Literary History of Persia

PART III.
PERSIAN PROSE DURING THE

LAST FOUR CENTURIES

CHAPTER VIII.
THE ORTHODOX SHÍ‘A FAITH AND ITS EXPONENTS,

THE MUJTAHIDS AND MULLÁS.

One of the chief results of the Shí‘a revival effected by the Ṣafawí dynasty was the establishment of the powerful hierarchy of mujtahids and mullás, often, but not very accurately, described by European writers as “the clergy.” This title is, however, more applicable to them than to the ‘ulamá, or “doctors,” of the Sunnís, who are simply men learned in the Scripture and the Law, but not otherwise possessed of any special Divine virtue or authority. The great practical difference between the ‘ulamá of the Sunnís and of the Shí‘a lies in their conception of the doctrine of Ijtihád, or the discovery and authoritative enunciation of fresh religious truths, based on a comprehensive knowledge of the Scripture and Traditions, and arrived at by supreme effort and endeavour, this last being the signification of the Arabic word. One who has attained to this is called a mujtahid, whose position may be roughly described as analogous to that of a Cardinal in the Church of Rome. No such dignitary exists amongst the Sunnís, who hold that the Bábu’l-Ijtihád, or “Gate of Endeavour” (in the sense explained above), was closed after the death of the founders of their four “orthodox” schools or sects, Abú Ḥanífa (d. 150/767), Málik ibn Anas (d. circa 179/795), ash-Sháfi‘í (d. 204/820), and Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855). Thus the “Gate of Endeavour,” which, according to the Shí‘a view, is still open, has for the Sunnís been closed for more than a thousand years; and in this respect the Shí‘a doctrine must be credited with a greater flexibility and adaptability than that of the
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Sunnís, though in other respects narrower and more intolerant.

As will appear in the course of this chapter, the power and position attained by these prelates tended to divert the ambitions of young men who possessed, or believed themselves to possess, the necessary intellectual qualifications from poetry, belles lettres, and other forms of mental activity to theology, and from this tendency in part resulted the dearth of poets and abundance of divines under the Ṣafawís. Those were spacious times for the “turbaned classes” (ahlu’l-‘amá’im) and every poor, half-starved student who frequented one or other of the numerous colleges (madrasa) founded, endowed and maintained by the piety of the Ṣafawí Sháhs, who delighted to call themselves by such titles as “Dog of the Threshold of the Immaculate Imáms,” or “Promoter of the Doctrine of the Church of the Twelve,” dreamed, no doubt, of becoming at last a great mujtahid, wielding powers of life and death, and accorded honours almost regal.

No class in Persia is so aloof and inaccessible to foreigners and non-Muslims as that of the mullás. It is easy for one who has a good knowledge of Persian to mix not only with the governing classes and officials, who are most familiar with European habits and ideas, but with merchants, tradesmen, artisans, landowners, peasants, darwíshes, Bábís, Bahá'ís, Ṣúfís and others; but few Europeans can have enjoyed intimacy with the “clergy,” whose peculiar, exclusive, and generally narrow life is, so far as my reading has gone, best depicted in an otherwise mediocre and quite modern biographical work entitled Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá (“Tales of the Divines”)⁶⁴⁴ by Muḥammad
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ibn Sulaymán of Tanukábun, who was born in 1235/1819-20, wrote this book in three months and five days, and concluded it on the 17th of Rajab, 1290 (Sept. 10, 1873). It contains the lives of 153 Shí‘a doctors, ranging from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries of the Muhammadan (tenth to nineteenth of the Christian) era, arranged in no intelligible order, either chronological or alphabetical. To his own biography, which he places fourth in order, the author devotes more than twenty pages, and enumerates 169 of his works, besides various glosses and other minor writings. From this book, which I read through during the Easter Vacation of 1923, having long ago made use of certain parts of it bearing on the Shaykhís and Bábís, I have disentangled from much that is tedious, trivial or puerile, a certain amount of valuable information which is not to be found in many much better biographical works, whereof, before proceeding further, I shall here speak briefly.

What is known as ‘Ilmu’r-Rijál (“ Knowledge of the Men,” that is of the leading authorities and transmitters of the Traditions) forms an important branch of theological study, since such knowledge is necessary for critical purposes. Of such Kutubu’r-Rijál (“Books of the Men”) there are a great many. Sprenger, in his edition⁶⁴⁵ of one of the most important of these, the Fihrist, or “Index,” of Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan ibn ‘Alí of Ṭús, entitled Shaykhu’ṭ-Ṭá’ifa, who died in 460/1067, ranks with it in importance four other works, the Asmá’u’r-Rijál (“Names of the Men”) of Shaykh Aḥmad ibn ‘Alí an-Najáshí⁶⁴⁶ (d. 455/1063); the Ma‘álimu’l-‘Ulamá of Muḥammad ibn ‘Alí ibn Shahr-áshúb of Mázandarán,

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who died in 588/1192; the Íḍáḥu’l-Ishtibáh (“Elucidation of Confusion”) of Ḥasan ibn Yúsuf ibn Muṭahhar al-Ḥillí (b. 648/1250; d. 726/1326); and the Lú’lú’atu’l-Baḥrayn⁶⁴⁷, a work of a more special character, dealing especially with the ‘ulamá of Baḥrayn, by Yúsuf ibn Aḥmad ibn Ibráhím al-Baḥrání (d. 1187/1773-4). Another work, similar to the last in dealing with a special region, is the Amalu’l-Ámil fí ‘Ulamá’i Jabal-‘Ámil, composed by Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan ibn ‘Alí…al-Ḥurr al-‘Ámilí (b. 1033/1623-4) in 1097/1686. All these works are written in Arabic, but of the older books of this class there is one in Persian (compiled in 990/1582) which must on no account be overlooked. This is the Majálisu’l-Mú’minín (“Assemblies of Believers”) of Sayyid Núru’lláh ibn Sharíf al-Mar‘ashí of Shúshtar, who was put to death in India on account of his strong Shí‘a opinions in 1019/1610-11. This book is both of a wider scope and a more popular character than those previously mentioned, since it contains, in twelve chapters, notices of eminent Shí‘as of all classes, not merely theologians, and includes not only those who adhered to the “Sect of the Twelve” (Ithná-‘ashariyya) but all those who held that ‘Alí should have immediately succeeded the Prophet.

