RELIGION
Suni and Shiah—Moullahs and their influence on the
people—Jihads or holy wars—The Koran—Late Amir’s distrust
of Moullahs—Holy men, fakirs, and holy graves—Madmen
and reverence paid them as God-stricken—Sayid and
Hafiz—Beggars and alms—Stoning to death for religious
offences—Prayers—Punishments for not knowing
prayers—Musjids—Ramazan and fastings—Haj—Afghan colony in
Australia—Lawful and unlawful food—Plurality of wives.
The religion of the Afghans is the Mussulman, or Mahomedan religion, as
it is more generally called in Christian countries, and if the people
were to act up to the tenets of their religion, as taught by the Koran,
then a good Mussulman would be a good man, for it is as a rule the people
who practice a religion who bring credit or discredit on it. There are
two sects of this religion in the country, the Shiah and the Suni. The
latter sect includes the royal family and the bulk of the people, while
the Shiah sect is chiefly composed of the Kuzilbash people, who are the
descendants of Persians. These Kuzilbash live in the south-west portion
of Kabul, called Chindawal, and form a small colony of their own; but a
great number of them live in Kandahar and Herat, and near the Persian
frontier. The difference between these two sects appears to be more in
form of ritual than in any real difference in belief; but there is,
however, a great deal of ill-feeling between them, and this leads at
times to much bloodshed, much as it used to in days gone by between those
of the Roman Church and Protestants.
The moullahs, or priests, are those who are brought up in the musjids,
and who understand the Koran, or at least can read it in the old Arabic,
in which language only is it allowed to be written. They live a holy life
of constant prayer combined with a good deal of fasting, and their beads,
similar to the rosary beads, are always in their hands. While walking
or sitting, or even carrying on a conversation, these beads are rapidly
slipped between the finger and thumb as they repeat the name of God for
each bead so handled. The sight of a kafar, and all who are not Mussulman
are infidels, is so obnoxious that they spit on the ground when passing
him in the street, and to kill one of them is quite a meritorious action
in their eyes. The majority of the people are equally fanatical, and they
also consider it no sin to lie to or swindle a kafar.
The influence the moullahs exert over the people is very great, and they
have little trouble in getting them to join in the Jihad or holy war
against the enemies of their religion. They argue that the enemy of their
religion is the enemy of God and therefore a loathsome thing, and that
the Koran commands them to kill all such, and promises that if they are
themselves killed in doing so, they shall go straight to Paradise, and
that the man who fails to kill a kafar, but suffers death himself in the
attempt, has only a little less rank in heaven than the one who succeeds.
The moullahs also teach that in Paradise good Mussulmans shall lie in
the shade of gold and silver-leafed trees, whose fruits are precious
stones, with beautiful houri around attending to all their desires, and
with rivers of milk and honey flowing past them; and in this Paradise,
if they desire one of the many beautiful birds which sit singing in the
trees about, it is instantly placed ready cooked before them, and when
they have eaten, the bird will assume its former shape and fly back to
the branches above, for there is no taking of life in Paradise. There
is enough in this picture of future happiness to fire the desire of the
average Afghan, for his life is generally one long struggle for existence.
The Koran is always kept and handled very reverently, and when not in
use it is wrapped in several cloths, and the person who intends reading
it washes his hands before taking it out of its wrappings. The Koran is
written in Arabic only, and when I wondered why it was not translated
by competent moullahs into Persian, so that all who could read might
understand, I was told that the language of the Koran was such that
no one could copy or imitate it, and therefore any translation must
necessarily be full of errors, and the word of God violated. For this
reason also, those who read it are taught to pronounce each word exactly,
for the short vowels are not written in Arabic, and it would be easy for
a beginner to wrongly pronounce a word, because there are many words
which are similarly written and differ only in the pronunciation of the
unwritten short vowels, and therefore the meaning would become confused,
and they say that there is no greater sin than misconstruing the words
inspired by God. Very few, with the exception of the moullahs, can read
the Koran, and the latter apparently give very free translations when it
suits their purpose; such, for instance, as that of killing unbelievers,
on which is built up the principles of Jihad, holy war, and the Amir
has had printed in pamphlet form and distributed throughout the country
of late. I have been assured by Mussulmans of other countries that the
meaning of the Koran has been twisted in this, for true Mussulmans are
exhorted in the Koran to live with unbelievers for neighbours in such
manner that all may know them for good and upright men, and when the time
comes to fight against them, then to fight to the utmost of their power.
