SWEET EATING IN ATALAR.This is the principal part of the summer buildings in a Persian house, and the bottom of the picture is the level of the compound. The room underneath is a living room, and is lighted by the grating under thetalar. It is only used in the heat of the day. The door to the cellar staircase is seen on the right of the picture. The passage is the approach to thetalaritself.The three men are sitting in the ordinary Persian way round a tray of sweets. The Yezd sweets are remarkably good and have no coarse flavour. They eat them as we do cakes, but in rather larger quantities. Thistalaris a small one. The larger ones are generally cruciform in shape. It has nobad-gir(air-shaft) or front curtain.
SWEET EATING IN ATALAR.
This is the principal part of the summer buildings in a Persian house, and the bottom of the picture is the level of the compound. The room underneath is a living room, and is lighted by the grating under thetalar. It is only used in the heat of the day. The door to the cellar staircase is seen on the right of the picture. The passage is the approach to thetalaritself.
The three men are sitting in the ordinary Persian way round a tray of sweets. The Yezd sweets are remarkably good and have no coarse flavour. They eat them as we do cakes, but in rather larger quantities. Thistalaris a small one. The larger ones are generally cruciform in shape. It has nobad-gir(air-shaft) or front curtain.
The better class Yezd houses are exceedingly clean, and so on the whole are the people who live in them. In this Yezd is distinctly superior to some other Persian towns. The houses of the rather poorer classes in Yezd are dirtier, but they would compare favourably with those ofa corresponding class in many parts of Europe. The very poor class are crowded together, many families to one house, and live in a condition of filth as great as the dry atmosphere will permit. You must remember that the native never removes his clothes for the night; indeed he only removes his clothes or washes his body when he goes to the public bath. The fee for admission is a mere trifle, but people do not go to the bath unless they have an absolutely clean set of clothes to change into when they have bathed. A few of the poor people take off their clothes on arriving at the bath and wash them, staying in the bath until they are dry enough to put on again. This, however, is exceptional, and generally speaking the difference in the standard of cleanliness accepted by the richer and poorer Yezdis is very large.
Houses that are not very new are always more or less tumble-down. The mud ceilings crack very easily, and the white gypsum flakes off at the slightest touch. The more essential parts of the structure are equally undurable. But you must remember that no Yezdi wants his house to last for ever. When the house is first of all built, a large chamber is made below thesurface to receive the drainage, and the size of this is determined by the length of time the owner wishes his house to last, which is generally forty to fifty years. When the chamber is full, the rich occupants move to another house, and the house gradually falls to pieces. To the Yezdi an old house means a bad house, and this idea is so deeply rooted, that even in hisbaghhe seems to prefer young trees to those which have attained their full size. The idea of a residence which bears the marks of natural growth, and is not simply artificial, has never entered into the Yezdi’s mind; and the absence of this to us familiar idea, has to be reckoned with in dealing with his character. Also it must be remembered that two-thirds of a Persian town, and three-quarters of a Persian village, is from various causes invariably in ruins. I suppose that in an English climate the best-built Yezd dwelling houses would remain standing for about a fortnight. In spite of their palatial design they are really nothing but mud huts, and when you live in them, or rather about them, for you are in the open air as often as you are inside, you learn their imperfections to your cost. Nobody can realise the immense amount of damage that canbe done in a town like Yezd by a really wet day. Some while ago we had twenty-four hours of rain, which destroyed, I believe, about a couple of hundred roofs, and, what is worse, caused the olderqan’atpits to fall in, blocking the water supply in some parts of the town for three months. Is there any other town in the world where a little extra rain causes a three months’ drought? There is a story in Tehran about a Dutch Ambassador, who was so afraid of the roof falling down that in wet weather he invariably slept under the table. However he was a very tall man, and, when the catastrophe happened, he got his foot crushed.
Still the summer buildings in a Yezd house are really not bad. Generally speaking, the Persian builds well for heat and badly for cold. Yet the short Yezdi winter is a very severe one; and we, who are accustomed to a longer cold season, are astonished to see the philosophic way in which the Yezdi sets himself to endure the cold while it lasts, without taking any particular precautions to defend himself from it. The long window-front is a mass of spaces and cracks. Even when panes are not missing, daylight is frequently to be seen between the glass and thelattice, between the window and its frame, and sometimes between the frame and the wall. This of course is not including the crack between the two doors, which is often half an inch wide. Remember that every door in the house is a front door, leading into the open air, and you will get some idea of the provision made against the winter cold. The fact is that the Persian only understands two kinds of winter requirements, that of the hard living working-man who demands only the simplest shelter against the cold, and that of the man who on cold days can devote himself to keeping warm with akursiin an inner apartment. A man who wants to do his work comfortably in any sort of weather is entirely beyond his calculation. On the few days when snow falls the merchants’ offices are practically deserted, and no one but the smaller tradesmen and artisans goes to the bazaars.
The house, as I have said, is really built for a protection against heat. When I first went to Yezd I was surprised to find how tremendously the natives were affected by the hot weather. The native is certainly less affected than the European by the direct rays of the sun; but although something in the climate seems to tell onEuropeans after two or three years’ residence, I would back a fairly strong Englishman, furnished with a sun-helmet, against the average town Yezdi, to get through a piece of work on a hot day, or to keep up continuous hard work for a season or two. Consequently every Yezdi who can afford it tries to get away from town for at least two months of the year. The hill villages, which the Persians callyailāq, or summer quarters, lie about thirty miles away from the town. Every well-to-do Persian has a house in one or other of these villages, and there is a fashion about them, some being resorts chiefly patronised by the artisans, and some by the big merchants.
As most of the richer Persians have more than one house in the villages, Europeans generally have no great difficulty in hiring a place to stay at. The houses are left during the winter in charge of a villager, who uses the lower rooms only, the upper ones being then uninhabitable from the intense cold. Indeed the cold is so great that we were told that one winter the animals had been dying of thirst, as the water was frozen beyond the possibility of breaking the ice, and they had not fuel enough to melt it. The whole building is much rougher than the town house, though the roofs have to be mademore carefully. The villages are very small and isolated, and the winter population is quite trifling. There is in these villages a little arable land, but the people depend chiefly on root-crops, nuts, and dried fruit for their winter stores, and on the produce of the sheep and goats. The animals are tended in summer by the children. The little boys spend most of their time up the walnut trees, throwing down leaves for them to eat, while the little ragged shepherdesses carry a twelve-foot staff for whacking the walnut trees, when they do not climb them in the same way as their brothers.
