Īj

Īj was the chief town of Shabankara in Fars and the birthplace of the jurist and theologian ʿAdud al-Din Iji. His career connected this provincial centre with the courts of the Ilkhanids and their successors. After the collapse of Ilkhanid authority, he served Abu Ishaq Inju at Shiraz as chief judge and became acquainted with the poets Hafez and ʿUbayd Zakani.

As Muzaffarid power expanded in the early 1350s, Iji attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate on Abu Ishaq's behalf. He escaped the siege of Shiraz in 1353 and retired to Shabankara, where Shah Shuja visited him the following year. Local struggles eventually turned against him: he was imprisoned in the fortress of Deraymian at Īj and died there in 1356. The town's scholarly reputation was thus entwined with the dangerous politics of post-Mongol Fars.