Persia Revisited

by Sir Thomas Edward Gordon

[Illustration: A MENDICANT DERVISH OF TEHRAN]

Some of the mendicant dervishes of Tehran are of wild look, with matted locks, and with howling voice go about demanding, not begging, alms. They regard a giver as under some obligation to them, for affording him the means of observance of a duty imposed by religion. These stalk along defiantly, carrying club or axe, and often present a disagreeable appearance. One of them came suddenly by a side-path behind the Minister's wife, and followed, yelling out his cry of 'Hakk, hakk!' It was almost dark, and he did not see the great dogs, which had gone ahead. His cry and continued close-following steps were disturbing, so I turned and asked him either to go on at once or keep farther back. He frowned at what no doubt he considered my bad taste in objecting to his pleasing and superior presence, and hastened his pace a little to pass, but stopped suddenly on seeing the 'lion-dogs' belonging to the Janâb-i-Khanum-i-Sifarat (the Lady Excellency of the Legation), and asked to be allowed to follow us, saying he would be perfectly quiet. On reaching the Legation gate, and seeing his way clear, the dogs having entered, he left, saying gently, 'Goodnight; God be with you.'

Formerly a lady could hardly walk about without some little fear of look or laugh calculated to annoy. This is often the case in a Mohammedan country, the meaning being that the figure and face should be shrouded and veiled. But in presence of Rex and Dido there is no sign of the light look or laugh; on the contrary, there is rather the respectful gesture of, 'The road is free to thee.' The vivid imagination of the Persian pictures the group as personifying the Imperial arms, the Lady with the Royal guard, the Lion of Iran.

Before the warriors of the Mehdi made the term 'dervish' better known, it was commonly understood to signify a beggar. But though the derivation is 'before the door,' yet this does not mean begging from door to door. The dervish originally was a disciple who freed himself from all family ties, and set forth without purse or scrip to tell of a new faith among a friendly people, and to tarry here or there as a welcome guest. In due course he developed into a regular soldier of the Church, and as schisms arose and the fires of religious animosities were kindled, various orders of fighting fanatics, calling themselves dervishes, sprang into existence. Such were the Ismailis, first known as the Hassanis, in Persia, in the eleventh century, similar in character to the present dervishes of the Soudan. In the more favourable sense of the word, the true dervishes of to-day in Persia represent the spiritual and mystic side of Islam, and there are several orders of such, with members who belong to the highest and wealthiest ranks.

In the time of Fateh Ali Shah, the mendicant dervishes, who were then as numerous and profligate in Persia as vagrant monks used to be in Spain and Italy, became such a pest that one of the first acts of his successor, Mahomed Shah, was to direct that no beggars should be tolerated except the lame, the sick, and the blind, and that all able-bodied men appearing in dervish garb were to be seized for military service. The profession fell out of fashion then, and there are now comparatively few mendicant dervishes to be seen. Those that still wear the 'ragged robe' do not all appear to follow the rules of poverty, self-denial, abstinence, and celibacy. One there was, a negro from 'darkest Africa,' who attached himself as a charity-pensioner to the British Legation in Tehran, and was to be seen in all weathers, snow and sunshine, fantastically dressed, chattering and chuckling in real Sambo style. He knew that his religious cry of 'Ya Hoo' was characteristic of him, and he was always ready to shout it out to the 'Ingleez,' whose generosity he had reason to appreciate. He had a story of being a prince of fallen fortune, who was kidnapped in Central Africa, traded and bartered across Arabia, and abandoned in North Persia. He was known as the Black Prince. During the cholera epidemic of 1892, he took up his residence under some shady chenar-trees of great age, a recognised resting-place for dervishes, close to the summer-quarters of the English Legation at Gulhek, in the vicinity of Tehran. One day he sat outside the gate and poured forth a pitiable tale of the death of his wife from cholera during the night, and begged for money to pay for her burial. Having made his collection, he disappeared at nightfall, leaving his dead partner under the chenar-trees, and it was then discovered that he had possessed two wives, who called him agha, or master, and he had departed with the survivor, leaving the other to be buried by strangers. After that he was known as the Prince of Darkness.

The privileged beggars or mendicant dervishes of Tehran are not all of the stained, soiled, dust-and-ashes description; some are occasionally seen presenting a pleasing contrast in washed white garments, and of neat appearance. There was one such in Tehran, a well-known cheerful old man, who looked as if he could, in quiet company, tell entertaining stones, for recitation is adopted by some of these wandering dervishes as a pleasant means of livelihood, and many of them in the storytelling art show considerable talent, cultivated taste, and retentive memory. But, to be successful, they must be able to indulge in variations of their old stories by the introduction of new incidents which they have heard or invented. One who is known for good style is always welcomed at the many tea-shops and gardens in village and town.

[Illustration: A DERVISH STORY-TELLER OF TEHRAN]

In a most unlikely spot, on a long stretch of sand in the Yezd Desert, I met a well-dressed dervish in clean, cool white clothes, who stopped on perceiving that I was a 'Firanghi,' and, gently swaying his neat dervish-dole dish, said quietly, 'Charity; alms are as dew-drops from the heavens,' a most appropriate speech in the sandy waterless waste. Membership with the higher dervish orders appears to signify and convey something of the character of Freemasonry. I know of one highly-placed Persian gentleman who is a dervish, and also of a European gentleman of Oriental light and learning who has been admitted to the same order. A famous Prime Minister of Persia in past time, Haji Mirza Aghasi, was a well-known but rather eccentric dervish. My knowledge of this was the means, on one occasion, of averting a disagreeable display of violence by a gay sort of madcap, the relative of a post-house master, who had attached himself as groom to the stable establishment. My smart Armenian servant, who was equally good as groom or table attendant, had taken off his warm pea-jacket to help in bracing up the loads on my baggage post-horses, which were to be driven loose at a canter, the usual practice when riding post with extra baggage. A powerful, merry-talking groom, who came forward with the horses, picked up the jacket and put it on, saying that the morning was cold. And so it was, for the month was November. When all was ready for a start, my servant asked him for the jacket, but the laughing diwana, or eccentric fellow, said it was a gift to him, and refused to part with it. Warm words passed, and I intervened and told him to drop his dervish ways and give back the jacket. The diwana became excited, and shouted to all who were standing by that I had called him a dervish, and had hurt his feelings badly. I then told him he was hard to please, as surely a High Vazir was good enough to be compared with, for was it not true that the famous Haji Mirza Aghasi was of the noble order of dervishes. He took in slowly what I said, then smiled, and gave back the jacket with a good grace. The Persians have a proverb similar to our own regarding giving to beggars, 'Avval khesh, baad darvesh' (First our own, then the beggar. Charity begins at home).

The ordinary Persian horses are small, but very wiry and enduring. In harness they are also capable of very long journeys in light draught, as proved in the carriage service between Tehran and Kasvin. The distance is about ninety-seven miles, divided into six stages. On arriving at one of these, I found that all the posting horses had been taken by a Russian Mohammedan merchant who was travelling ahead of me in great style, with five carriages. I had two vehicles, one a carriage for myself, and the other a tarantass for my servant and luggage, each drawn by three horses. There was considerable traffic on the road then, and the horses had only a few hours in the stable between 'turns.' It was night when I arrived at the post-house, and though anxious to go on, I had no option but to remain there till the horses should come back from the next stage. On their return, after three hours' rest and a feed of barley, six took my carriage and waggon to the next post-house, sixteen miles, where again I found an empty stable, the horses which had gone with the party ahead of me not having come back. On inquiring judiciously from the post-house master if the horses which had brought me from the last stage were able to do another, I was told that with an hour's rest and an extra feed they would be ready to go on. And they travelled the second stage well, showing no signs of distress. These horses had done sixteen miles in draught, and sixteen miles in cantering back to their stable during the evening and night; then thirty-two miles in draught with me in the morning, and after a short rest were to return the same distance to their own stable, all in double-quick time.

I had the privilege of again seeing what I consider one of the most interesting sights in Persia, the stables of his Majesty the Shah. They contain the very best blood in Asia, and comprise the pick of the finest horses in Arabia, Persia, Kurdistan, Karadagh, Khorasan, and the Turkoman country, also the choicest home-breds from the horse-farms belonging to the late Shah and his sons, the present Shah and the Zil-es-Sultan, all of them great horse fanciers and breeders. The late Shah had three breeding establishments: one in the vicinity of Tehran, another near Hamadan, and the third at Maragha, in Azerbaijan, where the pasture is good. In each of these there are said to be about one thousand mares and foals. There is no part of the establishment of a monarch of Persia to which more attention is paid than his horses. They are always placed under the care of an officer of high rank, who is styled Mir Akhor.