The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan

by James Justinian Morier

'Tell me,' said I, 'the history of your adventures. We cannot better pass our time, and I hope that you know me well enough now not to refuse me your confidence.'

'You will hear nothing in my history but what is common to many Persians, who one day are princes and the next beggars; but since you are curious to know, I will relate it with pleasure'; and he began in the following words:—

'I am a native of Hamadan. My father was a mollah of such eminence that he was ambitious of becoming the mûshtehed of Persia; but his controversies upon particular points of faith unfortunately carried him so far that a party was created against him, which deprived him of the elevation he sought. His most prominent quality was the hatred he bore to the Osmanlies, and to Sûnis in general. One of our ancestors is said to have first introduced into Persia a more universal hatred against them than ever before existed, by a simple innovation in the education of the Shiah children, by which means their very first ideas were trained to be inimical to the race of Omar. I mean,' said the mollah, 'that which you no doubt very well remember: when a little boy in schooltime is pressed upon certain occasions to ask his master's leave to retire, the form of words in which he is enjoined to make his request is "Lahnet beh Omar! curse be upon Omar!" I dare say you have through life, as I have, never omitted to unite the name of Omar with everything that is unclean, and at least once a day to repeat the curse which you were taught at school.'

I fully assented to this, and then he proceeded with his story.

'My father's hatred for the sectaries of Omar extended itself to all sorts of infidels. Jews, Christians, fire-worshippers, and worshippers of images, all came within the scope of his execration; and what at first he had practised from motives of ambition, at length became the ruling principle of his nature. His family, and I among the number, were brought up in his tenets, and imbibed all his violent prejudices; and so much did we hang together by them that we formed as it were a distinct sect,—the terror of infidels, and the most zealous upholders of the Shiah faith.

'After this you will not be surprised at the part I lately took in the destruction of the Armenian wine-jars at Tehran. But that is not the only scrape my zeal has led me into. Very early in life, when still a student at Hamadan, I was involved in a terrible disturbance, of which I was the principal promoter.

'An ambassador from the Pasha of Bagdad, with his suite, was quietly taking his road through our city, having sojourned there two or three days on his way to the court of the Shah, when burning to put into practice my father's lessons, I collected a band of young fanatics like myself, and, making them an appropriate address, I so excited their passions that we resolved to perform some feat worthy of our principles. We determined to attack our Turkish guests, inform them of the curses we denounced against Omar, and invite them to become adherents to the doctrine of Ali. Heedless, and, perhaps, ignorant of what is due to the character of elchi, or ambassador, we only saw in Suleiman Effendi an enemy to the Shiahs, and one calling himself a Sûni. One day, as he was setting forth from his house to visit the governor of Hamadan, we gathered ourselves into a body and greeted him by loud cries of "Curses be upon Omar!" This enraged his domestics, who retorted the insult by blows. Showers of stones ensued from our party, and this led to a general fray, in which the Pasha's representative had his turban knocked from his head, his beard spit upon, and his clothes nearly torn from his back.

'Such an outrage of course could not be overlooked. The ambassador was furious; he threatened to send off couriers to the Shah, and was even on the point of returning to his own master when the governor, frightened at the consequences if his wrath was not appeased, promised that he should have all satisfaction, and that the ringleaders of the disturbance should immediately be delivered up to him.

'Trusting to my father's consequence in the city, and full of vapouring pride at what we had achieved, I at first made light of the vows of vengeance which the Turks breathed against us; but the governor, who only contemplated the loss of his place if the news of this event reached Tehran; and caring little whether Ali was the true successor to the Prophet, or whether Osman, Omar, and Abubekr were usurpers or not, he at once ordered me to be seized, as well as two others of my companions, and forthwith we were placed at the disposal of the enraged Osmanlies.

'I shall never forget the contending emotions of my mind when brought face to face before these objects of my hatred. I did not at all relish the sound beating which they had it in contemplation to inflict upon me; and, at the same time, I groaned under the necessity of keeping to myself that stream of abuse which was ready to flow against them upon the smallest provocation.