The late Amir, who distrusted the moullahs, as he had reason to do, for
on more than one occasion they caused the people to rise against him by
proclaiming that he did not act up to his religion and was therefore a
kafar, always treated them in such manner as to lower them in the eyes
of the people rather than give them honour and uphold their influence;
and he did not fail to punish them as he did the rest of the people
when they deserved it. One such case was when the moullahs of a holy
shrine wrote him a petition praying for money to repair the walls and
rooms of the tomb, which were in a dilapidated condition. A holy grave
is usually surrounded by a building, in the rooms of which the priests
who guard the tomb live. The Amir knew that this place, in common with
others, was much visited by women ostensibly for prayer, but in reality
to keep assignations made with lovers, and that many had lovers among the
moullahs themselves. A woman’s prayers usually have her own fruitfulness
for objective, and they are supposed to have greater virtue at a holy
shrine, and, under the circumstances, it is possible that results in some
cases were such as to encourage this supposition. The Amir accordingly
sent for the moullahs, who were sleek and well-fed men, and told them
that he knew of their iniquities, and, cursing them, ordered the place to
be closed and the moullahs dispersed.
The present Amir, who has not yet the self-reliance of his father, treats
all moullahs with great honour, and when he became Amir he sent for them
all and gave them money and robes of honour, and otherwise treated them
with distinction. It was no doubt politic to do so, for the time was
critical; but they are a rather double-edged weapon, and he may find
that they can cut both ways should he ever offend them.
There are many holy men and fakirs in the country, who are honoured by
the people and treated with great consideration. They are credited with
the power of curing sickness by reciting some part of the Koran over
those who are ill, or by breathing on the water given them to drink; but
more usually they write a verse of the Koran on a piece of paper and give
it to the sick person to swallow. Holy graves are also supposed to cast
out sickness, simply by the person living at the grave until cured, and
one of my servants tried this remedy rather than take English medicine,
but died there on the third day.
Lunatics are said to be God-afflicted, and no one therefore attempts
to control their actions or in any way interfere with them. They are
treated instead with great deference, and are asked for their prayers
and advice in any difficulty or trouble. Offerings of food and money are
taken them, and they are allowed to go where they will, and no one will
stop them even if they wander into the Amir’s durbar. One such, who was
known and reverenced all over Kabul, used to go about with nothing on
but a long shirt, and this was open in front and exposed the chest, and
in the depths of winter a posteen only was worn over the shirt. I have
seen this man on the coldest days lying asleep on the bare ground in the
open, bare-headed and barefooted. The man’s constitution who can stand
such privation and live must be an exceptional one. He used sometimes to
go to the Government stores, which were guarded by sepoys, and, breaking
the padlock from a door, would walk in and lie down there, and no one
dared to interfere with him; and he would also wander occasionally into
the late Amir’s durbar and give expression to his opinion of the Amir’s
character, which is a thing no other man could have done and lived to
boast of. When the Amir gave him money he threw it broad-cast from him,
and refused to be propitiated, and he would at times do this with the
food and presents sent him by other people. He had many followers, of
course, and these waxed fat on the good things sent their chief, and they
copied his ways too, and tried to perfect themselves in them so that they
might also receive honour, and perhaps, when the day came, step into
their master’s shoes, and live free from the trials and worries governing
other people.
There are many Sayids in the country; a Sayid is said to be a lineal
descendant of the prophet, and they are looked upon as people of
consequence, and are respected by others, but this does not prevent
them having to work for their living. Several worked under me, and I
found them superior to the bulk of the men I came in contact with,
and generally more intelligent, which was, perhaps, the outcome of
generations of trying to be superior to others.
A Hafiz is one of those who can recite the whole of the Koran by heart,
and they are employed during Ramazan, the month of fasting, to recite a
portion of it each evening in the musjids until the Koran is ended. It
takes many days to do this, and the recital is so apportioned at times as
to make it last until the end of the fast.
