Persia Revisited

by Sir Thomas Edward Gordon

I have mentioned the prerogative of the Shah to raise whomsoever he chooses from the lowest to the highest position, except under restrictions in the military tribes. This quite falls in with the democratic spirit which lies dormant among the people, ready to be displayed in willingness to accept a Sovereign of signal power who springs from the lower ranks of life. The social equality which Islam grants to all men was nothing new to Persia in forming ideas regarding a popular leader and elected King. The descent of such a man is deemed of little consequence in the minds of a people who look to personification of power as the right to rule. In fact, with them it is said that the fame of such a man is in proportion to the lowness of his origin. They know of notable instances of the nation being delivered from terrible tyranny and degrading foreign subjection, and being made gloriously great, by men of the people. They point to Kawâh, the blacksmith, who headed a revolt against the monstrously cruel usurper King Zohâk, using his apron as a banner, and finally overthrew and slew him, and placed Faridûn, a Prince of the Peshdâdian dynasty, on the throne which he might have occupied himself. This blacksmith's apron continued for ages to be the royal standard of Persia. In the ninth century, Yacub-bin-Leis, called the Pewterer, as he had worked when young at that (his father's) trade, made his way to the throne by sheer force of strong character and stout courage. He remained the people's hero to the last, was noted for his simple habits, for keeping with his name his trade appellation (Suffâri, the Pewterer), and for never having been wantonly cruel or oppressive. In the tenth century, when the great Sabuktagin rose from soldier to Sovereign, we see the principle of selection in preference to hereditary succession practised and accepted by the nation. And the choice was justified by the glory he gave to the Persian arms in extending the empire to India, and in the further conquests of his soldier-son, Mahmud, who succeeded to his father's throne, and added still more to the greatness of the kingdom, till it reached from Baghdad to Kashgar, from Georgia to Bengal, from the Oxus to the Ganges.

When the country was groaning under the Afghan yoke, it was the daring spirit of one from the ranks of the people, Nadir Kuli (Shah), who conceived the overthrow of the oppressor and the recovery of Persian independence. Originally a simple trooper of the Afshar tribe, he advanced himself by valour, boldness, and enterprise, and crowned his successes by winning the admiration of the royal leaders and adherents, who on the death of the infant King, Abbas III., son of Shah Tamasp, elected him to be their King. As such he carried the war into the country of the evicted oppressors, and established the power of the empire from the Oxus to Delhi, whence he returned with the splendid spoil which yet enriches and adorns the Crown of Persia. It speaks much for Nadir Shah's strong character that, having gained such distinction, he did not allow flatterers to find amid the obscurity of his birth the lost traces of great ancestors. He never boasted a proud genealogy; on the contrary, he often spoke of his low birth, and we are told that even his flattering historian had to content himself with saying that the diamond has its value from its own lustre, and not from the rock in which it grows. A characteristic story of this remarkable man is that on demanding a daughter of his vanquished enemy, Mahmud Shah, the Emperor of Delhi, in marriage for his son, Nasr-ullah, he was met with the answer that for alliance with a Princess of the Imperial house of Timor a genealogy of seven generations was required. 'Tell him,' said Nadir, 'that Nasr-ullah is the son of Nadir Shah, the son of the sword, the grandson of the sword, and so on till they have a descent of seventy, instead of seven generations.' Nadir, the man of action and blood and iron, had the greatest contempt for the weak, dissolute Mahmud Shah, who, according to the native historian of the time, was 'never without a mistress in his arms and a glass in his hand,' a debauchee of the lowest type, as well as a mere puppet King. In the end the demon of suspicion poisoned the mind of Nadir to such an extent that he became madly murderous, and assassination ended his life. The Persians say that he began as a deliverer and ended as a destroyer.

As a people, the Persians are of a happy disposition and bright imagination, doubtless produced by the dry, clear air of their high tableland, which relieves from dullness and depression. They enjoy a joke and laugh heartily, and they are able to see that most things have their comic side. The late Shah was quick to show the merry look of appreciation when something amusing was said. At the Nauroz Court reception of the Corps Diplomatique all the Legations, headed by the Turkish Embassy, were ranged in a semicircle in front of the Shah, and after the congratulatory address was delivered by the Sultan's Ambassador, his Majesty advanced and walked round slowly, pausing to say a few words to each Minister. His face lit up with animation when he spoke to one whom he knew to be able to reply in the Persian tongue. On one occasion, after speaking with the Ottoman Ambassador, who is always a Persian linguist (Persian being an obligatory subject of qualification for the Tehran post), he passed on to a Minister who was a good Persian scholar. Further on he found an equally well—qualified colloquial proficient in another; and on finding himself before a well-known very clever diplomatist for whom he had a great personal liking, he smiled and said pleasantly, 'Have you learnt any Persian yet?' The Minister bowed, and, looking duly serious, said in Persian, 'I know something.' The Minister meant to say that he knew a little, but the word 'something,' as used, could be taken, as in English, to signify 'a thing or two.' Such a meaning from the diplomatist who spoke was quite appropriate, and the Shah laughed softly and looked much amused.

As another instance (but in this case of grim humour) of seeing the comic side, a Prince Governor of a province, sitting in judgment, ordered a merchant to pay a fine of fifty tomans, but, though well known to be rich, he protested his utter inability to pay, saying he had never seen such a sum of money, and begged for some other punishment which the Prince in his wisdom and mercy would command. His Highness then suggested a choice of eating fifty raw onions, or eating fifty sticks (the Oriental mode of expression when speaking of bastinado strokes), or paying the fifty tomans. Persians are fond of raw onions, those they eat being small, and the merchant enjoyed the prospect of thus saving his money. He thought that the punishment had been ordered in ignorance, so, concealing his feeling of happy surprise, and affecting fear, he elected for onions. He struggled hard with them, but could not swallow more than half the number. He was then asked to pay the fine, but he claimed his further choice of the fifty sticks. Triced up, he underwent the pain of twenty-five well laid on to the soles of his feet, and then called out that he would willingly pay the fifty tomans to have no more. On this he was cast loose, and the Prince said, 'You fool! you had a choice of one of three punishments, and you took all three.'