Those who go to the villages in the summer take with them everything they need in the way of carpets, furniture, and cooking utensils, also all groceries, and even wheat and charcoal; for the commonest things of this kind are often absolutely unprocurable. A rich Persian has stores frequently sent to him from Yezd during his stay. Even in Yezd some necessary store or other is almost always running short, so that something is generally at famine prices. This, of course, is due to the great isolation of the town. But in the villages it is intensified. Sometimes there will be no meat, at another time hardly any bread, and some years ago we found it almost impossible toprocure milk, and were told by our Persian friends that they had the same difficulty. This eighteen-hour journey, with all the paraphernalia of the home, is the average Yezdi’s only experience of foreign travel; and for this reason I have thought it necessary to give some account of what he sees and finds.
I have now done my best to describe in detail almost the whole of the Yezdi’s surroundings, the furniture of his room, the pattern of his house, the streets of his town, and the vast deserts by which he is isolated from the world. When he gets up in the morning, he finds himself in a room practically containing nothing but a carpet, the walls and ceiling an expanse of white gypsum, and thetaqchasprovided with solitary objects upon which his eye can rest in turn without the slightest diversion to anything else. There is no confusion, but at the same time there is no arrangement. In such a room, with such furniture, the necessity for arrangement never occurs to him. He goes out into his court-yard; certainly there are flower-beds, but they are not cut like English flower-beds in the middle of necessarily existing growth and greenery. The shape of the beds and the nature of their contents has not been chosen with theslightest view to their artistic surroundings; they are simply artificial constructions in a waste of pavement which itself conceals the desert which stands to the Persian in the place of the natural world. Inside the beds each plant grows its own life, by itself, untouched by its neighbour, and the eye unconsciously fixes itself upon it as on an isolated unit. The Yezdi leaves his house and passes through an absolutely dry and scentless atmosphere along streets which present variety only in the matter of form. He goes for a journey across the desert plains; to the right there is only one object to be seen, a range of distant mountains, with a slight variety of jags along the top; to the left there is a similar range. Every now and again he comes across a shrub which attracts his eye by its hermit existence. Behind him is the solitary city; every six miles, while he is in the neighbourhood of the town, there is an equally solitary village, or perhaps a water-cistern with a domed roof; for league after league he can see in front of him his solitarymanzil, where he intends to stay the night. Even when he goes to the villages this sparseness of life and circumstance is scarcely modified. Can you be surprised if this hourly contemplation of isolated units produces amind which it is impossible for the tangle-reared European ever to fully understand? Can you be surprised if an intellect is produced accustomed to almost unbelievable concentration upon single and solitary ideas, but almost unreachable by minds that are accustomed to complicated trains of thought, to careful evasions of contradictions, and to systematic arrangements of their intellectual knowledge?
Diagram illustrating the use of the qan’at. Notice that all the cultivation about the hills is irrigated from the snow torrent. Yezd is irrigated by qan’at water, brought in some cases from a point 30 miles distant, for the qan’ats do not go straight to the centre of the plain but make for a low part of the plain from wherever water is found. The 300 ft. well in Yezd is useless for irrigation, there being no lower point than Yezd.
Diagram illustrating the use of the qan’at. Notice that all the cultivation about the hills is irrigated from the snow torrent. Yezd is irrigated by qan’at water, brought in some cases from a point 30 miles distant, for the qan’ats do not go straight to the centre of the plain but make for a low part of the plain from wherever water is found. The 300 ft. well in Yezd is useless for irrigation, there being no lower point than Yezd.
DEHBALA.A hill village on one of the snow torrents.
DEHBALA.
A hill village on one of the snow torrents.
Isolation and insularity—The town the geographical and political unit—Extension of citizenship to strangers—Bigotry—Oppression and persecution of Parsis[2]—Improvement in their position—Position of Jews—Fanaticism largely non-religious—Position of European colony.
Isolation and insularity—The town the geographical and political unit—Extension of citizenship to strangers—Bigotry—Oppression and persecution of Parsis[2]—Improvement in their position—Position of Jews—Fanaticism largely non-religious—Position of European colony.
The population of Yezd can only be guessed at, but probably that of the town proper is between thirty and forty thousand, and that of the town and surrounding villages between fifty and sixty thousand. This little community is insular beyond the insularity of islands. Within two hundred miles there are three sizable cities, Shīrāz, Kirmān, and Isfahān, of which Isfahan is slightly the nearest. When you send a letter to Isfahan from Yezd, if your friend writes by return of post you may get back your answer in a month;although a runner, taking the slightly shorter road by the mountains, could go and return within the week. Travelling in the ordinary way the journey takes eight days there, and eight back.
It is a great pity that within the last two years they have got rid of the native telegraph line. During my journey up six years ago this contrivance was a source of never-failing interest and surprise to me. First of all there were the poles. They were rough sticks, exactly like what a washerwoman in England uses for propping up her clothes-line: I suppose, taking the good line with the bad, there was on the average about one insulator to every three poles; this is without counting the insulators which were hung midway between the poles, apparently by way of ornament. The wire itself was at different levels: in a good many places it lay on the ground, but at others it crossed the road about the level of a horseman’s chin. One day in Yezd one of the European residents wanted to send a telegram, and sent to the telegraph office to ask when the line would be up. They sent back a very polite message to say that the trouble was not that the line was down; it was always down: the difficulty was that a camel had stepped upon it.
Of course they do repair the line: we saw a man repairing it. He had a forked stick about half the length of one of the poles on which the line was hung. With this he caught the wire and hitched it on to the nearest fork of the telegraph pole, a procedure which had at any rate the advantage of economy. I think I may say that telegrams by this line never went faster than the post goes in England. The slightest fall of snow or any other similar cause cut the communications altogether, sometimes for a fortnight; and, on similar lines that were a little longer, if you sent a telegram to your destination while you yourself were on a journey, it was a quite common occurrence for the telegraph master at the next town to ask you to carry it yourself as the quickest way of hastening its arrival.
