 |
| Shrine of Imam Reza 1939 (National Geographic) |
...Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of Mashhad life,
before I leave the subject of the shrine and the pilgrims, is the provision
that is made for the material solace of the letter during their stay in the
city. In recognition of the long journeys which they have made, of the
hardships which they have sustained, and of the distances by which they are
severed from family and home, they are permitted, with the connivance of the
ecclesiastical law and its officers, to contract temporary marriages during their
sojourn in the city. There is a large permanent population of wives suitable
for the purpose. A mullá is found, under whose sanction a contract is drawn up
and formally sealed by both parties, a fee is paid, and the union is legally
accomplished. After the lapse of a fortnight or a month, or whatever be the
specified period, the contract terminates; the temporary husband returns to his
own lares et penates in some distant clime, and the lady, after an enforced
celibacy of fourteen days’ duration, resumes her career of persevering
matrimony. In other words, a gigantic system of prostitution, under the
sanction of the Church, prevails in Mashhad. There is probably not a more
immoral city in Asia; and I should be sorry to say how many of the unmurmuring pilgrims
who traverse seas and lands to kiss the grating of the Imám’s tomb are not also
encouraged and consoled upon their march by the prospect of an agreeable
holiday and what might be described in the English vernacular as ‘a good
spree.’
- Lord Curzon (Extract from
“Persia and the Persian Question”, quoted by Shoghi Effendi in the Introduction
to the Dawn-Breakers)