Of modern works of this class, composed within the last sixty years, three, besides the above-mentioned Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá, deserve special mention. The most general in its scope, entitled Rawḍátu’l-Jannát fí Aḥwáli’l-‘Ulamá wa’s-Sádát (“Gardens of Paradise: on the circumstances of Divines and Sayyids⁶⁴⁸”), was composed in Arabic by Muḥammad Báqir ibn Ḥájji Zaynu’l-‘Ábidín al-Músawí al-Khwánsárí, whose auto-

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biography is given on pp. 126-8 of vol. i, in 1286/1869-70. The biographies, which are arranged alphabetically, include learned Muslims of all periods, and are not confined to theologians or members of the Shí‘a sect. Thus we find notices of great Mystics, like Báyazíd of Bisṭám, Ibráhím ibn Adham, Shiblí and Ḥusayn ibn Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj; of Arabic poets, like Dhu’r-Rumma, Farazdaq, Ibnu’l-Fáriḍ, Abú Nuwás and al-Mutanabbí; of Persian poets, like Saná’í, Farídu’d-Dín ‘Aṭṭár, Náṣir-i-Khusraw, and Jalálu’d-Dín Rúmí; and of men of learning like al-Bírúní, Thábit ibn Qurra, Ḥunayn ibn Isḥáq and Avicenna, etc., besides the accounts of Shí‘a theologians down to comparatively modern times which give the book so great a value for our present purpose.

Another important work, composed in the same year as that last mentioned (1286/1869-70) but in Persian, is entitled Nujúmu’s-Samá (“Stars of Heaven”)⁶⁴⁹. It deals with Shí‘a theologians of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the hijra (A.D. 1592-1882), and the biographies are arranged on the whole chronologically. The author was Muḥammad ibn Ṣádiq ibn Mahdí. Like most of these books its utility is impaired by the lack of an Index or even a Table of Contents, but it contains a great deal of useful information.

The third work of which I desire to make special mention here is primarily a bibliography, though it also contains a good deal of biographical matter. It is entitled Kashfu’l-Ḥujub wa’l-Astár ‘an Asmá’i’l-Kutub wa’l-Asfár (“the Removal of Veils and Curtains from the Names of Books and Treatises”), contains notices of 3414 Shí‘a books arranged alphabetically, and was composed in Arabic by Sayyid I‘jáz Ḥusayn, who was born in 1240/1825, and died in 1286/1870. The editor, Muḥammad Hidáyat Ḥusayn, discovered the manuscript in the excellent
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Bankipore Library, and, encouraged by Sir E. Denison Ross, prepared the text for publication at the expense of the Asiatic Society of Bengal⁶⁵⁰.

Mention must also be made of another Arabic work on Shí‘a poets entitled Nasimatu’s-Saḥar fí-man tashayya‘a wa sha‘ar (“the Morning Breeze, on those who held the Shí‘a faith and composed poetry”) compiled by Yúsuf ibn Yaḥyá al-Yamaní as-Ṣan‘ání, a rare book, hitherto, so far as I know, unpublished, of which I am fortunate enough to possess a manuscript of the second half, containing the letters ط to ﻯ⁶⁵¹. Only poets who wrote in Arabic are noticed.

Of these books the Rawḍátu’l-Jannát is the most scholarly

and comprehensive, but those who read Persian only will derive much instruction and some amusement from the Majálisu’l-Mú’minín, Nujúmu’s-Samá, and Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá. The older “Books of the Men,” such as the works of aṭ-Ṭúsí and an-Najáshí, are generally very jejune, and suited for reference rather than reading. As it is with the theologians of the Ṣafawí and subsequent periods that we are chiefly concerned here, a very few words about the older ‘ulamá of the Shí‘a will suffice, though with their names, titles and approximate dates the student should be familiar. The most important of these earlier divines are “the three Muḥammads⁶⁵²,” al-Kulayní (Muḥammad ibn Ya‘qúb, d. 329/941), Ibn Bábawayhi (Muḥammad ibn ‘Alí ibn Músá, d. 381/991-2), and the already-mentioned Ṭúsí (Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan, d. 460/