Such an apparatus as this could hardly be expected to prove a great connecting influence. As a matter of fact, the Yezdi regards the Isfahani as a foreigner. When I was leaving Yezd I remember the sensation amongst my servants when they heard that my successor, who was going to take on most of them, wanted to bring an Isfahani butler. Yezdis hardly recognise the bond of a common country at all. There arethree connecting links which appeal to them; the link of a common religion; the link of a common family or business, for the family tie is of a character that includes the relation between employé and employer; and lastly, the link of the common town.[3]The bond of fellow-townsmanship is perhaps not considered a very close one, but for all that it is a real link. However, if you were to suggest to a Yezdi that he ought to have something in common with a Bushīrī, irrespective of the question of religion, simply because they both paid taxes to a common king, I very much doubt whether he would understand what you meant, and, if he did, I am quite sure that he would think that you were either joking or a lunatic.
In the vocabulary of the common people it is difficult to find an intelligible word forcountry. There is a word forempire, but the natural equivalent in the Persian mind to our expressioncountry, meaning fatherland, isshahr, which denotes a town, orvatan, which is the home-district, and is used in very much the same way. “What is your town?”is the Persian’s way of saying, “Where do you come from?” and although he has been taught to call an EnglishmanInglīs, he almost invariably calls EnglandLandan; indeed it is this which we put as an address on all our English letters.
The Yezdi’s ideas on the regions beyond his very narrow horizon are distinctly confused. If you begin to talk to him about other places, you are met not by mere ignorance of geography, but by a conception of the surface of the earth that is ludicrously impossible. It is difficult for a European to conceive of a number of towns and villages, containing several millions of people, bedded out over an enormous desert area considerably larger than the whole of France. It is equally difficult for the Yezdi to conceive of a natural and continuous land. Even those who have travelled a little outside Yezd, and have been obliged to modify slightly the Yezdi conception of the universe, have built up their notions of the world’s surface upon what seems to us a most peculiar first idea; and they have in most cases clung to far more of their original views than we should believe possible.
The Yezdi’s idea of the town as the only geographical and political unit is simply ageneralisation from the circumstances of his own city. Yezd is a solitary object rising abruptly out of a vast desert that is about the nearest thing to a vacuum which Nature has yet produced. Then too, the methods by which the Shah retains his half of the government of the country—I say his half, for half of the real control of the people is in the hands of the Mussulman clergy—is in some points similar to the old Roman system of provincial government. The local governor, and not the supreme sovereign, is the real ruler, and he rather than his people is responsible to the head of the State. Of course he is only appointed for a time, and is in constant expectation of recall. Still, while he remains, his power is limited more by the power of the Mohammedan mullās on the one hand, and by the strength and number of his subordinate officials and guards on the other, and much less by the orders and authority that he receives from Tehran. But it is true that the Yezdi exaggerates the separateness of his town, for he hardly recognises the actual limitations to the Governor’s power made and enforced by the Shah. Of course it is thoroughly understood that the Governor only holds his office by the Shah’s appointment; but it is very difficult for theYezdi to realise that that appointment, while it lasts, is to anything short of autocracy. So to him the local Government istheGovernment, and the local Governor the real ruler of his country, that is to say of the district surrounding his town; and it would puzzle him if you were to tell him that there were people in this world, living together in one sphere of government, who were not resident in one town, or in the district that belonged to it.
It may be urged that I am speaking of the uneducated and ignorant class, but there are very few in a town like Yezd who are not uneducated and ignorant, and even those who have superadded a certain degree of knowledge, have, in almost all cases, retained the majority of their preconceptions. Persians are very slow in seeing a contradiction; consequently, I believe that this conception of the universe, which is certainly accepted by the ordinary Yezdi, is with small modifications very general even among the slightly travelled or educated classes. Nor should a student of the mental attitude of a people ignore the curious ideas that are to be found amongst the women. One who had moved a great deal amongst the women of Yezd, assured me that they were almost invariably under theimpression that the less familiar words occurring in the Persian translation of the Scriptures were English, and that it was a common thing for a woman who was accustomed to the European pronunciation of Persian, to be referred to as knowing the language of the Ferangis. Such people would, of course, fail to comprehend the possibility of a linguistic barrier very much greater than the somewhat considerable difference of dialect which separates them from their neighbours in Isfahan. That such a state of mind would be equally possible amongst the men I do not for a moment suppose, but if this is the view of the women, one may be sure that there is a view of the Ferangi stranger, more or less approximating to it, amongst many of the ignorant hobbledehoys and young fellows, who contribute the largest share to the character of a fanatical Persian crowd.
Now the people of Yezd are quite ready after a due interval to extend the citizenship to strangers from other towns, provided that the newcomers intend to stay, and are ready to enter into the life of the community. The Kāshīs from Kāshān, the Shīrāzīs from Shīrāz, the Lārīs from Lāristān, and the Rashtīs from Rasht, areall well-known Yezd families, and are not by any means regarded as foreigners. Also the Yezd community includes persons of three or four different religions. There are in the town fourteen hundred Parsi houses, the inhabitants of which are Zoroastrian. There is also a smaller colony of Jews. The remainder are Mohammedans; but a considerable number of these belong to the Behāī sect, and are considered rank heretics. The Parsis, though greatly oppressed in the past, and still liable to some disabilities, have of late years become wealthy and prosperous. The Jews are in some ways less restricted than the Parsis; but, as they are still wretchedly poor, they are really much more down-trodden. That religious bigotry still exists among the Mussulmans in Yezd has only lately been made perfectly plain by the ghastly massacre of the Behāīs in the summer of 1903; but Mohammedan bigotry in Persia is by no means without limitations. It is spasmodic in its action, nor does it entirely obliterate every other feeling.
