Mazandaran

“ Fifteen thousand Persians remained dead on the field. A panic now seized on the surrounding inhabitants, and thousands of country people fled into the city. Isfahan was then one of the most magnificent cities in Asia, containing more than 600,000 inhabitants Mahmud seized on the Armenian suburb of Julfa, and invested the doomed city; but Ṭahmasp, son of the shah, had previously escaped into the mountains of Mazandaran. Famine soon began to press hard upon the besieged, and in September Shah Ḥosain offered to capitulate. ”

“ In 1727, after a short war, he signed a treaty with the Turks, acknowledging the sultan as chief of the Moslems. But the fortunate star of Ṭahmasp II. was now bebginning to rise, and the days of Afghan usurpation were numbered. He had collected a small army in Mazandaran, and was supported by Fath ʽAli Khan, the powerful chief of the Kajar tribe. In 1727 the fugitive shah was joined by Nadir Kuli, a robber chief, who murdered Fath ʽAli, and, having easily appeased the shah, received Expulsion of Afghans. ”

“ The Cadjars were then commanded by Feth Ali Khan, great-grandfather of the present monarch. He obtained, in 1723, the government of Mazanderan, and was ordered to drive the Afghans from Teheran; but being defeated by them, he retired to Asterabad. After the expulsion of the Afghans by Nadir Shah, Mazanderan was in a state of rebellion. Ibrahim, Nadir's brother, reduced it, took Feth Ali Khan, and put him to death. He is considered as the first chieftain who rendered his tribe renowned, and bore the title of prince. ”

“ Among our Mussulman subjects the feeling was somewhat akin to that which had unsettled their minds at the time when the rumoured advent of Zemaun Shah made them look for the speedy restoration of Mahomedan supremacy in Hindostan. In their eyes, indeed, the movement beyond the Afghan frontier took the shape of a Mahomedan invasion, and it was believed that countless thousands of true believers were about to pour themselves over the plains of the Punjab and Hindostan, and to wrest all the country between the Indus and the sea from the hands of the infidel usurpers. ”

“ Mazin called out to them, "Brother Arabs, let the covenant of God be between you and me, keep at a distance from me." When they heard this they increased their insolence, surrounded him, and supposed they should easily seize all that he had; but especially when they beheld his wife, and the beauty she was endowed with, they said one to another, "Let us put him to death, and not suffer him to live." Each man resolved within himself, saying, "I will seize this damsel, and not take the plunder." ”

“ When his great prophetic work is beset with untold difficulties; when the prophet of Ahura faces opposition on all sides; when friends desert his company and kinsmen abandon his cause; when the rulers of the land look upon him with suspicion and the wicked seek to compass his ruin; when, friendless and forsaken, hissed and hooted, ridiculed and persecuted, he roams about the villages and towns of Iran, he turns his eager eyes to Mazda and Asha in search of inward peace, and obtains it. ”

“ And there is no power and no strength save in God, the Most High, the Great And surely we are God's and to Him we shall surely return As we are gathered here, according to the information reaching us, all the major cities of Iran such as Tehran, Tabriz, Mashhad and Qum are closed down. Some cities, such as Qum, are completely closed down while in others, the bazaar and other centres of activity are closed. We hear that the bazaar in Tehran is completely closed except for a few merchants who may have some connection with the regime. ”

“ The first religious war was followed by a second, in which the Armenian princes offered a valiant resistance and the Persians were obliged to give way. The leader of the resisting princes was appointed satrap by the Persians. Thus Armenia won back partial independence, the Persians themselves appointing an Armenian satrap and proclaiming religious liberty. The Chief of the Magi, who was sent to convert the Armenians to Mazdiism, returned unsuccessful and reported to the Persian king: “Even if the immortals themselves came to our aid, it would be impossible to establish Mazdiism in Armenia.” ”

“ Don't look at the part of Tehran where, on the face of it at least, things have been put in order, take a look at the other part of the city. Go look at those pits, those holes in the ground in which people live, dwellings you reach by descending about a hundred steps into the ground. What a terrible place to live! Homes that people have made from rush matting or clay so their poor children can have somewhere to live. Yes, I am talking about Tehran and not some remote village or town; this is how things are in Tehran. ”

