The Muhammadans think that through their beads they can use God for settling the every-day matters of this world in a lucky way, while they are disobeying Him in the greater matter of godly living.
CHAPTER XI
PERSIAN SCHOOLS
A great many things are topsy-turvy in Persia, but perhaps reading is as topsy-turvy as anything. It is not only that the lines, and indeed the whole book, begin at the wrong end, but the lessons begin at the wrong end too.
An English boy learns to read his own language first, and does not always go on to a foreign language. A Persian boy learns to read a foreign language first, and does not always go on to his own language.
When a little Persian boy goes to school he is given a big Arabic book, with a great many long words in it, and he is not taught how the words are spelt, but is told what they are, and made to repeat them from memory, pointing to each word in the book as he says it, and gradually he gets some idea of which word is which.
The boys sit on the floor round the room, all reading at the top of their voices at the same time in different parts of the book. They read in a monotonous sing-song voice, swaying their bodies in time to the sound.
The master sits and listens through the din to one and another correcting mistakes here and there, and calling up any boy who seems perfect in his lesson to learn the next bit, and then return to his seat and read it over and over till he knows it too.
The book is the Quran, which the Muhammadans think was dictated by God to Muhammad through the Archangel Gabriel. It would not be surprising if the Persians, being Muhammadans, wished all their boys to learn what they believe to be God’s Word; but the book is written in Arabic, which Persian boys do not understand, and even the letters are not quite the same as in Persian; so when the little pupil reaches the end of the book he can read the Quran with the proper intonation, but he can read nothing else, and he cannot understand the Quran.
The Muhammadans, however, think that reading the Quran, quite apart from understanding it, is a very good action, so the little Persian boys work away at it, and they do not think it hard lines because they know all the men, and big boys began in the same way, so it seems the natural thing to do. And perhaps it is a little consolation to know that when they reach certain points they will be given sweets. One little boy, who was asked how far he had got in the Quran, said that he had just got to his first sweets.