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The Aradan telegraph-jee is a young man skin-full of piety, rejoicing in the possession of a nice little praying-carpet, a praying-stone from holy Kerbela, the holiest of all except Mecca, and he owns a string of beads of the same soul-comforting material as the stone.
"Quite well!" Highness to me. "Are you well?" Answer. "Quite well, thanks!" The Consul now introduces business; and questions about my travels follow from His Highness "How do you like Persia?" "Have you seen Kerbela, Bagdad, Masr, Stamboul?" "Have the Turks many soldiers?" "How many has Persia?" "Is Persia fertile?" "How do you like Zanzibar?"
There is no such functionary in Persia as Sheykh el Islam, or Grand Mufti, and the Shah claims to be neither Imam nor Caliph. Each Shiite doctor who has taken his degree at Kerbela or Ispahan may deliver his fetwa or opinion on points of doctrine, and the only test of his authority to preach or lead the prayer in mosque is his power of attracting a congregation.
Loftus received the first hint of his suggestion from what he himself saw at Nedjef and at Kerbela, where he met funeral processions more than once on the roads of Irak-Arabi. From every town in Persia the bodies of Shiite Mussulmans, who desire to repose near the mortal remains of Ali and his son, are transported after death into Mesopotamia.
The mess we had joined was largely Scotch, so we decided we must make a haggis, that "chieftain of the pudden race." The ingredients, save for the whiskey, were scarcely orthodox, but if it was not a success, at least no one admitted it. As soon as the weather cleared we made a run to Kerbela a lovely town, with miles of gardens surrounding it and two great mosques.
This, indeed, would be no more than is being already done by our Government for the Shia Shrines of Kerbela and Meshed Ali, with results entirely beneficial to English popularity and influence.
And then the biggest 'strike' I know of took place. Mirza Hassan, the High-Priest of Kerbela, the most sacred shrine of the Shiah Mohammedans, declared tobacco in Persia to be 'unlawful' to the true believer, and everyone man, woman, and child was forbidden to sell or smoke it.
The 'strike' took place on a gigantic scale, a million or two certainly being engaged in it, and steps were taken to see the order from Kerbela carried out rigorously. 'Vigilance men, under the Moullas' directions, made raids on suspected tea-shops, to find and smash the 'kalian' pipes which form part of the stock-in-trade of these places of refreshment.
The German road from Baghdad to Tehran will be met at Hamadan. Kermanshah and Hamadan, through which the German road will pass, are both busy centres of trade in districts rich in corn, wool, and wine. They are also meeting-points of the great and ever-flowing streams of pilgrims to Kerbela viâ Baghdad, said to number annually about one hundred thousand.
The Babylonians controlled the Euphrates, and at the same time provided against its time of "low supply", by escapes into two depressions in the western desert to the NW. of Babylon, known to-day as the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs depressions, which lie S. of the modern town of Ramâdi and N. of Kerbela.
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