Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/193

 said, ' The Persians, of all nations, are the most ready to adopt foreign customs.' ^ The story of how the Constitution was granted, and of how the old order gave place to the new, is proof enough. The narrative of events during the past four or five years is more or less familiar to every reader of the newspapers, and is now so admirably told in a book by my friend, Profes- sor Edward G. Browne, just received after a part of this chapter was written, that I may compress my outline into the briefest summary of the main occurrences.^ Iran has known enlightened rulers and strong administrators many times in its long history from the Golden Age of Jamshid to the late Age of Steel under Nasir ad-Din Shah. This latter monarch, the great-grandfather of the present youthful Shah, ruled for nearly fifty years with a firm, often arbitrary, but generally liberal hand until his reign was brought to an abrupt end on the eve of his jubilee, May 1, 1896, by the shot of an assassin. ^ Yet even in his day there were troubles, and a Grand Vizir paid the penalty of death for ideas that were held to be too liberal.* In 1891, more- over, Persia became saddled with a national debt through an ill-advised scheme which had granted, in the previous year, a tobacco monopoly to an English company. The voice of the people was heard for the first time, for they rose in riot ; the concession was abrogated ; but a heavy indemnity, amounting to two and a half million dollars, had to be paid to those who had received the grant. The problem now became one of money — that greatest common denominator to which most

1 Herodotus, History, 1. 135, ^eiviK& is a marked divergence in regard to a Sk p6fiaia n^paai vpoaUvTai avSpdv favorable or unfavorable estimate of ndXiara. He is speaking, not of their his reign. A generally favorable ver- manner of dress alone, but of their diet is given by Wishard, Twenty Years tendency in general to adopt ideas in Persia, pp. 303-305. A directly from foreign peoples. opposite judgment, called forth espe-

2 See Browne, The Persian Bevolu- cially by the closing years of his reign, tion of 1905-1909, Cambridge, 1910. is given by Browne, Persian Bevolu-

3 Although there is a unanimity of tion, pp. xx, 32, 33.

opinion in regard to the iron firmness * Cf. Wishard, op. cit. pp. 330-331,

with which Nasir ad-Din ruled, there

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