Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

Yazd has an outstanding history of principle and science of agriculture and farming. Water and safety along the ground as the mother of agriculture can be setting up the farmstead on the land. The farmsteads are subordinate or independent inhabitant complex, and they are part of a village or a borough. Inhabited farm as a section that has affected and influenced by social, political and cultural factors in different periods of time, is a living collection with different size and population. Information in multiple sources indicates that the inhabited farms existed in the borough and rural districts since pre-Islamic era to early Islamic period and to the Pahlavi’s dynasty, the farms are identified with titles such as Dastkart, Keshtkhāni castles and complex, farmstead. The government assigned the farms as gifts, fief, Iqta’ (tax farming) and Sivergual (tax farming)

During the research process, many farms in Yazd, Maybod, Mehriz, Taft, Dehshir, Abarqo, Dehnow, Deh Sheikh, Shams Abad, Taraz Abad, Shah Abad, Deh Youk, Khoshk Abad, Khormiz, Ezzat Abad, and Mazraeh Kalantar…were chosen for field studies. Many of these farms are unknown to the public and academic communities, and there are no resources and independent research which include historical backgrounds of inhabited farms. Written and verbal documents show that inhabited independent and subsidiary (minor and major) farms were in the villages of Yazd. The majority of the formation of the administration, economic and political of Yazd until the Pahlavi era with widespread of Waqf (devotion) system, depended on farms and their products to stabilize things and make the interests. And sometimes provided to farm and develop a set of endowments in a region.

 Some of these farms have none construction and only used for producing agricultural products, therefore these farmsteads are uninhabited farms or agricultural farms. No settlement and permanent residence are in these sorts of farms. Yazd's “Qalé Bāq (garden castle) and Keshtkhān (tillage)” are in “agricultural farm” category. Besides the farming, the farm has settlement and residence. These farms are “inhabitant” and contain facilities and places such as a summerhouse, manor, hovel, major and minor residential castles, battlement, water-mill and reservoir, the main avenue. “Yazd's hardship and rural Keshtkhāni (tillage) and castles” are in this category and are remembered as “instance/example of farm” in verbal and written kinds of literature. There are mentions in books such as “Jamé Mofidi, 1363”, “Jamé al-Kheirat 1962”, “Yadegar Haye Yazd (Yazd's memories) vol. 1-2, 1995”, “Tarikh Jadid Yazd (Yazd's new history) 1966” … that refer to these fields and discuss them as “farm”.

With the revocation of manorial in the Qajar era, land reform and owners departure to the other countries and major cities, many of these farms losing their nature and forms and will be destroyed.

Nowadays, there are no understanding and conservation of the historic farms; the international community is paying attention to these farms, conventions, recommendations and international charters (Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972 and the Charter of Florence, 1981) emphasized the important of knowledge, understanding, introduction, registration and protection of the properties that based on the definitions are in the category of the cultural landscape. In addition, there are models of historical farms in other countries. These models can be helpful in understanding the inhabited farms.

The research is trying to examine the subject with the help of the history and historical geography in the artificial and architecture as a tangible heritage which should be protected. And to survey the affected and influenced fields in terms of subject, time and place of the study. So apart from the written documents mentioned in this article that is addressed the inhabited farms in Yazd from authors’ perspective, only oral and palpable documents in the farms can ease the research process. Understanding the historical farms are recognising a large part of the folk culture of ethnic groups. It has the trade systems, tribute and ransom, ownerships, leases and legal, judiciary and administrative system. In 2015 these farms being recognised and has been studying. Yazd, Maybod, Mehriz, Taft, Dehshir, Abarqo, Dehnow, Deh Sheikh, Shams Abad, Taraz Abad, Shah Abad, Deh Youk, Khoshk Abad, Khormiz, Ezzat Abad, Mazraeh Kalantar…. Many of these farms are vulnerable due to various causes.

Particular studies on written and verbal documents, evaluation, measuring, interpretation and explanation can lead us to the perception and explanation of the subject, and so to the approach of the conservation. This leading should be discussed and showed in universities and research institutions.