A History of Persia

Front matter

A

HISTORY OF PERSIA

FROM

Preface

PREFACE.

It was suggested to me to continue the history of Persia from the period at which Sir J. Malcolm's work ends to the present time; but it appeared to me to be desirable to include in this volume a résumé of the leading events which paved the way for the establishment of the Kajar dynasty. As, however, I can throw little or no new light upon the events of that period of Persian history, I have not devoted much space to it; and refer the reader to the eloquent pages of Sir John Malcolm for fuller details.

From the death of Aga Mahomed Khan to the present time—an interval of about seventy years—the history of Persia has not, I believe, been written (excepting by Persian chroniclers) in any continuous form, although the events of certain periods have been described with sufficient accuracy and fulness.

With regard to some portions of the history of modern Persia, I have had to trust to such information as was to be derived from Persian sources. The English reader may be disposed to look with mistrust on information coming from such authorities; but in all that refers to what has taken place in Persia in relation to any European state, I have availed myself of every opportunity of testing the accuracy of Persian statements by comparing them with the accounts given by European authorities.

With regard to the incidents of the wars between Russia and Persia, I have preferred to trust to the impartial statements of Europeans who took no part in the struggle, but who derived their information from Russian officers and Russian prisoners as well as from the Persians.

Those portions of this narrative which rest solely on Persian statements, refer to the internal affairs of the country, and to the dealings of its government with the Affghans, the Oozbegs, and the Turkomans.

Having indicated in foot-notes the authorities upon which I have chiefly drawn, I need not enumerate them here; but in acknowledging my obligations to those writers, and to others whose names I may have omitted to mention, I also beg to express my thanks to Mr. Glen, British Vice-Consul at Tehran, and to Meerza Ibrahim, for the assistance they have kindly afforded me in preparing this work.

R. G. WATSON.

ST. JAMES'S CLUB, LONDON, October 20th, 1865.

Chapter I. Population of Persia—Cultivated Portion of the Country very small—Supply of Water—Artificial Irrigation...

A HISTORY OF PERSIA,

&c. &c.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Population of Persia—Cultivated Portion of the Country very small—Supply of Water—Artificial Irrigation—The Elburz Mountains—Attachment of Persians to their Native Country—Persia inhabited by Men of various Races—The wandering Tribes—The Turkish and the Persian Languages—Two classes of People in Persia—The Persians a robust Race—The Persian Character—Estimate formed of it by Europeans—Persian Government—Checks on the Royal Authority—Court of the Shah—Education in Persia—National Religion of the Persians—The Persian Army Labourers and Villagers—Mendicants—Trade and Produce—Climate—Prospects of the Country.

A history of Persia under the Kajar Princes may be appropriately prefaced by an account of the general condition of that country and of its inhabitants during the reigns of the kings of that dynasty. Such an account, however, may be the more suitably condensed in this work, inasmuch as a full description of the manners and the religion of the people of Persia at the beginning of this century has been already written by an English author, and as it may be said of the customs of the Shah's subjects, as it was of the laws of the Medes and Persians of old, that they alter not.

The dominions of the Shah are inhabited by a population variously estimated at from five to ten millions of souls. As no census is ever taken in Persia it is impossible to obtain correct information on this point. Seeing that the superficies of the country is three times as great as that of France, even the larger of the above figures would give a very small number of inhabitants in proportion to the extent of the land. That such should be the state of things cannot be considered surprising when one reflects that the cultivable, and even the cultivated, portion of the kingdom is but a small portion of the total area. The salt desert is a waste which supports only the wild ass and the gazelle, and in many of the provinces of Persia the extent of cultivated ground is limited by the supply of water, no land being capable of producing crops except such as receives artificial irrigation. A very much greater extent of ground might be cultivated if water were forthcoming for the purpose, and much of the vegetation of the table-land of Iran owes its existence to the water that has already been brought to the gardens and fields by artificial means. All that has, up to the present time, been done in this respect has been done by the Persians themselves, and it is, therefore, needless to remark that much more might be done to secure an abundant supply of water by bringing European skill and energy to bear on the solution of the problem. Water is procured in the district of Tehran by digging a series of deep pits, and establishing an underground communication from the higher to the lower. After a certain distance the water appears on the surface of the ground, and it runs in an open channel to its destination. These water-courses are called "kanats," and the whole plain of Tehran is covered with them. The earth taken up where the shafts are sunk forms little mounds at the mouths of the pits, and rows of these can be traced in all directions. Besides these artificial streams there are many small natural rivulets which continually flow down from the slopes of the Elburz mountains, but which of themselves would be far from sufficient for supplying the wants of a large city. At the distance of twenty-four miles to the west of Tehran the river of Kerij bursts through a mountain gorge into the plain, and a portion of its waters has been turned from its natural course and brought eastwards to the city by means of a canal. Where this canal joins the river a large body of water flows into it from the latter, but ere the water has traversed its course of four-and-twenty miles its bulk has diminished to one-seventh part of the original volume. The porous soil it runs over absorbs the remaining six parts, with the exception of what escapes by evaporation. A more energetic race to whom water was as precious as it is to the inhabitants of Tehran would long ere this have constructed a covered water-tight aqueduct to replace the open canal, which would increase the supply of water sevenfold. There are other means which might be adapted for supplying the element that is wanted to turn so many square miles of desert into fertile fields and gardens where, instead of the thorn, should come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar the myrtle-tree. The most obvious of these is to construct strong barriers at the foot of some of the lower ravines of the Elburz mountains, the chain of which lies ten miles to the north of Tehran. The whole chain is covered with snow each year from top to bottom, and from October till April the whole of the upper part for a height of thousands of feet remains white. In April and May this precious snow melts and flows down through the ravines, and inundates the plain, which at that season is in no want of an extra supply of water. But were a series of reservoirs constructed, as they very easily might be, at the foot of the rocky ravines, the precious fluid would be saved and would be available for use in the succeeding months.

