This article is an attempt to understand a mesh of complex relationships among tangible and intangible socio-economic factors that turned a desert city into the headquarters of one of the mighty polities in the Middle East in the fourteenth century CE. This paper argues that proto-industrialization led to the growth of ‘virtual water’ that helped the city of Yazd, in central Iran, to break free from its water limitation for the first time in its history. Yazd was almost absent in history until the twelfth century, as a peripheral oasis whose sparse population lived off subsistence agriculture irrigated by qanat systems (groundwater-mining subterranean channels). Following the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century, the influx of landless refugees changed the relations of production and paved the way for proto-industrialization whose development hinged on skill and capital rather than water and land. Sufism and waqf (endowment tradition) contributed to the expansion of trading routes that facilitated the mobility of goods and people. The qanats were urbanized, and Yazd became an industrial hub where raw materials were processed into tradable products with considerable value added. This paper contributes to a broader understanding of the historical geography of the arid Middle East.

中文翻译：

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中世纪中东的城市化、原始工业化和虚拟水


本文试图了解有形和无形的社会经济因素之间复杂的关系，正是这些因素将一座沙漠城市变成了十四世纪中东一个强大政体的总部。本文认为，原始工业化导致了“虚拟水”的增长，帮助伊朗中部的亚兹德市历史上首次摆脱了用水限制。直到十二世纪，亚兹德才在历史上几乎不存在，作为一个外围绿洲，人口稀少，靠坎儿井系统（地下水开采地下通道）灌溉的自给农业为生。十三世纪蒙古入侵后，无地难民的涌入改变了生产关系，为原始工业化铺平了道路，原始工业化的发展取决于技能和资本，而不是水和土地。苏菲主义和宗教基金（捐赠传统）促进了贸易路线的扩展，促进了货物和人员的流动。坎儿井实现了城市化，亚兹德成为工业中心，原材料被加工成具有可观附加值的可贸易产品。本文有助于更广泛地了解干旱中东的历史地理。