy they have to be presented to the

shah, who alone has the power to create a new wage. This wage is established in perpetuity for the

new soldier and his descendants. When the soldier died someone from his family immediately

replaced him. The Huguenot traveler says that the wages were high , but it was the love of luxury

24

which destroyed the army. A soldier in the cavalry was given 400 livres, but he would spend twice

that much on his clothing. Infantry was paid 250 francs or livres yearly.89 All soldiers remained in

their own houses until there is a war. He also notes that in time of war the soldiers are given only

arms and ammunition but no provisions are provided except for their pay in cash.90

In conclusion, yes, there was silver hording in the royal treasury and yes three was a flight

of silver and a silver trade to India, but imported silver played a major role in state-building in

seventeenth century Iran. Silver was important within Iran, a role that has been invisible to

foreign observers and that can only be traced through the Persian sources.

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Herzig, Edmund. “The Volume of Iranian Raw Silk Exports in the Safavid Period.” IranianStudies 25/ii-iii (1992, 1993): 61-79.

_____. “The Rise of the Julfa Merchants in the Late Sixteenth Century.” In Safavid Persia: TheHistory and Politics of an Islamic Society. Ed. Charles Melville. Pembroke Persian Papers, 4.London: I.B. Tauris, in association with the Centre of Middle Eastern studies, University ofCambridge, 1996, 305-322.

______“The Armenian Merchants of New Julfa: A Study in Premodern Asian Trade.”Unpublished Diss., Oxford University, 1991.

Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600. Trans. N. Itzkowitz and C.Imber. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.

_____. “Bursa and the Silk Trade.” In An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire.Ed. Halil Inalcil with Donald Quataert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 218-55.

Iskandar Beg Munshi. Tarikh-i alam ara-yi Abbasi. Ed. Iraj Afshar. 2 vols. Tehran: Intisharat-i Amir Kabir, 1350/1971.

Iskandar Beg Munshi and Muhammad Yusuf Muvarrikh. Zayl-i alam ara-yi Abbasi. Ed. Suhaili-Khwansari. Tehran: Islamiyya, 1317/1938.

Iskandar Munshi. The History of Shah ‘Abbas the Great. Trans. Roger M. Savory. 3 vols.Boulder: Westview Press, 1978-1986. New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1986.

Jabiri Ansari, Mirza Hasan. Tarikh-i Isfahan. Isfahan: Mash’al, 1999.

Khachikian, Levon. “Le registre d’un marchand arménien en Perse, en Inde et au Tibet (1682-1693).” Annales-économies- Société-Civilizations 22/ 2 (March-April 1967): 231-78.

Khatchikian, Sushanik Nor Ôu¬ayi hay va a®akanu†yunå ev nraarevtratntesakan kaperå ®usastani het XVII ev XVIII darerum [TheMerchants of New Julfa and their commercial ties with Russia in the XVIIth and XVIIIthcenturies]. Erevan, 1988.

Khuzani Isfahani. Afzal al-tavarikh. Volume 3, folios 405b-6a. Christ College ms. Dd. 5.6.

Levi, Scott. “The Indian Merchant Diaspora in Early Modern Central Asia and Iran.” IranianStudies 32/4 (1999): 483-513.

Lewis, Bernard. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Inquiry. Rev. ed. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1990, 1992.

Marmon, Shaun Elizabeth. Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society. New York:Oxford University Press, 1995.

Masters, Bruce. The Origins of Western Economic Dominance in the Middle East. New York:New York University Press, 1988.

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Matthee, Rudolph P. “The Career of Mohammad Beg, Grand Vizier of Shah Abbas II (r.1642-666)” Iranian Studies, 24, (1991): 17-36

______________ “Politics and Trade in Late Safavid Iran: Commercial Crisis and GovernmentReaction under Shah Sulayman (1666-1694). Unpublished Ph. D. diss., U.C.L.A., 1991.

___________The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730. CambridgeStudies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.___________ “The Consolidation and Worsening of the Late Safavid Coinage: The

Mint of Huwayza.” Journal of Economic and Social History, 44, 4,(2001): 505-39.

