Rudab encouraged other women to build skiffs, and they too learned from the queen of Iran the craft of making skiffs and then small boats, and they put out to sea in their own skiffs. Iranian women learned the art of seafaring on a sea that in ancient times was one of the stormiest lakes in the world, and even now the Caspian Sea is the stormiest lake in the world. Because they constantly sailed on a sea with great waves, they gained insight into seamanship. They realized that, along the Caspian coast, the dangerous zone is the zone connected to the shore; if they avoided sailing there and kept a little distance from it—and thus from the land—the water would be without turbulence and one could sail with ease. They were also the ones who understood that, for seafaring on the Caspian, the most dangerous areas are river mouths; […]
Month: October 2025
The beginning of Iranian immigration (Part III)
Rud II and the idea of worshiping God
Another outstanding event that occurred in the time of Rud II—and was more important than the foregoing events—was the emergence of the idea of worshiping God, and Rud II was the originator of that idea.1 What led Rud II to think of worshiping God was that she became more knowledgeable than her forebears and descendants about astronomy and realized that the stars in the sky have orderly motions and that their movements obey a specific law. Up to that time the Iranians worshiped the sun and—as we have said—attributed everything to the sun. But Rud II told her people that there is something that brought the sun into being, and that is “Mard,” and the Creator of the sun and the earth and the stars is “Mard,” and Mard has will; he was, is, and will be; and all must obey Mard—and Mard means God.2 The words “fard—mart—mazd (with z)—mardā—mazdā” […]
The beginning of Iranian immigration (Part II)
Rud II and the Birth of Persian Perfumery
The Turanians stayed in Zabolestan until they had eaten everything there was and destroyed whatever they could—out of ignorance and merely for a moment’s amusement. Then they were struck by famine and resolved to head west to plunder the Iranian cities in that direction; but winter overtook them, and they realized that if they went west or north they would die of cold, and the land of Turan had no provisions for them to return home. They were forced to remain in Zabolestan and, from extreme hunger, began eating the animals they had slaughtered; by carrion-eating they fell ill and, one after another, perished in the fertile land of Zabolestan. The Turanians in Zabolestan died of hunger and disease, but Rud, the Iran-ban, and his family, and the Iranians who had migrated with him to Zabolestan, did not soon return there for fear of the savage Turanians. In the region […]
The beginning of Iranian immigration (Part I)
Iraninan Immigration to the mountains
The new capital of Iran was preferable to Sialk in every respect, except that it lay on the path of the Turanians. The inhabitants by Lake “Hamun,” when they realized that the Iran-ban was moving the capital to their land, were very pleased and regarded that event as one of the sun’s blessings, and they gained confidence that once the Iran-ban had moved to the shores of Lake Hamun, he would prevent Turanian incursions. When the capital of Iran was transferred to the shore of Lake Hamun, the Iranians’ civilization had solidified, and the nation of Iran, in the true sense of the word, counted as a civilized nation; for in addition to living in cities, they smelted metal, farmed, raised domestic animals, and wove cloth. But to the east of Iran’s capital lived the Turanians, who were neither inclined to agriculture and animal husbandry, nor did they work metal, […]
The “Central Iranian Sea”: a Historical–Environmental Overview Focused on Drying and Its Social Impacts
Iran's former central sea on the map
The “Central Iranian Sea” is a shorthand for the superposition of several inland lakes and playas at the heart of the Iranian Plateau (the Namak Lake basin, Hoz-e Soltan, Dasht-e Kavir, etc.). During the colder, wetter phases of the Quaternary these water bodies expanded; during the warmer phases of the Holocene they retreated. That gradual desiccation was not merely a physical trend—it triggered a cascade of environmental changes (soil salinization, higher evaporation, instability of surface water) that directly reshaped settlement patterns, agriculture, migration routes, and water-management innovations around the basin—most notably in the Sialk region. What was the Central Lake? (A natural “advantage” that gradually turned into a “risk”) Extensive geomorphic evidence—lake terraces, broad travertine fields, and wide pediments—shows that, at times, interconnected water bodies linked Hoz-e Soltan, Namak Lake, and the “Dry Sea of Saveh.” Three shoreline base levels at 790/800/900 m remain along the margins, marking former lake […]