Means might be had recourse to for supplying the district of Tehran with water even on a larger scale than would be yielded by the adoption of the plan indicated above. The country to the north of the Elburz mountains happens to be as abundantly supplied with streams of water as the plain to the south of that chain is destitute of them. If the course of one of these rivers could be diverted towards the south a great boon would be conferred on one district and no loss inflicted on the other, and it is the opinion of engineers that, by cutting out a new channel for one of these streams from a point sufficiently high, a river might be turned, by the aid of some tunnelling, into the plain of Tehran. Every drop of water that is brought supplies the means of extending the cultivation, and thus of attracting a greater fall of rain. It is observed that the yearly fall of rain in the plain of Tehran greatly exceeds that of former times, when the amount of cultivation was much less. In the district to the north of the Elburz chain, where the whole face of the earth is covered with forests and jungle and crops, the amount of rain which falls is excessive. If, therefore, the Persian Government were to plant trees along the edges of all the watercourses in the plain of Tehran, and were to sow fir-cones along the southern slopes of the Elburz, which are moistened all the summer through by melting snow, it might be reasonably anticipated that in a few years' time their labour would be rewarded by a greatly increased fall of rain each year. In the meantime the general aspect of the country in which the modern Persians live may be best described as a vast desert, in which many fertile oases are scattered here and there; but from this description must be excepted the district between the Elburz mountains and the Caspian Sea, as well as the fertile province of Azerbaeejan. The country, such as it is, and uninviting as it seems to the eye of a stranger, is the object of the admiration and the love of every true Persian. I do not mean to assert that love of country, as Europeans understand the term, is pre-eminently a Persian's quality. A Persian is perhaps prepared to do as little for his country as any man on earth, but while he holds his country's interests as of no moment whatsoever in comparison with his own, he yet thinks in his heart that there is no land in the world at all comparable to the land of Iran, I believe most Persians who should be sentenced to perpetual exile, and warned that they would be liable to be condemned to death if again found upon their native soil, would, like Shimei, be unable to resist the tempta of viewing once more what is as dear to them as Jerusalem was to the descendant of Judah.

By the way in which Persians in other lands talk of their own country one would imagine that Persia was the most charming region of the whole world. Its climate, its water, its fruits, its houses, its gardens, its horses, the shooting it affords, its scenery, its women, are all the subjects of the most unqualified praise on the part of the Persian in Europe or in India. In the midst of the evidences of European splendour and luxury he boasts how superior in every respect is his native land, and while partaking in European society and dissipation, he longs to drink once more at the fountainhead of the wine of Sheeraz, and to listen once more to the recitation of the odes of Hafiz.

Persia is peopled by men of various races. A very great proportion of the population of Persia is composed of wandering tribes, that is of a large number of families who pass a portion of the year in the hills. It is in this sense only that they can be considered wanderers. They invariably occupy the same pasture-grounds one year after another. Their chiefs are possessed of great authority over the tribesmen, and all dealings between the government and the tribes are carried on through the heads of these divisions. Through the chief the taxes, whether in money or in kind, are paid, and through him the regiments which his tribe may furnish are recruited. The office of chief is hereditary. The tents in which the tribesmen dwell are for the most part composed of a light framework of the shape of a beehive. This is covered with a coating of reeds, and above it is placed a thick black-felt. It has but one door, and no window or chimney. This is the Turkoman tent, which is used by the Shahsevend and other tribes, but the Eelyats in central Persia make use of tents of another construction, with flat or slightly-sloping roofs.

