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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [341v] (685/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
PERSIA
454
was inaugurated, immediately upon his accession, by the great
minister Mirza Taki Khan, who showed his contempt for the
ecclesiastical order by seizing the person of the Sheikh-el-Islam
at Tabriz, and by abolishing the privilege of affording sanctuary in
his mosque, hitherto enjoyed by the Imam-i-Jama of Teheran.
The complete assertion of the sovereign power, which ever since
has been the keynote of the domestic policy of Nasr-ed-Din, is
incompatible with the ascendency of an ecclesiastical court. Civil
jurisdiction involves a final reference in every case to the
sovereign; and one can easily understand the reluctance of a
powerful monarch to admit a higher court of appeal. There is,
however, in the constitution of the ecclesiastical bench, an inherent
check upon their supremacy, of which the civil power can always
take advantage to vindicate its own. They pronounce, but they
cannot execute, judgment. The latter function devolves upon the
officers of government; and although the decisions of the mujta-
heds are seldom disputed, and are, as a rule, carried into effect, yet
the final reference to the civil power is an acknowledgment of its
superiority, while it opens the door to the lengthy process of
negotiations and bribes that always supervenes when one of the
parties engaged is a Persian governor or official.
From the Shar, I pass to the Urf, or Common Law. Nomi
nally this is based on oral tradition, on precedent, and on custom.
As such, it varies in different parts of the country. But, there
Urf or being no written or recognised code, it is found to vary
Common still more in practice according to the character or caprice
of the individual who administers it; and so far from any
attempt being made to hunt up precedents or to ascertain what
has been done in parallel cases before, the decision is, as a rule,
promptly given and as promptly executed by the civil officer be
fore whom it comes, and whose sole guide, presuming him to he
honest (perhaps a rash assumption in Persia), is a rough sense of
right and wrong. The administrators of the Urf are the civil
magistrates throughout the kingdom, there being no secular court
or bench of judges after the Western model. In a village the case
will be brought before the hedlchoda, or headman ; in a town before
the da r > ogha, or police magistrate. To their judgment are sub
mitted all the petty offences that occupy a city police-court or a
bench of country magistrates in England. The penalty in the case
of laiceny, or assault, or such like offences, is, as a rule, restitution,
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [341v] (685/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213845.0x00005c> [accessed 4 April 2025]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain