Five Years in a Persian Town

by Napier Malcolm

Perhaps one might go further, and say that the Yezdi Mussulman frequently questions the virtue of keeping to an abstract principle, particularly when by abandoning it one might do a good turn to a friend. Impartiality is a thing which he absolutely fails to understand: indeed he considers it simply another name for disloyalty, and here it is probable that most other Easterns would agree with him.

It is impossible to treat the inconsistency of Yezdi Mussulmans as simple weakness. It is rather the absence of such principles as Westerns generally possess than the inability to keep to them; and indeed it is often the result of other principles of a peculiar kind, diametrically opposed to those to which we are accustomed. The Yezdis are a free-handed folk, and they despise a man who does not spend freely. They like to appear to live up to their incomes, and I think that some of them have a feeling of the same kind about their debit and credit account with their Creator. Also we must not forget that Persian inconsistency is not always a deviation towards wrong, but equally often a deviation towards right. Though in Persia it is never well to trust to a man’s character, it is always advisable to appeal to high principles, even when dealing with apparently the most abandoned. While we were in Yezd we were brought into contact with three men in high position, whose names it is not necessary to mention, but whom I would put down as the three worst prominent men in Yezd. The first was an aristocratic official, the second a cleric, and the third an official and a nouveau riche. Now each of these three at some time or other made himself conspicuous by conduct that one was bound to commend and approve. It is impossible to always analyse motives, but in at least one case the action seemed to have been due to nothing but a disinterested and unselfish impulse. In the other cases it is more probable that expediency, or a conscious intention of paying for sins by savabs, entered into the matter.

To trace this peculiarity of the Yezdi’s character to its source is not easy. Sometimes it appears to be a species of hedging, for it is very difficult to find out the truth in Persia, and a general disbelief in everything may have led the Persian to feel that it is unsafe to stake his all on one theory of the universe. The amount of lying that is done in a town like Yezd baffles description. An Englishman when in doubt tells the truth. A Persian when in doubt tells a lie. This would be more tolerable were it not that a Persian is always in doubt. In Yezd security is a thing unknown, and telling lies becomes part of the instinct of self-preservation. Then again the lies are of a new kind. Lies in England are generally told to deceive people in some particular; in Yezd they are just as frequently told in order to make the very search for truth impossible. When I have had to examine into cases of petty theft amongst schoolboys, I have found that to get at the truth is an almost superhuman task. English boys, if they do not tell the truth, will at least tell as few falsehoods as possible, if for no other reason, to avoid being found out. Persian boys will not only lie on the subject they wish to conceal, but they will tell as many untruths as they can cram into the story, so as to render any attempt at investigation futile. Of course you know that they are lying, but, as they never imagine that you will suspect them of telling the truth, they are not much deterred.

The result of this practice is that in the Yezd bazaars, taking together all statements, even the most trivial, that are made by Mussulmans, probably not less than one-third of the speeches made are falsehoods. I do not think that the Persian beggar ever expects to be believed. A woman once came to the house, asking for a quilt because she had none, and her son was ill. To have no quilt, that is, to have no bed-clothes, is by no means an unbelievable state of poverty, and there is no doubt that the woman expected to have her words taken literally. It transpired that her son was quite well, but was taking sanctuary to avoid being molested for a debt. The woman had a perfectly possible quilt, but it was old and patched. She actually brought it to us the next morning, not to prove that after all they were very poor, but to show that in saying she had none she had spoken the truth. Another woman once told me in the street, that she had six orphan children and her husband was sick.

In a country like this it is not surprising that evidence is at a discount, and that there are intelligent people absolutely convinced that truth is unknowable. A man who is accustomed to act upon this theory in the ordinary affairs of life, is naturally inclined to apply the same principle to whatever religion or philosophy he possesses. So we get men who are unwilling to stake everything on anything in particular. If they have previously assumed that it is most advantageous to do what is right, then it is well to perform just a few actions on the assumption that it is more advantageous to do wrong. If they have hitherto acted on the principle that it is better to do what is wrong, then it is well not to put all their eggs into that basket either. And indeed I am inclined to think that many of the Yezdis would apply the same philosophy to their non-ethical ideas. If they have based most of their opinions on the assumption that something is true, it is well to base others on the assumption that the same thing is false. This, of course, sounds to us mere nonsense, but once grant with many of the Yezdis that evidence is valueless, and truth absolutely unknowable, and it at once becomes an approximation to sense.

It is quite possible that some of my readers may ask whether this last attempt to explain the inconsistency of the Yezdis is to be taken seriously. To say that I do not know is rather a weak confession, but at the same time it is true. I certainly do not pin my faith to it, yet it seems to be the way in which the bewildering topsy-turvydom of Persia is working. Never forget that the jokes of W. S. Gilbert are the facts of Persia. For instance, in an isolated place like Yezd, the laws of supply and demand operate so peculiarly that the ordinary custom of discount on quantity is inverted; you will be able to get things usually sold at three for a penny at perhaps thirty for a shilling. There was a governor in Yezd, certainly not more than twenty years ago, who had men bastinadoed for walking in the bazaars without treading down the heels of their slippers. In such a country it is very difficult to say what is in itself ridiculous and impossible. One can only judge from evidence, which is, I think, in favour of the theory I have just suggested as a possible explanation of undoubted facts. At the same time the unreliability of the Yezdi is probably due to several causes, and there is one of these causes about which one may speak with less uncertainty. This is the piecemeal appreciation of ideas and circumstances, which I have already mentioned as the result of the impression made on the Yezdi’s mind by the isolated objects which continually surround him, and which is probably heightened by a religion which was constructed under circumstances very similar to those of the Persian deserts.

