My paper assesses the reasons why capitalism was late to arrive in early modern Iran, a country that, unlike its neighbors, the Ottoman Empire and the Indian Subcontinent, is rarely subjected to analyses involving economic activity and development. It identifies various elements in Iran that count as conducive to experimentation and innovation, such as instances when an energetic state facilitated entrepreneurship, and a vibrant intellectual discourse that did not shun doubt and disputation. But it argues that these factors were either predicated on individual encouragement or were by themselves unable to spur sustained and self-reinforcing economic growth in the face of substantial impediments to the free flow of goods as well as ideas. The most consequential of these impediments were a harsh geography, a lack of navigable rivers, the absence of easy maritime outlets to the wider world, and a culture that continued to value metaphysical speculation over useful knowledge and practical application.