ABŪZAYDĀBĀD, an oasis village of the province of Kāšān, called Būzābād for short and Bīzeva in the local dialect. It is situated thirty km to the east and slightly to the south of the city of Kāšān (Razmārā, Farhang III, p. 3) on a flat plain bordered by sand and salt deserts to the east, with a number of qanāts as its water supply. In the 19th century, the village was considered the eastern confine of Greater Kāšān, lying seven farsak²s from the city’s gate (ʿAbd-al-Raḥīm Kalāntar Żarrābī, Tārīḵ-e Kāšān [Merʾāt al-Qāšān], ed. Ī. Afšār, Tehran, 1341 Š./1962, pp. 10, 31-32; also pp. 59, 226). The high mud walls of the village attest the lack of security which still prevailed in the early decades of the present century. Abūzaydābād is the center of a dehestān of the same name in the central district of Kāšān and has a population of about 2,000 according to the 1966 census (Farhang-e ābādīhā-ye kešvar XIV, Tehran, 1969, p. 40).
Its produce consists of cereals (mainly wheat and barley), cotton, tobacco, and fruit. In 1969, when the writer visited the village, it possessed some 2,000 goats and sheep and about 300 beasts of burden; for a description of the local dialect, see Abūzaydābādī.
Bibliography:
See the series of five monographs devoted to Abūzaydābād and its environs: Bīābān/Desert, nos. 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, Iran Desert Research Center, University of Tehran, 1978 (not seen; for details see Abstracta Iranica 2, 1979, nos. 426, 441, 445-46, 45l).
National Census of Population and Housing: Vol. No. XI Kashan Shahrestan, Iranian Statistical Center, Tehran, 1966.
V. F. Castello, Kashan, London and New York, 1976, pp. 58ff.
(E. Yarshater)
Originally Published: December 15, 1983
Last Updated: July 21, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 4, p. 401
E. Yarshater, “ABŪZAYDĀBĀD,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/4, p. 401; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abuzaydabad (accessed on 31 January 2014).
