‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎239v] (485/722)

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xnilimandar with him, he is fed and lodged and travels entirely at the pub
lic expense. When the mihmandar arrives at the village, he produces his
firman A Persian word meaning a royal order or decree issued by a sovereign, used notably in the Ottoman Empire (sometimes written ‘phirmaund’). (in which the kind and quantity of the articles to be provided are
specified), and demands a corresponding supply from the inhabitants.
The Persians are evidently of opinion that the badness of their com
munications adds considerably to the natural strength of their country,
for all the highways are neglected. The only mode of travelling is by
riding either a mule or a horse. For women of high rank or sick persons
there is a vehicle, called a tahkt-i-rawan, which is transported by
two mules, one before and the other behind; but the women and chil
dren of the poor are carried in baskets* slung across the back of a mule
or camel. The length of the stage (which sometimes exceeds forty
miles) and badness of the accommodation, in addition to these circum
stances, render travelling unpleasant to females. We have here no
regular establishment for the transmission of intelligence; and it is, there
fore, necessary when letters are to be carried from one part of the king
dom to the other to despatch a chapar, or express horseman, or a messen
ger on foot, who is styled a kasid. Be the distance ever so great, the
chapar seldom changes his horse ; for in Persia there are no posthouses
and relays of horses, as in Turkey. They travel at the rate of four or five
miles an hour; and have been known to go from Tihran to Bushahr, a distance
of seven hundred miles, in the space of ten days. The kasid will also
travel for many days successively at the rate of 60 or 70 miles a day.
There can hardly be said to be any roads in Persia, nor are they much
required; for the use of wheel carriages has not yet been introduced into that
kingdom. Nothing can be more rugged and difficult than the paths, which
have been cut over the mountains, by which it is bounded and intersected.
The great benefits that would be derived from good roads has often been
suggested to the Persians ; but they have a reluctance to adopt an improve
ment, which they believe, and not without reason, would destroy one of
those natural obstacles by which their country is defended from invasion.
The only exception to this observation is a broad road or causeway, which
has been made with great labour over the Kafalan Kuh, a lofty and roman
tic mountain, which divides Irak from Azarbaijan; and this labour is attri
buted to the Turks, who when in possession of the latter province desired
to facilitate their further attacks upon Persia.
Religion .—The inhabitants of Persia are, generally speaking, Shiahs;
and that is, they recognise AH as the successor of Muhammad, rather than
the four Imams.
From the hour of the death of Muhammad, the adherents of AH had
maintained his right of succession to the Khilafat, and had deemed those
by whom that right had been set aside as the greatest of sinners. The
talents, the piety, and the reputation of the three first Khalifahs preserved
the empire from the effects of this spirit of discontent, and the ultimate
elevation of AH satisfied for a time the clamour of his friends. But his
death and that of his sons, and the misfortunes of his descendants, who,
though admitted to the rank of Imams, or chief priests, were excluded
from all temporal power, led numbers to cherish in secret the principles
of the sect of Shiah, and to mourn over the hard lot of the direct descend
ants of their holy prophet. The kingdom of Persia was the first whose
* Called' 1 kajawahs/