“ Light of my life, hope of my race, who would dare?" and he was on the ground at Shere Ali's feet. "Do I indeed speak follies? I pray your Highness to bethink you that the summer sets its foot upon the plains. She will go to the hills, Huzoor. She will go to the hills. And your people are not fools. They have cunning to direct their strength. See, your Highness, is there a regiment in Peshawur whose rifles are safe, guard them howsoever carefully they will? Every week they are brought over the hills into Chiltistan that we may be ready for the Great Day," and Ahmed Ismail chuckled to himself. ”

“ The Mazdayasnian religion gives all good things of life. [51] She gives purification to him who cleanses his self with good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. [52] The place where the faithful pray and sacrifice according to religion is happy. [53] Hard work and industry are prime Zoroastrian virtues. Agriculture is the staple industry of the people and the texts say that sowing corn again and again feeds the Mazda-worshipping religion, it makes her walk with a hundred men's feet and suckles her with a thousand women's breasts. ”

“ East Iran herself, in an earlier period, remained separated through the great desert, when the Shiite sect, the chain of solid union, embraced the Persian population of Iran; and, despite all the wildest sect-hatred, the traffic now is as great with the Sunnite Afghans and Heratis as with their western brethren. It is true that, despite all the fatigue of travel in the desert, despite [323] all fear of the Beloochees, caravans go annually from Shiraz, Isfahan, over Yezd, Tebbes up to holy Meshed. ”

“ For these big, bold, burly men are fairly savages in comparison with the cultured Hindu whom they harried. And Masûd, though by repute an affable gentleman, generous even to prodigality, and of uncommon personal strength and courage, was as turbulent as a king as he had been as a prince.
His favourite maxim was, "Dominion follows the longest sword." His was not only long, but heavy. No other man of his court could wield it, and an arrow from his bow would pierce the hide of a mailed elephant. During the ten years of his reign he entered India with an army three times. ”

“ Its site was happily chosen, in a rich and fertile valley, close to where the roads emerge which cross the Zagros chain of mountains and connect Iran with the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, almost on the border of the salt desert which forms and renders sterile the central regions of the plateau. Mount Elvend shelters it, and feeds with its snows the streams that irrigate it, whose waters transform the whole country round into one vast orchard. The modern town has, as it were, swallowed up all traces of its predecessor ”

“ Thus, while the native Iranian must halt before the trackless region of steppes and deserts and cannot follow the well-mounted robber-nomad thither, Iran itself is the object of greatest longing to the nomadic Altaian. Here he can plunder and enslave to his heart's delight, and if he succeeds in maintaining himself for a considerable time among the Aryans, he learns the language of the subjugated people and, by mingling with them, loses his Mongol characteristics more and more. ”

“ More recently the Ghilzais have left Zamindawar, and the Taimanis have been pressed backward and upward into the central hills by the Afghan Durani clans, who circle round westward, forming a fringe on the foothills between Herat and Kandahar, and who have now completely monopolized Zamindawar. Here, indeed, the truculent Nurzai and Achakzai, and other elements of the Durani section of Afghan ethnography, flourish exceedingly, and it is in this corner of Afghanistan, bordering on the Herat highway to India, that nearly all the fanatics and ghazis of the country are bred. ”

“ In truth they were more of a rising race than these poor peasants knew; more so than the effete monarchies and nobilities of Mahomedan India realised. Close on a hundred and fifty years before, Chengiz Khân, a Moghul chief, had barbarously swept through the plains of North-Western Asia, and now his descendant Timur--though born in comparatively civilised times, and by profession a Mahomedan--was to carry on the destruction which his ancestor had begun. History hardly presents a more terrible personality than that of this man, as judged by the autobiography he left behind him. ”

