Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎165r] (332/1814)

MESHED
155
and trinkets, and of turquoises engraven with sentences from the
Koran. The most remarkable feature, however, about this section
of the parallelogram is that, belonging to the Imam, it is holy
ground, and consequently affords an inviolable sanctuary, or bast (Per.) A Persian custom allowing an individual to seek asylum at a designated location. ,
to any malefactor who succeeds in entering its precincts. Some
writers declare that even Christians, Jews, and Guebres (the Persian
name for the Parsis) are permitted to use it for the same purpose;
but this I elsewhere heard denied. To a Mohammedan, however,
it is a safe refuge from his pursuers, with whom, from the security
of his retreat, he can then make terms, and settle the ransom which
is to purchase his immunity if he comes out. 1 The idea of sanc
tuary is of course familiar to the Oriental mind, and is embodied
in the Cities of Refuge of the Pentateuch. Nor should it excite
the indignant surprise of the English reader, seeing that in our
own country and capital at no very distant date a similar refuge
for debtors existed in the famous Alsatia between Blackfriars
Bridge and Temple Bar, which also had an ecclesiastical founda
tion, having originally been the precincts of the Dominicans or
Black Friars. The Bast (Per.) A Persian custom allowing an individual to seek asylum at a designated location. at Meshed is so emphatically the property
of the Imam, that any animal entering its limits is at once con
fiscated by the authorities of the shrine.
1 In Persia the idea of bast (Per.) A Persian custom allowing an individual to seek asylum at a designated location. seems, it is difficult to say why, to have a three
fold localisation : (1) In sacred buildings or mosques (compare the 4 horns of the
altar ’ in the Jewish tabernacle) ; (2) in the stables or at the tails of the horses
belonging to the sovereign or members of the royal family; (3) in the neigh
bourhood of artillery—e.g. in the Meidan-i-Tupkhaneh, or Chin Square, in Teheran,
and particularly in contact with the big gun which stands outside the palace.
Chardin (edit. Langles, vol. vii. p. 369) says, two centuries ago, that it applied to
the tombs of great saints, to the gateway of the Royal Palace at Isfahan, and to
the kitchen as well as the stables of the King. The selection of the royal stables
and horses as an especial sanctuary would appear to be due to the extravagant
attention that has always been paid, in a country where there are superb breeds
of horses, and where every man is a horseman, to this part of the establishment
of the sovereign. There is a Persian saying that £ a horse will never bear him to
victory by whom its sanctity has been infringed; ’ and Malcolm (vol. ii. cap.
xxiii.) quotes a Persian MS., which attributed all the misfortunes of Nadir
Mirza, the grandson of Nadir Shah, to his having put to death a fugitive who had
taken sanctuary in the royal stables. The MS. adds these interesting particulars :
4 The monarch or chief in whose stable a criminal takes refuge must feed him as
long as he stays there; he may be slain the moment before he reaches it, or when
he leaves it; but while there, a slave who has murdered his master cannot be
touched. The place of safety is at the horse’s head, and if that is tied up in the
open air the person who takes refuge is to touch the head-stall.’ In later times,
the tail, though perhaps more venturesome, appears to have been as much fraught
with protection as the head.
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