A few years ago Yezd had the reputation of being one of the most bigoted of the towns of Persia. The presence of the Zoroastrian remnant, who were subject to the grossest persecution,served only to keep alive the fire of religious hatred; and the community of Jews in a lesser degree had the same effect. The stories of the way in which the Parsis were bullied and persecuted are interesting, as showing, amongst other things, the intense childishness of the Persian Mussulman. The atmosphere of the town seems to have resembled, as indeed it still resembles, that of a preparatory school for little boys. Up to 1895 no Parsi was allowed to carry an umbrella. Even during the time that I was in Yezd they could not carry one in town. Up to 1895 there was a strong prohibition upon eye-glasses and spectacles; up to 1885 they were prevented from wearing rings; their girdles had to be made of rough canvas, but after 1885 any white material was permitted. Up to 1896 the Parsis were obliged to twist their turbans instead of folding them. Up to about 1898 only brown, grey, and yellow were allowed for theqabāorarkhālūq(body garments), but after that all colours were permitted, except blue, black, bright red, or green. There was also a prohibition against white stockings, and up to about 1880 the Parsis had to wear a special kind of peculiarly hideous shoe with a broad, turned-up toe. Up to 1885 theyhad to wear a torn cap. Up to about 1880 they had to wear tight knickers, self-coloured, instead of trousers. Up to 1891 all Zoroastrians had to walk in town, and even in the desert they had to dismount if they met a Mussulman of any rank whatsoever. During the time that I was in Yezd they were allowed to ride in the desert, and only had to dismount if they met a big Mussulman. There were other similar dress restrictions too numerous and trifling to mention. Then the houses of both the Parsis and the Jews, with the surrounding walls, had to be built so low that the top could be reached by a Mussulman with his hand extended; they might, however, dig down below the level of the road. The walls had to be splashed with white round the door. Double doors, the common form of Persian door, were forbidden, also rooms containing three or more windows.Bad-girswere still forbidden to the Parsis while we were in Yezd, but in 1900 one of the bigger Parsi merchants gave a large present to the Governor and to the chiefmujtahid(Mohammedan priest) to be allowed to build one. Upper rooms were also forbidden.
Up to about 1860 Parsis could not engage in trade. They used to hide things in their cellarrooms, and sell them secretly. They can now trade in the caravanserais or hostelries, but not in the bazaars, nor may they trade in linen drapery. Up to 1870 they were not permitted to have a school for their children.
The amount of thejazīya, or tax upon infidels, differed according to the wealth of the individual Parsi, but it was never less than twotomāns. Atomanis now worth about three shillings and eight pence, but it used to be worth much more. Even now, when money has much depreciated, it represents a labourer’s wage for ten days. The money had to be paid on the spot, when thefarrash, who was acting as collector, met the man. Thefarrashwas at liberty to do what he liked when collectingjaziya. The man was not even allowed to go home and fetch the money, but was at once beaten until it was given. About 1865 afarrāshcollecting this tax tied a man to a dog, and gave a blow to each in turn.
About 1891 amujtahidcaught a Zoroastrian merchant wearing white stockings in one of the public squares of the town. He ordered the man to be beaten and the stockings taken off. About 1860 a man of seventy went to the bazaars in white trousers of rough canvas. They hit himabout a good deal, took off his trousers, and sent him home with them under his arm. Sometimes Parsis would be made to stand on one leg in amujtahid’shouse until they consented to pay a considerable sum of money. Occasionally, however, the childish mockery that pervaded the persecuting ordinances enabled the Zoroastrians to evade the disabilities proposed. For instance, as the Jews had to wear a patch on theqaba, or coat, themujtahidsin about 1880 tried to make the Parsis wear an obvious patch on the shirt. Muhammad Hasan Khan was then Governor, and Mulla Bahrām of Khurramshār, a Parsi, asked him to arrange that his people should have three days’ respite to get the patches ready. During these three days the Parsi women set to work, and made a neat embroidered border round the neck and opening of the shirt. This the Parsis exhibited as the required patch; and as it was very obvious, and was certainly an insertion, there was really nothing more to be said. In Yezd a small score like this counts for more than does a firman of the Shah.
In the reign of the late Shah Nāsiru’d Dīn, Mānukjī Limjī, a British Parsi from India, was for a long while in Tehran as Parsi representative.Almost all the Parsi disabilities were withdrawn, thejaziya, the clothes restrictions, the riding restrictions, and those with regard to houses, but the law of inheritance was not altered, according to which a Parsi who has become a Mussulman takes precedence of his Zoroastrian brothers and sisters. Thejaziyawas actually remitted, and also some of the restrictions as to houses, but the rest of the firman was a dead letter.
In 1898 the present Shah, Muzaffaru’d Dīn, gave a firman to Dīnyār, the presentQalāntarof the ParsiAnjuman, or Committee, revoking all the remaining Parsi disabilities, and also declaring it unlawful to use fraud or deception in making conversions of Parsis to Islam. This firman does not appear to have had any effect at all.
About 1883, after the firman of Nāsiru’d Dīn Shah had been promulgated, one of the Parsis, Rustami Ardishīri Dīnyār, built in Kūcha Biyuk, one of the villages near Yezd, a house with an upper room, slightly above the height to which the Parsis used to be limited. He heard that the Mussulmans were going to kill him, so he fled by night to Tehran. They killed another Parsi, Tīrandāz, in mistake for him, but did not destroy the house.
So the great difficulty was not to get the law improved, but rather to get it enforced. When Manukji was at Yezd, about 1870, two Parsis were attacked by two Mussulmans outside the town, and one was killed, the other being terribly wounded, as they had tried to cut off his head. The Governor brought the criminals to Yezd, but did nothing to them. Manukji then got leave to take them to Tehran. The Prime Minister, however, told him that no Mussulman would be killed for aZardūshtī, or Zoroastrian, and that they would only be bastinadoed. About this time Manukji enquired whether it was true that the blood-price of aZardushtiwas to be seventomans. He got back the official reply that it was to be a little over.