The provinces near the Persian Gulf contain many Arabs and men of Arab extraction. Such are for the most part the inhabitants of Laristan, and of the country lying to the left of the Shat-el-Arab and of the lower part of the Tigris. The Bakhtiari mountains, between the valley of the lower Tigris and the plain of Ispahan, are the dwelling-place of tribes of another race, and of whom and their country very little is known. The mountains of Kurdistan give birth to a warlike people, who are attached to their own tribe-chiefs and who never go far from the borders of Turkey and of Persia, sometimes proclaiming themselves subjects to the Porte and sometimes owning allegiance to the Shah. At the foot of one part of these mountains, on the borders of the lake of Uroomiah, there is a plain on which dwell twenty-five thousand Christian families, who hold the tenets of Nestorius. At Ispahan, at Tehran, at Tabreez, and in other parts of Persia, there is a more or less considerable population of Armenians. At Hamadan, at Ispahan, at Tehran, at Meshed, at the town of Demavend, and elsewhere in Persia, Jews are found in considerable numbers. The province of Gilan is inhabited by a race of men peculiar to itself, the descendants of the ancient Gelae. The people of Mazenderan speak, as do the Gileks, a dialect of their own. The province of Astrabad is partly inhabited by Turkomans; and in the districts claimed by Persia, which border on Affghanistan and Beloochistan, the Affghan and Belooch elements are prominent in the population. At Kerman a few Hindoos reside, and at Yezd there are about two thousand families of the original fire-worshippers of Iran. But the two principal races to be met with in Persia are the Turks and the Persians or Mongols. The former are, as a general rule, spread over the northern provinces ; the latter over the southern. The Persians of Mongol extraction for the most part speak only the Persian language, while those of Turkish race speak the Turkish language in preference to the Persian.

The inhabitants of Persia may be divided into two classes those who inhabit the towns and villages, and those who dwell exclusively in tents. The former class remain stationary during the greater part of the year, the richer orders only leaving the towns for two months during the summer heats, when it is possible to obtain cool air in the hills or upper grounds close by. The tribes who dwell in tents move from place to place with the varying seasons of the year. In the spring time they drive their flocks and herds to their accustomed pasture-grounds, and if they have a right to the pasture of mountains which are inaccessible in spring they move up to their summer quarters as soon as the snow disappears. Winter finds them on the plains prepared, in their black tents, to brave its utmost rigour. These Eelyat tribes serve each a separate chief. For the Eelyats of Fars there is a hereditary chief called the Eelkhani, to whom they all owe allegiance; from whom they receive the laws that rule their conduct; and to whom they pay the revenue imposed upon them. They contribute a certain number of soldiers to the Shah's army. Very little is known as to the numbers and the peculiarities of these nomads. The Eelyat tribes of Turkish descent have an Eelkhani appointed by the Shah. Besides these tribes there are wanderers who are less numerous and who occupy a less prominent position the gipsies common to so many countries.

The Persians of almost all the denominations I have mentioned form a healthy and robust population. Probably the comparatively small amount of chronic or hereditary diseases amongst the adult inhabitants may be principally owing to the fact that all children in Persia are, when very young, exposed to a mode of treatment which must tend to put an end to the weak and unhealthy amongst them, as effectually as if the Spartan law were in existence by which all deformed children were not permitted to be brought up. The climate of the northern part of Persia is in winter exceedingly severe, but with all its rigour little children are dressed in an attire which leaves the stomach entirely unprotected. The mortality amongst children is, I suppose in consequence thereof, very great; and the infants who survive this rough treatment grow up for the most part to be healthy and vigorous. After they have passed the tender years of infancy and early childhood, their education and training are not such as to impede the free development of their youthful bodies. Most of the Persians go through some sort of education, but that their learning is not pushed to any great length may be gathered from the fact that reading the Persian language fluently is still a rare accomplishment in Persia. The Persians grow up both ignorant and superstitious, believing for the most part in Mahomed and Ali and Hussein; believing in the pre of their soothsayers and astrologers, in lucky hours and the evil eye, and in the occult science which derives its name from the Magi. Persians are, as a general rule, not devoid of intelligence ; but their cleverness is too often allied to want of honesty and moral rectitude. The children amongst the ancient Persians, we are told, were taught to ride, to speak the truth, and to draw the bow. The chief thing impressed on the sons of their representatives would seem to be that which was taught to the children of the Spartans namely, never to allow themselves to be found out in telling a falsehood. This lesson they certainly take to heart. Nothing is more difficult than to convict a Persian of telling an untruth, and nothing at the same time less common than to hear the plain facts of a case from the lips of an inhabitant of that country.

