Homes, Water and Living Conditions in Safavid Iran

Housing in Safavid towns ranged from prosperous merchant residences to accommodation serving workers and travellers. Water supplied gardens, households and bathhouses, while neighbourhood organisation helped manage shared spaces. The evidence is especially detailed for Isfahan and its Armenian settlement of New Julfa.

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Houses in New Julfa

New Julfa developed after Abbas I’s forced transfer of Armenians from the northwest in 1604–05. Wealthy merchants built substantial residences there, supported by their commercial income and royal grants. Houses formed part of a settlement containing churches, streets and institutions organised by the Armenian community.

Surviving seventeenth-century merchant houses document generous plots and elaborate decoration in some properties. Painted interiors display the resources of their owners and the work of specialised artists. These residences provide evidence for prosperous urban households, while revealing much less about the rooms and possessions of people with small incomes.

The contrast in resources matters to the use of a house. A merchant residence could accommodate family members, guests and servants within a large property. Its decorated rooms belonged to the social and commercial life of a household whose connections extended beyond the city.

Water and gardens

Isfahan’s development under Abbas I used the Zayandeh River and channels supplying cultivated areas. The Chahar Bagh avenue and royal gardens made water conspicuous within the capital’s planned spaces. The Armenian settlement stood south of the river, connected to the city by bridges.

Water reached particular properties and institutions through local arrangements. Its availability affected the maintenance of gardens and the work of bathhouses. Access to a supply therefore formed part of the practical value of an urban holding, alongside its buildings and location.

Bathhouses and household resources

Bathhouses provided spaces for washing and other bodily care. Wealthy households could have private baths, while public establishments served a wider clientele. Their operation required water, heating and staff, including bath attendants and barbers.

Chardin’s seventeenth-century account describes the use of brushwood and dried dung as fuel, with timber relatively costly. Heating a bath was thus connected to supplies from beyond its immediate rooms. A bathhouse depended on repeated service work and expenditure, even when it stood within an endowed complex.

Neighbourhoods and local oversight

New Julfa was divided into wards with representatives who participated in communal government. Gates closed at night, and community officers dealt with local affairs. This organisation linked the household to a larger unit of streets, churches and neighbours.

Other parts of Isfahan had their own neighbourhood relationships and rivalries. Residence could place a household within a particular local following as well as near workshops, markets or religious institutions. The city was consequently experienced through these smaller settings, not only through the royal square.

Provisioning and pressure

Urban living also depended on food and fuel reaching the markets. Drought and hoarding contributed to severe shortages in seventeenth-century Isfahan, including crises in the 1660s. Residents appealed for action against the people controlling grain supplies.

The siege of 1722 brought a still more extreme failure of provisioning. Such episodes expose the dependence of urban households on trade and collective services. In ordinary conditions, water access, household income and the institutions of the neighbourhood shaped the practical differences between one residence and another.

For the wider setting, see Daily Life in Safavid Iran.