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1067). Of these the first composed the Káfí, the second Man lá yaḥḍuruhu’l-Faqíh (a title which approximates in sense to our familiar “Every man his own Lawyer”), and the third the Istibṣár and the Tahdhíbu’l-Aḥkám, which are known collectively amongst the Shí‘a as “the Four Books” (al-Kutubu’l-arba‘a)⁶⁵³, and of which full particulars will be found in the above-mentioned Kashfu’l-Ḥujub. More modern times also produced their “three Muḥammads,” namely Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan Ibn ‘Alí…al-Ḥurr al-‘Ámilí (author of the above-mentioned Amalu’l-Ámil); Muḥammad ibnu’l-Murtaḍá, commonly known as Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayẓ (Fayḍ), who died about 1090/1679; and Muḥammad Báqir-i-Majlisí (d. 1111/1699-1700)⁶⁵⁴. Each of these also produced a great book, the first the Wasá’il, the second the Wáfí, and the third the Biḥáru’l-Anwár (“Oceans of Light”), which constitute the “Three Books” of the later time. These seven great works on Shí‘a theology, jurisprudence and tradition are, of course, like the great bulk of the works of the Muhammadan Doctors -and Divines, written in Arabic, which language occupies no less a position in Islám than does Latin in the theological literature of the Church of Rome. Of them space will not permit me to speak further; it is the more popular Persian manuals of doctrine, whereby the great theologians of the Ṣafawí period sought so successfully to diffuse their religious teachings, which must chiefly concern us here, and even of these it will be impossible to give an adequate account. According to the Rawḍátu’l-Jannát⁶⁵⁵, Kamálu’d-Dín Ḥusayn of Ardabíl, called “the Divine Doctor” (al-
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Iláhí), a contemporary of Sháh Isma‘íl I, “was the first to compose books in Persian on matters connected with the Holy Law according to the doctrine of the Shí‘a”:

We have already seen⁶⁵⁶ what difficulty Sháh Isma‘íl experienced on his capture of Tabríz in finding teachers or books to inculcate the doctrines of the creed which he was determined to impose throughout his dominions, and it is not strange, though the fact is often overlooked, that it became necessary to introduce into Persia learned Arabs of the Shí‘a persuasion, where such were obtainable. Two districts furnished the bulk of these: Baḥrayn, across the Persian Gulf, and Jabal ‘Ámil in Syria⁶⁵⁷. To the divines furnished by each of these two localities a special biographical work has, as we have seen, been devoted, namely the Lú’lú’atu’l-Baḥrayn and the Amalu’l-Ámil. Some of them came to Persia totally ignorant of the Persian language, like Sayyid Ni‘matu’lláh al-Jazá’irí, who, on reaching Shíráz with his brother, had to obtain from a Persian acquaintance the sentence “Madrasa-i-Manṣúriyya-rá mi-khwáhím” (“We want the Manṣúriyya College”), and even then each learned only half of this simple phrase and spoke alternately⁶⁵⁸.
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It is the autobiography of this same Sayyid Ni‘matu’lláh, as given in the Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá, which furnishes us with so unusually vivid a picture of the privations and hardships experienced by a poor student of Divinity. He was born in 1050/1640-1 and wrote this narrative when he was thirty-nine years of age⁶⁵⁹, “in which brief life,” he adds, “what afflictions have befallen me!” These afflictions began when he was only five years old, when, while he was at play with his little companions, his father appeared, saying, “Come with me, my little son, that we may go to the school-master, so that thou mayst learn to read and write, in order that thou mayst attain to a high degree.” In spite of tears, protests, and appeals to his mother he had to go to school, where, in order the sooner to escape and return to his games, he applied himself diligently to his lessons, so that by the time he was aged five years and a half he had finished the Qur’án, besides learning many poems. This, however, brought him no relief and no return to his childish games, for he was now committed to the care of a blind grammarian to study the Arabic paradigms and the grammar of Zanjání. For this blind teacher he had to act as guide, while his next preceptor
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compelled him to cut and carry fodder for his beasts and mulberry-leaves for his silk-worms. He then sought another teacher with whom to study the Káfiya of Ibnu’l-Ḥájib, and found an imposing personage dressed in white with an enormous turban “like a small cupola,” who, however, was unable to answer his questions. “If you don’t know enough grammar to answer these questions, why do you wear this great load on your head?” enquired the boy; whereupon the audience laughed, and the teacher rose up ashamed and departed, “This led me to exert myself to master the paradigms of grammar,” says the writer; “but I now ask pardon of God for my question to that believing man, while thanking Him that this incident happened before I had attained maturity and become fully responsible for my actions.”

After pursuing his studies with various other masters, he obtained his father’s permission to follow his elder brother to Ḥuwayza. The journey thither by boat through narrow channels amongst the weeds, tormented by mosquitoes “as large as wasps” and with only the milk of buffaloes to assuage his hunger, gave him his first taste of the discomforts of travel to a poor student. In return for instruction in Jámí’s and Járbardí’s commentaries and the Sháfiya, his teacher exacted from him “much service,” making him and his fellow-students collect stones for a house which he wished to build, and bring fish and other victuals for him from the neighbouring town. He would not allow them to copy his lecture-notes, but they used to purloin them when opportunity arose and transcribe them. “Such was his way with us,” says the writer, “yet withal we were well satisfied to serve him, so that we might derive benefit from his holy breaths.”

He attended the college daily till noon for instruction and discussion, and on returning to his lodging was so hungry
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that, in default of any better food, he used to collect the melon-skins cast aside on the ground, wipe off the dust, and eat what fragments of edible matter remained. One day he came upon his companion similarly employed. Each had tried to conceal from the other the shifts to which he was reduced for food, but now they joined forces and collected and washed their melon-skins in company. Being unable to afford lamps or candles, they learned by heart the texts they were studying, such as the Alfiyya of Ibn Málik and the Káfiya, on moonlight nights, and on the dark nights repeated them by heart so as not to forget them. To avoid the distraction of conversation, one student would on these occasions often bow his head on his knees and cover his eyes, feigning headache.

After a brief visit to his home, he determined to go to Shíráz, and set out by boat for Baṣra by the Shaṭṭu’l-‘Arab. He was so afraid of being stopped and brought back by his father that, during the earlier part of the voyage, he stripped off his clothes and waded behind the boat, holding on to the rudder, until he had gone so far that recognition was no longer probable, when he re-entered the boat. Farther on he saw a number of people on the bank, and one of his fellow-passengers called out to them to enquire whether they were Sunnís or Shí‘a. On learning that they were Sunnís, he began to abuse them and invoke curses on the first three Caliphs, to which they replied with volleys of stones.