The Yezd Parsis have been helped considerably by agents from Bombay, who are British subjects, and of late years things have slightly improved. About 1885, aSeyid, that is, a descendant of Muhammad, killed aZardushtiwoman in Yezd. Ibrāhīm Qalīl Khān took him, and, by order of the Zillu’s Sultān, Prince Governor of Isfahan, and elder brother of the Shah, killed him before daybreak. When the Mohammedan mullas heard of it in the morning, they gave orders for a general slaughterof the Parsis. Many of the Parsis were injured, but none killed. Then in 1899 the Sahāmu’l Mulk, at the commencement of his governorship of Yezd, killed a Mussulman servant of the Mushīru’l Mamālik for a criminal assault upon a Zoroastrian woman. This man was not a Seyid, which made the matter more simple. Just before, when the Mushīru’l Mamālik was temporary Governor, Isfandiār, the Parsi schoolmaster at Taft, one of the large Yezd villages, and Salāmat, another Parsi, were killed by twolūtīs(roughs) without reason. One of theselutiswas a Seyid. Both were sent to Tehran, and amujtahidwent up with them to ask for their release. The Shah ordered the Seyid’s release, but the fate of the other is not known. That the Seyid was not much intimidated is certain, as in the August of 1901, when I was in Taft, he used to wander about with otherlutisquite openly.
During the last nine or ten years the governors in Yezd have been much stronger, and they have, generally speaking, been friendly to the Parsis. The Parsis are an industrious and intelligent people, and they have become in Yezd a wealthy community. Also there is an extremely wealthy Parsi in Tehran, Arbāb Jamshīd, who is probablymore able to influence the Persian Government in favour of his countrymen than are the Indian Parsis from Bombay. Nowadays no governor who wants to remain in Yezd can afford to leave the Parsi community out of his calculations. The real advance made by the Parsi colony seems to date from the second term of government of the Jalālu’d Daula, eldest son of the Zillu’s Sultān, Governor of Isfahan. The Parsis themselves also put down a great deal of the improvement in their circumstances to the spread of the Behāī faith, and certainly, although a semi-secret sect, the Behāīs individually plead openly for a general religious liberty and toleration. Naturally such a movement has been of considerable assistance to the Parsis. As an indication of the influence of the Parsis, it is interesting to notice that during the late Behāī massacres, immediately there was talk of an attack on the Parsi quarter, the Mussulman clergy applied themselves to suppressing the movement.
Although the Jews are very much weaker and poorer, they have their place in the social organisation of the town, and the contempt in which they are held does not prevent the Yezdis from recognising their right to a kind of citizenship.Their religion of course is held in much greater respect than that of the Parsis, for they are people of the Book, and although the Persian Shiahs granted the Zoroastrians a certain share in this status, when they allowed them to continue in the country on the same terms as Jews and Christians, the ordinary Yezdi of to-day hesitates considerably before he allows that Zoroaster was in any sense a prophet.
I myself have met Mussulmans serving in a menial capacity in Parsi houses; I have entertained Parsis of standing and Mussulmans of standing together on public occasions; and I have no hesitation in saying that even the bigoted Mussulman recognises the bond of common citizenship, although it is certainly true that on most occasions he prefers the bond of religion. Still, a Persian’s religious feeling, even when it seems to amount to fanatical bigotry, is generally so connected with self-interest, that, when it is disconnected from thoughts of profit, it is difficult to know how much influence it will possess with him.
It is certainly a fact that a year or two ago, when an Isfahani Seyid came and preached in the Yezd mosques against painted trays, Manchestercottons, bank-notes, and Bibles, the Yezdi Mussulmans gave him the cold shoulder, and treated him as a foreigner who had intruded himself into their domestic concerns.
People were surprised at this happening in the city which a few years before had been regarded as one of the most fanatical in the whole of Persia. As a matter of fact, the so-called fanaticism of Yezd was two-thirds of it non-religious in character. There was an element of turbulency, produced by a series of weak governors; there was a real religious element; and there was an element of insularity, utterly unconnected with creed and doctrine. In spite of the smallness of the Christian colony, which even at present consists of only eighteen Europeans, to which may be added twenty-two Armenians (the households of men in European employment), the people of the town which is after all not large, had soon become familiarised with this little settlement as a Yezd institution. Then the insular spirit came to be enlisted on the side of the Ferangis, and, the turbulence produced by weak governorship being eliminated, there was only the religious difficulty left.
There have only been Europeans in Yezd forsome twelve years. The early arrivals were a bank manager and a merchant’s agent. The work of the Church Missionary Society has been established there for some six years, and the English telegraph clerk has been there for about a year. Now all the members of the colony have contributed something to the life of the town, and all the Europeans have worked together with marked cordiality and harmony. Both of these things have certainly had a great effect in hastening the establishment of the colony in the town, and in winning for it the support of the Yezdis’ insular prejudices. The merchants are distinctly glad of the bank, and of the resident agent from a responsible Manchester firm. The people have learnt to value the Medical Mission; and the schools, though they appeal to a smaller class, appeal equally strongly.
Even the directly spiritual work of a Mission is granted an established position in the town by the natives, if it is partially in connection with the Christian community. Having granted a community right of residence no Mohammedan would deny them the right of religious observance. Indeed this would be expected to exist as a matter of course.
It is quite true that Christian missions in Persia do not possess the treaty right to make converts from Mohammedanism. At the same time, it must be remembered that Persians are much more inclined to regard custom than law, nor are they used to the accurate observance of a fine distinction. All that can be said is that, at present, the right of a Christian missionary to baptize a Mussulman is in Yezd by no means established, but that his right to live and work and preach in the town as, primarily, themujtahidof the Ferangis, and secondarily, an accepted Yezd teacher, is practically recognised by all. This point seems to have been arrived at chiefly through the acceptance of the entire European colony as unitedly Christian and as a real part of the town. Things that have helped us to arrive at it have been the usefulness of the various branches of work engaged in by the Europeans, their general straightforwardness and honesty of life, combined with their ready co-operation in Christian effort; also the extreme acceptability of the work of the medical missions, and the linking of the clerical work with the life of the town through the medium of schools. To these must be added the smallness of Yezd, whichmakes it impossible for the population consistently to ignore or refuse to assimilate any important band of workers that can maintain a residence at all prolonged within its walls, and the insularity which makes it impossible to refuse altogether to champion what has become part of the town. Also we must not forget the natural proneness of the Shiah to religious speculation, and the special ferment of religious ideas at present prevailing throughout Persia. This, however, is a matter that will be dealt with at length, later on.
