THE SHRINE OF FATIMA.
The shrine of Fatima, the sister of Reza the eighth Imam, who sleeps at Meshed, is better to Kûm than salt mines or aught else. Moslems, though they regard women with unspeakable contempt, agree to reverence Fatima as a very holy and almost worshipful person, and her dust renders Kûm a holy place, attracting tens of thousands of pilgrims every year, although, unlike pilgrimages to Meshed and Kerbela, Kûm confers no lifelong designation on those by whom it exists. Its estimated population is 10,000 souls, and at times this number is nearly doubled. Pilgrimage consists in a visit to the tomb of Fatima, paying a fee, and in some cases adding a votive offering. Vows of abstinence from some special sin are frequently made at the shrine and are carefully registered.
The dead, however, who are annually brought in thousands to be buried in the sacred soil which surrounds the shrine, are the great source of the wealth of Kûm. These corpses travel, as to Kerbela, on mules, four being lashed on one animal occasionally, some fresh, some decomposing, others only bags of exhumed bones. The graves occupy an enormous area, of which the shrine is the centre. The kings of the Kajar dynasty, members of royal families, and 450 saints are actually buried within the precincts of the shrine. The price of interments varies with the proximity to the dust of Fatima from six krans to one hundred tumans. The population may be said to be a population of undertakers. Death meets one everywhere. The Ab-i-Khonsar, which supplies the drinking water, percolates through "dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Vestments for the dead are found in the bazars. Biers full and empty traverse the streets in numbers. Stone-cutting for gravestones is a most lucrative business. The charvadars of Kûm prosper on caravans of the dead. There is a legion of gravediggers. Kûm is a gruesome city, a vast charnel-house, yet its golden dome and minarets brighten the place of death.
The dome of Fatima is covered with sheets of copper plated with gold an eighth of an inch in thickness, and the ornament at the top of the dome, which is of pure gold, is said to weigh 140 lbs. The slender minarets which front this imamzada are covered with a mosaic of highly-glazed tiles of exquisite tints, in which an azure blue, a canary yellow, and an iridescent green predominate, and over all there is a sheen of a golden hue. The shrine is inaccessible to Christians. I asked a Persian doctor if I might look in for one moment at the threshold of the outer court, and he replied in French, "Are you then weary of life?"[22]
My Indian servant, an educated man on whose faithful though meagre descriptions I can rely, visited the shrine and describes the dome as enriched with arabesques in mosaic and as hung with ex votos, consisting chiefly of strips of silk and cotton. The tomb itself, he says, is covered with a wooden ark, with certain sacred sentences cut upon it, and this is covered by a large brown shawl. Round this ark, which is under the dome, Kerman, Kashmir, and Indian shawls are laid down as carpets. This open space is surrounded with steel railings inlaid with gold after the fashion of the niello work of Japan, and the whole is enclosed with a solid silver fence, the rails of which are "as thick as two thumbs, and as high as a tall man's head." This imamzada itself is regarded as of great antiquity.
Two Persian kings, who reigned in the latter part of the seventeenth century, are buried near the beautiful minarets, which are supposed to be of the same date. There are many mosques and minarets in Kûm, besides a quantity of conical imamzadas, the cones of which have formerly been covered with glazed blue tiles of a turquoise tint, some of which still remain. It was taken by the Afghans in 1772, and though partially rebuilt is very ruinous. It has a mud wall, disintegrating from neglect, surrounded occasionally by a ditch, and at other times by foul and stagnant ponds. The ruinousness of Kûm can scarcely be exaggerated.
The bazars are large and very busy, and are considerably more picturesque than those of Kirmanshah. The town lives by pilgrims and corpses, and the wares displayed to attract the former are more attractive than usual. There are nearly 450 shops, of which forty-three sell Manchester goods almost exclusively. Coarse china, and pottery often of graceful shapes with a sky-blue glaze, and water-coolers are among the industries of this city, which also makes shoes, and tans leather with pomegranate bark.
The Ab-i-Khonsar is now full and rapid, but is a mere thread in summer. The nine-arched bridge, with its infamously paved roadway eighteen feet wide, is an interesting object from all points of view, for while its central arch has a span of forty-five feet, the others have only spans of twenty. The gateway beyond the bridge is tawdrily ornamented with blue and green glazed tiles. After seeing several of the cities of Persia, I am quite inclined to give Kûm the palm for interest and beauty of aspect, when seen from any distant point of view.