____________ “Merchants in Safavid Iran:Participants and Perceptions.” Journal ofEarly Modern History 4, 3-4 (2000): 233-68.

___________ "The Safavid Mint of Huwayza; The Numismatic Evidence" in Andrew Newman(ed.), Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East (Leiden: E.J Brill, 2003), pp. 265-291.

McChesney, Robert. “Waqf and Public Policy: The Waqf of Shah ‘Abbas, 1011-1023/1602-14.”Asian and African Studies 15 (1981): 165-190.

_____. “Four Sources on Shah Abbas’s Building of Isfahan.” Muqarnas 5 (1988): 103-134.

Medley, M. “Ardabil Collection of Chinese Porcelain.” In Encyclopedia Iranica. Ed. EhsanYarshater. London/Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, vol. II, 364-65.

Melville, Charles. “Shah ‘Abbas and the Pilgrimage to Mashhad.” In Safavid Persia: TheHistory and Politics of an Islamic Society. Ed. Charles Melville. Pembroke Persian Papers, 4.London: I.B. Tauris, in association with the Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, University ofCambridge, 1996, 191-229.

_____. “A Lost Source for the Reign of Shah Abbas: The Afzal al-tawarikh of Fazli KhuzaniIsfahani.” Iranian Studies 31/ii (1998): 263-265.

Membré, Michele. Mission to the Lord Sophy of Persia. Translated and introduced and notes byA. H. Morton. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1993.

Metin, Kunt. The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government,1550-1650. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

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Nor/Djulfa. Documents of Armenian Architecture. Faculty of Architecture of the MilanPolytechnic Academy of Sciences of Armenia, 21, Venice, 1991.

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Olearius, Adam. The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors Sent by Frederick Duke ofHolstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia. Trans. John Davis. 2nd ed.London: John Starkey and Thomas Basset, 1669.

Pamuk, Sevket. A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000.

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Quinn, Sholeh A. Historical Writing During the Reign of Shah Abbas: Ideology, Imitation, andLegitimacy in Safavid Chronicles. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2000.

Raiin, Ismail. Iranian-i Armani [Armenian Iranians]. Tehran, 1970.

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_____. “The Shah’s Janissaries: Safavid Ghulams (1587-1722).” Unpublished paper presentedat Middle Eastern Studies Association Annual Conference, 1997.

Savory, R.M. “The Principal Offices of the Safawid State during the reign of Isma’il I (907-30/1501-24).” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 23 (1960): 91-105.

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Stevens, Roger. “European Visitors to the Safavid Court.” Iranian Studies 7 (1974): 421-457.Subrahmanyam, Sanjay and C.A.Bayly,, “Portfolio capitalists and political economy of earlymodern India”. “ The Indian Economic and Social History review, 25, 4 (1988):401-424.

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Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “Iranians abroad: Intra-Asian Elite Migration and Early Modern StateFormation.” The Journal of Asian Studies 51 (1992): 340-363.

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Thévenot, Jean de. The Travels of Monsieur Thévenot into the Levant. Ed. Archibald Lovell. 3vol. London: Henry Clark, 1687.

Valle, Pietro della. Les fameux voyages de Pietro della Valle… 4 vols. Paris: G. Clovzier,1661-64. English translation: The Pilgrim: The Travels of Pietro Della Valle. Abridged andintoduced by George Bull. London: Hutchinson, 1990.