The fakirs, or holy mendicants, are a great institution in the country,
as they are indeed throughout the East. They (men, women, and children)
profess to do no work, but beg for the day’s requirements. They also
profess to take no heed for the morrow, and to make a point of keeping
nothing which is given them for the next day, but to expend all they
receive from the charitable the same day that they receive it. They may
be seen on the sides of the roads and bazars with their wooden or copper
begging bowls, suspended by a string round the neck and hanging in front
of them, continuously calling out to the passers-by for charity. Winter
and summer they sit in the same place all day, but in winter they have a
small iron bowl under their posteens, in which a little lighted charcoal
is kept in order to keep them warm. The present Amir is much against the
mode of life of these people, and he has those boys whom he sees upon the
road begging, caught and taken to the workshops, where they are ordered
to work, and receive food twice a day and clothes once a year in lieu of
pay. They are practically kept prisoners in the workshops, for they are
not allowed to go out day or night. So far as benefit to the Government
is concerned, they are useless, for they do nothing but play about and
idle all day. Coercion has no effect on them, and many of the ustads in
the shops who tried to get work out of them, gave them up at last as
hopeless, and from what I saw of them, they did nothing but spoil good
material when their masters forced them to do anything, and as they did
this with even the simplest sort of work, it was easy to see that they
hoped by these means to be eventually sent away as useless.
Religious crimes and offences are tried by a jury of moullahs, under
an appointed head, who is chosen from among themselves. For a capital
religious offence the moullahs can order a person to be stoned to death,
but the sentence must be ratified by the Amir. When the punishment is
to be carried out, the condemned man, with hands tied behind him and
chains upon his legs, is led along the streets of the city, some of the
moullahs following, and at an appointed place the first stone is thrown
by the chief moullah among them. The populace, who have joined the
throng, and arm themselves with missiles as they go along, wait until
the moullah throws the first stone, and then they commence throwing too.
The condemned man is forced on by the shower of stones, which takes more
and more effect on him as it is continued, for the incessant impact of
stones gradually weakens him with pain, until a place called Siyah Sang
is reached. This is a small hill of black rock, about two miles out of
the city, surrounded by a stony tract of ground, and here larger stones
are selected and thrown, so that soon the man is staggering forward
feebly, knowing that where he falls his life will be ended, and trying
to keep on a little longer. Eventually he can bear no more, or a stone
larger than others brings him to his knees and he falls full length, and
then the hail of missiles increases, some taking small boulders they can
barely lift and heaving them on the man’s body, and so it continues until
a mould is piled up over him, and there he is left, hidden by the heap
of stones. Death does not always occur at once, although a man become
unconscious when he falls, and cases have been known of a man living for
some hours after, and dying at last in great agony.
The people are looked after by the moullahs, who see that they keep to
their religion, and examine them periodically to see if they know their
prayers; and for this purpose a party of them are appointed by the chief
moullah to make occasional excursions into the bazars and workshops
and to the public gardens about. On these occasions each man they come
across is made to repeat his prayers, and if he says them correctly he
is allowed to go his way, and his way is usually in the track of the
moullahs, where he helps to swell the mob by which they are followed,
for all those who pass the ordeal like to see what happens to the next
man. The man who makes a mistake in his prayers, or has forgotten part
of them, is beaten with sticks; but if the case is a bad one, and the
man does not know his prayers at all, or those who owe him a grudge
come forward and testify to his not saying them the stipulated number
of times each day, then he is seized, and, with his face blackened and
hands tied behind his back, is placed backwards on a donkey, which is
led by moullahs through the principal bazars of the city, with, of
course, a large crowd of men following and making rude jokes at his
expense. The shame and disgrace of this proceeding is said to have
such a lasting effect on the man as to ensure the due performance of
religious observances in the future, and his friends and relations
for years after ungenerously twit and joke him about it. I once saw a
man, who was vigorously and arrogantly expressing his opinion on some
subject, interrupted quietly by one of those present to be asked if he
knew his prayers yet; the poor fellow collapsed, tried to brave it out
for a little while, and then made a rapid exit, followed by the jeering
laughter of his companions. Most of the Afghans are very susceptible to
ridicule, and too much of it is apt to rouse their worst passions.
All good Mussulmans are supposed to pray five times a day, but before
doing so they must wash their hands and feet, that they shall present
themselves for prayer before God in a becoming manner. I was told that
the reason wines and spirits are forbidden in the Koran is, that a man
under the influence of drink does not fully comprehend what he does or
says, and therefore his prayers, while in that condition, would be a
sacrilege.
The musjids in Kabul are mostly small ones, and are usually constructed
so that three sides are enclosed and the fourth side left open, and they
are built in such position that the direction of their length points to
Mecca, in which is the tomb of the Prophet, for it is in the direction
of Mecca that all Mussulmans face while saying their prayers. One very
large musjid, called the Jumah Musjid, was built by the late Amir, who
issued a proclamation that all those who were good Mussulmans must bring
at least one stone from the mountains to be used in its construction
as their share of the work. A large quantity of stone was collected in
this way, but the size of the building necessitated the use of carts
and coolies to complete the quantity of materials required. It is in
this mosque that the people congregate for prayers on festivals, and
twenty to thirty thousand are present at times, so that the musjid, and
the grounds surrounding it, are filled with men standing, kneeling, and
genuflecting all together in long rows, one behind the other. Here, too,
they congregate for prayer when cholera or other calamity visits Kabul
and makes a long stay, hoping that their united supplication will have
the effect of averting the calamity.
