From the Shar’, I pass to the ‘Urf, or Common Law. Nominally
this is based on oral tradition, on precedent, and on custom. As such, it
varies in different parts of the country. But, there being no written or
recognised code, it is found to vary still more in practice according to the
character or caprice of the individual who administers it.... The
administrators of the ‘Urf are the civil magistrates throughout the kingdom,
there being no secular court or bench of judges after the Western model. In a
village the case will be brought before the kad-khudá, or headman; in a town
before the darúghih, or police magistrate. To their judgment are submitted all
the petty offences that occupy a city police-court or a bench of country
magistrates in England. The penalty in the case of larceny, or assault, or such
like offences, is, as a rule, restitution, either in kind or in money value;
while, if lack of means renders this impossible, the criminal is soundly
thrashed. All ordinary criminal cases are brought before the hakím, or governor
of a town; the more important before the provincial governor or
governor-general. The ultimate court of appeal in each case is the king, of
whose sovereign authority these subordinate exercises of jurisdiction are
merely a delegation, although it is rare that a suppliant at any distance from
the capital call make his complaint heard so far.... Justice, as dispensed in
this fashion by the officers of government in Persia, obeys no law and follows
no system. Publicity is the sole guarantee for fairness; but great is the
scope, especially in the lower grades, for pishkash and the bribe. The darugis
have the reputation of being both harsh and venal, and there are some who go so
far as to say that there is not a sentence of an official in Persia, even of
the higher ranks, that cannot be swayed by a pecuniary consideration.
- Lord Curzon’s (Excerpts from “Persia and the Persian Question,” vol. 1, pp. 452–55;
quoted by Shoghi Effendi in the Introduction to the Dawn-Breakers’)