Annexes on coins:Persian Coins from a web publisher: Web source: http://pierre-marteau.com/wiki/index.php?title=Money_%28Persia%29Source: OleariusAdam Olearius (?1603-1671) gave the following account of Persia's money or rather of money inPersia looking back at his journeys of the mid 1630s in 1647 and in a second enlarged edition ofhis book in 1656. The English translation by John Davies, published in 1662, reads:The ordinary money of Persia is of silver and brass, very little of gold. The Abbas, the garem-Abbas, or half-Abbas (which they commonly call Chodabende), the scahi, and bistri, are of silver.The former were so called from Shah Abbas, by whose command they were first made, being invalue about the third part of a rixdollar; so that they are about 18d. sterling though they do notamount by weight to above 15d. Shah Chodabende gave his name to the half-Abbas. The scahi areworth about the fourth part of an Abbas, and two bistri and a half make a scahi. Shah Ismail hadcoined in his time a kind of money which was called Lari, and it was made after the manner of athick Latin wire, flatted in the middle, to receive the impression of the characters, which showedthe value of the piece. The Persians call all sorts of copper or brass money, pul, but there is oneparticular kind thereof, which they call kasbeki, where of forty make an Abbas. When they are toname great sums, they accompt by tumains, each thereof is worth fifty Abbas. Not that there is anypiece of money amounting to that sum, but the term is only used for the convenience of accounting,as in Muscovy they account by rubles and in Flanders by thousands of livers. They will receivefrom foreigners no other money than rixdollars, or Spanish ryals, which they immediately convertto Abbas, and gain a fourth part by the money. The king of Persia farms out the mint to privatepersons, who gain most by it, and share stakes with the money-changers, whom the call xeraffi,who have their shops, or offices, in the Maydan, and are obliged to bring all foreign money to thepublic mint, which they call Serab-Chane.There is this remarkable as to the brass money, that every city hath its particular money and mark,which is changed every year, and that such money goes only in the place where it was made. Sothat upon their first day of the year, which begins on the vernal equinox, all the brass money iscry’d down and the mark of it is changed. The ordinary mark of it is a stag, a deer, a goat, a satyr,a fish, a serpent, or some such thing. At the time of our travels, the kasbeki were marked at Isfahanwith a lion, at Scamachie with a devil, at Kaschan with a cock, and in Gilan with a fish. The kingof Persia, on the one side, makes a great advantage by this brass money, inasmuch as he pays for apound of this metal, but an Abbas, which amounts to about eighteen pence, and he hath made of it

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sixty four kasbeki; and on the other he, by this means, keeps the kingdom from being too full ofuncurrent and cry’d down moneyCopper money - to which Olearius referred in the last passage - was frequent yet restricted to localuse: Coins were minted by each gouvernate, they had full value for one year within the gouvernateand a value of 50% outside. Each February the coinage had to be returned to be newly minted -remaining coins could only expect to circulate at half of their origial value - a practice which cameclose to a tax on copper money - a money which was hence avoided by merchants and internationaltraders.Bigger sums were from the 1500s until the 1900s noted in toman (or tuman) - a mere unit ofaccount matching an unstable quantity of gold. (First toman coins of 8,2 g came to be minted in1209 AH/ 1794 AD under Aka Mohammed Kha.) The unit of the 17th and 18th centuries had to beredefined periodically – probably also to pay respect to the fluctuations of the gold silver ratio: 50silver abbasi (of an only relatively stable silver content) had to match the gold toman. Informationabout the value of the toman is difficult to get. According to some web sources the toman equalled3 pounds, 7 shillings in the early 17th century, 2 pounds, 6s. 8d. in 1678, and 2 pounds, 4 s. in theearly 18th centurySilver money dominated the market with the abbasi, first minted under Abbas I as the leading coin.Information about the abbasi is somewhat incoherent. The article Stephen Album, L. Bates, andWillem Floor presented in the Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. 6 ("Coins and Coinage,") portrayed theorginial abbasi as a coin of 9.3 g weight (silver of the highest purity) and introduced a secondabbasi of 7.7 g as a coin of lower value which sometimes dominated the production and whichsometimes lost its position when the old standard of 9.3 g was reintroduced. The period around1700 returned, so the authors implied here, to the orginal 9.3 g abbasi-standard.In his The Economy of Persia (2000) Willem Floor quotes Stephen Album with the following tableof Persia's silver coins - we add an additional column for silver equivalents of the toman (of 50abbasi) - the 9.3 g or 9.2 g Abbasi is missing here; the table tells the story of a simple devaluation,see table in The Economy of Safavid Persia (2000), p.72.

