"دليل بلاد فارس، الجزء III، وهو يتضمن محافظة فارس، لورستان، عربستان، خوزستان، يزد، كرمانشاه، أردلان، كردستان" [و‎‎٣‎١‎٥] (٦٨٦/٦٣٤)

Sliustar = mans o£ Tabriz. Last year the crops partially failed,
4,000 Shustari mans were exported. Lucas gives it as 1,500 shahmans*.
Usually the export is larger.
Naphtha, both liquid and solid, is exported. Its price is 2 to 3|
kirans per one Shustari man. Export calculated at 5,000 mans.
Communication with Muhammarah by river up stream about ten
days, and down six or seven days.
Cost of transit 1| kiran per Shustar man.
To Isfahan the caravans take twelve stages, and cost of carriage ranges
from 1| to 3 kirans per man—
From Bhustar to Bihbahan caravans take five to eight days according to weather.
Cost of carriage 1 kiran per man. About Shustar rice is grown. Raw sugar
is imported and prepared for sale. It sells at 8 kirans per man. The greater
part of European goods are English, from India, but some goods also come
from Tabriz. Iron is sold at 1 tuman per bar of 6 mans.
From Khuramabad to Dizful 255 kilometres, or 158 miles.
Dizfid to Shustar direct 66 kilometres, or 41 miles.
Dizful to Fellabiah, near Mubammarah, 319 kilometres, or 198 miles.
Khuramabad to the Shatt-ul-Arab, say 3,356 miles.
(Map was attached, but not apparently trustworthy.)
The Shustar district is estimated at 22,000 souls, paying a revenue
of 22,000 tumans.
Dizful is a more important place now than Shustar. After the de
struction of Ahwazby Tlmurlang, towards the end of the 14th century,
Shustar, already an ancient city, became the centre of commerce in
Khuzistan, and continued to be so until the great plague ot 1331-32.
The plague, which dealt lightly with Dizful, left few people living in
Shustar. The Lurs and Persians, whom its magnificent and warlike
Khans had hitherto kept at a respectful distance, fastened on the
weakened but still wealthy city, and plundered it unmercifully. Die
surrounding country became infested by Lur and Arab robbers, an
the Persian trade, which had been prosecuted by the Karan, Shustar,
and Isfahan, took other and safer routes. One of these was that by
Amarah on the Tigris, Dizful, and Khuramabad, and Dizful thus
benefited by the ruin of Shustar.
Into the almost perpendicular sides of the sandstone hills north-east
of Shustar, and on the left side of the river, are cut many chambers and
niches, Gabar dakhmahs, and on the flat hill tops we see ^re and there
platforms, 6 feet by 4, which were used as places ^r washm the
dead. Here and there amongst the hills are rums of P 1 ^ 01 ms built of
stone, and remains of steps leading up to them. ie ^ i
Shustar was built, according to one authority, by a slav ® ^
itiP- to another bv Nur Ullah Ibn Sharif. Schindler gives a detailed
description of the water system of Shustar. It is considered Pj ™st
that a canal might be made carrying the river transport as fai as bhus
tar.
* The Shustar opium is sent through Muhammarah direct, and
Bftshahr to Maskat for transmission to Zanzibar;
607
sometimes via