'Report on the Persian Army' [‎7v] (14/170)

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CHAPTER I.
Political and Administrative Organisation and General
Statistics of Persia.
(a.) Area and Population.
According to the most trustworthy estimates the country
contains an area of 628,000 square miles. A vast portion of
this area, estimated by some at four-fifths of the whole, is
desert and steppe, and the population is so scanty as not
to exceed, on an average, fourteen inhabitants per square
mile. The population is estimated at about nine millions,
which may, roughly, be divided into
Urban 2,500,000
£ ural 4,300,000
Nomads 2,200.000
9,000,000
Of the nomads about 850,000 are Turks, 800,000 Kurds and
Lcks, 300,000 Arabs, 230,000 Lurs, and 20,000 Baluchis and
Gypsies.
Dividing the population according to religious beliefs there
would be about 8,000,000 Shi'ahs, 890,000 Sunnis, 76,000
Christians, 35,000 Jews, and 9,000 Zoroastrians or Gebrs.
(b.) Government.
. . foim of government in Persia is an absolute monarchy,
m its most important features similar to that of the Ottoman
Dmpne, the monarch, however, not being the religious head of
the community. The power of the monarch is absolute, but
V/V 0 ^ ar as ^ not °PP os ed to the accepted doctrines of
the Muhammadan religion as laid down in the Koran, the sacred
book ol the 1 rophet, his oral commentaries and savings, and
the interpretation of the same by his successors and the high
priesthood. b
I he religions laws form a great restraint upon the sovereign
poAvers, while regard for established usage and political ex
pediency, and. m recent times foreign opinion, act as other
practical restraints.
. The monarch has the title of Shah (king), or Shahdn-Shah*
(kmg of lungs), and the rmgnmg Shah (since 1st May, 1896)
is MuzafFar-ed-din, the fifth of the Kajar dynasty
The Shah is assisted in the task of government by a cabinet
ot ministers with portfolios, the various departments being
* This is now generally written Shahm-Shah.