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

Na'ibu's-Saltana's Letter Describing the Clergy

[Copy of the Na'ibu's-Saltana's letter to his deputy.]

"It is your pilaws of sugar and beans and bowls of broth and syrup which have made these gentry so vicious. The Arab steed will not eat more than its due measure of barley, and the Cossack gelding, though it should eat ten maunds of corn at a feed, does not go mad with exuberance; but the wretched pack-horse, if it gets a trifle more barley <191> than usual, or is allowed to graze unhindered in the paddock, first bites or kicks the groom who tends it.

'The gardener's feet, O rose-bud sweet,

Were the first to feel thy thorn!'

"From the time of the Moghul invasion, when the Sheykhu'l-Islam [[of Tabriz]] declared it to be expedient for the Musulmans to take oaths of allegiance, until to-day, whether under Jihan-Shah, the Muzaffars, the Safavi Kings, Nadir Shah, Karim Khan, the Deylamis, or Ahmad Khan, never have the clergy of Tabriz and of Persia generally enjoyed so great a measure of respect, honour, consideration, and power. It is through our fortune and by our favour that they have waxed so great; and now for that good they return us this evil; for to-day, when we are arrayed against a hostile army, leaving our unguarded property to the care of the people of Tabriz, they create disturbances, close the shops and bazaars, go off to Seyyid Hamza and the Bagh-i-Misha, and furthermore publish abroad their exploits, some in the Russian dominions, some, like Safi Khan, at the Court, others in Turkey. The faces of the people of Tabriz are indeed whitened! Had Fath-'Ali Khan possessed a particle of self-respect, or the elders of the city a grain of manhood, an ignorant fellow like Fattah would never have dared to act thus. That these gentry should not be sated with broth and pilaw is only natural, but how is it that you have not yet had enough of the hypocritical piety of these mullas? Books enough have been written about religious warfare; the divine mission of Muhammad has been sufficiently demonstrated; we are tired of the wrangling of the colleges;-

'Yet still to your darling you render

The worship and service of yore.'

If one-hundredth part of all this talk about religious <192> warfare had been addressed to armed men instead of to peaceful citizens, by this time there would not be a single infidel left to necessitate champions for the true faith. Hence forth, at all events, you had best invite to your Thursday and Friday banquets the elders of the city, the magistrates of the different quarters, persons worthy and honourable, and men of position and sense. Away with tables spread for hypocrisy and cant! Learn to recognize base and spurious coin!

'Coin which bears the Sufi superscription

Is not always pure and unalloyed;

Many a dervish-cloak is only worthy

In the blazing fire to be destroyed.'²³⁰

"Hitherto no advantage has accrued to us from our perusal of this page or our pursuance of this path; on the contrary, all these troubles which beset us are the outcome of the Friday prayers and Thursday evening devotions of these mullas. If you desire the society of the learned, have you not in your city accomplished scholars like Haji Fazil and Haji Razzak Beg, who work much, eat little, and live reasonably, honestly, and soberly? God is our refuge! Where ten mullas are met together, there is God! However often you ask, 'Art thou full?' they answer 'Is there any more?'²³¹ like lazy over-fed pack-horses, which are consumers of chaff and demolishers of barley. May they be the sacrifice of the Turkish Efendis and the Frankish priests! They have neither learning enough to write a confutation of the latter, nor zeal and enthusiasm enough to decorate their mosques and roads with bunches of flowers like the former. Let them call upon the people to defend their country and protect their faith, in like manner as they were wont to do in our presence. But when they do <193> muster up courage to unsheathe the sword, it is not against the Ottoman troops, but against Mirza Amin of Isfahan! To hunt tame animals and conduct themselves like mad men seems to be their creed. But since they are grown so bold, and have armed themselves with clubs and swords, let them at any rate be good enough to employ their weapons against rebels. Herein we delegate to you our authority by these our letters, and empower you to act as you may think best in all matters. Farewell."

If these clergy, who make such pretensions to learning, who regard themselves as the wisest and most competent of men, who have obtained the control of every department of state, who give effect to every command which they issue, and who consider all men bound to submit to their decisions, were even men of sense and intelligence, who would educate and develop the people instead of reducing them to beggary with their legal quibbles and tricks of priest-craft, it would not so much matter. But, as a matter of fact, their stupidity, ignorance, and folly are absolutely unparalleled; though the common people, sunk as they are in brutish ignorance, give them credit for faithfulness and virtue. Thus it is related that a thief was brought before a certain eminent divine of Isfahan, and made confession of his crime, saying, "I went to the man's house a little while before midnight with the intention of robbing it. Till near dawn I was occupied in forcing the doors of rooms and wrenching open boxes. When the day began to dawn the occupants of the house discovered my presence and effected my capture." "Accursed wretch!" exclaimed the learned divine, "If thou wert engaged in theft from midnight until morning, when and where didst thou perform the night-prayer ?"..! The atmosphere of the college and cloister had so disordered the poor divine's <194> brain that he did not so much as perceive that thieves are not in the habit of paying much attention to their devotions, and that they do not as a rule perform the obligatory prayers of the day, much less the supererogatory prayers of night!

"Never hath college or cloister yielded a man of sense;

Perish these homes of folly, whose learning is all pretence!"