The month of Ramazan, or fast, entails fasting on all people from sunrise
to sunset for thirty days. Nothing whatever must pass the lips during
this time, and no one may take snuff or smoke. Very young children, and
those who are seriously ill, are exempt, but in the latter case it often
happens that a sick person who is unable to bear the ordeal will insist
upon fasting, and so dies from exhaustion. The sick person, however, who
does not observe the fast must provide a substitute to do so, and pay
the substitute for such service, and he must also feed a number of the
poor according to his means, and a moullah must certify that the person’s
condition is such that he is, by religious law, exempt from fasting.
After sunset until the sun rises again the people may eat anything they
desire, and they are not limited to quantity. It is usual for a big gun
to be fired at sunset as a signal to the people that the day’s fast is
over, and many of them have food or their pipes ready to hand, awaiting
the signal which allows them to break their fast or take a pull at the
pipe, for which the day’s abstinence has created so keen a desire. An
hour or so before sunrise another gun is fired to warn those people who
have to work the following day that they must wake and eat while there
is yet time to fit themselves to bear the next day’s fast. The common
practice for those who are able to do it is to turn night into day and
sleep during the daytime, and eat and work at night. In the Government
offices and factories the working hours are shortened, and men commence
work late in the day and finish early. During the first part of the month
the men seem to bear their fasting cheerfully, but afterwards the effect
of long abstinence during the day, followed by a surfeit of food begins
to tell in the way of indigestion and dyspepsia, and tempers get short
and quarrels become frequent. Many people get very ill, and not a few
die, for more is eaten during the month of fast than any other month,
and the people save up all they can against the time, when, after being
deprived for hours of all they desire, they can at last eat, drink, and
smoke to satiety, and a heavy meal on a stomach which has long been empty
is not conducive to good digestion. Those who are heavy smokers, or in
the habit of taking snuff, are those who feel the abstinence most, and
to them the time seems to pass more slowly than it does to others. Many
men have confessed to me how weary are the hours until the gun announces
sunset, and I think all smokers will sympathize with them. The mirzas
(clerks) are among those who miss their pipe and snuff most, for they
are, almost without exception, inveterate smokers. The Mussulman year
is reckoned according to the lunar months, and the month of fasting,
therefore, comes at an earlier date each year; and when it comes in the
summer-time, when the days are long and the weather hot, thirst has to be
added to the other discomforts, and, as almost all people in Kabul are
in the habit of drinking water frequently during the day, the desire to
relieve their thirst becomes almost unbearable, and they say it is the
worst suffering of all during the fast.
Six weeks following the Eid of Ramazan, the day of festival which
concludes the month of fast, is the great Eid-i-Kurban, or Feast of
Sacrifices, and on this day all men, no matter how poor, see that they
have new clothes to put on; and should a man be so poor that he cannot
do so, he spends the day alone in his house, unable to face his friends,
shamed and miserable. It is rare, however, that a man is so situated, for
it is the custom to make provision against this day, and, at the worst,
old clothes can be mended and cleaned, and made to look good enough to
pass muster, for it is not all who can afford to buy clothes first-hand.
On this festival, after the prayers in the great musjid which the Amir
and princes, together with their officials and the officers of the army
attend, a review of troops is held on the large plain facing the mosque.
The arrival of the Amir with his suite on the review-ground is greeted
with a salvo of forty guns, and the review proceeds; but as it simply
consists of the Amir riding past all the regiments drawn up there, and
making them a short speech, it is soon ended, and then the regiments are
marched back to their barracks, while the roads en route are crowded
with people to watch the tamasha, not the least of which is the passing
by of the Amir with his retinue and bodyguard, and preceded by the State
elephants decked with gaudy trappings. The people afterwards spend the
day in visiting their friends and wishing the compliments of the season
to each other; and as it is customary for those visited to offer their
guests tea and refreshments on such occasions, the cost of doing so is a
heavy tax on most of them; but it must be done if a man wishes to retain
his respect among his fellows, even though he gets into debt thereby.