A curious incident occurred in Yezd not long ago, that will perhaps serve to point to the extraordinary way in which the Europeans have in the mind of the Yezdi become an established part of the town population, with rights and privileges similar to those possessed by the native section of the townsfolk. One of the European residents had received a threatening letter from a young Mussulman, whom he had dismissed from his employ; and he had paid as little attention to the matter as it deserved. It so happened that the next day he came to our house for a week’s visit, I being a clerical missionary; and the dismissed servant thenspread the report through the bazaars that his master was frightened, and had taken sanctuary with hismujtahid, this being a common Mussulman custom when danger is apprehended either fromlutisor from the law. Not only was the report believed, but one of the other Europeans was obliged to give up a visit which he had intended to pay us, as he was a business man, and his credit might have been temporarily shaken.
A similar story is told by Canon Bruce, of an experience in Isfahan. Though in some ways more curious, it is, however, less convincing with regard to the particular moral to which I am attempting to point, since the Canon was then working largely amongst the Armenian Christians of Julfa, who are a considerable colony, and subjects of the Shah. The Roman Catholic Armenian priests, who were also working amongst the Armenian Christians, got the chief Mussulmanmujtahidof Isfahan, of which Julfa is a suburb, to summon Canon Bruce to his house. Themujtahid, they said, was, after all, the chief religious authority in the place, and Canon Bruce was as much a heretic in Christianity as the Babis were in Islam. This quaint summons was actually issued, and the Mussulmanmujtahidrequired Canon Bruce to defend himself against the charge of preaching incorrect Christian doctrine. This, of course, was an acceptance of Canon Bruce’s position; but the acceptance of the position of a clerical missionary in a place where there were only eight or nine households belonging to Christian races, European or Armenian, is stranger still.
The possibility of such a thing ought, however, to encourage us with regard to the future of missionary work in isolated and apparently bigoted Persian towns, and also to make missionaries realise the immense value of the co-operation of Christian residents, and the necessity of attending fully to their spiritual needs.
Persian Mohammedanism—Mohammed—Founding of Islam—Shiahs and Sunnis—Laxity distinguished from infidelity—Central doctrines of Islam—The Divine Unity—The prophethood—Behāī view of the prophethood—The Bab—The Behāu’llah—Behāīism—Its prospects—Islam—Predestination—Repentance—Savābs—Eating with unbelievers—Charge of pantheism—Effect of Islam on character.
Persian Mohammedanism—Mohammed—Founding of Islam—Shiahs and Sunnis—Laxity distinguished from infidelity—Central doctrines of Islam—The Divine Unity—The prophethood—Behāī view of the prophethood—The Bab—The Behāu’llah—Behāīism—Its prospects—Islam—Predestination—Repentance—Savābs—Eating with unbelievers—Charge of pantheism—Effect of Islam on character.
We have seen that the Yezdis have long been accustomed to have in their midst professors of three distinct religions, the Jewish, the Zoroastrian and the Mohammedan. But as the Jews are neither numerous nor influential, and the Zoroastrian Parsis, though more numerous than the Jews, are nevertheless not more than a tithe of the population, the religion that chiefly demands our attention is Mohammedanism, which is the established faith of Persia. The Mohammedanism of Persia is not quite the same as that of India or Turkey, and the Persians call themselvesShiahsor nonconformists. In Persia there is one creed of nonconformity which is there accepted as orthodox, so those professing this creed will for the future in these pages be called Shiahs without further qualification.
It must, however, be remembered that the name Shiah is not properly confined to this one sect, and also that this sect itself, like other nonconformist bodies, has always shown a great tendency to subdivide. In Persia besides Shiahs, that is the more orthodox Shiahs, there has always been one other smaller sect of Mohammedans attracting general attention. At present the dissenting doctrine most widely taught is that of the Behāīs, who have laid hold of the popular imagination, partly because of their great steadfastness under the most terrible persecutions, partly because of the somewhat popular nature of their teaching, but chiefly because Persia is now being brought into rather closer touch with Europe, and the people as a whole feel that the teaching of the Shiah mullas needs to be modified if Islam is to be preserved. I think one may go further, and say that there is at present in Persia a period of enquiry and spiritual awakening, which gives a special opportunity, not only toMohammedan sectaries, but also to Christian missionaries. Later on further allusion will be made to these Behāīs, but we must not forget that our first task is not so much the study of the complex religious systems of Persia, as the analysis of those religious influences to which the Yezdi has been subjected.
The ordinary Yezdi Mussulman is descended partly from the original Aryan inhabitants of Persia, and partly from their Arabian conquerors: but the enormous difference in character that exists between him and the purely Aryan Parsi is certainly due less to race and more to religion, for thejadīds, or converts from Parsiism, often develop all the Mussulman characteristics in a few generations, without the slightest admixture of race. So before attempting to describe the character of the people, it will be necessary to pay as much attention to the religious ideas that have been brought to bear upon them as we have already paid to the nature of their country and the seclusion of their town life. Some aspects of the Yezdi’s religion will be left to a future chapter, and we must at present content ourselves with trying to understand the essential nature of Islam, particularly dwellingon those points of Mohammed’s teaching and example which seem to have produced most impression on the Persian mind. To do this we must divest ourselves of all pre-judgments of the prophet’s life and doctrine, and simply study the facts of history, remembering that the conception of Islam which is to be found amongst the Sunnis of India and Turkey cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged, for the Mohammedan world is by no means unanimous about it; and also that the well-known European theory, that there was a difference in Mohammed’s aims and objects in Mecca and Medina, and that the Meccan period rather than the Medinan indicates the essential idea of Mohammedanism, is one which no educated Mussulman would for a moment tolerate. As for the still more favourable views that have been lately brought forward by European authors, I can only pass on a story that was told me of an educated Mussulman in India who had been shown such a treatise. “This gentleman, Sahib,” he said, as he handed back the volume, “appears to know very little about his own religion, and absolutely nothing about ours.”
