and these they hoped to gain by proving | Bábís worse; and, so far as the writer that they were honest and law-abiding citizens, asking no more than liberty to hold their faith. Still more stress must be laid on the total absence of motive for such an act at the present time. For many years the Bábís have only been subjected to occasional persecutions, which have in all cases been due either to the fanaticism of the orthodox Shi'ite doctors, or to the enmity or greed of individual governors, or to these two causes combined. For most of them, not the late shah, but his eldest son, the Zillu's-Sultán, was responsible. Indeed, the shah himself seems latterly to have recognized that the Bábís were guiltless of seditious designs, and even on some occasions to have interferred in their favor, as in the case of the persecution of Najafábád, near Isfahan, in the spring of 1890. From the shah's death, then, the Bábís had nothing to hope and very much to fear. For, in the first place, suspicion might fall, as it has fallen, on them, and cause a fresh outbreak of persecution, besides discrediting them in the eyes of the world, imperilling the security of their settlements in Turkey and elsewhere, and undoing all the good effected by the policy of peace and patience which they have for so long adopted. And, in the second place, they knew that the shah's death must be followed by the accession of his second son, Muzaffaru'd-Dín, hitherto known as the "Valí-'ahd," or crown prince; or by the accession of his eldest son, the "Zillu's-Sultán," who was at one time supposed to have designs on the throne; or by a period of war and anarchy. Of these three contingencies each is, from the Bábí point of view, fraught with danger, especially the two last. Little is yet known of the character of Muzaffaru'd-Dín, but, though personally liked by all who have come in contact with him, he is believed to be under the influence of the Mullás, or Shi'ite clergy, who are the fiercest foes of heretics in general and of the Bábís in particular. As for the Zillu's-Sultán, no one has used the can recollect, every recent persecution to which they have been subjected has taken place in the districts of which he is governor. Lastly, should a period of anarchy supervene, all the smaller religious communities, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Bábís-especially the last-would be certain to suffer at the hands of the rabble which exists in every large Persian town, and which is only too prone to make religious zeal a cloak for all manner of excesses. Even assuming, then, that the Bábís would not shrink from assassination if it served their ends, is it to be supposed that they would deliberately and without irresistible provocation, precipitate an event fraught with peril, and devoid of even the possibility of advantage? These considerations, to my mind, render untenable the hypothesis that the assassin was an emissary of the Bábís, though it is likely enough that attempts may be made, especially by the "Mullás," to fix the crime upon them. We come next to the question: Was the assassin's motive wholly personal and private? Was it the desire to revenge some real or fancied wrong suffered at the hands of the shah or his government which prompted the deed? Personal motives may have existed; nay, did exist, if it be true, as stated in later telegrams, that Mírzá Rizá had been imprisoned on account of his attacks on the Persian government; yet they can hardly be regarded as in themselves adequate, especially as the assassin had, subsequently to his release, been assigned a pension by the shah. The murderers of Aká Muhammad Khán, the first Kájár king, were indeed actuated by personal motives; but then they, being already under sentence of death, could hardly make their case worse, and thought, perhaps, that there was some truth in the Persian proverb, "Marg-i-anbúh jashní dárad" (The death of a company has something of festivity). Assuming the sanity of the assassin, where is the motive sufficiently strong to make him face the certainty of death and the probability of torture, for the sake of themselves men by insisting on regratifying his revenge? If the above reasoning be sound, we are driven back to the third hypothesis, | that, namely, of a more or less widespread political discontent, finding its expression in this deed of violence. Now, for some time-certainly since the year 1889 or 1890-there have not been wanting signs that such discontent existed pretty widely amongst the Persian people. How far back beyond that time its growth can be traced, only residents in the country familiar with the feelings of the people can say. Its external manifestation, so far as I know, began with the publication of a newspaper called the Kánún (Law), which, printed in London, was widely circulated in the shah's domains. The first issue was dated 20th February, 1890, and it continued to appear monthly for some considerable time. The later numbers differ in some respects from