Like their ancestors, the modern Persians are taught to ride. They make use of high-peaked saddles, and wedge their feet into flat iron stirrups, and lean well forward, so that when their horses fall they not only come with great violence to the ground, but generally find their feet entangled. Nevertheless, they ride courageously at full speed over the very worst ground, and by the very brinks of the most appalling precipices. They are utter strangers to the fear that comes of physical nervousness. When their courage fails them, as it too often does, the fact is to be attributed to moral causes. They are skilled in the knack of throwing the jereed and catching it again without once having checked their speed ; and like the Parthians of yore, these with their bullets as those with their arrows, can check the pursuit of their enemies by deliberately turning round in their saddles and aiming steadily and firing, while all the time they are galloping before the face of the foe. A skilled Persian horseman, too, can avoid the blow of a spear thrown after him by swinging himself over the saddle and suspending himself by his legs until the danger be past.

The Persian character does not seem to have, for the most part, produced a favourable impression upon Europeans. But as the character of no nation is without its defects, so is there no people whose character can be said to be wholly bad. Many good qualities are to be found side by side with the crimes and vices that defile the land of Persia. The people in general are patient and easily governed. The poorer classes are frugal and respectful. The poor are not allowed by their rich countrymen to starve for want of food. Fathers of families, as a general rule, make a suitable provision for all their offspring, whether born in lawful wedlock, or illegitimate. All classes own willing allegiance to their lawful sovereign, and men conduct themselves towards each other with good nature and with the outward forms of respect. On the other hand, one cannot live amongst Persians without becoming aware of the absence from their character of many of the qualities that make human life most pleasant, and of the presence, in their stead, of many of the habits and vices that are held elsewhere to disgrace humanity. If there be any beauty in truth, in honesty in dealings between man and man, in uprightness and independence of character, in wedded love, in family life and family affection, in readiness to sacrifice fortune or life, if necessary, for the public good, in tolerance towards others in points relating to religion, in fair play towards others, in gratitude for past kindness, in modesty, in a consistent endeavour to provide for the well-being of posterity such beauty it would be vain to expect to meet with in Persia.

Two hundred and fifty-three monarchs have in succession mounted the Persian throne, and the theory of the Persian constitution is to the effect that theKing is the state, and that all men live for the king. The authority of the Shah, however, is kept in check by the precepts of the Koran ; by the courts established for the administration of justice, according to the Sherra, or written law ; and by those in which decisions are given according to the Urf, or customary law. All appointments to offices throughout the kingdom are made by the Shah or by those to whom he delegates his authority. The King of Persia is constantly attended by a set of gentlemen who are denominated peishkhidmets, or waiters in the presence. They correspond in rank and title to the lords and gentlemen in waiting at the courts of Europe. They are not only contented, like them, to assume the denomination of household servants, but they perform the actual duties of domestic retainers. The Shah's dishes at breakfast and at dinner are placed upon the tablecloth by men holding a high position in the country, some of them being the sons of his ministers, and others being themselves governors of provinces. The Shah's kalean, or pipe, is held by a nobleman, when his Majesty thinks proper to smoke ; and when he leaves the room the royal slippers are placed before his feet by a man who may, perhaps, any day be chosen to represent the majesty of Persia at a foreign court. Indeed, some of the favoured aides-de-camp and gentlemen-in-waiting would scarcely care to exchange their position, in which they bask continually in the sunshine of the royal presence, for a mission to a foreign court, which they would consider at best as a sort of honourable banishment. Those of the Shah's personal attendants who have been appointed to be governors of provinces seldom or never care to proceed to their respective governments. They appoint deputies to rule in their place, whilst they continue to stand in the presence of the king, subject though they be to those little inconveniences that arise from the sudden ebullitions of temper to which even the mildest of men occasionally give way. A peishlchidmet who may he unfortunate enough to arouse the royal anger is adjudged, without appeal, on the spot to the punishment of the bastinado, which, however, can generally be modified by a little adroit bribery.