On Shab-i-barat, a festival similar to our All Souls, fireworks in the
evening are the order of the day, and men invite their friends to have
food with them, and afterwards witness the firework display, and this is
followed in the wealthier houses by music and dancing-girls, when the
entertainment is kept up until a late hour at night. When a man invites
another to dinner in the evening, it is understood that the guest shall
stop the night, and, as it is only on special occasions that guests are
invited, the proceedings are always kept up until late. On the night of
Shab-i-barat it is believed by the people that the souls in purgatory are
visited by angels in order that their papers may be examined to see how
much longer they are to stop there, and to release those whose time is up
and take them to Paradise.
Pilgrimages to Mecca, or the Haj, as it is called, are undertaken by
those who are religiously inclined, and can afford the time and expense
incurred. To the Afghan the Haj is a great undertaking, and the chances
of return from so perilous a journey are looked upon as very small, so
those who undertake the pilgrimage do so more or less convinced that
they will never return, and therefore make their wills and settle up
their affairs in the same manner as they would do so on the approach
of death; for foreign countries inhabited by enemies of their religion
and therefore of themselves have to be traversed, and should they get
through this ordeal safely, there is still the sea with its storms and
other perils to be faced. They have many queer legends of the sea and
its inhabitants, some of which will swallow up a ship when they come
across it; and a man needs to be thoroughly infatuated with the desire to
undertake the holy pilgrimage before he would dare face all the terrors
and dangers which have to be encountered. When, however, after safely
passing through the perils of the journey, the pilgrim finally returns,
entitled to the distinction of being called “Hadjee” for the rest of his
days, his friends and relations make much fuss and rejoicing over his
return, and for many months after he does little else but relate his
travels and adventures, and the sights he has seen, to an eager crowd of
listeners, who never seem to weary of hearing all that there is to be
told them. I have heard some of them relate their experiences, and I must
say their stories do not lose in the telling.
The Afghans are not great travellers, for their rulers do not offer
facilities for them to visit other lands, nor do they encourage strangers
in the country. They prefer instead to keep the people isolated, and
out of touch with the rest of the world, and are fearful that knowledge
and enlightenment would lessen their hold on their subjects, who would
be less easily swayed in the direction they wished when invoked in the
name of their religion were they conversant with the laws and customs
of the people of other countries, and could thereby draw comparisons for
themselves.
In Western Australia, however, is a small community of Afghans who had
been many years in the colony, and do a trade in camel transport across
the sandy desert tracts there. One of these returned to Afghanistan a few
years ago, bringing with him his English, or rather Australian, wife who
had embraced his own religion. She was uneducated, and could not read or
write, and from what she said about the visions she had, and voices she
heard exhorting her to persevere in the practice of her new religion, one
would imagine that her mind was rather unhinged. The man had returned
to his own country, wishing to see it again after thirty years’ absence
and to be buried in the land of his fathers, and he brought back a small
fortune with him; but his relations in Kandahar had borrowed so much and
so frequently that he had but little left, and for this reason he had to
leave his own place and come to Kabul to see what the Amir would do for
him. He lived in a very small house with but one servant, and his wife
was allowed a small sum yearly from the Government, and that was all they
had to live on. He was very grateful to me for the pipe and occasional
presents of tobacco I gave him, and often lamented his want of sense in
leaving Australia, where he had all that made life pleasant, but to which
he was unable to return. He spoke English like an Australian, and his
language was interlarded with oaths which sounded queerly from the lips
of a typical Afghan. He died some two years after his return from heart
disease; and the cholera, which broke out a few weeks later, carried off
his wife amongst other victims, and before she died, one of his nephews
was doing all he could to get her to marry him that he might share in her
pension.
The Afghan colony in Australia wrote a letter of congratulation to the
late Amir on the occasion of his receiving the title of “Light of faith
and religion,” and sent him at the same time a copy of the Australian
Government’s order forbidding the immigration of Orientals into the
country unless each one paid a rather heavy poll-tax, and they asked his
help and influence with the Indian Government to have Afghans made exempt
from this tax. The Amir, who always had an eye to business and knew that
the colonists were wealthy, replied asking three or four of their headmen
to visit him in order to discuss the matter; but the headmen were loth to
enter the lion’s den, fearing, probably, that they might not get out of
it again, and they therefore let the matter drop.
