'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME II' [‎298r] (600/706)

SULTANABAD
583
SULTANABAD (2)—
A village of some 400 houses with a population of about 1,500 people,
has springs, Icandts and river. A good deal of cultivation.— (Preece.)
SULTANABAD (3)—
A village 5 miles south of Kazvln, a little to the \ 6 f the road thence
to Tlahiiz.—(Schindler.)
SULTANABAD (4)— Elev. 3,492'.
A village 18| miles from Tehran on the road to Hamadan, it has thirty
houses and a caravansarai.— {Schindler.)
SULTANABAD (5)— Lat. 34° 6' 36"; Long. 48° 42'; Elev. 5,952'.
The capital of the small province of ’Iraq, founded by Yusuf Khan Gurji
in 1808, hence often called Shahr-i-Nau. It was a place originally chosen,
as the station for re-organising the Persian army at the beginning of the last
century.
The town proper is a square compact mass of buildings, with straight and,
for Persia, wide streets, running from end to end and side to side at right
angles to each other. Down the centre of each street is a water-course.
It was surrounded by a mud wall and ditch, but these are now being de
stroyed and the space utilised for building ; all round the town, houses are
being built and gardens laid down. The whole place shows every sign of
vitality. The bazaars are good, fairly well built and full of people. There is
one long one of about 600 yards, from which short ones of 50 to 100 yards
branch off at right angles, and also many clean and well-conducted cara-
vansarais.
The town and district have been practically made by carpet-weaving.
The district has always been noted for its weavers, who were to be found
in Faraghan, a small district, about 20 miles north. Messrs. Ziegler and
Company, a Manchester firm, have built large premises just outside the
town covering about 40,000 square yards. They are so large and imposing
as to have got the name of the Kaleh or Fort. In them are the dwelling-
houses of their employes, offices, store and dyeing rooms. Twenty years
ago, there were only about 40 looms in the town, now there are at least
1 , 200 , and in the surrounding villages, another 1,500.
The firm, in 1900, was represented by Mr. Strauss, the Manager, and Messrs.
Braondly, Wolfanger and Dr. Stoecker, all Germans or Swiss. Now (1912),
one of the employes, Mr. Moir, is His Britannic Majesty’s Vice-Consul at
Sultana bad. They have no factory An East India Company trading post. , the carpets being-woven in the district
by contract, the colours and patterns being prescribed by the fir ms . The
firm is much liked by the villagers, whom they treat very liberally and
whose virtual masters they are, consequently they are not popular with the
loteai landowners, who still treat the peasantry in the old Persian manner.
The population is about 7,000 and it is an increasing place : the town is
assessed at 35,000 tumdns and the province at 65,000 per annum. The
province supplies four regiments of Infantry to the Persian army ; there
are nominally 600 infantry in the town.
The town lies in a wide basin 20 miles in diameter, and is of some com
mercial importance, the staple industry being carpet-making. The country