“ It is an error, for it leads one to quite wrong conclusions as to the character of the chief actor: the Amîr was simply proclaiming, in language that Asiatics understand, his determination of being king in Afghanistan. It is an injustice, for education and civilization cannot advance with such strides in an isolated Eastern country as in Europe; and without the progress of knowledge the sons cannot learn better than their fathers. Again, the Mahomedan religion—does it uphold forgiveness, long-suffering, pity, and humility, as virtues? ”

“ Our information of these countries is meagre, but some of those buildings which are known in Yemen, which seem to combine temple and fortress in one, as on Zimbabwe Hill, [177] may have been built by the same race that constructed Zimbabwe; and the elliptic temples at Marib and Sirwah, and the one at Nakab al Hajar, with its north and south doorways seeming to indicate an observation of the meridian, may embody some of the mathematical principles illustrated by the ruins of Mashonaland. ”

“ After ninety miles over a hot sandy plain the traveller rises, by four rocky kotuls or inclines, so steep as to be called ladders, over the spurs of the Zagros range into a cooler region at Kaziroon, on the central plateau of Iran, and then passes through the most delightful valleys, wooded or clad with verdure, to the capital, Shiraz, surrounded by gardens and by cemeteries. ”

“ Now, theoretically, every Moslem capable of bearing arms is under constant obligation to fight against unbelievers; but we may conjecture that what Mansúr had chiefly in view was the money which those not very warlike people would have to pay for exemption from service.—Tabaristán (Mázenderán) , which borders Gílán on the east, where a family of high functionaries of the Sásánian empire had maintained themselves as an independent dynasty and still kept up the religion of Zoroaster, was almost entirely annexed for the first time under Mansúr. ”

“ Still, being a virtuous Mussulmaun, he would not complain against the decrees of Heaven; and instead of lamentation uttered the following verse of the sacred Koran: "There is no support or refuge but from the Almighty, whose we are, and to whom we must return. Deal gently with me, O my God, in the dictates of thy omnipotence; and make me resigned under thy chastening, O Lord of all being."
Having finished the above prayer, Mazin turning humbly towards his accursed betrayer, said in a supplicating tone, "What hast thou done, my father? didst thou not promise me enjoyment and pleasure?" ”

“ They continue to hang Armenians at Adana. It is a point worth remembering that Zeitoun and Dört Yöl are the two Armenian towns which held their own during the Adana massacres of 1909.
—th May.
A new batch of Zeitounlis has just arrived. I saw them marching along the road, an interminable file under the Turkish whips. It is really the most miserable and pitiable thing in the world. Weak and scarcely clothed, they rather drag themselves along than walk. Old women fall down, and struggle to their feet again when the zaptieh approaches with lifted stick. Others are driven along like donkeys. ”

“ The archaeology of Iran, as I have shown elsewhere, can provide vital clue to an authentic resuscitation of Sasanian past. Pre-Moslem epigraphy of Persia is yet in little more than an inchoate condition. Not only all Central Asia but the territories marching with the Indian and Persian frontiers, where persecution of the elder faith could not have been relatively mild, the population professing Islam have been unable to abjure in their entirety rites and practices akin to those of Zoroastrianism. ”

“ They doomed him only to political extinction. There is a cruel, but a sure way of achieving this in all Mahomedan countries. Between a blind king and a dead king there is no political difference. The eyes of a conquered monarch are punctured with a lancet, and he de facto ceases to reign. They blinded Shah Zemaun, and cast him into prison; and the Douranee Empire owned Shah Mahmoud as its head.
So fell Zemaun Shah, the once dreaded Afghan monarch, whose threatened invasion of Hindostan had for years been a ghastly phantom haunting the Council-Chamber of the British-Indian Government. ”

“ When the day of battle came, the swarm of ants had grown into a horde of fierce and mighty warriors: and although “Massoud exhibited such acts of gigantic force and valor as never king had before displayed,” in the very hour when victory was about to perch on his banners in dismay, he beheld almost his whole army led by some generals of the Turkish race, “devouring the paths of flight.” This memorable day of Zendecan founded in Persia the dynasty of the Shepherd Kings. ”