The Mechanical Clock of Kashan in the Safavid Period

One of the many curiosities that attracted visitors to Safavid Iran was a mechanical clock (sa‘at-vaqt), installed in the maidan in Kashan. A particularly vivid and detailed description of this clock, its appearance and mechanism, is provided in connection with the journey to Iran made by the Tuqay-Timurid ruler of Transoxania, Vali Muhammad Khan, in the summer of 1020/1611, when the contraption was in the care of a certain Maulana ‘Inayat, who is credited as being its creator. This paper attempts to identify the Kashan clock that delighted Vali Muhammad Khan in relation to others, such as that recorded in a vaqf document of 877/1473, attributed to Maulana Fakhr al-Din ‘Ali Kashi, and another possibly associated with Muhammad-Hafiz Mukhtari‘ (“the inventor”) Isfahani, c. 928/1522. The presentation will also briefly relate the Kashan clock and its function to others of a similar nature that are recorded in the literature.