Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/669

HISTORY.] PERSIA 639 of discretion he became wilfully indiscreet. Beyond the credit of regaining Kandahar, an operation which he is said to have directed in person when barely sixteen, there is not much to mark the period of his life to the outer world. As to foreign relations, he received em bassies from Europe and a deputation from the French East India Company ; he sought to conciliate the Uzbeks by treating their refugee chiefs with unusual honour and sumptuous hospitality ; he kept on good terms with Turkey ; he forgave the hostility of a Georgian prince when brought to him a captive ; and he was tolerant to all re ligions, always regarding Christians with especial favour. But he was a drunkard and a debauchee, and chroniclers are divided in opinion as to whether he died from the effects of drink or licentious living. That he changed the system of blinding his relatives from passing a hot metal over the open eye to an extraction of the whole pupil is indicative of gross brutality. Abbas II. died (1668) at the age of thirty-eight, after a reign of twenty-seven years, and was buried at Kum in the same mosque as his father. Abbas was succeeded by his son, Shah Sufi II., crowned a second time under the name of Shah Sulaiman. Sir John Malcolm remarks that from the middle of the reign of Abbas II. till the elevation of Nadir Shah, or for about eighty years, there are but few Persian histories which give particular or authentic accounts of current events ; and he attributes this circumstance to the absence for nearly a century of any one political event of magni tude. " And yet," he writes " this extraordinary calm was productive of no advantage to Persia. The princes, nobles, and high officers of that kingdom were, it is true, exempt from the dangers of foreign or internal war ; but their property and their lives were the sport of a succession of weak, cruel, and debauched monarchs. The lower orders were exposed to fewer evils than the higher, but they became every day more unwarlike ; and what they gained by that tranquillity which the state enjoyed, lost almost all its value when they ceased to be able to defend it. This period was distinguished by no glorious achievements. No characters arose on which the historian could dwell with delight. The nation may be said to have existed upon the reputation which it had before acquired till all it possessed was gone, and till it became, from the slow but certain progress of a gradual and vicious decay, incapable of one effort to avert that dreadful misery and ruin in which it was involved by the invasion of a few Afghan tribes, whose conquest of Persia affixed so indelible a disgrace upon that countiy, that we cannot be surprised that its historians have shrunk from the painful and degrading narration." Though weak, dissolute, and cruel, Sulaiman is not with out his panegyrists. Chardin, whose testimony is all the more valuable from the fact that he was contemporary with him, relates many stories characteristic of his temper and habits. The statement that on one occasion he compelled his grand wazir to drink to intoxication, and on another to have his hair cut by a barber after the unorthodox fashion of the day, contrary to the old man s religious prejudices, belongs to the record of unworthy and disgraceful acts. He kept up a court at Ispahan which surprised and delighted his foreign visitors, among whom were ambassadors from European states ; and one learned writer, Kaempfer, credits him with wisdom and good policy. Au reste, during his reign Khurasan was invaded by the ever -encroaching Uzbeks, the Kapchak Tatars plundered the shores of the Caspian, and the island of Kishm was taken by the Dutch ; but the kingdom suffered otherwise no material loss. He died in 1694, in the forty-ninth year of his age and twenty-sixth of his reign. About a year before his death he is described by Sanson, 1 a missionary from the French king Louis XIV., as tall, strong, and active, " a fine prince, a little too effeminate for a monarch," with "a Roman nose very well pro portioned to other parts," very large blue eyes, and "a midling mouth, a beard painted black, shav d round, and 1 Present State of Persia, London, 1695. well turn d, even to his ears." His air was "affable, 1641-1715. but nevertheless majestic"; he had a masculine and agree able voice, and sweet manner of speaking, and was "so very engaging that when you but bow d to him he seem d in some measure to return it by a courteous inclining of his head, and which he always did smiling." The same writer greatly praises him for his kindness to Christian missionaries. Krusinski s memoir is full of particulars regarding Shah Husain. Husain, the successor of Sulaiman. He had an elder and a younger brother, sons of the same mother, but the eldest had been put to death by his father s orders, and the youngest secreted by maternal precaution lest a similar fate should overtake him. There was, however, a second candidate for power in the person of a half-brother, Abbas. The latter prince was the worthier of the throne, but the other better suited the policy of the eunuchs and those noblemen who had the right of election. Indeed Sulaiman himself is reported to have told the grandees around him, in his last days, that " if they were for a martial king that would always keep his foot in the stirrup they ought to choose Mirza Abbas, but that if they wished for a peace able reign and a pacific king they ought to fix their eyes upon Husain." But he himself made no definite choice. Husain was selected, as might have been anticipated. On his accession (1694) he displayed his attachment to religious observances by prohibiting the use of wine, causing all wine -vessels to be brought out of the royal cellars and destroyed, and forbidding the Armenians to sell any more of their stock in Ispahan. The shah s grand mother, by feigning herself sick and dependent upon wine only for cure, obtained reversal of the edict ; and the process by which the venerable lady made her son, in pure regard to herself, drink the first glass with her (and there by become a confirmed tippler) is woven into a story good enough to attract a writer of vaudevilles. For the follow ing account of Shah Husain and his successors to the accession of Nadir Shah, Markham s abstract history has been mainly utilized. The new king soon fell under the influence of mullas, and was led so far to forget his own origin as to persecute the Sufis. Though good-hearted, he was weak and licentious ; and once out of the hands of the fanatical party he became ensnared by women and entangled in harem intrigues. For twenty years a profound peace prevailed throughout the empire, but it was the precursor of a terrible storm destined to destroy the Safawi dynasty and scatter calamity broadcast over Persia. In the mountainous districts of Kandahar and Kabul the hardy tribes of Afghans had for centuries led a wild and almost independent life. They were divided into two great branches the Ghilzais of Ghazni and Kabul and the Saduzais of Kandahar and Herat. More than one fanciful explana tion is given of the etymology of the first name ; the most probable one is perhaps that which connects them with a Turki tribe of Khalji or Khilagi, a word not impossibly derived from the Turkish kilij, "a sword," the affix "chi" or "ji" always denoting posses sion. The second take their name from Sadu, their leader in the time of Shah Abbas. In 1702 a newly -appointed governor, one Shah Nawaz, called Gurji Khan from having been " wall " or ruler of Georgia, arrived at Kandahar with a tolerably large force. He was a clever and energetic man, and had been instructed to take severe measures with the Afghans, some of whom were suspected of intriguing to restore the city to the Dehli emperor. At this time Kandahar had been for sixty years uninterruptedly in the shah s possession. The governor appears to have given great offence by the harshness of his proceedings, and a Ghilzai chief named Mir Wa iz, who had complained of his tyranny, was sent a prisoner to Ispahan. This person had much ability and no little cunning. He was permitted to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his re turn in 1708 he so gained upon the confidence of the Persian court that he was allowed to go back to his country. At Kandahar he planned a conspiracy against the Government, slew Gurji Khan and his retinue, seized the city, defeated two Persian armies sent against him, and died a natural death in 1715. His brother, Mir Abdallah, succeeded him in the government of the Afghans ; but after a few months, Mahmiid, a son of Mir Wa iz, a very young man, murdered his uncle and assumed the title of a sovereign prince. In the meanwhile dark clouds were rising all round the horizon