The writer remained only a short while at Baṣra, then governed by Ḥusayn Páshá, for his father followed him thither to bring him home, but he escaped privily with his brother, and, as already narrated⁶⁶⁰, made his way to Shíráz and established himself in the Manṣúriyya College, being then only eleven
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years of age. He found one of the tutors lecturing on the Alfiyya of Ibn Málik, who, on the conclusion of the lecture, questioned him as to his aims and adventures, and finally, seizing him by the car and giving it a sharp twist, said, “O my son, do not make thyself an Arab Shaykh or seek for supremacy, and do not waste thy time! Do not thus, that so perchance thou mayst become a scholar.”

In this college also the life was hard and the daily allowance of food inadequate, and the writer’s brother wished to return home, but he himself determined to remain, copying books for a pittance, and working almost all night through the hot weather in a room with closed doors while his fellow-students slept on the roof. Often he had neither oil for his lamp nor bread to eat, but must work by moonlight, faint with hunger, while in the winter mornings his fingers often bled with the cold as he wrote his notes. Thus passed two or three years more, and, though his eyesight was permanently affected by the strain to which it was subjected, he began to write books himself, a commentary on the Káfiya, and another, entitled Miftáḥu’l-Labíb, on the Tahdhíb of Shaykh Bahá’u’d-Dín Muḥammad⁶⁶¹. He now began to extend the range of his studies beyond Arabic grammar, and to frequent the lectures of more eminent teachers from Baghdád, al-Aḥsá and Baḥrayn, amongst them Shaykh Ja‘far al-Baḥrání. One day he did not attend this Shaykh’s lecture because of the news which had reached him of the death of certain relatives. When he reappeared on the following day the Shaykh was very angry and refused to give him any further instruction, saying, “May God curse my father and mother if I teach

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you any more! Why were you not here yesterday?” And, when the writer explained the cause of his absence, he said, “You should have attended the lecture, and indulged in your mourning afterwards”; and only when the student had sworn never to play the truant again whatever might happen was he allowed after an interval to resume his attendance. Finally he so far won the approval of this somewhat exacting teacher that the latter offered him his daughter in marriage; an honour from which he excused himself by saying, “If God will, after I have finished my studies and become a Doctor (‘álim), I will marry.” Soon afterwards the teacher obtained an appointment in India, at Ḥaydarábád in the Deccan.

Sayyid Ni‘matu’lláh remained in Shíráz for nine years, and for the most part in such poverty that often he swallowed nothing all day except water. The earlier part of the night he would often spend with a friend who lived some way outside the town so as to profit by his lamp for study, and thence he would grope his way through the dark and deserted bazaars, soothing the fierce dogs which guarded their masters’ shops, to the distant mosque where he lectured before dawn. At his parents’ wish he returned home for a while and took to himself a wife, but being reproached by a learned man whom he visited with abandoning his studies while still ill-grounded in the Science of Traditions, he left his parents and his wife (he had only been married for three weeks) and returned to the Manṣúriyya College at Shíráz. Soon afterwards, however, it was destroyed by a fire, in which one student and a large part of the library perished; and about the same time he received tidings of his father’s death. These two misfortunes, combined with other circumstances, led him to leave Shíráz and go to Iṣfahán.

During his early days at Iṣfahán he still suffered from the same poverty with which he had been only too familiar
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in the past, often eating salted meat to increase his thirst, so that the abundance of water he was thereby impelled to drink might destroy his appetite for solid food. The change in his fortune took place when he made the acquaintance and attracted the notice of that great but fanatical divine Mullá Muḥammad Báqir-i-Majlisí, perhaps the most notable and powerful doctor of the Shí‘a who ever lived. He was admitted to the house of this famous man and lived with him for four years studying theology, and especially the Traditions⁶⁶². Yet in this case familiarity did not breed contempt, for, as the author mentions in his Anwáru’n-Nu‘mániyya⁶⁶³, though specially favoured by this formidable “Prince of the Church,” he often, when summoned to his library to converse with him, or to help in the compilation of the Biḥáru’l-Anwár, would stand trembling outside the door for some moments ere he could summon up courage to enter. Thanks to this powerful patronage, however, he was appointed lecturer (mudarris) in a college recently founded by a certain Mírzá Taqí near the Bath of Shaykh-i-Bahá’í in Iṣfahán, which post he held for eight years, when the increasing weakness of his eyes and the inability of the oculists of Iṣfahán to afford him any relief determined him to set out again on his travels. He visited Sámarrá, Káẓimayn, and other holy places in ‘Iráq, whence he returned by way of Shúshtar to Iṣfahán. In 1079/1668-9 his brother died, and ten years later, when he penned this autobiography, he still
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keenly felt this loss. After visiting Mashhad he returned to Ḥuwayza, where he was living a somewhat solitary and disillusioned life at the time of writing (1089/1678-9). Of his further adventures I have found no record, but his death did not take place until 1130/1718, only four years before the disaster which put an end to the Ṣafawí Dynasty.

