This study traces the evolution of quruq – a Mongol term referring to something restricted, embargoed – from its original meaning as a royal burial or hunting ground off-limits to commoners, to what it came to signify in the (late) Safavid period – the embargoed, male-free and eunuch-controlled zone surrounding royal females during their appearance in the public arena. I show how the growing incidence of quruq in 17th-century Iran reflects the transition of the Safavid polity from a steppe dispensation to a sedentary order, turning what used to be the freerange mobility of an ambulant court into controlled mobility fit for urban royal living. The final part of the study documents how quruq persisted long beyond the safavids, only to fade in the late 19th century.
