Kermân

Kerman was a manufacturing and commercial centre on a secondary overland route towards India. Under the Safavids its distinctive exports included fine goat's wool, used for shawls, belts and felt. From the 1660s agents of the Dutch and English East India Companies resided in the city to arrange this trade. Its connections depended on particular regional products as well as passing caravans.

During the eighteenth century local notables repeatedly negotiated their position between competing dynasties. The city suffered its greatest catastrophe in 1794, when Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar pursued his Zand rival Lotf Ali Khan to Kerman. The conquest brought extensive destruction and the killing or blinding of inhabitants. Reconstruction became a defining task of the next generation. Appointed governor in 1803, Ebrahim Khan restored infrastructure, sought tax relief and encouraged people from neighbouring districts to resettle. His governorship, lasting until 1824, joined renewed trade to the recovery of a city devastated by dynastic warfare.