1 Raphaël du Mans (1660), fol. 67. This translation is my own, based on the 1660 edition.2Muzzafar Alam, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds. The Mughal State. Dehli : Oxford University Press,1998.p.7.3 Baghdiantz McCabe, Ina. The Shah’s Silk for Europe’s Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the JulfaArmenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530-1750). Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1999.4 See the first pages arguing this about Safavid Iran in Willem Floor A Fiscal History of Iran in theSafavid and Qajar Period, 1500-1925. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, 1999.5Here as in Baghdiantz McCabe (1999), I agree with Sanjay Subrahmanyam and his argument that theonly way to view these reforms in Iran and the Mughal state is through state-building. See introduction inMuzzafar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam eds (1998).6 Baghdiantz McCabe (1999).7 See bibliography for books on slavery in I slam and also the joint book in the note below.8 Babaie S., Babayan K., Baghdiantz McCabe I., Farhad M., Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of SafavidIran. London: I. B. Tauris 2004.9Avary, P./ Fragner, G./ Simmons, J. B., "Abbasi," Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. 1, Winona Lake, IN, 1985.10 For coinage and equivalences at the beginning of the century, see: Steensgaard, Niels, p.420. For thevalue of Safavid dinärs 1510-1718, see The Cambridge History of Iran: vol. 6 p.566.11 http://pierre-marteau.com/wiki/index.php?title=Money_(Persia)12 Olearius also goes on to remark that there were all sorts of local coinage circulating in Safavid Persiamostly, but not silver, brass money and copper coins:“There is this remarkable as to the brass money, that every city hath its particular money and mark, whichis changed every year, and that such money goes only in the place where it was made. So that upon theirfirst day of the year, which begins on the vernal equinox, all the brass money is cry’d down and the markof it is changed. The ordinary mark of it is a stag, a deer, a goat, a satyr, a fish, a serpent, or some such

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thing. At the time of our travels, the kasbeki were marked at Isfahan with a lion, at Scamachie with adevil, at Kaschan with a cock, and in Gilan with a fish. The king of Persia, on the one side, makes a greatadvantage by this brass money, inasmuch as he pays for a pound of this metal, but an Abbas, whichamounts to about eighteen pence, and he hath made of it sixty four kasbeki; and on the other he, by thismeans, keeps the kingdom from being too full of uncurrent and cry’d down money.See Annexe below.13 Matthee, R. “Politics and Trade in Late Safavid Iran: Commercial Crisis and Government Reactionunder Shah Sulayman (1666-1694). Unpublished Ph. D. diss., U.C.L.A., 1991.14 8 silver larins= 1gold80 silver larins = tümäns or 200 ‘abbäsïs1 gold(abstract measure) = 5 ‘abbäsïs.15 Adam Olearius The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors, pp. 299-30016 Baghdiantz McCabe, Ina ( 1999) 140-145.

17 The Travels of M. de Thévenot into the Levant. Book III, chapter II, (London, 1687). Cited inCARSWELL, p. 78.18 Baghdiantz McCabe, Ina. The Shah’s Silk for Europe’s Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the JulfaArmenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530-1750). Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1999. And “Silk andSilver: The Trade and Organization of New Julfa at the End of the Seventeenth Century.” Revue desÉtudes arméniennes n. s. 25 (1994- 1995): 389-415.

