Religiöse Stiftungen und Stadtentwicklung. Das Beispiel Taft/Zentraliran

Abstract

The paper discusses the economic and social importance of religious endowments for urban development in the Islamic Middle East. Taking the comparatively small urban community of Taft in Central Iran, its historical reconstruction shows that originally it served as an endowment itself for religious institutions in Yazd. It was mainly due to the fact that the renowned Sufi mystic Shah Ni'mat Allah-Wali Kirmani (1329-1431) established Taft as a religious centre, making the small town a recipient of religious endowments itself. Well furnished with religious endowments in the Safavid era, Taft experienced remarkable support and expansion through large endowments in the Qajar period (cf. table 3). As a result, the present-day city and its immediate hinterland (fig. 1 and fig. 2) show a great number of religious endowments in the form of irrigated gardens, qanats and bazaars. Their returns (table 3 as one example) contribute greatly to social, religious and economic institutions in the town of Taft, thus contributing to its socio-economic supremacy over its rural hinterland.