the earlier, in that they bear neither date, printer's name, nor European title. Under the Persian title stood three words, signifying "Union, Justice, Progress." Needless to say that it contained no mention of the editors' names, and no signed articles or letters. This newspaper at first directed its attacks chiefly against the shah's prime minister, the "Amínu's-Sultán," whom it commonly alluded to as "the muleteer's son." Of the shah himself it spoke during the first period of its existence in terms of praise, as of one sincerely desirous for the welfare of his subjects, and especially for the establishment of a fixed and equitable code of law. As for its complaints, they were manifold. "The control of all State affairs in the hands of ignorant and low-born men; national rights bartered away to please dragomans of legations; our army the laughing-stock of the world; our princes deserving of the pity of beggars; our divines and doctors driven to seek justice from unbelievers; our cities sinks of filth; our roads not fit for cattle." In brief, the Persians were reminded of their ancient greatness, and invited to prove dress. Attempts were naturally made by the shah's government to stop the circulation of this paper in Persia, and a number of persons in whose possession it was found, or who were suspected of corresponding with its editors, were arrested and imprisoned. Probably in consequence of this the tone of the paper grew more violent, and it began to speak of the shah himself, first with contempt, as a king only in name, entirely subject to the influence of the prime minister, and latterly with declared hostility, as a determined enemy to the national welfare, and a foe to liberty, progress, and constitutional government. The later numbers, too, exchanged in great measure the character of the newspaper for that of political tracts, and the fiction of correspondence and discussion was suffered to drop. In the same year, 1890, the Tobacco Concession granted to an English company caused widespread discontent amongst the Persian people. This discontent was natural and excusable. The poorer classes have few luxuries, except tobacco. They saw this one luxury taxed and restricted, and a host of small retail tobacconists ruined, to enrich foreigners, and to put fifteen thousand pounds a year, and a quarter of the company's profits, in the pockets of the shah and some of his advisers. Even the usually docile Persian press, as soon as the provisions of the Concession were made known to it, spoke out with extraordinary boldness. The Akhtar (Star), published weekly at Constantinople, in its issue of 11th November, 1890, quoted from the Turkish Sabah (Morning) the terms of the agreement, on which it animadverted strongly. In consequence of this it was suspended for a while, because it had ventured to give expression to the discontent which was smouldering in the hearts of the Persian people. The boldness of the Akhtar was sufficient to suggest to any attentive observer that the discontent aroused by this unfortunate Concession was much unregarded, were weary of these concessions, which they regarded as detrimental to their interests; while the "Mullás" watched with jealous eyes the increasing influence of foreign infidels. The smouldering fire of discontent was cunningly fanned, especially by one man of remarkable ability and restless ambition. As a result, forces hitherto inchoate and undirected were blended and co-ordinated; the shah had to give way before them; the Tobacco Concession was revoked, and the company indemnified at the expense of Persia. Russia's proposal to lend the Persians the money required for this indemnification was the subject of some fine diplomacy, and of much talk in the press about the conflict of English and Russian interests in the East, and our commercial supremacy; and then the matter passed out of the public mind. Its real significance lay in the fact that for once the Persian people had exerted its will, and had got its way in the teeth of the shah and European enterprise. greater and more serious than was generally supposed. Two great mistakes are commonly made by Englishmen in their estimate of the factors involved in any problem of Persian politics. They regard the priests and the people as a negligible quantity, conceiving that the good-will of the autocratic monarch and his chosen ministers is all that is necessary for the success of their schemes; and they are apt to think (if they think about it at all) that whatever is good for English commerce is good for Persian happiness. Now, the endurance of the Persian people, patient, long-suffering, and indifferent to politics (as we understand the word) though they be, has its limits, and those limits do not always lie exactly where European statesmen and men of business expect. They have no opportunity of ventilating their grievances, but, brooding over them in silence, are apt at long intervals to surprise the world by the sudden vigor of their