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CHAPTER 12
Esfahan, nesf-é jahan!
is what the Persians of today say. ‘Isfahan, half of the
world!’ The expression came into use well after the age of Khayyam, but even in
1074 the city was exalted in words: ‘its stones are of galenite, its flies are bees,
its grass is saffron’, ‘its air is so pure and healthy that its granaries do not change
according to any calendar and flesh does not decompose’. It is true that the city
lies at an altitude of five thousand feet, but Isfahan also had sixty caravansarays,
two hundred bankers and money-changers and endless covered bazaars. Its
workshops produced silk and cotton. Its carpets, cloths and padlocks were
exported to the most distant countries. Its roses blossomed in a thousand
varieties and its opulence was proverbial. This city, the most populous in the
Persian world, attracted all those who were seeking power, fortune or
knowledge.
I have said ‘this city’, but one can not really speak of a city. They still tell the
story there of a young traveller from Rayy, who was in such a hurry to see the
wonders of Isfahan that on the last day he galloped ahead of his caravan. After
several hours he came to the bank of the Zayandé-Rud, ‘the life-giving river’,
and followed it until he reached a wall of earth. The town seemed to him to be of
a respectable size, but smaller than his own city of Rayy. When he reached the
gate, he asked the guards.
‘This is the city of Jay,’ he was told.
He did not so much as go in but turned and followed his route toward the
West. His mount was exhausted, but he did not spare the crop. Soon he found
himself, panting, at the gates of another city, more imposing than the first, but
scarcely larger than Rayy. He questioned an old passer-by.

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‘This is Yahoudiyeh, the “Jews’ town”.’
‘Are there so many Jews in this country?’
‘There are some, but most of the inhabitants are Muslims, like you and I. The
town is called Yahoudiyé because King Nebuchadnezzar is supposed to have
settled here the Jews he deported from Jerusalem. Others claim that it was the
Jewish spouse of a Persian Shah who, before the age of Islam, had members of
her community brought here. God alone knows the truth!’
Our young traveller thus turned away, determined to follow his route even if
his horse were to collapse beteen his legs, when the old man called to him:
‘Where are you trying to get to, my son?’
‘To Isfahan!’
The old man burst out laughing.
‘Has no one ever told you that Isfahan does not exist?’
‘What do you mean. Is it not the largest and most beautiful city of Persia?
Was it not in the distant past the proud capital of Artaban, King of the Parthians?
Have its wonders not been extolled in books?’
‘I do not know what the books say, but I was born here sixty years ago and
only foreigners have ever spoken to me of the city of Isfahan. I have never seen
it.’
This was hardly any exaggeration. The name Isfahan had for a long time not
designated a city but an oasis where there were the two distant cities Jay and
Yahoudiyeh, which were separated from each other by an hour’s journey. It was
not until the sixteenth century that they, and the surrounding villages, formed a
real city. In Khayyam’s day, it did not exist yet, but a wall had been built, three
parasangs
or twelve miles long, to protect the whole oasis.
Omar and Hassan arrived late in the evening. They found lodgings in Jay, in
a caravansary near the Tirah Gate. There they stretched out and before they
could exchange a single word they started to snore in unison.
The next day Khayyam went off to see the Grand Vizir. In the Square of the
Money-changers, Andalusian, Greek and Chinese travellers and merchants
amongst others were milling around the money-changers who, appropriately
equipped with their statutory scales, were scratching a Kirman, Nishapur or
Seville