[Caitlin]

City of Pearls part 4
The afternoon clouds gather in anticipation of the monsoon, and when it begins to rain in earnest, Iftiqar simply pulls an awning over his head and keeps on stitching. He is reluctant to break his concentration, or give up his stunning view of the Charminar, the soaring, four-way arch surmounted by plump domes atop 58-meter (185') minarets, Hyderabad's urban centerpiece, built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah at the turn of the 17th century.
Muhammad Quli was the fifth ruler in the dynasty founded in 1512 by Sultan Quli Qutb, a Turkoman adventurer who governed Golconda Fort on behalf of the crumbling Bahamani kingdom. The fort's water supply, and that of the royal residence inside it, had been slowly drying up. But the nearby Musi River flowed year-round, so in 1590 Muhammad laid out on its banks a new city, originally named Baghnagar, or place of gardens, in an unwalled grid plan.
First built to span the Musi was the Purana Pul bridge, and its 22 arches still stand strong today, despite many devastating floods over the centuries. A Persian poet used a local metaphor when he praised it as being "safe from high waters, like a pearl in its oyster." The Frenchman Tavernier, using his own standard, compared it favorably to the Pont Neuf in Paris.
From the river, a busy thoroughfare runs into the heart of the city and terminates at the Charminar. According to Muhammad Quli's court chronicler, "when the layout of the new city was complete, the sultan ordered 14,000 shops, schools, caravanserais, mosques, and baths to be built on both sides of the road."
That street today is known as Lad Bazaar, a place where women buy glass and lac bangles for 30 cents a dozen. Here all the wedding necessities are on sale: sandalwood paste, henna, kohl, peacock feathers, gold thread and attar. (See Aramco World, November/December 1997.) A local proverb says that no bride leaves her father's home without at least 10 trips to the Lad Bazaar.
In Lad, faded shop signs tell the tale of commerce past and present: "Md. Haydar, cane merchant since 1885"; "Md. Sikandar, purveyor of fine fruit by special appointment HM Nizam"; "Jameel bin Jameel, dealer in lungis" and "Noori Bangles, specialist in jadavi lacha, rani har, karan phool, and chand bali ."
Another French traveler, Jean de Thevenot, visited Hyderabad in 1666, where he found "many rich merchants, bankers, jewelers, and vast numbers of very skillful artisans." He describes in particular one fine piece worn in the sultan's turban, "a jewel almost [a foot] long, said to be of inestimable value. It is a rose of great diamonds which has at its end a lovely long pearl shaped like a pear, and makes an exceeding rare show."
Even the warlike Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, who successfully laid siege to Hyderabad in 1687, found parallels between Hyderabad's gardens and its gemworks. His chronicler, Muhammad Saqi, wrote of the city, "It gives solace to the human heart and body.... The flowers of this land may be compared with the glitter and color of its emeralds and rubies."