action. Patriotic feeling, in our sense of the term, they do not perhaps possess, save in a rudimentary form; but they have strong religious emotions of the "other-worldly," Celtic type (widely different from the rather utilitarian and common-sense English kind), with which they combine a certain silent pride in their own nation-picion turned on him, and the Persian ality, and a latent, but easily roused, distrust and dislike of foreigners. The "Mullás," or clergy (to use this term for want of a better), whatever their faults, are a truly national class. Sprung, as a rule, from the people, they understand them thoroughly, and exercise over them an enormous influence. Interest, as a rule, ranges them on the side of the government, but woe betide that shah who has the misfortune to array them against himself! Now, in this matter of the Tobacco Concession, the "Mullás" were at one with the people. Other concessions were in the air, concessions to the English in the south and south-west, and to the Russians in the north and north-west, concessions for railways, tramways, mines, lotteries, and the like. The Persian people, burdened with taxes, unhelped, and 527 LIVING AGE. VOL. XI. The man to whom I have alluded above as one of the chief fomenters of the popular discontent, was the man whose name the shah's assassin is reported to have invoked as he fired his fatal shot-Sheykh Jemálu'd-Dín. Within the last few days, since sus government has been endeavoring to obtain his extradition from Constanti nople, some account of his past achievements has appeared in the daily papers. Here is more, derived in part from a biography by one of his admirers, prefixed to a tract on refutation of free-thinkers. His full name is Seyyid Muhammad Jemálu'd-Dín, son of Seyyid Saftar, and he was born in 1838, so that he is now fifty-eight years of age. He calls himself an Afghan of Kanar, near Kábul, but is said to be in reality a Persian of Hamadán. After studying Arabic, law, traditions, Muslim theology, and philosophy in all their branches, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics, he left his country at the age of eighteen, and went to India, where he remained rather more than a year. After per forming the pilgrimage to Mecca in | attacking the Persian government, and 1856, he returned to Afghanistán and entered on a political career, which was brought to a close by the defeat of Muhammad A'zam (whose cause he had espoused) by Shír Alí. Thinking it prudent to retire from the scene, he again (in 1868) set out on his travels, and, after a short sojourn in India, proceeded by way of Egypt to Constantinople, where he succeeded in gaining the favor of 'Alí Páshá, then grand vizier. He was, however, unfortunate enough to incur the enmity of the Sheykhu'l-Islám, Hasan Fehmi Efendi, in consequence of which he found it advisable to leave Constantinople in March, 1871, for Egypt. There he remained till 1879, when Tewfík Páshá (acting, says the biographer, on the advice of Mr. Vivian, the English consul-general) ordered his expulsion. He therefore returned to India, where he settled at Haidarabad, in the Deccan; but, on the breaking out of 'Arábí Pasha's revolt, he was summoned to Calcutta, and there detained by the Indian government until the conclusion of the Egyptian War in 1883. He now determined to visit Europe, and came first to London, but soon crossed over to Paris, where, in conjunction with Sheykh Muhammad 'Abdo the Egyptian, he began to publish an Arabic newspaper entitled el-'Urwatu'lwuthká (Le Lien Indissoluble). The object of this journal, which was distributed gratuitously in the East, was to stir up Muhammadan feeling against the English, whom the editors attacked in the most violent language. Eighteen numbers in all were published, but the stoppage of its circulation in India eventually caused its collapse, and Sheykh Jemálu'd-Din, after a sojourn of more than three years in Paris, again set out for the East in February, 1886. He visited Persia, from which in due course he was expelled, as he had been expelled from almost every other country which he had visited. In 1891 he was back in London, holding forth in the press and at drawing-room meetings on what he was pleased to call "the Reign of Terror in Persia," and in particular the shah and his prime minister, the Amínu's-Sultán, with the same violence which he had formerly displayed against the English. Since then he has resided chiefly at Constantinople, favored by the sultan, whose fancy is pleased by schemes of a Muhammadan world united under one caliph, but subjected to a supervision of varying stringency. Whether the sultan's favor will continue, and will protect him from the resentment of the Persian government, is a very interesting problem. Of pleasing manners and commanding personality, eloquent in speech, able, and accomplished, it is to be deeply regretted that Sheykh Jemálu❜dDin should have exercised his really remarkable talents chiefly for seditious ends. That he actually