Persian servants regard their fixed pay as but a retaining fee, and look for their real wages in perquisites. They show considerable ingenuity and brightness of idea in reasons for purchasing this, that, and the other thing, not really required, but affording opportunities for 'pickings.' A new head-servant, on looking round his master's premises, and seeing no opening for a fresh purchase, at last cast his eye on the fowls, kept to secure a supply of fresh eggs, instead of the doubtful ones bought in the bazaar. He introduced stale eggs into the fowl-house, and on their condition being remarked at breakfast, he gravely explained that he had noticed the hens were old, and it sometimes happened that old hens laid stale eggs, whereas young hens always laid fresh eggs; so he suggested clearing out the fowl-house and restocking it with young poultry.

The leisure time the servants have is not always well spent, it is true, but they have ideas of imagination and sentiment, which in some degree is suggestive of refinement. I have seen this shown in their love of singing birds, and their dandy ways of dress; for some of them are very particular as to the cut of a coat and the fit of a hat. I have sometimes been interested in seeing them carefully tending their pet nightingales, cleaning the cages, and decking them out with bits of coloured cloth and any flowers in season. In November I saw quite a dozen cages thus brightened, each with its brisk-looking nightingale occupant, put out in the sunshine in the courtyard; and on asking about such a collection of cages, was told rather shyly, as if fearing a smile at their sentimental ways, that there was an afternoon tea that day in the neighbourhood, to which the nightingales and their owners were going. These singing-bird-parties are held in the underground rooms of houses, which are cool in summer and warm in winter, and I imagine the company and rivalry of a number of birds in the semi-darkness, with glimmering light from the 'kalian' pipes, and the bubbling of water in the pipe-bowls, and the boiling samovar tea-urns, all combine to cheat the birds pleasantly into believing that it is night-time in the spring song-season.

The Persian poets brought the nightingale much into their songs of praise of earthly joys. The bulbul, of which they wrote and sang, was the European nightingale, which visits Persia in spring to sing and love and nest. They pass as far South as Shiraz, where they meet the plump little Indian bulbul, which is often mistaken for the Shiraz poets' singing-bird. The word is applied to both species in India and Persia, but the birds are quite different in shape, plumage, and voice. They meet at Shiraz, a place which possesses a climate so temperate and equable as to bring together the birds and fruits of the East and West, North and South; for there I saw and heard the Indian bulbul and the hoopoe, the European nightingale, the cuckoo, and the magpie, and I know that the fruits range from apples to dates.

The nightingale is the favourite pet singing-bird of the Persians. I had good information regarding the manner of obtaining them for cage purposes from some small boys who were engaged picking roses in a rose-garden at Ujjatabod, near Yezd. There are two large rose-gardens in that oasis in the Yezd Desert, where the manufacture of rose-water and the attar essence is carried on. The gardens are appropriately favourite haunts of the nightingales on their return with the season of gladness from their winter resorts in the woods of the Caspian coast. The Persian poets tell of the passionate love of the nightingale for the scented rose, and in fanciful figure of speech make the full-blossomed flower complain of too much kissing from its bird-lover, so that its sweetness goes, and its beauty fades far too sadly soon. The boys told me of the number of family pairs, their nests and eggs, and said that they took the young male birds when fully fledged and about to leave the nest, and brought them up by hand at first, till able to feed themselves. There is a great demand in the towns for the young nightingales, which in Persia sing well in captivity, so rarely the case with the bird in Europe. The shopkeepers like to have their pet birds by them, and in the nesting season they may be heard all over the bazaars, singing sweetly and longingly for the partners they know of by instinct, but never meet.

There is much pleasing romance and sentiment in the popular idea regarding the origin of the national emblem, Sher o Khurshed (the Lion and the Sun). The following legend concerning it was told to me by the Malik-ut-Tujjar, or Master of the Merchants of Tehran, a gentleman well versed in Persian history, literature, and lore, and who spoke with all the enthusiasm of national pride. When the first monarchy of Ajam (Persia) was founded by Kai Uramâs, some five thousand years ago, the sun was in the sign of Asad (Leo), the highest tower in the heavens, and the lion was therefore taken as the Persian emblem, and it so remained without the sun over it, as now shown, till about six hundred years ago. Ghazan Khan, who then reigned as King, was so attached to his wife, the Queen Khurshed (the Sun), that he desired to perpetuate her name by putting it on the coins he struck; but the Ulema objected to a woman's name on the King's coin, whereupon he decided to put her face on a rising sun above the national emblem of the lion, as now seen in the well-known royal arms of Persia. The story is that King Ghazan's affection for his Queen, Khurshed, was such that he styled her Sham'bu Ghazan (the Light of Ghazan).

This may have been the origin of the expression Khurshed Kullah, or Sun-crowned, which I have seen stated is a term that was used to denote the Sovereign of an empire, but from the fact of the features and style of dressing the hair shown in the sun-picture being those of a woman, I think the title may be regarded as applied only to queens. Catherine II. of Russia, from the magnificence of her Court, her beauty and ambition, and her fame in love and war, was known in Persia during her lifetime as Khurshed Kullah, and she is still designated by that title.