The terms of flattery with which a king's ears are in Persia besieged from infancy, might be supposed sufficient to destroy much of the original goodness of a prince's disposition. The sons of the Shah are in their childhood surrounded by an establishment of ceremonious adulators, and the heir-apparent is usually named at a very early age to be the titular governor of the principal province of Persia. He goes to reside at Tabreez, and is thus removed from the guardianship of his mother, who is probably the only person in the world who cares sufficiently for his best interests to correct him when he ought to be corrected, and to check him when he ought to be checked. He receives thus an artificial education, and by being forced at so early an age to take a prominent part in public ceremonials, he becomes prematurely a man, when it would be better for him to be still a boy. At the age of fourteen or fifteen he is married to a wife, of whom, the chances are, he soon grows tired. He then marries another, and then a third, and his anderoon goes on increasing. Up to the present time no prince royal of Persia has ever had the good fortune to travel abroad. Were the king or the heir-apparent to do so, many of the arts of civilization might, to some extent, no doubt, be introduced into Persia on his return ; but the risk of finding his throne threatened by others is at all times too great to admit of the Shah venturing to leave Persia.

The King of Persia chooses his wives not exclusively from amongst the princesses or the highly-born ladies of the land, but equally from amongst the whole of the daughters of his subjects. Any peasant, if she be beautiful, may become the favourite wife of the Shah, and the mother of the heir-apparent. The son of the present King, who was first designated to be his successor, was born of the daughter of a peasant. The boy died, as did his only full brother, and in his place the son of a princess was named the King's heir. It is probably to the free admixture of stranger blood in the royal family of Persia that the healthiness and the unusually great personal attractions of the princes and princesses are chiefly to be attributed.

The Persian Government, as I have said, is formed upon the principle common to all independent Mussulman nations, namely, that the head of the state is an absolute King, who is expected to rule according to the laws laid down in the book containing the decisions of the successors of Mahomed.

In all dubious cases the Koran forms the authority to which both sides can appeal, and the meaning and application of the Koran are expounded by the men of the law, who make it the business of their lives to prepare themselves for explaining the sacred texts, and to point out and apply the decisions of the fathers. This is the law of the country, and though the Shah has power over the law insomuch that in cases not coming within circumstances specified in the written or traditionary Mahomedan code he may exercise his own discretion, yet as being a Mahomedan the Shah is under the same law as his subjects, and Mahomedanism has too much force in Persia to render it safe for any king to interfere with the dispensation of law according to the principles laid down for the observance of the disciples of Mahomed. But the learned doctors are only the expounders of the law, and merely give their opinions upon points referred to them. They have no authority to see their precepts put into practice, or to insist on their decisions being carried out. The enforcement of the law is the province of the Shah, and of the ministers and governors in authority under him.

The sovereign in Persia has unlimited power to name his own Vizeers, and afterwards to degrade them when it suits his views to do so. The normal state of things in all Mahomedan governments is that there should be a Grand Vizeer ; but this post has remained vacant in Persia for the last six years, since the disgrace of the late Sedr Azem, who is one of the very few eastern Grand Vizeers who have lost their place without at the same time losing their life. The Prime Minister, when such a functionary exists, is the alter ego of the Shah the superintendent of every branch of the administration, and the referee on every disputed question. In the absence of a Grand Vizeer, many of the functions proper to such a post devolve on the Shah himself. There are several Vizeers in office, each at the head of a department, but although one of them is president of the council of ministers, they do not, out of the council chamber, owe obedience to any one save to the Shah, to whom such matters are at present referred as used in former days to be settled by the Grand Vizeer. The President of the Council is the Mostofi-el-Memalek the Secretary of State—who is Minister of Finance. The other Vizeers, or secretaries, are the Minister of the Interior, under whom are all the provincial governors ; the Minister for Foreign Affairs ; the Minister of Justice ; the Minister of Public Works ; the Master of the Mint ; the Minister of War, who is also Commander-in-Chief of the Army ; and the Comptroller of the Privy Purse and Private Secretary of the King. Each of the Vizeers has a large number of secretaries and clerks under him, to attend to the duties of his particular department.

The Persian Government cannot be said to be a very efficient or an energetic one. Great confusion prevails in almost every branch of the administration. The Ministers retain their power during the Shah's pleasure, and it is believed that one of the chief objects of securing office in Persia, next to that of gaining the royal favour, is to amass as much money as the direction of a department is capable of affording. Almost everything in Persia is a question of money. The Vizeers have not only to pay for their posts on their first being appointed, but they have afterwards from time to time to pay for the privilege of continuing in office. In return, they, as a matter of course, think it right to apply the same rule to their subordinates and clients, and the result is that justice is a thing to be bought, rather than claimed as a right, and that a man who is rich enough to compound for his offences may do almost what he pleases.