ISFAHAN: Half of The World -part 2-
When Shah Abbas the Great rose again to the rank of capital Isfahan, the city remained a powerful city. But the Shah further boosted his wealth to make it the subject of a comprehensive development plan that restructured its streets, plazas, parks and bridges, while embellished with magnificent monuments of religious and civil, which earned the city the nickname NESF Jahan (Half of the World).
Isfahan reached its zenith, and had then, according to the French traveler Jean Chardin, 162 mosques, 48 madrassas, or Koranic schools of theology, 273 hammam, or public baths, and over 1,800 caravan or catering establishments. The Shah also promoted communication between the capital and the periphery building an extensive road network throughout the country, with lots of bridges over waterways and caravan to relieve the stages of the path.
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The Isfahan extensive palace complex consisted of a set of buildings and landscaped grounds, which included mosques, palaces, markets, playgrounds, baths, fountains and ponds. A perfect example of urban planning, felt very advanced for the seventeenth century.
The Persian army was defeated in 1722 near Isfahan by Afghans Ghilzai, led by Mahmud, and the city suffered a long siege until it was conquered, killing 100,000 of its inhabitants suffer from hunger and plague. Isfahan never regained its past glory.
Although its main historical monuments have been restored in the twentieth century, relatively little is ancient splendor of Isfahan, the old part increasingly drowned out by the new industrial townships, disfigured by avenues and modern buildings without character, invaded by the advance inexorable concrete and asphalt.
Source: http://web.mac.com/gcm5000/Sitio_web/_Isfah%C3%A1n.html
images sources: www.irangashttour.com/en/citypic/isfahan.jpg; www.photoatlas.com/photo/iran_isfahan.jpg
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