Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/453

 for the public drainage. The course of the Khiaban is inter- rupted, about two thirds of the way from the upper end, by the huge enceinte that walls in the shrine, the more northerly portion of the thoroughfare being called the * Upper Khiaban,' and the lower being known as the 'Lower Khiaban.' Direct transit from one end to the other is possible only for Muhammadans because of the intervening precinct.

This sacred enclosure, covering an area about a quarter of a mile square, forms the very heart of the city, and is a sort of town within a town.^ The surrounding wall is sufficient to forbid entrance at any point except at the arched gateway through either end ; and even here a chain shuts off ingress for every one not of the Mussulman creed ; nor does any one of the faithful, including the Shah himself, dare profane the consecrated ground by advancing otherwise than humbly on foot. This dividing barrier converts the court of the sanctu- ary into a hast (literally 'bound fast'), or an asylum of safety as inviolable as the ' cities of refuge ' in the Bible or the ' horns of the altar ' of the Temple ; so that here even the worst criminals and malefactors find a secure retreat from punishment for their guilt, unless, in exceptional cases, the college of priests adjudges some penalty for their misdeeds. If provided with money, these offenders may live with the same comfort as the pilgrims themselves, because within the pre- cinct there are shops well supplied with the necessaries and even comforts of life ; and many tales are told of egregious wrong-doers who have thus been able to escape the hand of justice for a protracted period, and who have later made good terms of compromise with the plaintiffs in the case.^

Although admission within the bounds of the sacred temenos

1 Cf. Curzon, Persia, 1. 104 ; Miss and Ethics, 2. 161-164, Edinburgh, Sykes, Persia, p. 91. 1909, which may be supplemented by

2 On the religious principles under- Post, Grundriss der ethnologischen lyingthe widespread right of sanctuary Jurisprudenz, 2. 262-256, Oldenburg, see Westermarck's article 'Asylum,' 1895.

in Hastings' Encyclopcedia of Religion

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