History of Persia

of Bagdad. Thence the Arab sailors carried their voyages to Africa and the Far East, and as early as the ninth century established regular trade relations with China. We read in the exploits of Sinbad the Sailor a marvelous picture of this phase of commercial expansion. Ormuz, long before the time of Albuquerque, was an Arab emporium and to this day the population of the gulf region is almost wholly Arab.

The Persians have never been a seafaring people and the Persian Gulf, from the day when Nearchus, admiral of Alexander, sailed a Greek fleet into its waters, has never been an undisputed Persian possession. The Arabs, on the contrary, in the course of their expansion soon took to the sea, and on first entering Persia founded the city of Basra at the mouth of the Euphrates, the future port

But their destruction was but little consolation to Persia. During seven years her greatest cities had been ruined and her best provinces reduced to deserts by a small band of foreigners who could maintain themselves in the midst of a great nation only by means of the fear they inspired.

The philosophical sect of the Sufi, though knitted by the closest bonds to the very meaning of the dynasty, was driven into exile. Eunuchs and mullas ruled the country in place of the nobles, and the fact that Husein reigned peacefully for twenty years shows to what depths of weakness and indifference the nation had fallen.

easy prey to a handful of Afghan warriors. Right here lies the contrast between the two great Mohammedan powers, Turkey and Persia. Both have suffered for centuries under a detestable system of government; but while the native of Persia seems to have lost his former bravery and independence of character under the system, the Ottoman Turk with all his faults retains to-day much of his former virility, while as a soldier he has few superiors.
With the descendants of Abbas a new principle enters into the royal family. The royal princes, hitherto trained to public service in war and government, were now confined by oriental jealousy to the harem, with the inevitable result of a line of weak and debauched tyrants.

That great traveler, Sir John Chardin, tells us that with the death of Abbas Persia ceased to prosper, and, indeed, it seems evident that the Persian character which had in the past given proof of its virility and marvelous power of recuperation, now degenerated under the peaceful misgovernment of the successors of the great shah. It is almost impossible to account with exactness for this gradual change in the character of the Persian people. Indeed, it is almost unnoticeable till suddenly the great empire shows its full weakness in a startling manner, and falls an

in his own family, he was seized with jealousy of his own sons, who were universally beloved; one of them he put to death, two others he caused to be blinded. Yet Abbas was capable of being an agreeable and even captivating companion. He was a lover of good cheer, drank wine despite the prohibition of the Koran, and was somewhat of a wit. On settling a colony of Christians in the province of Mazanderan he remarked that as its chief products were wine and hogs they would consider themselves in Paradise. He died in 1628 at his favorite palace of Ferrahabad, aged seventy years.

ous. A fearful tyrant

The private life of Abbas forms the dark side of his character. He was by nature cruel and often treacherous.

The power of this terrible sect spread through Persia and Syria till the Old Man of the Mountains (Sheikh al Jebal), as the chief of the order was called, ruled over a hundred castles. The murders committed by the Assassins were often aimless and indeed the order resembled in many ways the militant anarchists of to-day. Despite the terror they spread throughout the East the sovereigns of the day found them too useful as instruments of revenge to attempt to suppress the scourge and they continued to flourish till the general catastrophe of the Mongol conquest.