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Well might the once lofty-turbaned, long-bearded, grave-looking aqa (mulla), who had so insolently concerned himself with every department of human activity, as he sits, hatless, clean shaven, in the seclusion of his home, and perhaps listening to the strains of western music, blared upon the ethers of his native land, pause to reflect for a while on the vanished splendors of his defunct empire. Well might he muse upon the havoc which the rising tide of nationalism and skepticism has wrought in the adamantine traditions of his country. Well might he recollect the halcyon days when, seated on a donkey, and parading through the bazars and maydans of his native town, an eager but deluded multitude would rush to kiss with fervor not only his hands, but also the tail of the animal on which he rode. Well might he remember the blind zeal with which they acclaimed his acts, and the prodigies and miracles they ascribed to their performance. (97:1) He might indeed look back further, and call to mind the reign of those pious Safavi monarchs, who delighted to call themselves "dogs of the threshold of the Immaculate Imams," how one of those kings was induced to go on foot before the mujtahid as he rode through the maydan-i-Shah, the main square of Isfahan, as a mark of royal subservience to the favorite minister of the Hidden Imam, a minister who, as distinct from the Shah's title, styled himself "the servant of the Lord of Saintship (Imam 'Ali)." (97:2) Was it not, he might well ponder, this same Shah 'Abbas the Great who had been arrogantly addressed by another mujtahid as "the founder of a borrowed empire," implying that the kingdom of the "king of kings" really belonged to the expected Imam, and was held by the Shah solely in the capacity of a temporary trustee? Was it not this same Shah who walked the entire distance of eight hundred miles from Isfahan to Mashhad, the "special glory of the Shi'ih world," to offer his prayers, in the only way that befitted the shahanshah, at the shrine of the Imam Rida, and who trimmed the thousand candles which adorned its courts? Had not Shah Tahmasp, on receiving an epistle, penned by yet another mujtahid, sprung to his feet, placed it on his eyes, kissed it with rapture, and, because he had been addressed as "brother," ordered it to be placed within his winding-sheet and buried with him?
(97:3)
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