I have given in a somewhat compressed form the whole of this illuminating narrative, one of those “human documents” which are so rare in Persian books (though indeed, as already noted on p. 361, it was originally written in Arabic), because it throws so much light on the life of the Persian student of theology, which, for the rest, mutatis mutandis, closely resembles that of the mediaeval European student. We see the child prematurely torn from the games and amusements suitable to his age to undergo a long, strenuous, and arid course of instruction in Arabic grammar and philology, reading one grammar after another in an ascending scale of difficulty, with commentaries, supercommentaries, glosses and notes on each; we see him as a boy, now fired with ambition, pursuing his studies in theology and law, half-starved, suffering alternately from the cold of winter and the heat of summer, ruining his eyesight by perusing crabbed texts by the fitful light of the moon, and his digestion by irregular and unwholesome meals, varied by intervals of starvation; cut off from home life and family ties; submerged in an ocean of formalism and fanaticism; himself in time adding to the piles of glosses and notes which serve rather to submerge and obscure than to elucidate the texts whereon they are based; and at last, if fortunate, attracting the favourable notice of some great divine, and becoming himself a mudarris (lecturer), a mutawallí (custodian of a shrine), or even a mujtahid.

But if the poor student’s path was arduous, the possible prizes were great, though, of course, attained only by a few.
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In the eyes of the Ṣafawí kings the mujtahid was the representative of the Expected Imám, whose name they never mentioned without adding the prayer, “M ay God hasten his glad advent!” (‘ajjala ‘lláhu faraja-hu!). He had power of life and death. Ḥájji Sayyid Muḥammad Báqir ibn Muḥammad Taqí of Rasht, entitled Ḥujjatu’l-Islám (“the Proof of Islám”), is said to have put to death seventy persons for various sins or heresies. On the first occasion, being unable to find anyone to execute his sentence, he had to strike the first ineffective blow himself, after which someone came to his assistance and decapitated the victim, over whose body he then recited the funeral prayers, and while so doing fainted with emotion⁶⁶⁴.

Another mujtahid, Áqá Muḥammad ‘Alí, a contemporary of Karím Khán-i-Zand, acquired the title of Ṣúfí-kush (“the Ṣúfí-slayer”) from the number of ‘urafá and darwíshes whom he condemned to death⁶⁶⁵.

Another, Mullá ‘Abdu’lláh-i-Túní, induced Sháh ‘Abbás the Great to walk in front of him as he rode through the Maydán-i-Sháh, or Royal Square, of Iṣfahán⁶⁶⁶, with the object of demonstrating to all men the honour in which learning was held.

Mullá Ḥasan of Yazd, who had invited his fellow-townsmen to expel, with every circumstance of disgrace, a tyrannical governor, was summoned to Ṭihrán by Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh to answer for his actions, and threatened with the bastinado unless he disavowed responsibility for this procedure. As he refused to do this, and persisted that he was entirely responsible for what had happened, he was actually tied up to receive the bastinado, though it was not actually inflicted. That night the Sháh was notified in a dream of the extreme displeasure with which the Prophet regarded

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the disrespect shown by him to the exponent of his doctrine and law, and hastened next morning to offer his apologies and a robe of honour, which last was refused by the indignant ecclesiastic⁶⁶⁷.

Mullá Aḥmad of Ardabíl, called Muqaddas (“the Saint,” died in 993/1585), being asked by one of the King’s officers who had committed some fault to intercede for him, wrote to Sháh ‘Abbás the Great in Persian as follows⁶⁶⁸:

“Let ‘Abbás, the founder of a borrowed empire⁶⁶⁹, know that this man, if he was originally an oppressor, now appears to be oppressed; so that, if thou wilt pass over his fault, perhaps God (Glorious and Exalted is He) may pass over some of thy faults.

“Written by Aḥmad al-Ardabílí, servant of the Lord of Saintship⁶⁷⁰.”

To this the Sháh ‘Abbás replied:

“‘Abbás makes representation that he accepts as a spiritual favour and has fulfilled the services which you enjoined on him. Do not forget [me] your friend in your prayers!

“Written by ‘Abbás, the dog of ‘Alí’s threshold.”

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Another mujtahid of Ardabíl entitled Muḥaqqiq (“the Investigator” or “Verifier”) wrote on behalf of certain Sayyids to Sháh Ṭahmásp, who, on receiving the letter, rose to his feet, placed it on his eyes, and kissed it, and gave the fullest satisfaction to its demands. Then, because the letter addressed him as “O brother” (Ayyuha’l-Akh), the Sháh caused it to be placed with his winding-sheet and ordered that it should be buried with him, “in order that,” said he, “I may argue with the Angels of the Tomb, Munkir and Nakír, that I should not be subjected to their torment.”

Still more extraordinary is another anecdote in the same work⁶⁷¹ of how Prince Muḥammad ‘Alí Mírzá gave a thousand túmáns to each of two mujtahids in return for a paper, duly signed and sealed, promising him a place in Paradise. One of them (Sayyid Riḍá ibn Sayyid Mahdí) hesitated to do this, but the Prince said, “Do you write the document and get the doctors of Karbalá and Najaf to witness it, and I will get it (i.e. the mansion in Paradise) from God Most High.”

