Khurasan

“ The surface of Khorasan thus consists mainly of highlands, saline, swampy deserts and upland valleys, some fertile and well-watered. Of the last, occurring mainly in the north, the chief are the longitudinal valley stretching from near the Herat frontier through Meshed, Kuchan and Shirvan to Bujnurd, the Derrehgez district, which lies on the northern skirt of the outer range projecting into the Akhal Tekkeh domain, now Russian territory, and the districts of Nishapur and Sabzevar which lie south of the Binalud and Jagatai ranges. ”

“ When it was eventide, the king caused avoid his sitting chamber and summoned the vizier, who presented himself and making his obeisance to the king, kissed the earth before him and bespoke him as follows:
STORY OF THE MAN OF KHORASSAN, HIS SON AND HIS GOVERNOR. "There was once a man of Khorassan and he had a son, whose improvement he ardently desired; but the young man sought to be alone and to remove himself from his father's eye, so he might give himself up to pleasance and delight. ”

“ What a long Fursukh is that of Khorasan, says a traveller, who has toiled from sun-rise nearly to sun-set, and who can no longer cling to his jaded horse, but by the prong in front of his saddle. An European, who canters and gallops onwards, can form no just conception of the fatigue of a forty-mile stage in Khorasan, where every step must be walked, and there is no inn or refreshment at the end of it. ”

“ NW. of Merv, is a town of earth huts; it was at one time one of the chief slave-markets in Asia till the traffic was put a stop to by Russia.
Khorassan, the largest province of Persia; is on the Afghan border, mountainous, and fertile only in the N. among the valleys of the Elburz range; grain, tobacco, and medicinal plants are grown; gold and silver, turquoises, and other gems found. The capital is Meshed (50) , a sacred Moslem city, with carpet, jewellery, and silk manufactures. ”

“ Khorasan played a vital part in the development of the modern Persian literature and especially its chief department, poetry. The entire early period of the history of modern Persian poetry, from Abbas welcoming with an ode Khalif Mamun into Merv down to Firdausi, may be labelled Khorasanian. There flourished the activity of Rudaki, Kisai, Dakiki, and other less notable representatives of the early period of modern Persian bards. [2] The culture of poetry was favoured not only by the geographical position of the province of Khorasan but by its political conditions. ”

“ THE TOWER OF SILENCE Hundreds of years ago, when the Persian race first issued from unknown Bactria and the grim Hyrcanian forests, passing through the Caspian Gates, they came upon a fertile land lying to the north-east of the country, which was subsequently named Media. There on the edge of the province known to-day as Khorasan they founded a city, which with the rolling centuries gathered greatness and riches and power ”

“ When the governor saw that there was no profit for him with the young Khorassani, he returned to the king, the ravisher of the damsel, and told him what the chamberlain had done and counselled him to slay the latter and incited him to recover the damsel, [promising] to give his friend to drink of poison and return. So the king sent for the chamberlain and upbraided him; whereupon he fell upon him and slew him and the king’s servants fell upon the chamberlain and slew him. ”

“ About two miles from the principal gate of the city we were met by General MacLean on horseback, accompanied by his escort of six Indian Sowars in full uniform, and six Turcoman gholams in their picturesque native dress; and with this escort we rode into the capital of the Khorassan. This city, like Tehran, is surrounded by a mud rampart, with a broad ditch about ten feet deep and thirty feet broad; it is about six miles in circumference, and is commercially of considerable importance, as it is the great centre of trade between India, Persia, and Bokhara. ”

“ Khorasmin or Khuaresm, is a populous, pleasant, and fertile country, containing many good and strong towns, the capital being Khorasme. The country produces abundance of corn, and very little wine. This empire borders on a desert of an hundred days journey in extent. To the west is the Caspian sea, to the north Kumania, and to the east Turkestan. The inhabitants are heathens, without letters or laws. The Soldini are the most intrepid of warriors; have a particular language of their own, for which they employ the Greek characters in writing ”