I myself went to Persia with the intention of making the most of the good points of thereligious systems of the country. With regard to the Parsis I was not disappointed. Like many other missionaries, I started with the idea that I should find these people possessed of a great many radically wrong notions about the nature and power of God, which were essential to their religion. I now believe that I was wrong, and I have never heard my right-hand man, Mihraban, who is himself a Parsi, and also one of the most sincere and earnest Christians whom I have ever met, speak one word against the real groundwork of Zoroastrianism. In this religion it is not unteaching but teaching that is required to lead the people to Christ; but, in Mohammedanism, in spite of its greater pretensions, almost every apparent truth crumbles into mere truism or actual falsity the moment that you try to make it the basis of anything practical. Also the more I read of the life of Mohammed, the more convinced I am that the radical rottenness of the system is due to his original teaching. Perhaps this may be a confession of narrowness, but one cannot be broad all round. Unless we are going to deny the iniquity and wickedness of modern Islam, we shall have to believe that somebody is to blame; and, if it is not Mohammed, Isuppose it must be either the mullas or the Mussulman laity. I do not know why we should expend all our breadth on the big people: I myself have some sympathy with the little ones: and I firmly believe that the difficulties in the Islam of to-day are due rather to the essential wrongness of the system than to its corruption by the masses.
Mohammed was born in Mecca towards the end of the sixth century. He was a member of the important family who had charge of the Ka’aba, which was a heathen temple that the Meccans had attempted to make a common meeting-ground for the whole of Arabia, by including within its limits the idols and symbols of worship that were respected by the different tribes. Some of these tribes had adopted Christianity and Judaism; so pictures even of Jewish and Christian saints were to be found within the walls of the Meccan temple.
The Mussulman historians of Mohammed’s life tell us that there had been in Arabia, for some years before the prophet came forward, a set of reformers calledHanīfs, who seem to have been half political and half religious, but to have been all of them convinced that some form of religion, purer than that represented by the Ka’aba, wasneeded to unite Arabia against its common foes. Some of theseHanifsended by adopting Christianity or Judaism; others were inclined to the adoption of a more essentially national form of monotheism, which should retain the Ka’aba as its centre. The most notable of the latter party was Zaid ibn Amr, a man so much admired by Mohammed that he declared him a prophet, and in other ways professed his complete acceptation of his principles and teaching.
Mohammed by his marriage with Khadīja was certainly introduced into this set of reformers. Waraka ibn Nawfal was one of the most prominentHanifs, and we have indisputable evidence that he was one of Khadija’s most intimate friends, both at the time of her marriage, and also at the time when her husband received his first revelation. Mohammed himself had been from childhood of a hysterical disposition, and was subject to fits, during which he saw visions, which on recovering consciousness he was able to recollect; consequently while in this company he became convinced that he was the expected prophet who was to bind Arabia together by a politico-religious system.
In placing himself at the head of theHanifmovement, Mohammed probably gave more prominence to the political aspect than had most of the former and less successful leaders. This is brought out by Koelle in his life of Mohammed; and indeed it is obvious that the man who could allow an unbelieving friend, even though a close relation, to play the important part in the building of his church that Abbās played in the second meeting on the eminence, was primarily a politician rather than a religious reformer: for it was Abbas who on that occasion first proposed the oath that may almost be called the basis of Islam. A critical study of Mohammed’s early dealings with the Arabians brings us to a similar conclusion.
Of the other stories collected by Koelle from Mussulman sources to prove this point, perhaps the most forcible is that of the discussion between the prophet, his uncle, Abu Tālib, under whose protection he was then living, and Abu Jahl. Abu Talib called his nephew and said to him, “Thou seest the nobles of thy people are assembled here to concede to thee certain things, and, in return, to receive concessions from thee.” Mohammed made this reply: “Well, then, give me a word whereby theArabs may be governed and the Persians subjugated.” Abu Jahl responded to this request in the name of his fellow-elders by saying: “Thou shalt have ten words.” But Mohammed setting him right, and indicating what kind of word in his opinion could alone answer the purpose, rejoined: “Say, ‘There is no God except Allah!’ and renounce what you worship besides Him.” This story Koelle quotes from Ibn Ishāk, the earliest and most trustworthy biographer.
Certainly the movement from paganism to monotheism, which took place in Arabia in those days, was in itself a fine thing; and it was accompanied by much sincerity and religious zeal. It is also obvious that Mohammed possessed a personality peculiarly attractive to the Arabian, and that this, as well as his enthusiasm on the subject of his mission, had the effect of attracting many to the cause.
But not only did Mohammed pay much more regard to politics than can be possibly excused, he also accepted the religious and ethical teaching of theHanifsonly in the most superficial manner; and, under the cover of verbal conformity, retained as much as possible of the original pagan ideas in which he had been reared. The result is that hisfollowers are still to be found possessed of what seems at first sight to be correct doctrine upon fundamentals, and yet are unable to advance by its assistance along the path of light and progress.
