Miscellaneous Correspondence, Notes, and Newspaper Cuttings Relating to Persia [‎123r] (250/255)

Teal
; tbe whole
,i ar ® ^ere
Jded b v
lib
MAN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1903.
1
THE RELIGIOUS DISTURBANCES j
IN PERSIA.
Massacre of Babis.
According to information received from
trustworthy sources, soys the Times, the
city and province of Yezd, iu Sauthern
Persia, were the scenes of very serious
disturbances during the latter part of June,
Rioting, which lasted for more than a fort,
night at Yezd, culminated towards the end
of June in a popular outbreak directed
against the Babis, religious reformers whose
aspirations have always been viewed with
great suspicion by the ruling classes. Ru
mours of a demonstration against them
circulated in Ytzd early in June on the
arrival from Nedjef of a new Mujtahid, or
high priest, Miiza Muhammad Ibrahim.
On the 27th and 28th especially the posi
tion, even of foreign residents, became at
times critical when the mob were searching
for certain well-known Babis in the
quarter of the town in which the houses
of the English missionaries are situated.
Throughout the whole of those two days
every Babi who fell into the hands of the
rabble was butchered in whatever manner
was most pleasing to the mob at the moment,
and mutilated bodies were drawn through the
town ip all directions,followed by an exultant
crowd. Houses were searched and plundet-
ed, women beaten, and in one or two cases
killed, and the town was in the hands of a
mob whose only programme was to kill. The
bouses of Babis were broken into and
plundered by the mob, assisted by gholams
«A__£akliers. On Sunday,
theism appeals very strongly to a people
amongst whom the mysticism of the Sofia
is already a power, aod even the orthouox
Mussulman cannot deny the force of the
contention that the Bab or his successor is
the promised Mahdi. The splendid heroism
which the Babis have invariably displayed
under the atrocious persecutions which
they have repeatedly undergone since their
founder proclaimed his mission in 1844
has, however, been their chief claim to
the faith of the people. It is “aid that
but one Babi has ever recanted, and he re
tracted his recantation and died a martyr.
The Bab and his successor have advanced
claims which to European eyes are scarcely
distinguishable from claims to divinity, and
there is, of course, plenty about their pre
tensions which seems to us repulsive or
absurd. But their ethical doctrine, notably in
regard to the position of women and to toler
ance, their open testimony against the pro
fligate imposture of degraded Mahomedan*
ism, and certain aspects of their conception
of the Deity, of the universe, and of the re
lation of man to both, raise them high above
the level of their oppressors and entitle them
to the interest and the regard of European
observers. They may fail in their efforts at
reform, but at least it is something that
they should cling to lofty ideals with un
daunted couca c.
£
1
naan
T-
u
J
IP
1
V1AN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1903.
j THE RELIGIOUS DISTURBANCES j
IN PERSIA.
! -
Massacre of Babis.
j According to information received from
i trustworthy sources, s&ys the Times, the
, city and province of Yez l, iu Sauthern
Persia, were the scenes of very serious
disturbances during the latter part of June,
Rioting, which lasted for more than a fort
night at Yezd, culminated towards the end
of June in a popular outbreak directed
against the Babis, religious reformers whose
aspirations have always been viewed with
great suspicion by the ruling classes. Ru
mours of a demonstration against them
circulated in Yszd early in June on the
arrival from Nedjef of a new Mujtahid, or
high priest, Miiza Muhammad Ibrahim.
On the 27th and 28th especially the posi
tion, even of foreign residents, became at
times critical when the mob were searching
for certain well-known Babis in the
quarter of the town in which the houses
of the English missionaries are situated.
Throughout the whole of those two days
every Babi who fell into the bands of the
rabble was butchered in whatever manner
was most pleasing to the mob at the moment,
and mntilated bodies were drawn through the
town in all directions,followed by an exultant
crowd. Houses were searched and plunder
ed, women beaten, and in one or two cases
killed, and the town was in the hands of a
mob whose only programme was to kill. The
bouses of Babis were broken into and
plundered by the mob, assisted by gholams
and soldiers. On Sunday, the 28 th, the
Mujtahids enjoined the populace to bring
all Babis either before them or before
the Governor for judgment. The Prince
refused at first to give way to the
threats of the mob, but his palace was
surrounded by a turbulent crowd, and on
the next day he gave way, and had one
man taken before him blown from the
mouth of a cannon, and the throat of another
one cut, the body being dragged afterwards
| through the town. Order is reported to
have been finally restored in the city, but
i the province was veiy disturbed, and no
one could leave the town with safety. All
Babis who attempted to fly were either
killed or had to return and hide themselves
in the rnins and ditches around the town,
some to he captured, others to escape.
The Times publishes the following interest
ing leading article on this serious outbreak
of religious fanaticism :—
I It is a far cry to Yezd, in South-Western
Persia, and only now, at the end of July,
are the first authentic reports of the horrors
which were committed there in June reach
ing this country. We shall probably never
j hear the full truth about the massacre of
I the Babis, of which we publish a brief ac
count this morning. Neither the prosecu
tors nor their victims could give a complete
and accurate narrative of what has taken
place, even if they desired to do so, and the
European inhabitants of the province and
its capital are too few to be able to collect
anything resembling a full statement of the
facts. Yezd, however, is the seat of a British
Consulate, and we may hope that, when
the facts we describe to-day have been
bought to the knowledge of the public, the
i Foreign Office may be stimulated to direct
i Sir Arthur Hardinge to investigate them
j through our Consular representative on the
I spot. The first rumours of a demonstration
t against the Babis circulated in Yezd early
j in June, immediately after the arrival there
of one Miizi Mahommed Ibrahim from
i Nedjef, who is said to have received some
! religious appointment in the city. It speed
ily took the form of popular persecution
and mob-violence, and it culminated for the
time being in the crimes of June 26-28.
