...As a community, the Persian Jews are sunk in great
poverty and ignorance.... Throughout the Musulman countries of the East these
unhappy people have been subjected to the persecution which custom has taught
themselves, as well as the world, to regard as their normal lot. Usually
compelled to live apart in a Ghetto, or separate quarter of the towns, they
have from time immemorial suffered from disabilities of occupation, dress, and
habits, which have marked them out as social pariahs from their
fellow-creatures. ...In Isfáhán, where there are said to be 3,700, and where
they occupy a relatively better status than elsewhere in Persia, they are not
permitted to wear the ‘kuláh’ or Persian head-dress, to have shops in the
bazaar, to build the walls of their houses as high as a Muslim neighbour’s, or
to ride in the streets.... As soon, however, as any outburst of bigotry takes
place in Persia or elsewhere, the Jews are apt to be the first victims Every
man’s hand is then against them; and woe betide the luckless Hebrew who is the
first to encounter a Persian street mob.
- Lord Curzon (Extract from “Persia and the Persian
Question”, quoted by Shoghi Effendi in the Introduction to the Dawn-Breakers)
