Amin al-Dawla Caravanserai

In the middle of the old bazaar of Kashan, the long covered lanes open into a tall domed hall flooded with light from above. This is the Timcheh of Amin al-Dawla, one of several timchehs, covered trading courts, inside the Kashan bazaar and the most celebrated of them. Its central dome rests on a web of vaults and arches, and the interior is worked in patterned brick, muqarnas and kārbandi, the interlacing rib-vaulting of Persian architecture. Light openings at the centre of the vault let daylight fall into the hall, so that the space reads at once as a market and as a monument.

The hall belongs to the Qajar era. It was built in 1285 AH, around 1868, at the order of Farrokh Khan Ghaffari, a Kashan-born statesman of Naser al-Din Shah who held the title Amin al-Dawla and who, as Iran's envoy in Paris, signed the treaty of 1857 that ended the Anglo-Persian War. He paid for the building to strengthen trade in his home town. Its architect was Ustad Ali Maryam of Kashan, the master builder also credited with the Borujerdi and Tabatabaei houses, two of the city's grand Qajar mansions. The timcheh was entered on Iran's national heritage list in 1975.

From the beginning the hall has been a centre of the carpet trade, and the chambers around it still deal in rugs and textiles alongside antique shops and teahouses. During Muharram it becomes a gathering place for mourning ceremonies commemorating the events of Karbala. The bazaar around it is thought to date back to the Seljuk era, with Safavid rebuilding, and houses mosques, baths and water cisterns from many periods. Kashan itself, on the edge of the central Iranian desert north of the Karkas Mountains, is one of the oldest cities in Iran and has long been known for carpets, silk and textiles.

Getting there

The timcheh stands in the historic bazaar in the centre of Kashan. Kashan Airport (KKS) is about 15 km away. Kashan railway station lies on Iran's main north–south line, and freeways link the city with Qom to the north and Isfahan to the south.