19 Paris,1981, Tome II, p. 94.

20Ibid. The original reads: “Ainsi tout l’or et l’argent de Perse vient des pays étrangers, etparticulièrement de l’Europe comme je l’ai remarqué au chapitre des monnaies. Depuis le règne de ChahAbbas I jusqu’a celui de de Chah Abbas II, on voyaait plus d’argent dans la Perse qu’on le voitpresentement; et les marchands arméniens l’apportaient de l’Europe en Perse ou on les réduisait enMonnaies du pays. Mais depuis quelques années, ils n’apportent plus que des ducats et des sequins commeétant des espèces plus portatives.”21Stephen Frederic Dale Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600-1750. (Cambridge, 1994) and ScottLevi “ The Indian Merchant Diaspora in Early Modern Central Asia and Iran.” (Iranian Studies 32, 4,1999):483-513.22There has been some serious effort to study the coinage and the mints of SafavidPersia by Willem Floor and Rudloph Matthee. There has been some serious effortto study the coinage and the mints of Safavid Persia by Willem Floor andRudloph Matthee. Floor, Willem M./ Faghfoory, Mohammad Hassan, The first Dutch-Persiancommercial conflict. The attack on Qeshm Island, 1645 (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2004).There has been some serious effort to study the coinage and the mints of SafavidPersia by Willem Floor and Rudloph Matthee. Matthee, Rudi, "The Safavid Mint ofHuwayza; The Numismatic Evidence" in Andrew Newman (ed.), Society and Culture in the EarlyModern Middle East (Leiden: E.J Brill, 2003), pp. 265-291. Matthee, Rudi, "Mint Consolidation and theWorsening of the Late Safavid Coinage: the Mint of Huwayza", Journal of the Economic and SocialHistory of the Orient, Volume 44, Number 4 (Brill Academic Publishers, November 2001), 505-539.Floor, Willem M., The economy of Safavid Persia (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2000). Album, Stephen/ Bates,L./ Floor, Willem, "Coins and Coinage," Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. 6 (Winona Lake, IN, 1993). Avary,P./ Fragner, G./ Simmons, J. B., "Abbasi," Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. 1 (Winona Lake, IN, 1985).23 See Baghdiantz McCabe (1999) for this and also Sussan Babaie, Kathryn Babayan, Ina BaghdiantzMcCabe, and Massumeh Farhad Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Seventeenth Century Safavid Isfahan, (2004), chapter 2.24See Baghdiantz McCabe (1999) for this.25For this see chapter 5 in Baghdiantz McCabe (1999) and “Silk and Silver: The Trade andOrganization of New Julfa at the End of the Seventeenth Century” Revue des Etudes Arméniennes.n. s. 25 (1994- 1995) 245-272..