Many similar anecdotes might be cited, besides numerous miracles (karámát) ascribed to most of the leading divines, but enough has been said to show the extraordinary power and honour which they enjoyed. They were, indeed, more powerful than the greatest Ministers of State, since they could, and often did, openly oppose the Sháh and overcome him without incurring the fate which would almost inevitably have overtaken a recalcitrant Minister. Nor is this a thing of the past, as is abundantly shown by the history of the overthrow of the Tobacco Concession in 1890-1, which was entirely effected, in the teeth of the Náṣiru’d-Dín Sháh and his Court, and the British Legation, by the mujtahids, headed by Ḥájji Mírzá Ḥasan-i-Shírází and Ḥájji Mírzá Ḥasan-i-Ashtiyání
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inspired and prompted by that extraordinary man Sayyid Jamálu’d-Dín miscalled “the Afghán⁶⁷².” Dr Feuvrier, the Sháh’s French physician, who was in Ṭihrán at the time, gives a graphic account of this momentous struggle in his Trois Ans à la Cour de Perse⁶⁷³. I have described it fully in my Persian Revolution of 1905-1909⁶⁷⁴, and also the still more important part played by Mullá Muḥammad Káẓim of Khurásán and other patriotic mujtahids⁶⁷⁵ in the Persian struggle for freedom and independence in the first decade of this century of our era. Mullá Muḥammad Káẓim, a noble example of the patriot-priest, deeply moved by the intolerable tyranny and aggression of the then government of Russia, formally proclaimed a jihád, or religious war, against the Russians on December 11, 1911, and was setting out from Karbalá for Persia in pursuance of this object when he died very suddenly on the following day, the victim, as was generally believed, of poison⁶⁷⁶. He was not the only ecclesiastical victim of patriotism, for the Thiqatu’l-Islám was publicly hanged by the Russians at Tabríz on the ‘Áshúrá, or 10th of Muḥarram, 1330 (January 1, 1912)⁶⁷⁷, a sacrilegious act only surpassed by the bombardment three months later of the shrine of the Imám Riḍá at Mashhad, which many Persians believe to have been avenged by the fate which subsequently overtook the Tsar and his family at the hands of the Bolsheviks.

The mujtahids and mullás, therefore, are a great, though probably a gradually decreasing force, in Persia and concern themselves with every department of human activity,

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from the minutest details of personal purification to the largest issues of politics. It is open to any Shí‘a Muslim to submit any problem into the solution of which religious considerations enter (and they practically enter everywhere) to a mujtahid, and to ask for a formal decision, or fatwá, conformable to the principles of Shí‘a doctrine. Such fatwá may extend to the denunciation of an impious or tyrannical king or minister as an infidel (takfír), or the declaration that anyone who fights for him is as one who fights against the Hidden Imám. The fact that the greatest mujtahids generally reside at Najaf or Karbalá, outside Persian territory, greatly strengthens their position and conduces to their immunity. To break or curb their power has been the aim of many rulers in Persia before and after the Ṣafawís, but such attempts have seldom met with more than a very transient success, for the mullás form a truly national class, represent in great measure the national outlook and aspirations, and have not unfrequently shielded the people from the oppression of their governors. And although their scholarship is generally of a somewhat narrow kind, it is, so far as it goes, sound, accurate, and even in a sense critical. The finest Persian scholar I know, Mírzá Muḥammad ibn ‘Abdu’l-Wahháb of Qazwín, is one who has superimposed on this foundation a knowledge of European critical methods acquired in England, France and Germany.

On the other hand, apart from corruption, fanaticism and other serious faults, many of the ‘ulamá are prone to petty jealousy and mutual disparagement. A well-known anecdote, given by Malcolm⁶⁷⁸ and in the Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá⁶⁷⁹, shows that great doctors like Mír Dámád and Shaykh Bahá’u’d-Dín al-‘Ámilí could rise

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above such ignoble feelings; but, as the author of the latter work complains, their less magnanimous colleagues were but too prone to call one another fools and asses, to the injury of their own class and the delight of irreligious laymen. Nor was this abuse rendered less offensive by being wrapped up in punning and pedantic verses like this⁶⁸⁰:

“Thou art not worthy to be advanced; nay, thou art nothing more

than half of the opposite of ‘advanced’!”