The popular idea, that fanatical intolerance of all professors of other religions is an essential and fundamental principle in Mohammedanism, cannot be maintained. The paganism of Mecca was distinctly latitudinarian, so Mohammed accepted in full the sacred books of the Jews and Christians, as would have seemed natural to an Arabian of that age, especially to a monotheistic teacher who was closely connected with the Ka’aba. This does not mean that he in any way apprehended the meaning of Judaism and Christianity. The doctrine of the perpetuity of the moral law never seems to have entered into his mind, even in the most elementary form. He wished to say that he had himself received a revelation superseding all former ones by the mandate of God, and he did not wish to make trouble by pronouncing other religions to be false, without absolute necessity. His real object was to unite the Arabs by a reformed religion, and at first he regarded his mission as a purely national one. Whatever were his ultimate designsupon the Jews and Christians in Arabia, he intentionally conveyed to them the impression that, if they recognised him as a prophet to others, he would be content without their accepting him themselves. Indeed, while he was still at Mecca, he was even uncertain whether the idolaters who accepted him might not be allowed to retain some of their idols as intermediaries between themselves and Allah. He went so far on one occasion as to actually effect a reconciliation on this basis; but as such a concession must have greatly damaged his influence with those who were favourably disposed to theHanifmovement, he afterwards repudiated the transaction, and declared that he had acted under the influence of the devil. His work in Mecca was not very successful; and the opposition he encountered was so strong that he had at last to begin to make attempts to start work in some other place, and he was finally successful in making a fresh beginning in Medina. Here he was able to take advantage of a family connection with some of the principal citizens, and also of a long-standing rivalry between Medina and Mecca. Although the movement in Mecca had not been widely successful, Mohammed had gathered amongst his followersseveral really prominent men. Consequently, the people of Medina, although divided on the subject of his prophetic mission, were unanimous as to the advisability of receiving him and his followers into their town. Settled in Medina, Mohammed’s fortunes underwent a change. The chieftancy of the tribe to which his grandmother had belonged fell vacant, and, as most of the members of this tribe had become Mussulmans, Mohammed had no difficulty in himself becoming their chief. Considering himself restrained by no preconception or former revelation of the moral law, he was able, without dropping for one moment his pretensions to prophethood, to use every means of fraud and violence which seemed conducive to his political end. As Koelle has pointed out, there is no reason to suppose that his principles in any way changed, but under the altered conditions and environment the utterly non-ethical theory of revelation held by the prophet became more apparent. This is perhaps most clearly brought out by his utterly unscrupulous dealing with the Jews, and also by the story of Zaid and Zainab, in all which affairs Mohammed professed himself to be acting under Divine direction, nor is it at all obviousthat he did not actually believe it. Finally, before his death, he succeeded in establishing his religion and political system throughout the whole of Arabia.
Of course it was impossible for a movement like this to take place without rival prophets appearing in other parts of the country. Two of these appeared during Mohammed’s lifetime, and he thought it best to guard against future schisms of a similar kind by declaring himself the last of the prophets. Exactly what he meant by this is not very clear: if the almost universal voice of Islam is to be accepted, he did not mean that he was the last divinely appointed teacher, for all Mussulmans look forward to the coming of a Mehdi or Mahdi, who, together with Jesus, the son of Mary, is to appear in the last days, and spread the doctrines of Islam throughout the world. Orthodox Mussulmans, however, always look upon Mohammed as the last greatsāhibi kitāb, or book-bearer.
The ordinary Sunnis, who are the largest and best-known Mussulman sect, assert that, as a matter of fact, since the time of Mohammed, no divinely-appointed teacher has as yet appeared. The Khalīfs were in their eyes simply appointedby the congregation, and the four great writers of thesunnat, which is to them the only authoritative commentary upon the doctrines of Islam, were only learned and saintly men. Now, they hold, these doctrines can only be learnt from this book, and from theQurānitself; for themujtahidor high mulla, capable of giving authoritative decisions on moot points, no longer exists.
The Shiahs have very different tenets. Mohammed according to their teaching was the first of a hierarchic dynasty of thirteen, consisting of himself and the twelve great Imāms, of whom the first was Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet, and who were all as certainly divinely appointed as Mohammed himself. Mohammed is only the last great book-bearer, and therefore the founder of the present era. The last of the Imams was the Mehdi, who according to the Sunnis has not yet been born, but according to the Shiahs appeared long ago. This man did not die, but disappeared, remaining at first accessible to his followers through the medium of four successive Bābs, or gates of knowledge, who were in touch with him during his concealment. Like the Imams, the Babs came to an end, for the lastof them refused to appoint a successor. All this of course is very ancient history.
The Shiahs have their own traditionists, for they reject thesunnataltogether. Between the traditions of the Shiahs and the Sunnis there is not much to choose: there is a certain amount of historical fact embodied in both, and there is also a great deal of absolute nonsense. However, many otherwise orthodox Shiahs either reject the traditions altogether, or interpret them allegorically. There is more freedom of interpretation amongst the Shiahs than amongst the Sunnis: indeed many Shiahs believe that some of the most objectionable chapters of theQurandescribing the delights of heaven are entirely parabolic. Of course withmujtahids(supposed to be able to pronounce authoritatively on moot points) scattered all over Persia, the fixity of doctrine that prevails amongst Mohammedans of Sunni countries would be impossible.
The tenets of the Shiahs are not derogatory to the mission of Mohammed, or to the position of theQuran, but they make the solitary figure of the prophet stand out much less prominently. For instance, if a Persian is told that his religion possesses nothing corresponding to the vicarioussacrifice of Christ, he will invariably reply by pointing to the martyrdom of the Imam Husain. Also the Mehdi, or occult Imam, is not the future, but the present ruler of Islam; and so he is in some ways as important a personage as the original prophet. Not very long ago the Shah of Persia used to pay rent for his palace to the Mehdi, the money going to themujtahidsas the representatives of the Imam: I do not know whether this practice is still continued, but the theory on which it was based is certainly not extinct. Again there is a common saying that the Imam Ali is present in the heart of the true believer, but I think it is only regarded by the ordinary Yezdi as a poetical expression. The point to be noted is that the saying is always about Ali, not about Mohammed. Shiahs invoke the Imams Ali and Husain very much more frequently than they invoke Mohammed; and though the inscription over a Persian mosque should be, “Yā Ali, Yā Muhammad,” that is, “O Ali! O Mohammed!” the “Yā Muhammad” is often omitted and the “Yā Ali” left to stand alone. The excuse is sometimes brought forward that Mohammed is too great for constant invocation. Considering the way in which the Shiahuses the name of God, this must, I think, be regarded as a mere excuse for a habit due to wholly different causes.
This extreme attachment to the Imams is probably due to two things. In the first place, there can be no doubt that the cause of Ali and his sons was taken up in Persia as an outlet to national jealousy, for the Aryan converts were not sorry when a pretext occurred for differentiating themselves from the majority of their Arab conquerors. In the Shiah religion the early Khalifs, who ruled Islam while the holy Imams were still alive, are held up to the bitterest execration, and Omar in particular, who, by the way, was the conqueror of Persia, takes much the same place in the Shiah system that Judas Iscariot does in the Christian.