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Carol Delaney, The Seed and the Soil: Gender and Cosmology in Turkish Village Society , Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). Pp. 373.

Topography, climate, and availability of water have influenced both the location and morphology of traditional Iranian cities. Cities have most often obtained their water by means of qanats (subterranean aqueducts) and have usually been located at the foothills of mountain chains or in intermountain basins. The physical morphology of the traditional Iranian city reflected a struggle with extreme climatic conditions: shortage of water, high evaporation, intense solar radiation, high temperatures, torrential downpours, and dustand sandstorms. To cope with these conditions, planners adopted a compact urban form that featured buildings of uniform height, narrow, twisting streets, and a lack of empty space. The traditional Iranian city was divided into two sections: public and private. The streets linking these two areas tended to funnel all traffic from the private, residential areas into the public bazaar areas. Kheirabadi shows that the streets in the circulation system of the traditional Iranian city formed a hierarchy. In contrast to the Western stereotype, Iranian cities were not a maze of irregular, twisting lanes but a structured hierarchy of thoroughfares directing traffic rationally. Trade has been important in the location of the traditional Iranian city. All of the major urban centers, Kheirabadi notes, have been found on the trade routes that follow the desert fringe. The principal east-west road, along the southern foothills of the Alburz Mountains, was part of the Silk Route. The most important commercial route of the ancient world, this great highway stretched more than ten thousand kilometers from China to Syria. Along it were found Nishapur, Rey, Qazvin, and Tabriz. There were two north-south routes: the Imperial Achaemenid Road that connected Persepolis to Susa and western Anatolia, and the road from Rey to Isfahan and the Persian Gulf. Within the traditional city itself, the importance of commerce is seen in the central role of the bazaar. As the core of the urban area, the bazaar was the cultural as well as the economic center of city life. It contained mosques, shrines, religious schools, hotels, bathhouses, sport clubs, and places of mourning—integrating economic, social, religious, and cultural spheres into a single institution. Shiite Islam was an important influence on the form and structure of the traditional Iranian city. Besides the mosque, there were imamzadahs (shrines of saints said to be descendants of the imams) and husayniyyahs (buildings in which the death of Husayn was mourned). Also in the husayniyyahs passion plays were staged and preachers told stories about Ali, Hasan, and Husayn. The gymnasium (zur-khanah), coffeehouse, and bath were all important elements in the traditional Iranian city. Residential quarters (mahallahs) were formed on the basis of ethnicity, religion, profession, or place of origin. The maps and plans in the book are clear and helpful. The three appendices—on the qanat, the bazaar, and the mosque—add much interesting detail to the general argument. Kheirabadi argues that the spatial pattern and morphology of the traditional Iranian city are responses both to the requirements of Islamic-Iranian culture and to the physical environment. Neither influence is dominant. The book will be of interest to anyone concerned with Islamic urban history or with Iranian society and culture.