Hassan Pirnia
hassan pirnia image
Biography: Family and Education Hasan Pirnia (1250–1314 SH / 1871–1935 CE), born in Na’in, was the son of Mirza Nasrollah Khan Moshir al-Dowleh, the first prime minister (ra’is al-wozara) of the Constitutional era. Hasan completed his early schooling in Iran, then went to Moscow for military and legal studies: he graduated with top honours from the Military School and continued at the Faculty of Law, Moscow University. Returning to Iran, he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a senior secretary and translator. He was fluent in French, English, Arabic and Russian, acquainted with Classical Greek, and—at 58—taught himself German to consult texts first-hand. [1] Role in the Constitutional Movement and Political Beginnings On the eve of the Constitutional Revolution, Pirnia took an active role in translating and drafting the electoral by-law and the constitution; together with his brother Hossein (Mo’tamen-al-Molk), he is remembered as a “technical architect” of core […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part XII)
Iranian migration to the shores of Lake Hamun
The Iran-ban’s husband beheld a vast lake and saw that forests surrounded it, and that along part of its shores people were sowing wheat. Zab, who had lost Iran’s primordial paradise, when he saw that great lake and the forests, realized he had once more found a paradise; he thought he should not live in the city of Sialk and that it would be better to move his dwelling from Sialk to the shore of that lake. Zab’s state of mind at that time was like that of a man in our own age who had been wealthy, lost his wealth, then spent a long period in poverty, and at last, through some turn of fortune, becomes prosperous again. Such a person, the second time, knows the value of wealth and will neither waste it nor let it slip away, for the long season of want has taught him to […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part XI)
Cattle Riders of the South
The inhabitants of the southern cities of Iran, distressed by the Turanians’ repeated raids, sought counsel from the Iran-ban, who was the wisest and most intelligent Iranian, and the Iran-ban sent her husband, Zab, to southern Iran. Zab, who had not gone south for some time and was unaware of conditions there, saw noteworthy things when he arrived. Among them, he observed that people rode oxen just as the people of the north rode horses; and he also saw in southern Iran two kinds of crops that did not exist in the north, both of which the southerners counted as “gāv” (“cow”), because the cattle ate those two crops and thus led people toward them. One of the two was a small grain still known in southern and eastern Iran as “gāv-dāneh” (gāvars, i.e., millet). The other was a kernel resembling wheat but slimmer and longer, which people also called […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part X)
The first type of commodity-to-commodity trade
Rud’s father—whom we know was a potter and also a coppersmith—and his apprentices (that is, the inhabitants of Sialk, who had copper-smelting furnaces in their homes) brought into the world something now known as “commerce.” Until the day Rud’s father and the other inhabitants of Sialk created industry, trade had no meaning in Iran, because each person, with each family, could meet their own needs. No one possessed something that another lacked and thus felt a need for. But after coppersmithing expanded in Sialk and the people there became specialists in making all kinds of tools and various vessels from copper, the inhabitants of Iran’s cities needed the people of Sialk to obtain copper tools and utensils. They brought sheep and horses, purchased the copper tools and vessels from the people of that city, and took them away; and thus “trade” came into being. Copper tools and vessels became so […]
A Great Catastrophe in Iran’s Paradise (Part IX)
Making a copper pot in Sialk
After Rud the Second and her husband Tam went to the city of Giyan (near present-day Nahavand), a chronic and unprecedented ailment appeared in Sialk: severe intestinal pain accompanied by diarrhea and fever. Rud could not understand what the illness was or how it should be treated. Those who contracted it would recover, and only rarely did anyone die; but they would become afflicted with the same illness again and suffer intensely from abdominal pain. However, after some time had passed, the disease grew more severe, and a number of the afflicted perished; their bodies were taken to the hill called “Gom” and placed there until the corpses decayed and disappeared. In other cities of Iran people also sometimes caught the disease and died, but in Sialk the number of cases was higher and the death rate greater. The dangerous illness spread in Sialk to such a degree that some […]