ABSTRACT
Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin al-Zarb was born in Isfahan in the first half of the nineteenth century, in approximately 1250–1253/1834–1837, during the reign of Muhammad Shah Qajar. The forebears of Haj Muhammad Hassan, like most sarrafs in practice, were devout Muslims, and as usury is prohibited by Islam, they had to find a way of reconciling their profession with their faith. The Persian sarrafs of nineteenth-century Iran had more in common with the fourteenth-century Florentine money changers and bankers than with any contemporary European institutions. In spite of the fact that sarrafs were engaged in a business of which Islam disapproves, they held a respectable status in Qajar society. The sarrafs also played an important role in the agricultural economy of Iran. In the early nineteenth century, a chapar system existed, but it was only used by the government or private individuals licensed by the government.
