i. CITY QUARTER

Darrūs appears to be an ancient settlement, probably originally known as Garrūs (Kasrawī, p. 12). Until the mid-1940s it was a village of about 500 people located 5 km north of Tehran. Wheat and barley were cultivated there, irrigated by two underground canals (qanāts). Before modern times most of its inhabitants were Armenian peasants who lived in a fortress in the middle of the village (Sotūda, pp. 413-15).

The village, with its walled gardens, was a favored summer resort for the notables of Tehran. Hājj Mīrzā Āqāsī, grand vizier under Moḥammad Shah (r. 1250-64/1834-48), owned a large summer house there. Mehdīqolī Moḵber-al-Salṭana Hedāyat purchased this house and lived in it, gradually buying up half the village in the first decades of the 20th century. He sequestered this property in a family trust (waqf), part of which was devoted to local welfare institutions, including a hospital (Bīmārestān-e Hedāyat), a mosque (Masjed-e Hedāyat), a school, and a public bathhouse (Hedāyat, 1363 Š./1984b, p. 503). He also allocated 12,000 m2 of land for the establishment of a second hospital, Bīmārestān-e Labbāfī-nežād. The village was incorporated into greater Tehran during the real-estate boom of the 1950s-1970s and is now a residential quarter. By 1335 Š./1956 the population had increased to 4,421, and it has continued to grow steadily.