tributions made to it by Persians, would lose much of what is best in it. And if modern science owes little to Persia, the name of Avicenna alone is sufficient to remind us how deeply medieval Europe, as well as Asia, was indebted to one of her sons for nearly all that was then known of Philosophy and Medicine. In short so conspicuous was the pre-eminence of the Persians in all branches of knowledge that a tradition of the Prophet Muḥammad (reported amongst others by Ibn Khaldún) runs:
لو كان العلم بالثريا لناله رجال من الفرس
(
Arabic characters)
“Were knowledge in the Pleiades, some of the Persians would reach it.”
So much for the intellectual and artistic gifts of the Persians. As to their character, opinions have varied, for while all who know them have admitted their wit, their quickness of mind, their pleasant manners, their agreeable address, their amusing conversation, their hospitality and dignity, they have been charged with falsehood, treachery, cowardice, cruelty, subserviency, lack of principles, instability of purpose, and corrupt morals. These vices were undeniably common amongst the creatures of the Court, with whom naturally Europeans having official positions in Persia come most in contact, but few who have mixed on intimate terms with all classes of the people, and especially the middle class, will assert that these vices are general, or will deny that where they exist they are largely the outcome of the intolerable system of government against which the movement described in these pages is a protest. Conventional falsehoods, or “white lies,” which deceive nobody, are not confined to the Persians: we also say that we are “not at home” when we are in, and “much regret” having to decline invitations which nothing would induce us to accept. That the Persians are by no means devoid of courage is admitted even by those who have criticised them very harshly in some respects. R. G. Watson (A History of Persia in. . .the Nineteenth Century, p. 10) says that “they ride courageously at full speed over the very worst ground, and by the very brinks of the most appalling precipices”; that “they are utter strangers to the fear that comes of physical nervousness”; and that “when their courage fails them, as it too often
