Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Teheran

TEHERAN, or, more properly, Tehran (lat. 35° 40' N., long. 51° 25' E.), for about a century the recognized capital of Persia, has little to distinguish it, in general outward appearance, from other large cities of the country, though in quite recent years Parisian streets or boulevards, and even Western architecture for single houses, in the midst of mud-brick palaces or plain mud hovels, have been incongruously introduced. Formerly a kind of polygon some 4 miles in circumference—with its mean ‘‘shahr panah” or wall, its clumsy and uneven ditch, and its six gates, two facing north, two south, one east, and one west,—Teheran has now been extended to an outer ditch and wall, thrown out on each side beyond the ancient limit. The bazaars are good, though hardly of the first class; the caravanserais deserve honourable mention; and the telegraph and arsenal are respectable institutions. The streets are for the most part narrow and wretchedly paved. The “Ark,” or citadel, contains the royal and better description of public buildings, and connecting its encircling wall with the city gates are four principal thoroughfares, of which the parallel avenues from the Násiriya and Daulat entrances are the more notable. Between these two gates, in a parallelogram extending from one to the other and including both, is the gas-lighted Tôp Maidan, or “Place des Canons,” in the centre of which is a large reservoir. European professors are to be found in the king’s college, where some 250 students, more or less, are taught mathematics, engineering, military tactics, music, telegraphy, painting, together with the Arabic, English, French, and Russian languages. Among the not very remarkable mosques—to some of which madrasahs, or colleges, are attached—may be specially mentioned the Masjid-i-Shah, or king’s mosque, with its handsome enamelled front, and the Masjid-i-Mádar-i-Shah, or mosque of the king’s mother. Water is freely supplied to the town by means of the underground canals, or kanáts, from the near mountain ranges. Public baths abound, but the Europeans use those of the Armenian and not of the Mohammedan community. The British legation stands in a handsome garden of great size, in which are placed the houses of the secretaries, which resemble English villas. In the summer season the representatives of Western powers and other Europeans move out to the slope of the mountain range north of Teheran,—the British residents to Gulhak, a village about 7 miles from the city. A prominent feature in the landscape at Gulhak and the neighbouring summer quarters, as at Teheran itself, is Demavend, the noblest and most graceful of Persian mountains.

The present population of Teheran may be taken at 160,000 at most. According to a late authority (Bassett, 1887) the European inhabitants are reckoned at about 100 only; the Jews number some 2500; and there are 150 Gabrs or Parsis, a sorry remnant of the old fire-worshippers. In 1872 there were said to be 1000 Armenians, mainly traders and artisans. In 1872 there were but four legations in Teheran—those of England, France, Russia, and Turkey. Since that year representatives have been added from Holland, Austria, Germany, and the United States. The French have summer quarters at Tejrísh and the Russians at Zargandah, at no great distance from the English Gulhak.

Morier supposes Teheran to be the Tahors of the Theodosian Tables, and recognizes it also in the account of the journey of the Castilian ambassadors to Timur, Porter, too, relates that in 1637 the secretary of the Holstein ambassadors mentions Teheran as “one of the towns which enjoy the privilege of maintaining no soldiers.” Again, in the 17th century, it was visited by Pietro della Valle and by Sir Thomas Herbert,—the latter spelling it “Tyroan.” Most writers affirm that Teheran, though not of recent origin, can barely be held of repute till Agha Muhammad made it his residence in about 1788, taking to himself the title of shah, as first of the Kajar kings, in 1796. Yet there is evidence that in the previous century it was a royal resort, if nothing more, in Herbert’s statement that “the Toune is most beautified by a vast garden of the kings, succinct with a great towered mud-wall larger than the circuit of the city.” Du Pré (who visited it in 1808) states that it had been pillaged and nearly destroyed by the Afghans,—evidently at their invasion of Persia in 1728. Since Agha Muhammad’s time Teheran has been the usual seat of the Kajar dynasty, a circumstance to be attributed to the political advantages of its geographical position.

See, besides the authorities cited, Telegraph and Travel (1874); Dr Wills's Land of the Lion and Sun (1883); and Mr Bassett’s Land of the Imáms (1887).