Nain is one of the lesser of the long line of ancient fortified towns, which follow the western border of the Great Desert. Like its southern neighbour Yazd, it is an oasis. On every side the brown, desiccated plain extends to the level horizon, or to a distant line of grey and jagged mountains.
The Persian people, when other activities fail them, turn to carpet weaving, with the firm assurance that they will be able to produce a fabric, which the world will buy. The adoption of European dress by the Persians threatened to destroy its traditional industry, the manufacture of the fine woollen cloth for the aba or Persian cloak.
The industry of rug weaving started just before the War. The weavers accustomed, as they were to spin fine yarns for their fine cloths and to weave a textile of high pitch, laid the warps for their rugs to a quality of 22 x 22 knots to the inch. They began thus to produce a more closely woven fabric than any that was standard in Persia at the time. The fabric being new and the output small, it sold readily. After that came the war and the boom in Tehran. Nothing was too good or too expensive for the nouveaux riches of the capital. Thus was the Nain fabric launched and it became recognised as the closest weave of Persia, and one of the best.
The end of the war brought about a decline in the demand from Tehran. A new and hitherto unsuspected market for its cloth was discovered in Palestine and the Arab states. In 1949 the rug weaving was declining and cloth weaving was once more becoming the principal industry of the little town.
The wools of Nain are finer in fibre and softer than the average wool of the Persian plateau. And the skilled Nain spinners produce from them a fine and even yarn well suited to a weave which counts about 450 knots to the inch. The dyes used in Nain are excellent.
There were two very notable weavers in Nain. One was Habibian, whose sons have continued the tradition and the other was Mofeedy.
In the 1980s the production in Nain start to increase dramatically and more families started putting their names to their production and producing new interesting designs.
