‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎249v] (505/722)

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personally decide, or delegate his arbitrary authority to others, the criminal
law of Persia is administered in a manner compatible with what is laid down
in the Kuran. Theft may be forgiven, and murder compounded, if the
party from whom the property is stolen, or the legal heir of the person that
has been slain, is disposed to mercy. Mutilation for theft, though com
manded in the Kuran, is rarely practised; but the king often inflicts capital
punishment on those who are convicted of having stolen to any large
amount. When a man or woman is murdered, the moment the person by
whom the act was perpetrated is discovered, the heir-at-law to the deceased
demands vengeance for the blood. Witnesses are examined; and if the
guilt be established, the criminal is delivered into his hands, to deal with as
he chooses. It is alike legal for him to forgive him, to accept a sum of
money as the price of blood, or to put him to death. This barbarous usage
of committing the execution of the law into the hands of the injured
individual is still practised in Persia. The youngest princes of the blood
that could hold a dagger were made to stab the assassins of the late Agha
Muhammad Khan when they Avere executed; and it has been before men
tioned that the successor of Nadir Shah sent one of the murderers of that
monarch to the females of his harem, who, we are told, were delighted to
become his executioners.
In the time of the Safavian kings, the court of the f diwan begf/ or
supreme criminal judge, not only passed its decisions upon the cases of
murder and robbery which occurred in the metropolis, but over the whole
kingdom. This court, we are told, took particular cognizance of four
crimes—the knocking-out of a tooth or an eye, cases of rape, and of
murder. Other crimes, the same author states, were judged on the spot
where they were committed by the hakim, or chief magistrate, who
referred all civil suits to the ‘ shara/ or court of written law. But it is
added that it was the peculiar privilege of nobles, public ministers, and all
king’s guests, including ambassadors and envoys from foreign states, to
have every suit they instituted or that was brought against them tried
only in the court of the diwan begi, or supreme judge. The sensible
and observing traveller, who gives us this information, also states that it was
the principle of the 1 urf/ or customary law, to accommodate itself to the
usages of the place where it was administered. This is still the practice;
but the high office of diwan begi no longer exists. Its powers are
exercised by the monarch, who, however, in most instances where he has
appointed one of his sons to the government of a province, has vested him
with the power of pronouncing and carrying into execution the sentence of
death upon convicted criminals, as well as of taking cognizance of and
punishing all other crimes formerly noticed by the court of the diwan
begi, or chief criminal judge.
The mode as well as the degree of punishment of offences in cases
decided by the shara, or written law, is the same in Persia as in all other
Muhammadan countries; but when the sentence is pronounced by the
king, or by those governors or military commanders to whom he had
delegated his authority, the punishment varies according to the disposition
of the arbitrary will by which it is inflicted. For lesser offences, fines,
flogging, and the bastinado are the most common punishments. Torture
is seldom used but to make men reveal hidden treasures. The inhuman
practice of taking out the eyes has long disgraced Persia. The objects
of this barbarity are usually persons who have aspired to, or are supposed