Among the Afghans birds and animals are broadly divided into two classes,
“halal” and “haram,” i.e. those which may be eaten and which may not,
and, generally speaking, the bird or beast which lives on meat or carrion
is unlawful to eat. Those which are intended for food are killed by
having the throat cut, and while this is being done the name of God must
be repeated, for otherwise the flesh is haram and sinful to eat. If a
bird is shot, the Mussulman who fires the gun repeats the name of God as
he shoots—so that if it is shot dead it may be made lawful eating. When
I was out shooting myself, the men with me would cut the throats of any
bird dropped, repeating meanwhile the prescribed formula, provided it had
the faintest spark of life left in it, and so make it “halal,” but if
the bird was dead when picked up no one would eat it. If a dog or other
“haram” beast touches any food with its mouth, the food is defiled and
cannot be eaten, but if it is seen that the animal touches only one part
of it, that portion may be cut away and the remainder eaten. Although
dogs are looked upon as unclean beasts, they may be handled without
defilement, provided the dog’s mouth is not touched, or does not touch
the person who is handling it; but should the hands or clothes come in
contact with its mouth, the part defiled must be washed.
Some of the soldiers and poor people, however, who keep dogs and make
great pets of them do not seem to fear defilement, and in some cases the
pet dog sleeps on the same bed as its master, and is treated with every
kindness. These men are fond of teaching their dogs to do tricks, and one
pet, which was the property of a sepoy, would feign death, and beg, and
walk on its hind legs, and take a handkerchief with a copper in it to the
tobacco shop in the bazar and bring back the tobacco, and do various
other tricks. This dog was also trained to carry in its mouth a short
stick, from the ends of which two small lanterns were suspended, and run
at night to light the way in front of its master.
The people repeat the name of God in all other things they do besides
making flesh lawful. The workmen before commencing any work, or starting
a new machine, or pouring molten metal into a mould, say the name of God
that a blessing may attend the work and make it successful. They do the
same before and after eating, and when naming a child, first they call
the name of God in its ear, and then the one the child is to be known by.
When the wife of an official presents him with a child, he takes a
present of sweetmeats to the Amir and informs him of the fact, and then
asks him to choose the name that is to be given it. It is customary for
the Amir to name the children of the officials and those round him,
excepting when a female child is born, for then the Queen-Sultana chooses
the name. On the birth of a son the Amir gives presents to the father
if he happens to be in favour, or if he wishes to do him honour, for
the birth of a son is a matter for rejoicing. In the case of a girl,
the birth is passed over in silence, for women are of small account in
Afghanistan, and sometimes the father will not go near the mother for
several days when a daughter is born, in order to show his displeasure
and mark his resentment for the woman not better acting up to his
desires and wishes.
When one of the Amir’s wives is expected to give birth to a child,
preparations are made for the firing of guns and fireworks, and the
feasting of all and sundry, in case it is a boy that comes into the
world, but if it turns out to be a girl nothing in the way of rejoicing
happens, and the mother is left to weep alone in the disappointment of
her hopes; for all women desire and pray for a man child, because then
the father will visit her, and she is made much of, and everybody else
fusses over and congratulates her, so that she enjoys a small triumph.
Plurality of wives is general among the Afghans. There are some with one
wife only; but that is either because they can afford no more, or else
the wife is decidedly the “better half,” and resents the bringing of
other women into the house. I have been told that in all harems there is
a never-ending struggle for supremacy among the different wives, and that
is why charms and love potions and other magic arts are resorted to by a
woman in an endeavour to concentrate the love of the man on herself; and
this fight for supremacy, together with jealousy, is one of the chief
reasons why poisons which cannot be detected are in request. I have
myself been asked if I knew of and could obtain a poison which resembled
any ordinary disease in its effect, and once also I was asked for a charm
or spell which would ensure one being loved, but I had neither of these
things, although I was offered a large amount of money for them. A West
End witch would no doubt be able to get together a large _clientèle_ in
Kabul and do a good business. The Koran is quoted as the authority for a
man having several wives; but there are some, and they claim to know the
Koran, who say it is written that a man may marry up to four wives _if he
can love all equally_, and, as this is impossible, it really means that
one wife is ordered. The prophet is said to have had more than one wife;
but in his case it is stated that, excepting the wife he loved, they were
women without other protection, whom he married to give a home to.
All Afghans are religious fanatics, and though their fanaticism may not
be always noticeable, it requires only the occasion to bring it out.
Believing as they do that their religion has replaced Christianity as
Christianity replaced the Jewish religion, and that God inspires a new
religion at different eras as the advancement of man requires it, and
therefore their own religion, being the latest, is necessarily the true
one, it is not a country where Christian missionaries would be likely to
produce much effect.