"دليل بلاد فارس، الجزء III، وهو يتضمن محافظة فارس، لورستان، عربستان، خوزستان، يزد، كرمانشاه، أردلان، كردستان" [ظ‎‎٢‎٧‎٥] (٦٨٦/٥٥٥)

SHI—SHI
528
south-east of the city are in ruins. Those that are habitable are also
interspersed with ruins, and of the remaining- space, so much is taken up
with bazars, maidans, or squares, the Prince's palace, gardens, stables,
and other public buildings, that not one-half of the city is occupied by
the inhabitants. There was an opinion in Ouseley's mission, that it
could not contain more than 10,000 souls; but if, following Morier's
conjecture, 3,800 houses are about its real number, at five souls in
each family, we should get a total of 19,000, which is a reasonable
calculation.
“ The consumption of bread," says Morier, “ per diem, furnishes
better data than the number of houses to calculate the population by
an Asiatic town. A year or two ago an investigation was made by
Muhammad Nabi Khan into the quantity of corn consumed daily in
Shiraz, the ostensible object of which was to ascertain and provide for
the annual wants of its population. But the real object was to acquire
a positive rate, upon which he might build his plans of monopoly. It
was found that Shiraz consumed per diem 8,000 Tabriz mans of wheat,
which was made up into 10,000 mans for bread. A Tabriz man is
seven pounds and a quarter, English. A Persian eats one cha'rek, or a
quarter of a man, every day, then 10,000 Tabriz mans, being equal
to 72,500 pounds, the result will be that there are 18,125 souls in the
city.
“ An old inhabitant of Shiraz nearly corroborated this statement by
another account. He told me that seventy yabus, or pack-horses, are
daily employed to carry corn from Shiraz to the water mills in the
neighbourhood of Shiraz. These horses make two trips during the
day, one in the morning, and one in the evening, and at each trip they
carry to the mill 60 mans of corn each, which makes the quantity
of corn exported from the city amount to 8,400 mans. They calcu
late that one man and a quarter of flour produces one man of bread,
thus, 8,400 of the former produce 10,500 of the latter; and this will
give a population nearly similar, both to the daily consumption, and
to any conjecture on the number of houses." Pelly, however, now esti
mates the population at 40,000, living in 6,500 houses.*
There are in Shiraz fifteen considerable mosques, besides many others
of inferior note, eleven colleges, fourteen bazars, thirteen caravan-
sarais, and twenty-six baths.
Of all the mosques the Masjid-i-'All (built in the Khilafat of the
house of Abbas) is the most ancient, and the Masjid-i-Nau the largest.
It was, indeed, originally the palace of Atabeg Shah, who, in a danger
ous illness of his son, consulted the Mullas, and was answered (as the
only means of the recovery of his child) that “ he must devote to the
Almighty that which of all his worldly goods he valued most. He
accordingly converted his palace into a mosque, and the Muhammadans
add that his son was in consequence restored to health. Stack calls
this the most ancient. The Masjid-i-Jama is likewise an ancient struc
ture, and there are six others of an older date than the time of Karim
* Thomson in Report of 1868 says 25,000. Correspondent of Times of India, 22nd
April 1881, says that Mr. Malcolm of Bushahr computes it at 32,000.