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26 The farmäns or decrees in this book were unpublished, but most farmäns are published inTer Yovhaean©, Yarutiwn Patmutiwn Nor Ju¬ayi. [A History of New Julfa](New Julfa, 1880&1980) Vol I&II.. Also see in three volumes Hagop a azian, PersidskiyeDokumenty Matenadarana: Ukazi [Matenadaran, Erevan. [Firmans: A Collection of Faramin of SafavidShahs issued for Armenians] (Erevan, 1956, 1959). Many of the Waqfs and taxations decrees concerningthe Armenian churches are in this work.27It is also called Provinces in opposition to the private department, which is yet another way ofdescribing the khasseh.. This terminology is used in the commentary to the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk inMinorsky, V. Tadhkirat al-Mulûk, A Manual of Safavid Administration. Gibb Memorial Series, vol. 16.London, 1943, p. 174. refered to as TM in further notes.28Steinmann, Linda. “Shah Abbas and the Royal Silk Trade.” Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1986. seechapter two for the list of scholars arguing this and Steinmann’s own position.29As discussed further it as the English factors who wanted all the silk taken by ship to London.30 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Paris 1981, Tome I, Chapitre 12,, p. 191. The original reads: “Car on est obligéen entrant dans le royaume, soit a Erivan soir a Tauriz ou on bat monnaie, de declarer tout l’argent qu’onporte pour être fondu et battu au coin du roi, à peine d’une grosse amende aux contevenants si on peux lesdécouvrir. Mais si les affaires d’un marchand ne lui permettent pas d’arreter ni à Erivan ni à Tauris, et qu’illui soit plus commode de porter son argent à la monnaie d’Isphahan, il n’a qu’à prendere un billet du maitrede la monnaie d’Erivan ou de Tauris par lequel il atteste comme il a fait duement sa declaration.”31 Matthee, Rudi, "The Safavid Mint of Huwayza; The Numismatic Evidence" in Andrew Newman (ed.),Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East (Leiden: E.J Brill, 2003), pp. 265-291.32 Ina Baghdiantz McCabe. “Silk and Silver: The Trade and Organization of New Julfa at the End of theSeventeenth Century.” (Revue des études arméniennes 25 1994-95):389-419. See alsoMatthee(2000),p.115.33 Ortelius made an earlier now forgotten atlas in 1564. Atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum . [Editioprinceps].[Colofon:] Auctoris aere & cura impressum absolutumque apud Aegid. Coppenium Diesth,Antverpiae xx Maii M.D.LXX. Met 53 kaarten in kopergravure, in 1 perkamenten band ; 39,5 x 29,5 cm.Burger, Geographie en reizen p. 5 [1]; Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, Ort 1A; Sijmons, Catalogue ofatlases 239. Deze eerste editie werd door het Koninklijk Nederlands Julfa is cited as Chinla in map 49 ofA. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum. Antwerp. 1570. First cited by Edmund Herzig The Rise of the JulfaMerchants”, in Safavid Persia Charles Mellville ed. (Tauris press, 1996): 304-319.34Perhaps since they were silk traders and silk was associated to China, or perhaps because of MarcoPolo’s accounts.35 H. Inalcik, “Bursa and the Silk Trade”, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire(Cambridge, 1997), vol. 1, pp. 218-55.36For Saru Taqi’s position and why he can be seen as a ghulam see Slaves of the Shah and forgovernosrship of the provinces see Röhrborn, pp. 172-204.37Numbers cited in Rudi Matthee (2000) p.76, the calculations are the author’s the original sourceswhich are Arakel and Iskandar Munshi use different measurements.38For a preliminary first discussion of this and the first political analysis of the silk trade see LindaSteinman chpter 3.39 Chardin (1724; reprint, 1927), p. 132.40 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, C.A.Bayly,, “Portfolio capitalists and political economy of early modern India”.“ The Indian Economic and Social History review, 25, 4 (1988):401-424.41 see Ina Baghdiantz McCabe (1999) and chapter 2 on the economic role of the ghulams in Babaie et al.(2004).42 “Princely Suburb, Armenian Quarter or Christian Ghetto? The Urban Setting of New Julfa in theSafavid Capital of Isfahan (1605-1722)” La Revue des Mondes musulmans et de la Méditerannée,REMMM, 107-110, in a special issue :Les non-musulmans dans l'espace urbain en terres d'islam pp.414-437.43 Baghdiantz Mcabe Ina “The Global Trading Ambitions of the Julfan Armenians.” DiasporaEntreprenurial Networks 1000-2000. Editors: Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, Ionna Minoglu.

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And in the joint forward, Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, Ionna Minoglu. DiasporaEntreprenurial Networks 1600-2000. Also see“Trading Diaspora, State Building and the Idea of National Interest”in Views from the Edge: Essays inHonor of Richard W. Bulliet. Columbia Middle-East Institute, Columbia University Press. Formainaining a small Army see the example of Marcara in chapter 10 of Ina Baghdiantz McCabe (1999).For the Julfan Armenians using their arms see My article on Gilantentz in EI.

