'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎434] (493/714)

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I
PERSIA
recalls the proud tone in wliich an Artaxerxes or Darius spoke to
his tributary millions, and which may still be read in the graven
record of rock-wall and tomb. He remains the Shahinshah. or
King of Kings; the Zil Allah, or Shadow of God; the Kibleh
Alem, or Centre of the Universe ; • Exalted like the planet Saturn;
Well of Science ; Footpath of Heaven; Sublime Sovereign, whose
standard is the Sun, whose Splendour is that of the Firmament;
Monarch of armies numerous as the stars." 1 Still would the
Persian subject endorse the precept of Sadi, that ' The vice ap
proved by the king becomes a virtue; to seek opposite counsel
is to imbrue one's hands in his own blood.' The march of time
has imposed upon him neither religious council nor secular council,
neither idem" nor senate. Elective and representative institutions
have not yet intruded their irreverent features. No written check
exists upon the royal prerogative.
And yet the power of the Persian king by no means corre
sponds to its arrogant definition, nor is it now equal to what it
Re d cur once was - ^ ie place, the Shah is no longer the
tailment of religious head even of the Shiah community of the
pitio^atne T\[ ussu | man W orld. At no time have the sovereigns of
Persia enjoyed the spiritual supremacy that was conceded to the
Khalifs of Baghdad, and that is still claimed for the Sultan of
Constantinople. But the Sefavi monarchs, by virtue of their
descent from a famous saint, who was himself a Seyid, or descendant
of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, were invested with a semi-
sacred character, to which alone can we attribute the passiveness
with which, for a -whole century, their subjects submitted to the rule
of a succession of capricious and dissolute drunkards. Chardinsays
that they were regarded as vicars or successors of the Imams; and
Kaempfer records that the water in which they had washed was
deemed holy, and w r as eagerly sought after as a cure for all com
plaints. No such pretensions, however, have been made, or could
be made, on behalf of any subsequent dynasty; least of all on be
half of a family like the Kajars, of Turkish extraction. The Shah
of Persia, therefore, must be dissociated from any claims of personal
1 Vide Fowler's Three Yearn in Persia, vol. ii. p. 12, for an enumeration of the
Shah's titles. The name Shah is the Khshayathiya, or Khshatya, of the Cuneiform
Inscriptions. From the same root, indicating pre-eminence, come Khshatrapa,
i.e. Satrap, Khshayarsha, i.e. Xerxes, Arthkhshatra, i.e. Artaxerxes, and Khshath-
raputhra = Shaputra = Sapor.