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IRAN
AND THE WORLD IN THE SAFAVID AGE
Abstracts
Floor, Mr. Willem, Independent Scholar,
Bethesda, Arduous Travel and Trade: The Qandahar-Isfahan
Highway in the Seventeenth Century
This
paper takes listeners on a trip from Qandahar to Isfahan.
Its purpose is to acquaint them with the reality of
travelling in the Safavid period.
For, when discussing trade, cultural and other contacts,
scholars inform their readers that goods were transported, that
traders and artists travelled, but these studies do not provide
them with a sense of how easy or difficult travel was.
Also, the focus of these studies is mainly on maritime
routes, while the land routes are usually neglected.
To that end, I therefore intend to discuss in some detail
one of the important highways connecting India with Iran, to wit:
the road between Qandahar and Isfahan.
This description will not only give a feel for what traders
and other travellers had to go through, but also demonstrate that
profits made the world go round in the Safavid era as well.
There was no obstacle, no mountain so high, no terrain so
difficult or dangerous, that people in the seventeenth century
were not willing to surmount it to move goods from point A to
point B. In addition,
the paper will, where possible, identify the stages along this
commercial route as well as some alternative stretches of the
route that were taken by some travellers during the Safavid
period.
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