'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎505] (564/714)

INSTITUTIONS AND EEFORMS
605
«Pwst
s tie w iv
! East, 1-
andisbeiiiji:-
1 Amenm I,
Ufll.wherete®^
wr. as Dr. Ma®®*'
also mairied a Christian, the far-famed Sira or Shirin. Similar
suspicions have been entertained of the enlightened Mongol
prince, Abaka Khan, -the son of Hnlakn Khan, and great-grandson
of Jenghiz Khan, who married the daughter of the Greek
Emperor Michael Palaeologos. and is believed to have embraced
the Christian faith. It is certain in any case that the Gospels
were first translated into the Persian tongue a few years after his
death, in 1282 A.D.; and a Persian MS. version of the Four Evan
gelists is in existence, dated 1314. 1 A later version was published
in London in 1652-7 (edited by Pierson), from a collation of three
MSS. supposed to have been made from the Greek. Shah Abbas
liked to delude the missionaries at Isfahan into thinking that he
was a Christian, and is said once actually to have gone through the
ceremony of baptism ; whereupon tracts were issued by the de
lighted Friars, ascribing his victories over the Turks to this con
version. In the succeeding century Nadir Shah, in a freak of anti-
religious intolerance, ordered the four Gospels to be translated into
Persian, after which, before an audience of priests, rabbis, and
mullahs, he made fun of the doctrines presented in what was a
ludicrously inaccurate version. The first Protestant missionary to
Persia was the famous Henry Martyn, who, in the year 1811, went
out to Shiraz. 2 This remarkable man, who impressed everyone by
his simplicity and godliness of character, created an effect in the
short space of a year (for he died at Tokat in Asiatic Turkey in
October 1812), that was as much to be attributed to the charm
of his personality as to the character of his mission. Known as
' the enlightened infidel,' he spent his time in translating the New
Testament into Persian, in preaching Christ, and in publicly con
futing the doctrines of Islam, a written refutation of which from
his pen was sent to Kerbela, to be answered by the learned Moham
medan divines of that sacred city. An anonymous writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. in the
'Asiatic Journal' of March 1830 quoted the words of a Persian
mullah named Mohammed Rahim, alleged to have been converted
to Christianity by Martyn :—
In the year of the Hejira 1223, there came to this city (Shiraz) an
Englishman, who taught the religion of Christ with a boldness hitherto
1 This was first printed in the London Polj'glot by Bishop Walton.
2 Vide Journals and Letters of the Her. Henry Martyn, edited by Kev.
S. Wilberforce (London, 1821, 1839) ; and a Memoir of the same, by Eev. J. Sargent
(1828,1837).