Shame is the feeling of vexation consequent upon the consciousness of having fallen below an accepted standard of conduct, and where such a standard is not to be found, shame does not exist. Consequently the Yezdi, who has only the faintest idea of a moral standard that ought to govern his whole life, is not susceptible to shame in this particular. He has, however, a rather stronger idea of a general standard of intelligence up to which he ought to live, so it is often a greater deterrent to him to point out that a certain action will be regarded as ignorant or silly than to show that it is less moral than his ordinary behaviour. He also possesses a very keen appreciation of what he considers to be the ethical proprieties of a particular occasion. We must remember that what he lacks in breadth of view he makes up for in power of concentration on the comparatively small field of ideas that can come simultaneously within the range of his mental vision. For example, when European missionaries have been in vain attempting to simplify a most abstruse and metaphysical doctrine by spreading it over several easy steps, they sometimes find that the Persian mind, though it utterly fails to grasp the simpler train of reasoning, can without any assistance take in the more difficult idea, so long as it is expressed with sufficient brevity. In the same way the Yezdi, who seems to have little or no sense of the proprieties of a lifetime, will have an appreciation of what is right and fitting on a particular occasion stronger than that of the European. This is what makes him so dignified at times and seasons, and so undignified in his life. Although his sense of propriety does not always work, where it does work it is so far from being weak that to violate it seems to give him a sensation that is near akin to physical pain. You cannot make a Yezdi apologise: if he has done an injury, he is quite content to ignore it, or to assert that it has not taken place, which is the ordinary substitute for an apology in Persia: but the man’s sense of shame is too great to allow him to confess to such an action before the man he has wronged. He has no objection to the man knowing what has happened; but at the interview his denial must be accepted or the injury ignored. This is the only way in which he can submit to the meeting.

The Yezdi has not a very fine sense of humour, but he is easily amused. Perhaps it is worth while to instance an occasion which occurred during our stay in Yezd when the natives seemed really tickled. A certain Russian doctor resident in the town, who had not a very complete and accurate knowledge of Persian, wanted to use bad language to his servant, who had in some way offended him. As he knew no suitable expressions he seized the dictionary and kept looking them out one after another, and hurled them at the unfortunate man’s head as fast as this process would permit. This story was retailed with very great appreciation by some of the better class natives. I rather think it seemed to them very much more funny than it does to us, and this for two reasons. Persians have a great respect for literature, including dictionaries, and they would hardly understand their being frivolously handled; also they are very particular in adapting their language to the occasion, and it would strike them as the height of absurdity to abuse a servant in book language, as the doctor must have done, unless indeed the Russian publication he consulted contained real specimens of colloquial abuse, which would have struck the Persians as even more funny.

The story of Mulla Nāsiru’d Dīn and his mule is a very fair instance of Persian humour at its best. The Mulla, who was a notorious wit, had sent a mule to the market-place where such beasts were sold. People were suspicious owing to the Mulla’s reputation, but nobody supposed that he would let himself down by sending an unsaleable animal to the bazaars. So first of all someone examined its forelegs, and got badly pawed; then someone went to its hind-legs and got kicked; next they looked at its mouth and got bitten; finally they tried to put saddle-bags on to its back, and it threw them off immediately. Consequently when the Mulla strolled down everyone laughed at him, and asked him if he really expected anybody to buy it. “No, my friends,” said the Mulla, “I never expected any of you to buy it; but I wanted you to know what I have to put up with at home.”

One of the things that is most difficult for a European to tolerate in a Yezdi is his extraordinary disregard of time. It is not only that he does not care how long he takes over a thing, one might tell story after story on this point, but this is a malady common in the East. What I was not prepared for was that he should have no idea what time means. In Persia a clergyman’s work consists more of seeing people in his own house, and less of visiting; but the great difficulty in receiving visitors is that, if one wants to see parties separately, a single reception is all one can satisfactorily arrange in an afternoon. This is what happens. Two parties send to ask when they can see you, and you reply by asking when it will be convenient for them to come. Both messengers state with the most absolute politeness that it makes no difference to their masters when you say, and that they wish you to choose the time. If you are wise you will tell one party to come two hours after noon, and the other to come at one hour to sunset, which, supposing the sun to be setting at six, will be five o’clock. They will both acquiesce, but you will have to be ready to receive the party due at two at one o’clock, and you must not consider them late if they arrive at three. Similarly you will prepare for the second party at four, and not consider them late before six. But the probabilities are that both parties will arrive at four, the favourite visiting hour, having both decided on that time before sending to ask you.[5]