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202 8 The Center Cannot Hold The Decline and Collapse of the Julfan Trade Network All networks, even the most solid, sooner or later encountered difficulty or misfortune . And any failing at the center of the network sent out ripples that affected all its outposts, perhaps most of all those on its periphery.1 In his characteristically astute fashion Fernand Braudel remarks that trade networks collapse because of “failings” and attendant complications that occur at their center but have devastating ramifications beyond the core. Braudel’s account of how trade networks collapse may not apply to all trade networks. For instance, networks that have multiple centers, such as the Sephardic one in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic worlds, may not be susceptible to the kind of collapse envisaged by the great French historian and may be flexible enough to recover from severe “shocks” to one of their centers by shifting their weight to another location.2 However, networks with a single nodal center regulating commercial life in other nodes throughout a vast network dependent on the center, as was the case with the Julfan network, are vulnerable to catastrophic collapse if the nodal center is damaged beyond repair. This chapter discusses the decline and collapse of the Julfan trade network in the eighteenth century. It argues that in the case of the New Julfan network the most severe “failing” of the network’s center occurred in 1746–1747, when Nadir Shah imposed more than 90,000 tumans—an astronomical figure—in taxes on the New Julfans and allowed his soldiers to systematically loot the suburb. The first section of the chapter explores how Julfa’s decline and collapse have been treated in the historiography of the township and its trade network and rejects the hypothesis advanced by some scholars that Julfa declined and collapsed as a result of the religiously intolerant policies of the Safavid shahs in the late seventeenth century or as a consequence of the fall of the Safavid dynasty on the heels of the Afghan invasion and conquest of Isfahan in 1722. The second section focuses on the crucial last year of Nadir Shah’s reign and examines the disastrous consequences of his policies on The Center Cannot Hold 203 the collapse of Julfa as a nodal center. Drawing from hitherto unexplored firsthand accounts of the social and economic situation in Julfa and Isfahan in 1747, this section casts new light on the history of Julfa and Isfahan, offering information not included in standard histories of Nadir Shah’s reign. THREE VIEWS OF THE JULFAN COLLAPSE According to some scholars of Julfan history, Julfa’s decline began in the waning years of the seventeenth century when Safavid Iran increasingly became a rigid Shi’a state, intolerant of its religious minorities. Harut‘iwn Ter Hovhaniants and, following him, Vazken Ghougassian point out that as a result of this atmosphere of intolerance the Safavid state actively encouraged the Julfan Armenians’ conversion to Islam and weakened the township’s administrative autonomy.3 While these measures posed serious threats to Julfa’s economic welfare and caused the departure of several wealthy Julfan families from Iran, Ghougassian argues that they did not spell Julfa’s collapse. Julfa’s final collapse, according to him, came in 1722, when the Afghans occupied Isfahan, and brought the Safavid dynasty to an end. Ghougassian explains: “The Afghan occupation of Isfahan, which lasted for seven years, until 1729, brought about the final downfall of the Armenian community of New Julfa. During this period, the economy was in total shambles and the physical security of the people was at stake. Many Armenians, being robbed of their wealth and persecuted, were abandoning their homes in a panic and fleeing to Iraq, India and Russia.”4 A different interpretation of Julfa’s collapse is found in the work of Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, who rejects Ghougassian’s conclusions and argues in favor of an earlier dating for Julfa’s decline. According to Baghdiantz McCabe, “The decline of New Julfa actually begins much earlier, under Shah ‘Abbas II (1642–66), for there was a turning point in Iran’s religious policies and strides toward homogenization that targeted minorities.”5 Baghdiantz McCabe then argues that the causes for Julfa’s decline should be sought not only in changing religious policies but in the “total change in [the Julfans’] political role within Iran,”6 which began when their role as “financiers of the khassa ceased” in the 1640s.7 Both interpretations are problematic. While...

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