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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [799v] (1615/1814)
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.
472
PERSIA
Agaiii, as regards the assessments themselves, these are not only
neglected in parts, but are in the main wholly obsolete in date and
character. Many of them were made in remote periods, beyond
the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and have never been modified
in spite of subsequent changes. Some villages continue to pay a
purely nominal sum, though they have trebled or quadrupled in
size, wealth, and population since the original assessment; others
are mulcted for an exorbitant total, calculated upon the prosperity
of a vanished day; these revolutions of fortune being both rapid
and frequent in a country where all depends upon so capricious a
factor as water. Some districts, therefore, are heavily over-taxed,
others ludicrously under-taxed, the anomalies of an obsolete
assessment being perpetuated by the consistent venality of the
modern assessor, whose views of the situation are seldom proof
against the persuasion of a bribe. Such a thing as a scientific or
a periodical revision of assessment has never taken place, and
would cause a thrill of horror to run through every class of Persian
society above the peasant.
The taxation on flocks, herds, and animals exists in two forms,
either as a supplementary method of land-taxation, in the manner
Herd-tax indicated above, or as the sole available method of con
tribution to the revenue by the Iliat or nomad tribes
who sometimes hold their lands on the condition of military ser
vice, or who do not practise agriculture except in a vagrant fashion,
but whose wealth is expressed in large flocks, for the most part of
sheep and goats. . Mr. Stack mentions, as the common ratio of
such taxation in its agricultural incidence, the sum of -i-1 Ar,
‘/ran
1 ' > ^ vy .L g JL / 1 / / LVI
for a sheep or goat, 21-10 lerans for a cow, 10 hrans for an ass,
anc so on. From the nomad tribes the revenue is collected and
paid over to the provincial governor in lump sums, the minor dis
tribution of which is determined by the tribal Ilkhanis, or Khans
or nsh-sefids (white-beards), or tushmals (elders). Thus the Bakh-
tians pay partly to Arabistan or Burujird, partly to Isfahan, the
Lurs *0 Lunstan the Pusht-i-Kuh Lurs to Kermanshah, the
Kerman,shah Kurds to Kermanshah, those in Persian Kurdistan
to Sinna, those m Azerbaijan to Tabriz, the Kuhgelns, Mamasennis,
Kashkais, Arabs of Pars, Bulverdis, etc., to Pars ; the Shah Sevens
m part to Azerbaijan and in part to Irak (Sultanabad), the Khalii
partly to Saveh and partly to Irak, all the tribes in Khorasan to
lat province, the Afshars to Khamseh (Zinjan), the Karaguzlus
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 [799v] (1615/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213850.0x000010> [accessed 2 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