The opposite of “advanced” (muqaddam) is “postponed” (mu’akhkhar), and the second half of the latter word, khar, is the Persian for an ass. This is a refined specimen of mullás’ wit: for a much coarser one the curious reader may refer to an interchange of badinage between Mullá Mírzá Muḥammad-i-Shírwání the Turk and Áqá Jamál of Iṣfahán recorded in the Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá⁶⁸¹. That some mullás had the sense to recognize their own rather than their neighbours’ limitations is, however, shown by a pleasant anecdote related in the same work⁶⁸² of Jamálu’d-Dín Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn-i-Khwánsárí. As a judge he was in receipt of a salary of four thousand túmáns a year. One day four persons successively put to him four questions, to each of which he replied, “I do not know.” A certain high official who was present said to him, “You receive from the King four thousand túmáns to know, yet here to everyone who asks you a question you reply ‘I do not know.’” “I receive these four thousand túmáns,” replied the mullá, “for those things which I do know. If I required a salary for what I do not know, even the Royal Treasury would be unable to pay it.”
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Jurisprudence (fiqh) and theology (‘aqá’id), with the ancillary sciences, all of which are based on a thorough knowledge of the Arabic language, normally constitute the chief studies of the “ clergy,” though naturally there is a certain tendency to specialization, the qáḍí, or ecclesiastical judge, being more concerned with fiqh, and the theologian proper with doctrine. We must also distinguish between the prevalent Uṣúlí and the once important but now negligible Akhbárí school, between whom bitter enmity subsisted. The former, as their name implies, follow the general “principles” (uṣúl) deducible from the Qur’án and accredited traditions, and employ analogy (qiyás) in arriving at their conclusions. The latter follow the traditions (akhbár) only, and repudiate analogical reasoning. Mullá Muḥammad Amín ibn Muḥammad Sharíf of Astarábád, who died in 1033/1623-4, is generally accounted the founder of the Akhbárí school, and was, according to the Lú’lú’atu’l-Baḥrayn⁶⁸³, “the first to open the door of reproach against the Mujtahids, so that the ‘Saved Sect’ (a1-Firqatu’n-Nájiya, i.e. the Shí‘a of the Sect of the Twelve) became divided into Akhbárís and Mujtahids,” and the contents of his book al-Fawá’idu’l-Madaniyya⁶⁸⁴ consist for the most part of vituperation of the Mujtahids, whom he often accused of “destroying the true Religion.” A later doctor of this school, Mírzá Muḥammad Akhbárí of Baḥrayn, entertained so great a hatred for the Mujtahids that he promised Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh that he would in forty days cause to be brought to Ṭihrán the head of a certain Russian general who was at that time invading and devasting the frontier provinces of Persia, on condition that Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh would, in case of his success, “abrogate and abandon the Mujtahids,
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extirpate and eradicate them root and branch, and make the Akhbárí doctrine current throughout all the lands of Persia.” The Sháh consented, and thereupon the Akhbárí doctor went into retirement for forty days, abstained from all animal food, and proceeded to practise the “envoûtement” of the Russian general, by making a wax figure of him and decapitating it with a sword. According to the story, the head was actually laid before the Sháh just as the period of forty days was expiring, and he thereupon took council with his advisers as to what he should do. These replied, “the sect of the Mujtahids is one which hath existed from the time of the Imáms until now, and they are in the right, while the Akhbárí sect is scanty in numbers and weak. Moreover it is the beginning of the Qájár dynasty, You might, perhaps, succeed in turning the people from the doctrine [to which they are accustomed], but this might be the cause of disastrous results to the King’s rule, and they might rebel against him. Moreover it might easily happen that Mírzá Muḥammad should be annoyed with you, arrive at an understanding with your enemy, and deal with you as he dealt with the Russian ‘Ishpukhtur⁶⁸⁵.’ The wisest course is that you should propitiate him, excuse yourself to him, and order him to retire to the Holy Thresholds (Karbalá or
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Najaf) and stay there; for it is not expedient for the State that such a person should remain in the capital.” This advice Fatḥ-‘Alí Sháh decided to follow.
The very dry, narrow and formal divines are called by the Persians Qishrí (literally “Huskers,” i.e. externalists), and to these the Akhbárís in particular belong, but also many of the Uṣúlís, like Mírzá Ibráhím, the son of the celebrated Mullá Ṣadrá, one of the teachers of Sayyid Ni‘matu’lláh Jazá’irí, who used to glory in the fact that his belief was that of the common people, and Mullá ‘Alí Núrí, who used to pray that God would keep him in the current popular faith⁶⁸⁶. On the other hand we have the more liberal-minded divines, whose theology was tinctured with Philosophy or Ṣúfíism, the Mutakallimún, who strove to reconcile Philosophy with Religion and closely resemble the School-men of mediaeval Europe, and finally the pure philosophers, like the celebrated Mullá Ṣadrá of Shíráz, who, however little their ultimate conclusions accorded with orthodox theology, had generally had the training of the ‘ulamá and were drawn from the same class.

The literature produced by this large and industrious body of men, both in Arabic and Persian, is naturally enormous, but the bulk of it is so dull or so technical that no one but a very leisured and very pious Shí‘a scholar would dream of reading it. The author of the Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá remarks⁶⁸⁷ that the ‘ulamá often live to a very advanced age, and as their habits are, as a rule, sedentary and studious, and they devote a large portion of their time to writing, it is not unusual to find a single author credited with one or two hundred books

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and pamphlets. Thus the author of the Qiṣaṣu’l-‘Ulamá enumerates 169 of his own works, besides glosses, tracts and minor writings⁶⁸⁸; of those of Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ (Fayẓ), 69 by name, but he adds that the total number is nearly 200⁶⁸⁹; of those of Muḥammad ibn ‘Alí…ibn Bábawayhi, entitled aṣ-Ṣadúq, 189⁶⁹⁰; and so on. Many of these writings are utterly valueless, consisting of notes or glosses on super-commentaries or commentaries on texts, grammatical, logical, juristic or otherwise, which texts are completely buried and obscured by all this misdirected ingenuity and toil. It was of this class of writings that the late Grand Muftí of Egypt and Chancellor of al-Azhar Shaykh Muḥammad ‘Abduh, one of the most able and enlightened Muhammadan divines of our time, was wont to say that they ought all to be burned as hindrances rather than aids to learning.

The works on jurisprudence (Fiqh) also, even the best, are as a rule very unreadable to a non-Muslim. What is taught in English universities as “Muhammadan Law” is, of course, only a portion of the subject as understood in the Lands of Islám. The Sharí‘at, or Holy Law, includes not only Civil and Criminal Law, but such personal religious obligations as Prayer and the Purifications necessary for its due performance; Alms; Fasting; Pilgrimage; and the Holy War (Jihád), which subjects, with their innumerable ramifications and the hair-splitting casuistry applied to all sorts of contingencies arising from them, constitute perhaps one half of the whole. It is curious that, in spite of the neglect of Shí‘a theology by European Orientalists, one of the best European books on Muhammadan Jurisprudence treats of Shí‘a Law. This is M. Amédée Querry’s Droit Musulman: Recueil de Lois

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concernant les Musulmans Schyites⁶⁹¹; and the European reader who wishes to form an idea of the subject, with all its intricate, and, to the non-Muslim mind, puerile and even disgusting details, cannot do better than consult this monumental work, which is based on the Sharáyi‘u’l-Islám fí masá’ili’l-Ḥalál wa’l-Ḥarám⁶⁹² of the celebrated Shí‘a doctor Najmu’d-Dín Abu’l-Qásim Ja‘far ibn al-Ḥasan…al-Ḥillí, commonly called al-Muḥaqqiq al-Awwal (“the First Verifier” or “Investigator”), who died in 676/1277-8. Other works of authority, enumerated in the Preface (vol. i, p. vii) were also consulted, as well as leading contemporary Persian jurists, by M. Querry, whose twenty-five years’ sojourn in Turkey and Persia, where he occupied important official positions, such as counsellor of the French Legation at Ṭihrán, singularly fitted him for the arduous task which he so ably accomplished. An excellent Index of Arabic technical terms explained in the course of the book greatly enhances its value.

Mention should be made in this connection of a Persian catechism on problems of jurisprudence (fiqh) entitled Su’ál u Jawáb (“Question and Answer”), by the eminent mujtahid Ḥájji Sayyid Muḥammad Báqir, whose severity in enforcing the death-penalty in cases where it is enacted by the Ecclesiastical Law has been already mentioned⁶⁹³. This work, composed subsequently to 1236/1820, was very beautifully printed in 1247/1832, apparently at Iṣfahán, under the supervision of Mírzá Zaynu’l-‘Ábidín of Tabríz, “the introducer of this art into Persia.” It comprises 162 ff. of 29˙6 x 20˙5 c. and 28 lines, and the letters س (su’ál, “question”) and ج (jawáb, “answer”)

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are throughout inserted by hand in red. I possess only one volume, which was to have been followed by a second, but whether this was ever completed I do not know⁶⁹⁴. The topics are arranged in the usual order, beginning with the personal obligations of purification, prayer, alms, fasting and pilgrimage, and ending with the Kitábu’l-Wadí‘at, dealing with objects deposited in trust in the hands of another. An Introduction on “Principles” (Uṣúl) is prefixed to the whole, and in each book, or section, various problems connected with the topic in question are propounded, with the author’s decisions, the whole in the form of dialogue. Thus the Introduction begins abruptly, without any doxology, with the following question:

Q. “If a person follows the opinions of one of the mujtahids (may God increase the like of them!) during the life of that mujtahid, is it lawful after his death for that person to continue to follow him and act according to his sayings, or not?”

The answer, which fills nearly a page, is to the effect that it is not lawful so to do, and that the person in question should transfer his allegiance to some other mujtahid. Numerous authorities are cited in support of this view, amongst them Muḥammad Báqir (presumably al-Majlisí), Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdí, the “Second Martyr” (ash-Shahidu’th-Thání), and the “Second Verifier” or “Investigator” (al-Muḥaqqiqu’th- Thání).

The “books,” or sections, are of very unequal length, that on Prayer occupying nearly 70 ff., and other “ books,” including the last, on Trusts, only half a page. Of the latter, which contains only two questions and their answers, the full translation is as follows:
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Q. — “Zayd⁶⁹⁵ sends an article in trust to a trustee, bidding him give it to So-and-so. After the arrival of the article, the trustee learns for certain that the article entrusted to him belongs to ‘Amr⁶⁹⁶, and that the hand of the sender, etc., is the hand of borrowing and usurpation. Moreover ‘Amr lays claim to the trust. saying, ‘This trust committed to thee is my property.’ The trustee also admits the validity of his claim to the property, but says, ‘He sent it to me to give it to So-and-so; I will not give it to thee.’ Has ‘Amr legally power to assume possession of the property and take it from the trustee, or not? And to whom should the trustee surrender the trust, so that he may be cleared of all further responsibility?”

A. — “If what has been penned actually corresponds with the facts of the case, that is to say, if the trustee knows that the property belongs to ‘Amr, and that the hand of the sender of it is the hand of usurpation and violence, it is incumbent on the said trustee to surrender such property to its owner, whether the sender gives permission for such surrender or not. For such trustee to say to ‘Amr, having knowledge of the fact that the said property really belongs to him, ‘I will not give it to thee, in view of the fact that the sender of it bade me give it to So-and-so, not to thee,’ is incompatible with the functions of a trustee, and is not conformable to the Holy Law.”

Q. — “If Zayd shall have deposited an article in trust with ‘Amr, and If nearly seventeen years shall have passed, and if, notwithstanding ‘Amr’s urgent insistence with Zayd that he should remove the said article, he neglects to do so, and the said article, without any excess or defect of action⁶⁹⁷ [on ‘Amr’s part], perishes, is ‘Amr liable to any penalty, or not?”

A. — “Provided the details as set forth in writing correspond with the facts, there will be no penalty.”
This sample of Shí‘a jurisprudence must suffice, but such as desire a further illustration of the matters which preoccupy the minds of these jurisconsults and doctors may with profit read the narrative of the trial of the Báb at Tabríz for heresy about A.D. 1848, of which an account,
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based on the principal Persian narratives, will be found in vol. ii of my Travellers Narrative, pp. 277-90.
We turn now to the more interesting subject of Shí‘a theology, which has hitherto hardly attracted the attention it deserves from European Orientalists, and can only receive brief and inadequate treatment here. It must suffice to sketch in outline the current popular creed, without considering its evolution from early times, and to mention a few of the chief doctrinal works written in Persian during or since the Ṣafawí period. For the purpose of this outline, however, I choose not one of the larger, more authoritative and more famous books like the Ḥaqqu’l-Yaqín (“Certain Truth”) of Mullá Muḥammad Báqir-i-Majlisí, but a little manual entitled ‘Aqá’idu’sh-Shí‘a (“Beliefs of the Shí‘a”) composed during the reign of Muḥammad Sháh Qájár (before the middle of the nineteenth century of our era) by a certain ‘Alí Aṣghar ibn ‘Alí Akbar, and lithographed in Persia without indication of place or date. This work, comprising 438 (unnumbered) pages, consists of an Introduction (Muqaddama), five sections called Mishkát, and a Conclusion (Khátima). The contents are briefly as follows: