'Lord Curzon's Notes on Persia' [‎649r] (1299/1386)

35
population at seventy-five souls, five to each house, the annual tax would amount
individually to 3 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , equal to 11. 5s. Seeing that in this case Mussulmans and
Christians were subjected to an analogous system, I took great pains to ascertain
whether the former were specially favoured in any way to the detriment of the latter.
The result of my investigations was that instances occurred in which the Mussulman
landlord favoured his co-religionists in this wise. Instead of keeping literally to the
terms of the arrangement regarding the distribution of seed, explained aoove, he
sometimes allowed the Mussulman tenants to sow a few acres of land with their own
seed and to appropriate two shares of the crop, whereas a similar indulgence was
never shown to the Nestorians, who were held strictly to the letter of the law.
I visited successively several villages on the Oroomiah Plain, inhabited, some
exclusively by Christians, others by Mussulmans. The Christian peasantry generally
appeared to me to be the more prosperous, but being considerably in the minority, they
were less able to make a successful stand against an oppressive landlord than their
Mussulman neighbours.
Hearing that at the village of Ardeshai, which belongs to the Crown Domains and
is under the " Gural ” system, the taxes were being levied in a most arbitrary manner,
I made a friendly remonstrance to the Governor of Oroomiah, who promptly called the
master of the village to account, and issued stringent orders to prevent a recurrence of
the abuses in question.
At Geok-Tp, one of the most thriving villages on the Plain, I received the Holy
Communion on Sunday morning in the Nestorian Church. A large congregation of
Nestorians, men, women, and children, communicated at the same service. In the
afternoon I attended divine service at the chapel built by the American missionaries
of the Presbyterian persuasion. After both services I addressed the people in Turkish,
assuring them of the deep interest which Her Majesty the Queen personally took in
their welfare as fellow Christians, and whilst exhorting them to fulfil their duties as
loyal subjects of the Shah, I explained to them that, owing to the friendship existing
between Persia and England, the Sovereign of the latter country had recently
contributed a munificent donation for the relief of distress caused by the famine.
In some of the villages on the Nazloo Tchai I regret to sav that the landlords
resort largely to forced labour for the cultivation of their vineyards and rice fields.
The labourers, recruited from both Mussulmans and Christians, receive, I understand,
no pecuniary remuneration and rarely a morsel of food for their services, besides
which complaints reached me that they were frequently beaten with much cruelty by
their task-masters. It appears that more Christians than Mussulmans are pressed into
this service, and it would be advisable for the system to be entirely abolished.
Notwithstanding the terrible famine which has desolated the country, it does not
appear that the Government have remitted any of the taxes. In this respect the
same evil weighed upon Mussulmans and Christians alike; but the former have been
undoubtedly the greater sufferers by the famine, because no internal organizations
existed in their community for the relief of distress, whereas the Nestorians, acting
upon the suggestions of the American missionaries, formed relief committees, even
before funds were sent from England and the United States. By this means the
Christians were, in large numbers, rescued from starvation. They helped one another
till their resources were completely exhausted; but the inhabitants of many Persian
and Kurdish villages became, in some instances, wholly extinct, whilst in others the
entire male population died off, leaving numbers of widows and children utterly
destitute.
The oppressive system sometimes resorted to for the collection of the taxes, in
cases where the master of a village happens to be a man of unscrupulous character,
and the corruption of the sources of justice, are evils which form the common
heritage of Mahommedans and Christians alike; as the result of class prejudices
Christians are unable to bring their produce for sale to market, Mussulmans refusing
to buy it; in consequence of their being the inhabitants of the unsettled border-land,
between two weak, ill-governed States, the citizens of Oroomiah, and the whole popu
lation of its plain, are liable to incessant Kurdish raids, which render life and property
more insecure than in any other part of the Empire. It would be difficult to apply
any permanent remedies for this unhappy condition of things. Time, the laws of
nature, political changes, can alone work a radical cure.
But there is another class of grievances which appears to admit of redress, and
foremost amongst these I may cite the law of "Djeddeed-ul-Islam." By the pro
visions of this law, if one member of a Christian family embrace Islamism, he or she
.becomes entitled to the property of the family, and by the word family not only father
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