compassed the death of the late shah we will not venture to assert; nay, it may be that he will deplore the deed of violence wherein the agitation which he prohas culminated. Agitators moted possessed by a great ideal do not always remember that they may set in motion forces beyond their control. And Sheykh Jemálu'd-Dín, apart from his personal enmities, has without doubt a great ideal-the desire to unite in one mighty nation all Muhammadan peoples, and to restore the ancient power and glory of Islám. To check European encroachment in the East is a necessary part of this scheme; and any Muhammadan potentate who encourages, or acquiesces in, an extension of Western influence in his domains must be regarded by the promoters of the movement as an enemy to their cause. Thus, the blood of Násiru'd-Din Shah is the price paid for successive triumphs of English and Russian diplomacy in Persia. That royal blood which leaves its crimson stain There in the mosque, beyond the inner chain, Thou deemest shed by Eastern lust for blood: Not so! 'twas shed by Western greed for gain! EDWARD G. BROWNE. From Longman's Magazine. LETTERS ON TURKEY. I. THE SELAMLIK. We must all of us during the past year, when every newspaper paragraph from Constantinople was eagerly scanned, have observed such expressions as the sultan received the ambassadors "after the Selamlik," or "H.I.M. the sultan attended the Selamlik as usual." Those who have never had the opportunity of witnessing a Selamlik may be interested in an account of this gorgeous weekly pageant. We had not been more than a few days at Constantinople, when our ambassador told us that he had received a message from the sultan that he was "bien faché" at not having been informed of my husband's arrival, and that after so gracious a notice we must not fail to attend the next Selamlikthat is, the ceremony of the sultan going in state to the mosque on Fridays, attendance at which is looked on by H.I.M. as a mark of respect. A Friday came, and about eleven o'clock our son, secretary at the British embassy, called for us in a carriage with an embassy kavass on the box. kavass is a native servant appointed by the sultan to the various embassies and legations. They are paid and clothed by their employers, and are answerable to the sultan for the safety of those on whom they attend. In old days if any accident happened to a member of a legation or embassy, the wretched kavass, whether in fault or not, forfeited his life. Those who have read "Paul Patoff" will remember the terror of the kavass on Alexander Patoff's mysterious disappearance from St. Sophia. There are six kavasses at the British embassy. Their undress uniform is dark blue cloth, thickly braided in black, with a broad gold belt and gold straps over the shoulders. They all carry a sword, and have a revolver in a gold pouch slung from the waist-belt. The dress uniform is a fine shade of crimson, also thickly braided, and only worn on State occasions when in attendance on the ambassador. We were all in morning dress, uniform being worn but seldom by the diplomatic corps at Constantinople. Our way was along the new part of the Grande Rue, the only handsome street in Pera, rebuilt after the great fire of 1870, which destroyed the British embassy. Here are all the best shops, the Club House, and the Spanish ministry. A sharp turn to the right led us to the Grand Champ des Morts, still used for burials. This was our first sight of a Turkish cemetery with its turban-crowned tomb-stones, standing at any and every angle from the perpendicular, many even fallen down, and giving one that general impression of neglect conveyed by all Turkish cemeteries. The redeeming points are the huge cypresses planted by hundreds in every cemetery, large and small, and of a size quite unknown in England. They form a striking feature in every distant view of the city, as they surround each mosque, their dark foliage forming a strong contrast to the glittering white minarets. On the hills, as at Scutari and the Grand Champ des Morts, they stand out like black pillars against the bright blue sky. The Turkish women are fond of spending whole days, sitting on their carpets in the cemeteries, not from any deep affection for the dead, for the Turk cares little for the body when once buried-the soul, the true being they loved, is safe in Paradise, though only from the moment that the body is laid in the ground. For this reason the funerals take place as soon as possible after death, and if you meet a Turkish funeral, the procession is hurrying along in what appears to us the most indecorous haste, so that the soul may the more quickly attain to its final bliss. A devout Turk, passing a coffin, will give his aid to the bearers, exhausted by the speed at which they go. This aid, if only given for forty paces, secures the pardon of a heavy crime. The sweet scent of the cypresses is said to prevent any ill effects from prolonged visits to the cemeteries. Opposite the Grand Champ is the |