The innocence of the unfortunate B'-bfs,
whose sole offence seems to have consisted
in their unalterable fidelity to the tenets of
their sect, and the weakness, or worse,
of the Government are proved by the
action of the Governor of Yezd. On Satm-
day, June 27th, the rabble brought a Babi
prisoner before him. He refused to execute
the man, presumably because there was no
real case against him. Thereupon the whole
city rose in disorder. The bazaars were
all closed, the Palace was surrounded by a
howling mob, and a hunt for the hated Babis
was begun by the populace, who were assist
ed in their pious undertaking by the official
messengers of the Governor, and even by
the soldiers. The houses of the hated
sectaries were broken into and looted, and
the Babis themselves, wherever they were
met, were murdered with such cruelties as
suggested themselves to their persecutors,
and their mutilated bodies were dragged in
triumph through the streets. Even women
were not safe. Several were severely
beaten, and one or two were killed. The
Governor had had his lesson. Oa the follow
ing morning he blew one Babi from a gun,
and ordered the throat of a second to be cut,
and his corpse to be delivered to the rabble.
Oa the same day the Mujtahids, who are the
religions guides of the people, exhorted them
either to bring the Babis before the Governor
or before themselves for judgment. After the
authorities had surrendered to the mob the
town became quieter, but the persecution
went on. All the Babis who attempted to fly
were either killed or forced to hide in the
ruins and other lurking places which sur
round Oriental towns where many of them
have been tracked out and captured. Those
who escaped from the city itself were by no
means out of danger, for similar scenes of
unprovoked murder were being enacted in
every village of the province.
It is as difficult to etimate the real causes
of this bloody outburst of fanaticism in
Yezd as to gauge those which underlay the
very similar movement at Kishincff. In both
cases the victims were members of an un
popular religious faith, who are accused,
in the main unjustly, of political agitation
hostile to the Government. In both the
Government made no active attempt to save
the objects of popular hatred from the fury
of the rabble, and in both the subordinates of
the Government aided and abetted the riot
ers. The charges of enmity to the Govern
ment of the Shah, which used to be
brought against the Babis, were, in the
opinions of the best judges, as little founded
as those of socialism, communism, and
immorality which were so freely levelled
against them. On the other hand, the
course of treatment which they have receiv
ed at the hands of the Sovereign and his
representatives during the 50 or 60 years of
their existence is not exactly calculated to
fill them with loyalty to his Throne. Though
the Babis are not a political sect, their
professed devotion to freedom of thought
and to purity of life cannot but place
them in opposition to a despotism which
yearly becomes more and more shameless
in its debauchery and corruption. Our
Special Correspondent in the Middle Erst
pointed last autumn to the great revival
of Babism in a new and juasi-poli-
tical form as one of the symptoms of
grave popular discontent which have
appeared in more than one quarter in Persia.
The Government know, at all events, that
this faith of purity and brotherly love is not
likely in any circumstances to be a bulwark
of the Court of Teheran. They know that it
is hated by the orthodox priesthood—though,
strangely enough, it l as always drawn a
large number of its best recruits from the
ranks of the Mullohs—and they know that
the rabble are always glad to rob and kill
its adherents. A massacre of the Babis is as
popular in Persia as a massacre of the Jews
is in Russia ; and the simple Machiavellia
nism of Oriental admmlstiators may suggest,
in the one case as in the other, that such a
deed ought to be looked on with an eye of
indulgence, if it serves to divert the mind
of the people from dwelling upon the short
comings of their rulers.
Lord Curzon, who estimated the Babis as
probably amounting to nearly a million more
than ten years ago,then expressed the opinion
that not impossibly they might in time
oust the Shiah faith from Persia. Babism,
as he observes, is the one Orientel heresy
j' which seems to be imbued with the spirit
of progress and of reform. Its mystic pan-
j theism appeals very strongly to a people
amongst whom the mysticism of the Sofis
is already a power, and even the orthodox
Mussulman cannot deny the force of the
contention that the Bab or his successor is
the promised Mahdi. The splendid heroism
which the Babis have invariably displayed
under the atrocious persecutions which
they have repeatedly undergone since their
founder proclaimed his mission in 1844
has, however, been their chief claim to
the faith of the people. It is «aid that
but one Babi has ever recanted, and he re
tracted his recantation and died a martyr.
The Bab and his successor have advanced
claims which to European eyes are scarcely
distinguishable from claims to divinity, and
there is, of course, plenty about their pre
tensions which seems to us repulsive or
absurd. But their ethical doctrine, notably in
regard to the position of women and to toler
ance, their open testimony against the pro
fligate imposture of degraded Mahomedan-
ism, and certain aspects of their conception
of the Deity, of the universe, and of the re
lation of man to both, raise them high above
the level of their oppressors and entitle them
to the interest and the regard of European
observers. They may fail in their efforts at
reform, but at least it is something that
they should cling to lofty ideals with un
daunted coura c-
I
I
I
(
e
1
(
r
1 :
t
t
tl
n
t
$
f
I
1
<
i
t
c
V
a
r
n
IS
B
in
ce
ac
E
la
m
le
5i
le
al
w
tl
ti
P'
1e
w
P
V
n
a
a
1
1
a
a
1
1
a
h
c
s
0
V
t
t