Five Years in a Persian Town

by Napier Malcolm

Punishment in Hell according to the Mussulman idea is not necessarily everlasting, for most of the Persians believe that, by the intercession of Mohammed, all his people will finally get to Heaven. But in Heaven there are many grades, and the position of the individual will be determined by the relative weight of his savabs and sins. Properly, a savab is a work of supererogation considered as possessing merit; but the word is often used less exactly for any action which will be put to the account of a man as a good deed. I believe that Persian Mohammedans when using this word almost universally accept the view that the performance of a certain number of approved actions makes it less necessary to adhere to the path of duty. Also, to put it crudely, the good deed is not regarded as the gift of God to man, but as the gift of man to God; and I feel convinced that the word is bound up with the assumption that Heaven-seeking or the fear of Hell are the only possible motives for right behaviour.

The ordinary Yezdi has no doubt that a non-Mussulman can do a savab, especially if he benefits a Mussulman; and the belief that such a man if he was a Jew or a Christian, could get to Heaven, would not be considered very heretical.[4] Some Yezdis might allow that idolaters could get to Heaven by savabs, but this would be considered a more dangerous doctrine. The fact is that there was in Mohammed’s essential teaching a very large amount of latitudinarianism, and this comes out in the common ideas of Mussulmans who are not repressed by a system such as that of the Sunnis.

The merit of an action is decided by the intention of the doer and not by its result. This is brought out by a native story, framed for the purpose.

“One day a traveller came to a well, where he dismounted, fastened his animal to a pin, and satisfied his thirst. As he returned to his animal it occurred to him that it would be a savab to leave the pin behind, for other travellers who might wish to tether their beasts. The next to arrive at the well was a man on foot, who, being very thirsty and in a hurry, fell over the pin. This man threw the pin down the well, so as to prevent any one else from having a similar accident. A learned man in the neighbourhood was asked which of the two did the savab, the man who left the pin or the man who threw it away. He answered, ‘Both, for their intentions were equally good.’”

That there is truth in this teaching is obvious, but the story ignores the necessity of taking thought and pains, so that one’s impulses may not do more harm than good. This is always ignored in Persia, and I think I am right in putting it down to the teaching connected with the use of the word. Large sums of money are given for the poor, and yet the alleviation of poverty is very small; and the same sort of thing happens in other branches of philanthropy. The gift once given, the donor loses all interest in its bestowal; funds are squandered on the most paltry objects, and the general effect seems to be that money given in this way becomes money wasted. Charity is also much vitiated in Persia by unpractical, and in many cases superstitious ideas. To give alms to a Seyid is a greater savab than to help an ordinary beggar, so a large proportion of the philanthropy of Persia goes to support a begging class, who are in every way a burden, and in some ways a danger to society. The Seyids are also more lightly punished, and consider themselves outside the reach of the very small amount of justice that exists. Again, it is more meritorious to give on a Thursday, as the eve of the Friday holiday, or on the eve of a feast, than on an ordinary day; and lastly, the people expect that they will amass more merit by giving microscopic sums to all comers than by giving more effective assistance to a limited number.

As I have said, the doctrine connected with savabs acknowledges only two motives of action, the fear of punishment and the expectation of reward, and it is not allowed that any other motive can possibly exist. Persian women are very inquisitive, and one day some of them were questioning the ladies of the Yezd mission as to what they ate for breakfast. When it transpired that the others ate eggs and one did not, the remark was immediately made, “You see she is trying to get a higher place in Heaven.” At another time when my wife was trying to explain to some women that we do not look to works of merit to secure salvation, she was met by the answer, “But the Hakīm Khānum (lady doctor) does; or why should she have taken all that trouble about the Seyid’s wife when she was ill?”

Shiahs often consider that by letting others do a savab for them they confer a favour greater than they themselves receive. One might imagine that this would only apply to benefactors who agreed with their religious notions; but even if you can convince a Shiah that you do not believe in the possibility of winning Heaven by savabs, he will reply, very logically, that your want of faith does not prevent the fact being true, and that it is absurd to expect him to be grateful because of your unbelief in facts. I remember trying to make a very badly-behaved youngster, who was in the school under my charge, see that we had some reason to expect more gratitude from him, as we had really taken great trouble with him, and Christians did not think it necessary to do such things for the sake of their future welfare. His answer was that if we did not consider that savabs were necessary Mussulmans did.

Savabs are not necessarily good actions, but almost all actions which are directly kind are included in the term. So although the doctrine connected with savabs is not in every way a good thing, it still has a certain value. Of course it is true that men who are anxious to do big savabs in order to wipe off the sins of very evil lives generally choose non-ethical ones. During the late Babi massacre a soldier found a Yezdi who was dragging about another man, and trying to make out whether he was really a Behāī. “You see,” he said, “I have been a wicked man all my life, and have never said my prayers or done any other savabs, so, unless I can do a big savab, I shall certainly go to Hell. If this man is a Babi, I mustn’t let him go, for if I kill an infidel of course I shall go straight to Heaven.” Nevertheless the ordinary savab is a kind action, and in the idea of their efficacy we get something almost corresponding to a moral principle. Sometimes indeed the Persian’s conception of a work of merit tends to correct and check the worse commandments of his code. For instance, although the killing of a Babi as an infidel may be considered a savab, the saving of a life, even if it is the life of the same Babi, may also be held a meritorious act of a different kind.

That the Persian’s notions as to what constitutes an act of merit are a saving clause in his religion I have no doubt at all. I am, however, not quite certain whether this saving clause properly belongs to Mohammedanism, for it bears on the face of it a family likeness to the doctrines of superior systems, and it will not quite fit into the system of Islam. The rest of the Shiah ideas about Heaven, Hell, the efficacy of savabs, and repentance, seem to be really Mussulman, though everything is not quite coherent. Perhaps the fact is that in these points Mohammed was an opportunist, and taught any doctrine which he thought would make people obedient to his law. He was careful not to expect too much, and, while keeping his followers as long as possible in a state of uncertainty as to their salvation, he tried never to shut the door on hope. So it is questionable whether either the teaching of the Quran, or the ideas of the Persians on these subjects, could possibly be presented in a quite consistent form.

I have tried to enumerate in this chapter just those doctrines which form the original philosophy or theology upon which everything in Islam rests, and to show that not only does the ordinary Shiah Yezdi accept them in toto, but that, with the one small exception that has been stated, all his fundamental beliefs are to be found in this category. Of course these ideas are a much more serious part of a religion than is a code of commandments that is not believed to be permanent. Indeed it is quite possible that greater laxity in the observance of such a code may be due to a juster appreciation of the notions with which it was promulgated. To say that Persia has not been greatly influenced by Mohammedanism because the Persians get drunk in their houses, is shallow criticism. It is still shallower to imagine that the fact that some of the Shiah ordinances are in themselves laxer than the Sunni makes it plain that Persians are less Mussulman than Turks and Indians.