ABSTRACT
The most detailed near-contemporary description is by Olearius (Wicquefort, ed., Vol. I, pp. 523 and 629-42 with pictorial map of town between pp. 628 and 629). He found it rather larger than Shemakha. Much of the library of the shrine of Shaikh Safi and many art objects were removed by the Russians to St Petersburg after the campaign of 1827. A famous sixteenth-century carpet from the shrine is the pride of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. For further details, article by R. N . Frye, in El, 2nd ed.; and longer one with useful bibliography by Mirza Bala in I A.