A certain wise and learned Persian has unsparingly exposed the evil lives and vicious practices of these mullas, supporting his assertions with forcible proofs and eloquent arguments, and shewing that the disordered state of Persia, the decay of its government, the wretchedness of its people, and the decline of religion are directly traceable to them. He points out, amongst other things, that religion has been brought into contempt by the mass of spurious traditions and absurd fables which they have fabricated, whereby other traditions which are authentic are brought into disrepute. Thus they assert in their books that the sun turned back in its course thirteen times for His Holiness the Chief of believers²³², in support of which assertion they adduce a thousand traditions, being too ignorant of science and too devoid of sense to understand that such retrogression of the sun is an absolute impossibility, and that furthermore, even could such an impossibility have taken place, all men would have observed it, and would have sought to discover its cause. For assuredly, had so incredible a prodigy occurred, all would, without further hesitation or delay, have embraced the religion of Islam, and at least they would not have failed to record in their chronicles so remarkable an event.

So again they do not hesitate to attribute to his Holiness the Chief of believers the same neglect of religious <195> duties which characterizes themselves. For they say that one day he overslept the season of mid-day prayer, and did not awake till sundown to discover his neglect. Well says Jalalu'd-Din Rumi in answer to this absurd and senseless fiction -

"A wakeful heart a hundred sights espies,

Though slumber overcome the weary eyes.

The Prophet said, 'My eyes are closed in sleep,

Yet my heart faileth not its watch to keep'.

Of this heart-watch to tell the meaning true

A thousand Masnavis were all too few."

Notwithstanding all their toilsome studies and pretensions to profound learning, they do not yet understand that for the sun there is neither rising nor setting, but that evening becomes morning and day night by the movement of the earth, so that the day of Persia is the night of America, and vice versa. For the sun has a motion of its own, but not round this earth; rather its attraction causes the earth to revolve continually round itself at a speed of sixty thousand miles an hour. For it to turn back in its course, then, the earth would need to perform a retrograde movement until it reached the point which corresponds to the post-meridian.

So also they say in their books that on the day of the 'Ashura²³³ noon lasted seventy-two hours, never perceiving that every man of sense and sound reason must deride such an assertion, and will suppose all the rest of their traditions to be as false as this. For it is perfectly evident to every rational being that had the forenoon of that day really been prolonged to seventy-two hours the whole order of the world would have been disturbed, and all men must needs <196> have observed it and recorded it in their histories. Secondly, as is plain to the most simple, were an Arabian sun to shine continuously for seventy-two hours the sand on the plain would become like fire, the blood would boil in the veins, and no living thing could survive. Thirdly, men of science have ascertained that anyone deprived of sleep for seventy-two hours of necessity dies, more especially if, in addition to this, he partakes of no food. How then could that host of horse and foot burdened with their harness and weapons of war continue to fight for seventy-two hours in that scorching Arabian desert without eating, sleeping, or drinking? No man could do this; and these were not Imams whose holy nature might endow them with miraculous powers of endurance.

[[In truth, any man of discernment has but to consider attentively the sayings and doings of these mullas to perceive that their folly exceeds all bounds and surpasses all conception. When, for instance, in the reign of Sultan Huseyn the Safavi, in the year A.H. 1135, the Afghans, led by Mir Mahmud Ghilza'i, invaded Persia, and drew near to Isfahan (at that time the capital), the clergy reassured the king, promising to proclaim a religious war, and declaring that, fortified by the Holy Law and their own sanctity, they would not suffer a single Afghan to escape with his life. When the Afghans had encompassed Isfahan and laid siege to it, the clergy assembled to drive them away with cries of "Verily there is no god but God", and these cries were the sole outcome of their religious war. It is indeed a matter for astonishment that notwithstanding their excessive folly these people dare lay claim to be spiritual guides and representatives of the Imams, and consider themselves the most discerning and virtuous of mankind.

So, too, in the reign of the late King Fath-'Ali Shah, in <197> the year ²³⁴, when strife was impending with Russia, the clergy urged the government to make war. Sheykh Ja'far the Arab and Mirza Masih were most importunate in this matter, saying, "We will proclaim a religious war, and our courage shall rend asunder the veil of Russia's honour; we will invade and occupy the whole of that prosperous kingdom, and, fortified by our Holy Religion, will take captive all their soldiers, or make them food for the mace and the sword." But in the end their religious war resulted only in disgrace and humiliation to Persia, while the Russian troops occupied the whole province of Azarbaijan and its dependencies, and advanced as far as Turkman-chay, which is but a few stages from Teheran. Had the Persians not concluded a peace and agreed to all the Russian demands, the Russians would have occupied Teheran, and perhaps the whole of Persia. Indeed it was only the attitude of the English government (which will not allow Russia to interfere with Persia, because they regard it as a barrier between the Russian territories and their own) that induced Russia to consent to peace, because, had she not done so, she would have been obliged to fight the English. Whoever reads with attention the articles of the treaty concluded at Turkman-chay will be filled with pity for the utter helplessness of Persia and her readiness to make any concession for the sake of peace. Thus a religious war kindled by a few ignorant wretches resulted in the loss of the half of Persia and the destruction <198> of her power; whereas, had Persia not entrusted her honour to these dolts, and had she first cast out the foe within, the foe without would not have ventured on such high handed aggression, she would not have been so humbled before her neighbours, and foreigners would not have leagued together to take possession of her land. But these household foes have now waxed so strong that, if matters continue as they are, God only knows what disaster may befall Persia through them.]]²³⁵