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 are three 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 for _country_. There is a word for _empire_, but the
natural equivalent in the Persian mind to our expression _country_,
meaning fatherland, is _shahr_, which denotes a town, or _vatan_, 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 Englishman _Inglīs_, he almost
invariably calls England _Landan_; 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 a generalisation 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 the
Yezdi to realise that that appointment, while it lasts, is to anything
short of autocracy. So to him the local Government is _the_ Government,
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 the impression 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, are all 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 the _qabā_ or _arkhālūq_ (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 they had 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-girs_ were
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 chief _mujtahid_ (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 cellar rooms, 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 the _jazīya_, or tax upon infidels, differed according
to the wealth of the individual Parsi, but it was never less than
two _tomāns_. A _toman_ is 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 the _farrash_, who was acting as
collector, met the man. The _farrash_ was at liberty to do what he liked
when collecting _jaziya_. The man was not even allowed to go home and
fetch the money, but was at once beaten until it was given. About 1865
a _farrāsh_ collecting this tax tied a man to a dog, and gave a blow to
each in turn.
About 1891 a _mujtahid_ caught 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 him about 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 a _mujtahid’s_
house 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 the _qaba_, or coat, the
_mujtahids_ in 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, the
_jaziya_, 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. The _jaziya_ was 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
present _Qalāntar_ of the Parsi _Anjuman_, 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 a _Zardūshtī_, or Zoroastrian,
and that they would only be bastinadoed. About this time Manukji enquired
whether it was true that the blood-price of a _Zardushti_ was to be seven
_tomans_. 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, a _Seyid_, that is, a descendant of Muhammad, killed a
_Zardushti_ woman 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 slaughter of 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 two _lūtīs_ (roughs)
without reason. One of these _lutis_ was a Seyid. Both were sent to
Tehran, and a _mujtahid_ went 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 other _lutis_
quite 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 probably more 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, Manchester
cottons, 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 for some 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, the _mujtahid_ of 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, which makes 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 then spread the
report through the bazaars that his master was frightened, and had taken
sanctuary with his _mujtahid_, this being a common Mussulman custom when
danger is apprehended either from _lutis_ or 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 Mussulman _mujtahid_ of Isfahan, of which
Julfa is a suburb, to summon Canon Bruce to his house. The _mujtahid_,
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 Mussulman
_mujtahid_ required 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.