“ Khuramabad, the importance of which lies in its 122 situation on what is regarded as the best commercial route from Shuster to Tihran, etc., is the capital of the Feili Lurs and the residence of the Governor of Luristan. Picturesque at a distance beyond any Persian town that I have seen, with its citadel rising in the midst of a precipitous pass, its houses grouped round the base, its fine bridge, its wooded gardens, its greenery, and the rich valley to the south of the gorge in which it stands, it successfully rivals any Persian town in its squalor, dirt, evil odours, and ruinous condition. ”

“ THE TALE OF THE MERCHANT, THE CRONE, AND THE KING.” There was once a family of affluence and distinction, in a city of Khorasan, and the townsfolk used to envy them for that which Allah had vouchsafed them. As time went on, their fortune ceased from them and they passed away, till there remained of them but one old woman. When she grew feeble and decrepit, the townsfolk succoured her not with aught, but thrust her forth of the city, saying, “This old woman shall not neighbour with us, for that we do good to her and she requiteth us with evil.” ”

“ On the east his youngest son, ʽAbbas, held possession of Khorasan, on the west the sultan’s troops again entered Azerbaijan and took Tabriz. His eldest son, Hamza Mirza, upheld his fortunes to the utmost of his power, reduced the rebel chieftains, and forced the Turks to make peace and retire; but he was stabbed to death by an assassin. On the news of his death reaching Khorasan, Murshid Kuli Khan, leader of the Ustujulu Kizil-bash, who had made good in fight his claims to the guardianship of ʽAbbas, at once conducted the young prince from that province to Kazvin, and occupied the royal city. ”

“ This north-eastern Khuraytah (Col) is termed the Khuraytat el-Hismá or el-Jils, after a hillock on the plateau-summit, to distinguish it from the similar feature to the south-west: the latter is known as the Khuraytat el-Zibá; or el-T h m , the local pronunciation of Tihámah. About two miles of rough and broken ground lead to the foot of the ladder. The zigzags then follow the line of a mountain torrent, the natural Pass, crossing its bed from left to right and from right again to left: the path is the rudest of corniches, worn by the feet of man and beast ”

“ The inhabitants are virtuous, honest, and much attached to Sunnism and orthodoxy. But a great part of this country is depopulated and ruined, on account of the different masters who possessed it, and the tyrannical domination of its Sultans. For many years, instead of having been governed by a particular dynasty, it has been administered by governors who have had no other occupation than to amass wealth and to make it pass into Khorassan. Now, this emigration of the resources of a country to the profit of another is one of the surest causes of its ruin ”

“ KAIN, the name of a sub-province and of a town of Khorasan, Persia. The sub-province extends about 300 m. N. to S., from Khāf to Seīstān, and about 150 m. W. to E., from the hills of Tūn to the Afghan frontier, comprising the whole of south-western Khorasan. It is very hilly, but contains many wide plains and fertile villages at a mean elevation of 4000 ft. It has a population of about 150,000, rears great numbers of camels and produces much grain, saffron, wool, silk and opium. ”

“ From the above description it will be seen that the Hindu Kush and Alburz ranges combine to form the Khorassan mountains that separate Persia from Afghanistan; that Herat, and the country north of their point of junction, is geographically separated from both, and connected by its hydrographic system with the valley of the Oxus; that in the vicinity of Herat the continuity of the Khorassan hills is interrupted, south of Bákharz, by an arm of the salt desert of Persia ”

“ Science, literature, and art refuse to germinate in the frost, and are burnt up by the sun.
Now it so happened that the region in which this party of Huns settled themselves was one of the fairest and most fruitful in Asia. It is bounded by deserts, it [Pg 62] is in parts encroached on by deserts; but viewed in its length and breadth, in its produce and its position, it seems a country equal, or superior, to any which that vast continent, as at present known, can show. Its lower portion is the extensive territory of Khorasan, the ancient Bactriana ”

“ Upon them suddenly steals a band of horsemen who snatch up the incautious wanderers and bear them away shrieking at their doom, for they are rarely again seen alive by mortal men. The people of Khorassan declare that they are gathered round the dead body of On in an enchanted crowd, and hold up their living yet lifeless hands in vain supplication to Nisha, who stalks among them a strange semblance of humanity. ”

“ There is also a story, seemingly legend, and yet historical, of a people called the Khozars, whose king, Bulan, became a convert to Judaism, and who founded a Jewish dynasty and ruled long and happily by the shores of the Caspian Sea. But however much or however little of truth there may be in these traditions which treat of kings and dynasties, certain it is that, divided by the desert from the pursuit of persecutors all round, Arabian Jews did live, century after century, in their fertile valleys, secure in the possession of perfect freedom of faith. ”

“ Behramshah, the Gasnewide, yielded to the power of Hossein, the Guride, as did the latter to that of Sultan Sandjar, who drove the founder of the Gurides out of Khorassan, and then appointed him his viceroy of the Indian province of Gur (whence the name of the dynasty) . The fortune, which had smiled on Sandjar in his enterprises against Mahmud, Behramshah, and Hossein, was not so favourable to him, in his wars against the people of Karakhatai, whom he attacked in the obscurity of their forests; nor against the Turcomans of the race of Oghuz, who invaded Khorassan. ”

“ KUCHĀN, a fertile and populous district of the province Khorasan in Persia, bounded N. by the Russian Transcaspian territory, W. by Bujnurd, S. by Isfaraïn, and extending in the E. to near Radkan. Its area is about 3000 sq. m. and its 937 population, principally composed of Zafaranlu Kurds, descendants of tribes settled there by Shah Abbas I. in the 17th century, is estimated at 100,000. About 3000 families are nomads and live in tents. The district produces much grain, 25,000 to 30,000 tons yearly, and contains two towns, Kuchan and Shirvan (pop. 6000) , and many villages. ”

“ Population.—The total Kūrd population probably exceeds two and a half millions, namely, Turkish Kūrds 1,650,000, Persian 800,000, Russian 50,000, but there are no trustworthy statistics. The great mass of the population has its home in Kūrdistān. But Kūrds are scattered irregularly over the country from the river Sakarīa on the west to Lake Urmia on the east, and from Kars on the north to Jebel Sinjar on the south. There is also an isolated settlement in Khorasan. The tribes, ashiret, into which the Kūrds are divided, resemble in some respects the Highland clans of Scotland. ”

“ Hitherto they have parried [393] off such attacks, by giving tribute, and promising future allegiance; but no sooner have the troops retired, than they have relapsed into the old state of rebellion and defiance. Nor is it likely that the present expedition of the Prince Royal into Khorasan, though much more formidable than any that has preceded it, will effect any permanent settlement of that part of Persia. Khorasan is a province which requires the presence of a foreign force to maintain its tranquillity ”

“ Moslim, the Arabic governor of Khorasan. Omar II., however, extended to non-Arabic Moslems immunity from all taxes except the zakat (poor-rate) , with the result that a large number of Persians, who still smarted under their defeat under Mokhtar, embraced Islam and drifted into the towns to form a nucleus of sedition under the Shiʽite preachers. In the reign of Yazid II. (720–724) serious risings took place in Khorasan, and in spite of the wise administration of his successor Hisham (d. 743) , the disorder continued to spread, fanned by the Abbasids and the Shiʽite preachers. ”

“ A tremendous character. "And Subadar-Major Farman Ali Bahadar. He got the D.S.M. when he was with us in Egypt, led a handful of his men across the open at Touffoum, and turned the Turkish flank very neatly. He got an I.O.M. at Sheikh Saad. And he led the regiment back at Sannaiyat when all the British officers were down. He was a Khoreshi, by the way."
A Khoreshi is a member of the tribe of the Prophet. A good Khoreshi is a man to be sought for and honoured, for his influence is great; but a bad Khoreshi among the P. Ms. is as big a nuisance as a Mir among Pathans. ”

“ Wolff, who was then travelling in Central Asia, wrote: “It is remarkable that there is a current belief, not only throughout Khorassan, but, as I found it afterwards, throughout Toorkistan even to Caubul, that Abbas Meerza had married a Russian Princess, and adopted the Russian religion; and that 50,000 Russians would come to Khorassan by way of Khiva, and assist Abbas Meerza in conquering Khorassan. So much is true that Russia has written to Futteh Ali Shah, offering him 5000 men for taking Khorassan, and putting down the chupow—i.e., plundering system of the Toorkomans ”