Tarikh-i-Jadid / Tarikh-i Badi'-i Bayani

Disastrous Effects of the Clergy

Repeated attempts were subsequently made at Kerbela and Nejef to compass the death of this learned apologist, but these were frustrated by the justice of His Majesty the King, who, to put a stop to the trouble, subjected him to a temporary confinement. No one can blame the King for acting thus; for such is the influence which the clergy enjoy, and so great is their power in every department of the state, that they have nullified the sovereign's authority in exactly the same way as they have destroyed all but the name of religion and law. Through their successive encroachments and usurpations of power the King is reduced to the semblance of a lifeless body, or a half-killed bird whose struggles tell but of approaching death.... The King cannot issue any command or take any step opposed to their views, and they imagine that he exists but to maintain their authority and to give effect to their decisions. Thus should any governor or minister, however powerful, issue any order or take any steps to secure the well-being of those subject to him, or to promote the national prosperity, without first consulting them, they will, by a mere hint, incite the people of his province or city to harass, vex, and thwart him till they have driven him out, after which they will fall to plundering men's property and carrying off their <181> wives, without the least respect for the authority of the King or any other person. That they should so act towards governors is indeed a common-place scarcely worthy of mention, for they have always behaved in the same unseemly fashion towards the most powerful monarchs of former days, not suffering them to take any step in accordance with their own judgement, or to adopt any measure for the good of the nation; and, at the least opposition or offence, inciting the people to rebel against the royal authority. Down to the present day they have continued to hold the government and the people in subjection to themselves, and have at all times been the cause of national decay. All history bears witness to the truth of this assertion, on which it is unnecessary to expatiate further; but at no previous time have any clergy possessed such power as is now wielded by the mullas of Persia, who regard themselves as the representatives of the Imams, and call their kings "dogs of the Imams' threshold." If some effectual means be not soon adopted to disperse this hierarchy, nullify their power, and destroy their authority, they will ere long bring about the fall of this empire also, seeing that they have now waxed exceedingly bold and powerful. On the return of His Majesty the King from Europe²¹² they not only clamoured for the dismissal of the Prime Minister, circulating false reports of his atheism, but also prevented the introduction of railways, which would have greatly conduced to the prosperity of the country and the freedom of the people. Had the King not adopted the <182> wise policy of conciliating them by acceding to their demands, they would assuredly, as they had openly declared, have refused to let the Royal cavalcade enter the capital, or the King take his seat on the throne. In short, if effectual steps be not taken to check these mischief-makers, they will, for the attainment of their own selfish ends, so destroy and blot out this dynasty that no trace of its existence shall remain on the page of time, even as they destroyed the mighty monarchies of bygone days. Even towards the great kings of the Achaemenian dynasty they behaved in a manner which it is a shame even to mention. Did not rash and inconsiderate priests persuade Shiruye to kill King Parviz in order that he might become king in his stead, and afterwards induce him to put to death twenty- one of his brethren, each one a prince of the blood royal?²¹³ Yet even then, notwithstanding his obedience to their will, they would not suffer him to govern according to his own pleasure.

["Would'st thou know the many ills obedience to a priesthood brings?

Read the records of the world, and search the stories of its kings!"]

Did not the territory of this same Persia once extend eastwards to Transoxania and the mountains of Thibet and China, westwards to the river Euphrates, southwards to the Gulf of Oman, and northwards to the Aral Mountains? Even in the time of Khusraw Parviz, notwithstanding all the troubles and revolutions brought about by the priests, the revenue of what remained of the Persian Empire amounted to eight hundred and twenty-nine crores²¹⁴ [[of <183> dinars]] of red gold, while in might, majesty, and power they had no rival. All the kings of the earth rendered homage to the monarchs of the Achaemenian dynasty and were as naught beside them, just as at the present day Persia is as naught beside the nations of Europe, but is like a dismissed governor or a cancelled edict, heeded by none. This abasement is the outcome of the learning of these divines, these upholders of religion and law, and the result of their undue power and influence. By the troubles which they have stirred up Persia has been made desolate and reduced to a few empoverished and deserted provinces, the total revenue derived from which at the present day only amounts to seven crores tumans>²¹⁵, and even of this, were the taxes fairly levied, not half would come into the royal treasury.

Shame on the people of Persia for their lack of spirit! By God, they have not a spark of patriotic or manly feeling; they have grown habituated to cowardice, falsehood, and flattery; they acquiesce in tyranny and oppression, and, relinquishing the position of free agents, have become mere passive instruments in the hands of the clergy! Do they forget that in days of yore their glory and honour, their wealth and prosperity, were the envy of all peoples? Do they not ask themselves why they have now become a bye-word amongst the nations for abject misery, meanness, and baseness? Moreover did they not once excel all mankind in every art, trade, and handicraft? Why are they now sunk in savagery, poverty, and ignorance, and notorious for their utter want of generosity, justice, and wisdom? Do they never reflect why it is that their science is now restricted to such things as purifications, washing the orifices of the body, dyeing the beard, clipping the <184> moustache, disputing about payment of tithes and alms, atonement for wrongs²¹⁶, Imam's money, and the like, for the determination of which things even it does not suffice? Yet so heedless are they that they do not perceive that most of these divines originally spring from the rustic population or the scum of the towns. They enter our cities and colleges with a smock and a staff, and feet full of sores encased in coarse socks and canvas shoes. There, by the alms and votive offerings of the people, by begging from this one and that one, by prayers and fastings paid for at the rate of two tumans a year, by reading through the whole Kur'an for a kran, and by fees obtained for the performance of devotions, they manage to live in extreme wretchedness and poverty. After reading a few books, learning Arabic, filling their minds with all manner of doubts, hesitations, and vain scruples, and developing their obsolete superstitions and prejudices, they leave college, take their seats in the chair of the Law and the Imamate, and forthwith become the absolute arbiters and law-givers of the nation, the controllers of all men's lands and possessions, the owners of horses, mules, gold, and silver. They then think themselves entitled to set their feet on the necks of all mankind, to lord it over the noble, to maintain troops of horses and retinues of servants, to claim to be the vicegerents of the Imam, to receive his tithes, and to make atonements for wrongs. They account themselves the most noble amongst all creatures and the most perfect, the generality of men as "like cattle"²¹⁷ and the common folk as "even more astray"²¹⁸. They become dead men's heirs, consumers of endowments, and collectors of tithes and "thirds", and usurp the station of "the One, the Dominant" "to whom belongeth dominion"²¹⁹. Well says Hafiz,

"These preachers, who, when in their pulpits, of virtue make such a display,

Behave, I assure you, in private in quite a dissimilar way.

That they put any faith in the Judgement they preach one can scarcely believe

When Him who shall judge them they daily attempt to out wit and deceive."²²⁰

Most people, however, have not sufficient sense to perceive from what sources all these luxuries, powers, shops, villages, lands, aqueducts, possessions, and moneys which the clergy possess are derived. Have they skill in working mines? No. Do they traffic in the merchandise of India, China, America, or Europe? No. Do they traverse land and sea, or cultivate fields which lie waste? No. Have they amassed their wealth by the discovery of new arts? No. This luxury and opulence results, as all, wise or simple, may plainly see, from the plunder of rich and poor, from payments for legal decisions written or pronounced, from the profits of writing, "I decree this", or saying, "I am witness to this" and "it is thus and thus", and from the hire obtained for the use of their honourable seals. Such being the case, what folly it is to take as guides men so notoriously evil and hypocritical, to follow their opinions, to be governed by their decisions, to cringe to them, flatter them, beseech their favour, and reckon them, forsooth, as the repositories of learning! For mystics and thinkers alike recognise three degrees of knowledge and three classes of learned men, corresponding to the Truth, the Path, and <186> the Law²²¹. Knowledge obtained by divine illumination through the fulness of God's grace, without effort or study on the part of the recipient, is called "Imparted" or "Immediate Knowledge"²²². Knowledge revealed after long search and striving on the part of the recipient, but not arrived at by induction or reasoning, is called "Ecstatic" or "Disclosed Knowledge"²²³. Of neither of these kinds of knowledge have the clergy any share. As to the third kind of knowledge, obtained by toil and study, it is known as "Acquired" or "Ordinary Knowledge"²²⁴, and comprises knowledge of the Law, and of the means whereby happiness in the life to come and disregard of worldly objects may be secured. By it are the faulty perfected and the erring guided. By it are men taught the way of salvation and the mode of performing acceptable service to God. By it are they rescued from the abyss of error and led to the loftiest heights of sanctity and blessedness. Those who have this knowledge are also divisible into three classes. The first class are such as put it into practice, regulate their conduct by it, and thus secure the results above enumerated. To call in question the conduct of such as these is downright infidelity, and he who does so is an unbeliever <187> and an atheist. The second class are trees without fruit, wise in theory but not in practice. These also, although they have no real eminence, and reap none of the fruits of their knowledge, should still, in consideration of the form of wisdom which they possess, be treated with respect and deference, and to speak slightingly of them is a grave fault. As to the third class, who deliberately disobey God's commands, and act contrary to what they how and teach, it can be easily seen that they are no better than thieves and traitors clad in a garb of knowledge, who pollute the whole world with their foul deeds and words, use their science as an instrument for plundering mankind, and make of legal quibbles and fictions of their own devising steps to secure their own advancement. The wickedness of their nature prompts them to practise every species of treachery and deceit, to give free rein to their wicked lusts, and to yield an unreserved allegiance to the devil. These are in very truth hypocrites and liars, inasmuch as their outward appearance is at variance with their actual life, and their hearts agree not with their lips. God hath called the hypocrites accursed and rejected in all the sacred books, and so, wherever in this history allusion is made to their evil qualities, it applies only to this third class, and no general condemnation of leaned doctors is intended. A true divine was the late Sheykh Murtaza²²⁵ (whose station may God exalt!), for he renounced all worldly pomps and luxuries, would not on any pretext take from anyone a single dinar, and [during the earlier part of his life] lived contentedly in poverty [[such that at his death the total value of all that he possessed did not amount to two and <188> twenty tumans²²⁶]]²²⁷, So also, when I was in Isfahan, one of my friends told me of the piety and virtue of a lately deceased divine's brother, whose honoured name has through lapse of time escaped my memory. For when the people be sought him with much importunity to accept the position rendered vacant by his brother's death and to act as their spiritual director and leader in prayer, refusing to accept his apologies and excuses, and finally compelling him by their urgency to accede to their request, he stipulated for three days' grace. When these had elapsed he repaired to the mosque and assumed the functions thrust upon him. One of his intimates enquired of him the reason why he had demanded the three days' grace. He answered, "I had in my house fifteen maunds of barley. Generosity and justice alike forbade that I should have by me provision for fifteen days while some lacked for two days' food. During those three days I distributed this barley amongst the deserving poor, and only when I had done this did I feel myself entitled to perform divine service."

Men such as these one may indeed describe as earnest and learned divines, but not those who in a year of famine daily saw a thousand dying for want of a morsel of bread, and yet refused to sell the corn hoarded in their granaries for forty tumans a kharvar. Such was actually the case in Teheran, where one of the clergy living in odour of sanctity and enjoying universal respect had in store enough corn to satisfy all the people of the city, the season for a new harvest being, moreover, nigh at hand. The King wished to buy his corn at forty tumans the kharvar and sell it at a cheap rate to the people, so that they might not perish <189> of hunger. But this reverend, religious, righteous exponent of the Law withheld the people's food in the hope that its value might rise above forty tumans! May such as these be the sacrifice of Vatil the Armenian merchant, who, some years ago, during the famine at Haji Tarkhan, procured through his agents in neighbouring countries a sufficient quantity of corn at twenty-five roubles per sack of five poods²²⁸, imported it to Haji Tarkhan, and sold it to his fellow-townsmen for ten roubles the sack rather than suffer them to know the meaning of famine.

Men of sense are fully alive to the wickedness of these hypocrites, and well know that the existence of such a body is a menace to the order and well-being of the community and the stability of the government; but the fear of forfeiting their position, their property, or even their lives, keeps them silent. Let none take exception to what we have alleged, or shall hereinafter, as occasion arises, allege as to the malign influence of this body on the government, and let all know that herein no particle of blame attaches to His Most Sacred Majesty the King, although in general kings are held accountable for all that takes place within the scope of their authority. But these clergy, by reason of their evil nature and their anxiety to retain the authority which they now enjoy, are continually seeking to impair the strength of the government and to encroach on the sovereign's powers, and though they describe themselves as "praying for the continuance of the state," there are in truth none who wish it so ill. They are ever bent on securing sole and supreme sway, becoming dominant in every department of affairs, and absorbing every prerogative of the king, even as they already regard their own decisions as superior in authority to those of the civil courts, <190> disregard the commands and prohibitions of the functionaries of the state, and stigmatize all government officials as tyrants and oppressors. Yet the respect and consideration which they enjoy are in truth theirs only through the King's bounty, and they are but one class of his servants, differing from others only in this, that while all others perform services commensurate with the wages which they receive, and exhibit gratitude and devotion proportionate to the favours bestowed upon them, they do but devour the public wealth and substitute treason for service.

During the quarrel which arose in the reign of the late King Fath-'Ali Shah between the Persian and Turkish governments and the war consequent thereon²²⁹, His Highness the late Na'ibu's-Saltana was engaged on the frontier in repelling the attacks of the Ottoman forces. The clergy of Tabriz, regarding his absence as their opportunity, began to stir up sedition and create disturbances. The Na'ibu's-Saltana wrote to his deputy a letter expressing his views of their conduct, part of which we shall quote as bearing on the subject before us.