A TALK ABOUT PERSIA AND ITS WOMEN 



665 



Prophet), one of whom wiU recite to her 

 the proper Arabic prayers, which she 

 must repeat after him, and he will tell 

 her where to make her genuflexions. She 

 will gaze in amazement at the jewels, the 

 magnificent carpets, and the weapons 

 hung on the walls of the shrine, and she 

 will join the band of pilgrims who pass 

 round the silver trellis-work that encloses 

 the body of the Imam Reza, kissing with 

 fervor the silver padlocks of the gates. 



She" will also visit the beautiful mosque 

 close by, and will pay a priest to read 

 portions of the Koran to her daily, as 

 it is improbable that she can peruse the 

 Mohammedan bible herself. In the 

 screened-off portion of the mosque, set 

 apart for women, she will meet the 

 friends from her native city, and will 

 spend much of her time in conversing 

 with them. A whole year may elapse 

 before she makes up her mind to return 

 to her husband and family, and indeed 

 she is not greatly needed at home. Her 

 children, if they are young, are in the 

 charge of a faithful slave, and, as her 

 husband has always engaged the serv- 

 ants, and has disbursed all money re- 

 quired for the household and has over- 

 looked the accounts, she is hardly wanted 

 at all. 



EARI^Y PREPARATIONS i^OR THE END 



Day after day, in approaching the 

 shrine, she walks over a pavement com- 

 posed of countless flat tombstones, and 

 she sometimes wonders whether she may 

 not have the good fortune to die in the 

 holy city, in which case her bones would 

 be laid to rest in this great cemetery and 

 she would go straight to paradise. Per- 

 sians pay from $50 to $500 for a grave 

 near the shrine. P)Ut they do not remain 

 in possession of it very long. Directly 

 the inscription cut on the stone is worn 

 down by the feet of the myriads of pil- 

 grims, the corpse is dug up and its place 

 is taken by a new occupant with a new 

 stone, or even the old one recut ! 



If the Persian lady, however, makes 

 her way home, she will die in the odor 

 of sanctity and with the coveted title of 

 pilgrimage, and her body may form one 



of that terrible caravan of corpses re- 

 turning to the shrine to be buried that 

 the traveler sometimes meets in the 

 neighborhood of Aleshed or of Koom. 



When she dies the hired mourners ar- 

 rive to weep and lament ; all water in the 

 house is thrown away lest the inmates 

 be afflicted with colic ; a priest recites the 

 Koran, and the corpse is placed in the 

 cofiin with a stick under each armpit. 

 This is for the purpose of enabling the 

 deceased woman to raise herself when 

 the blue-eyed angels come to question 

 her as to her orthodoxy. If she can 

 answer to their satisfaction her coflin 

 will expand to the size of a room, but 

 if they are not pleased with her, her last 

 resting-place Avill close in upon her, all 

 animals being able to hear her shrieks 

 of agony as she is thus tormented. Even 

 if all go well, she has to pass the IJridge 

 of Sirat, "finer than a hair and sharper 

 than a sword," which spans the fires of 

 hell, and only a minority of women can 

 tread this in safety and enter into the 

 regions of the blessed. Here apparently 

 the Prophet did not contemplate that 

 husbands and wives should meet one 

 another again, and we find that the 

 women are relegated to a paradise of 

 their own with angel attendants. In 

 fact, this glimpse of the life of a Persian 

 woman assuredly bears out my conten- 

 tion that she has the worst of it in everv 

 way, from the moment of her birth even 

 to iier life in the world beyond the grave. 



THE POSITION OE TllE SEAVE 



I have said that Persian domestic life 

 was really patriarchal, and I cannot leave 

 this subject without mention of the serv- 

 ants and slaves who form so important 

 a part of a Persian household. The 

 former are treated as members of the 

 family ; their master calls them hatchaha 

 (children); he feeds and clothes them, 

 and, if displeased with them, orders them 

 to be bastinadoed. They are supposed 

 to be paid their wa,ees in cash, but, as 

 ready money is usually scarce in Persia, 

 their master often rewards them in a 

 somewhat ingenious manner. He will 

 emplov them to carry a gift to some 



