 |
| Fath-Ali Shah and his sons |
In theory the king may do what he pleases; his word is law.
The saying that ‘The law of the Medes and Persians altereth not’ was merely an
ancient periphrasis for the absolutism of the sovereign. He appoints and he may
dismiss all ministers, officers, officials, and judges. Over his own family and
household, and over the civil or military functionaries in his employ, he has
power of life and death without reference to any tribunal. The property of any
such individual, if disgraced or executed, reverts to him. The right to take
life in any case is vested in him alone, but can be delegated to governors or
deputies. All property, not previously granted by the crown or purchased—all
property, in fact, to which a legal title cannot be established—belongs to him,
and can be disposed of at his pleasure. All rights or privileges, such as the
making of public works, the working of mines, the institution of telegraphs,
roads, railroads, tramways, etc., the exploitation, in fact, of any of the
resources of the country, are vested in him, and must be purchased from him
before they can be assumed by others. In his person are fused the threefold
functions of government, legislative, executive, and judicial. No obligation is
imposed upon him beyond the outward observance of the forms of the national
religion. He is the pivot upon which turns the entire machinery of public life.
Such is, in theory, and was till lately in practice, the
character of the Persian monarchy. Nor has a single one of these high
pretensions been overtly conceded. The language in which the Sháh addresses his
subjects and is addressed by them, recalls the proud tone in which an
Artaxerxes or Darius spoke to his tributary millions, and which may still be
read in the graven record of rock-wall and tomb. He remains the Sháhinsháh, or
King of Kings; the Zillu’llah, or Shadow of God; the Qibliy-i-’Alam, or Centre
of the Universe; ‘Exalted like the planet Saturn; Well of Science; Footpath of
Heaven; Sublime Sovereign, whose standard is the Sun, whose splendour is that
of the Firmament; Monarch of armies numerous as the stars.’ Still would the
Persian subject endorse the precept of Sa’dí, that ‘The vice approved by the
king becomes a virtue; to seek opposite counsel is to imbrue one’s hands in his
own blood.’ The march of time has imposed upon him neither religious council
nor secular council, neither ‘ulamá nor senate. Elective and representative
institutions have not yet intruded their irreverent features. No written check
exists upon the royal prerogative.
...Such is the divinity that doth hedge a throne in Persia,
that not merely does the Sháh never attend at state dinners or eat with his
subjects at table, with the exception of a single banquet to his principal male
relatives at Naw-rúz, but the attitude and language employed towards him even
by his confidential ministers are those of servile obeisance and adulation.
‘May I be your sacrifice, Asylum of the Universe,’ is the common mode of
address adopted even by subjects of the highest rank. In his own surrounding
there is no one to tell him the truth or to give him dispassionate counsel. The
foreign Ministers are probably almost the only source from which he learns
facts as they are, or receives unvarnished, even if interested, advice. With
the best intentions in the world for the undertaking of great plans and for the
amelioration of his country, he has little or no control over the execution of
an enterprise which has once passed out of his hands and has become the sport
of corrupt and self-seeking officials. Half the money voted with his consent
never reaches its destination, but sticks to every intervening pocket with
which a professional ingenuity can bring it into transient contact; half the
schemes authorised by him are never brought any nearer to realisation, the
minister or functionary in charge trusting to the oblivious caprices of the
sovereign to overlook his dereliction of duty.
...Only a century ago the abominable system prevailed of
blinding possible aspirants to the throne, of savage mutilations and life-long
captivities, of wanton slaughter and systematic bloodshed. Disgrace was not
less sudden than promotion, and death was a frequent concomitant of disgrace.
- George
Curzon (‘Persia, and The Persia Question’)