44see Ina Baghdiantz McCabe (1999) pp. 133-34.45 Sanjay Subrahmanyam in “Iranians abroad: Intra Asian Elite Migration and Early Modern StateFormation.”, (The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume LI, no.2 ,1992):.340-363.46For this see Ina Baghdiantz McCabe (1999), p.309. Not only were the Qutb Shahis in Golconda butthere were also some Julfan Armenians high within the court of the king of Golconda.47 Baghdiantz McCabe (1999) chapter 3 and 6 for internal these internal conflicts.48See the discussion about this problem in Cemal Kafadar “A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian MuslimMerchants Trading in the Serenissima.” Journal of Turkish Studies (VolumeX,1986):97-124.49 Jean Aubin, “La propriété foncière en Azerbaydjan,” Le Monde Iranien et L’Islam: Sociétés et Cultures,4 (1976-1977), pp. 79-132.50 Bn. Manus. fr. Fond fr. 15529 fol. 451v.51 Ahmad Ashraf, “Historical Obstacles to the Formation of a Bourgeoisie in Iran,” in Studies in theEconomic History of the Middle East, ed. M. A. Cook, (Oxford, 1970): 308-333.52 The third volume of the Afzal al Tavarikh cites a royal decree and ascertains the date of 1028/1619 forthe monopoly. This volume was discoverd by Charles Melville. Iranian studies 31, 2 (1998) 263-65.53A mann -i-shahi the measure used for silk was 5.8 kilograms there was the mann-i Tabriz which washalf of it and weighed 2.9 Kilograms. A Kharvar was an ass load from the word khar meaning donkey andit weighed 100 tabrizi mann or 290 kilograms, or 600 lbs.54 Khuzani Isfahani Afzal al Tavarikh . Volume 3, folios 405b-6a. Christ College ms. Dd. 5.6. Theofficials named are MIiza Isfahani and Aslan Beg viziers of Guilan, Husayn Beg vizier of Shirvan, Maliksharif kalantar and Sharif Beg vizier of Ganja and Qarabagh, Malik Safar kalantar and the hakims oftabriz and Ardabils. Cited by Rudi Matthee (2000)p.102.55Ibid.56Della Valle cited by Steinman (1986),p.94.57See Baghdiantz McCabe (1999) chapter seven for a detailed analysis.58 Pietro Della Valle il Pellegrino…La Persia…, parte II/vol.II, (Roma,1658.), Lettera 14.59 Braudel, F. La Méditerranée et le monde mediterranéen à l'époque de Philippe II. Paris:Armand Colin,1949. Is still one of the best sources for this.60See futher the role played by the governors of Fars.61For the lesser known Armenian origin of Allah Verdi Khan usually just called a Georgian because hewas born in Georgia, see, TM. p.17, also footnote 5.62 . A farman , royal decree, was issued by Shah Safi in 1039/1630 renewing an older order issued by hisgrandfather Shâh ‘Abbâs I (r. 1588-1629).63Royal edict reproduced in annexe of Baghdiantz McCabe (1999).

64 TM (1980), p. 61.

65 Ibid., p. 130.66“ During the reign of former monarchs the whole of the profits from the vâjibî of the Mint [was asfollows]: in the best years, when merchants brought from outside masses of qurûsh coins and when, atthe time of particular prosperity (‘ayn-i ma‘mûrî) of Isfahan, 400 workers, all present, were dailyemployed in the Nine Departments of the Mint, and the fabrication of [plated] silver thread (naqda-sâzi?) and copper coins (fulûskârî?)was farmed out (ijâra) for 500 to 600, or 700 tumâns the farmholder, on behalf of all the farm [given to him by] the Divan used to send to the Treasury 1000 ashrafîs[silver coins] and 100 dastaja kila [sic] [large ashrafî coins], which at the [given] rate were worth 250tumâns approximately, and moreover used to pay 350 tumâns as salary to the Mu‘ayyir, the Darrâbî-bâshî and other persons of the Private Household who were in possession of drafts (arbâb-i avâlât).Apart from the above mentioned sum, nothing else was sent to the Treasury. From ancient times until

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now, one sixteenth of the sum entering the Private Household had been assigned to the Mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik.66

The above is excerpted fromthe Tadhkirat al-Mulûk regarding the mint. This particular selection, whichis difficult to understand even in translation, concerns the vâjibî, or seignorage; that is, the royalprerogative to levy duties on the coining of money for the purpose of covering the expenses of minting andas a source of revenue. The mint seems to be the center of attention for the anonymous author of theTadhkirat al-Mulûk; so much so that V. Minorsky believes he might have been affiliated with it. It maybe that he spent time describing it precisely because of its importance as a financial center that sustainedthe administration of the royal household. The mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik was not under the nâ ir-i buyûtât;he reported directly to court.67 Ibid., p. 130.68Chardin (1735), Volume II, p.314.69 Bert Fragner, “Social and Economic Affairs,” in CHI 6, p.51670 A load=2 bales = 36 mann-i shâhî., =circa 196 kilograms.71 L. Steinmann (1986), p. 94.72 TM (1980), p. 85.73 See “Gift Giving”Encyclopedia Iranica, Volume X, fascicule 6 :604-617.74 Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran by Sussan Babaie, Kathryn Babayan, Ina BaghdiantzMcCabe, and Massumeh Farhad ( 2004), chapter 2.75TM, p.58.76Chardin, Volume II, p.358.77Chardin(1735) volume III, p. 357.78 TM p.56.79Raphaël du Mans missionnaire en Perse au XVIIième Estat de la Perse. Publié avec Mémoire sur lesJésuites (circa 1662),Estat de la Perse,1665, De Persia 1684, et la biographie et correspondancedu pèreRaphaël du Mans edité par Francis Richard. Société de l’histoire de l’Orient. Paris, 1995. Raphaël duMans (1660), fol. 67:La Perse est comme un grand caravanserra qui n'a que deux portes, l'une du costé de la Turquie, par Iaquelle entre I'argent qui vient d'Occident, qui sont piastres, qui viennent du Nouveau Monde en Espagne,de la' en France par la Bretaigne, passant la France par Marseille, sortent pour entrer en Turquie, puisviennent icy, ou' l'on les faict refondre pour les mettre en abassis, qui est monnoye comme d'un teston ouquart d'escu. Aucuns portent leurs piastres ensuite jusques aux Indes, et là ces Noirs ne se fient pas à unepierre de touche, les cassent en deux. Si elles sont bonnes, les prennent.80For an analysis of these erroneous images see Dale (1994), pp.64-82.81Rudolph Matthee The Career of Mohammad be, Grand Vizier of Shah Abbas II (r.1642-1666) IranianStudies, 24,(1991),p.20.82Ibid.,p.21.83There is an important connection to the tailor’s guild and royal workshop for the Armenians that woulddeserve further exploration. In a shipwreck of the coast of Manilla, the tombstone of a Shahrimanian, oneof the four most prominent families from Julfa was discovered. Some of the Sharimanians converted toIslam. On the tombstone are engraved the clear insignia of the guild of tailors. For a heterodox Armeniansect led by Tomik who was also in the guild see Ina Baghdiantz Mccabe (1996-97).84Matthee (1991) for this important career told many times. See Nasrollah Falsafi “Sargozasht-e SaruTaqi” Chand Maqaleh-ye tarikhi ve adabi (Tehran,1342 S./1963). Hellmut braun “Ein iranischerGosswesir des 17 Jahrhundrets: Miza Muhammad-Taqi in W. Eilers, ed., Festgabe deutscher Iranistenzur 25000 Jahrfeier Irans (Stuttgart,1971).85 It should be noted that the political itinerary of Mu ammad Beg, the Armenian Tabrizi, was the sameas another famous Tabrizi, Sârû Taqî, who was of Azeri origin. He was castrated late, and was alsonâ ir-i buyûtât before he became grand vizier.86Roemer in CHI 6, pp. 189-35; see pp. 291-96.87For the names of these family members see Matthee (2000), pp30-31.88 Roemer in CHI 6, pp. 189-35; see pp. 291-96.89Chardin says a cavalry man is paid four hundred livres on page 321 and four hundred francs on page322 he uses francs and livres as equivlents and in an indiscrimate fashion as substitute one for the other.

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To get a Tuman one has to divide by 4.5, would put the pay of a cavalry man well under ten Tumans, andthat of the Infantry over five. Chardin himself is very approximate and imprecise for example he says ahorse cost 60 Tumans or 250 livres, while if he were to apply his own accounting he would get 270. TheFrench livre fluctuated widely, as much as 60% during Chardin’s lifetime, the Tuman wass not stableeither so these conversions are not accurate.90Chardin (1735), pp.320-322.