The
true Irani, however, have an unique position in Mohammedan Asia which
may save them from complete absorption. Unlike any Mohammedan race
except the Arabian, they are distinctly national. The Turk, conqueror
though he has always been, repudiates still the name of Turk, calling
himself simply a Moslem, and so likewise do the less distinguished races
he has subjected. But the Persian does not do this. He is before all
things Irani, and to the extent that he has made for himself a
Mohammedanism of his own. He boasts of a history and a literature older
far than Islam, and has not consented to forget it as a thing belonging
only to "the Age of Ignorance." He runs, therefore, little risk of being
either Russianised or Christianised by conquest; and being of an
intellectual fibre superior to that of the Russians, and, as far as the
mass of the population is concerned, being physically as well gifted, it
may be supposed that he will survive, if he cannot avert, his political
subjugation.
There is at the present moment, I am informed, a last desperate effort
making at Teheran for the re-organization of the Empire on a liberal
basis of government, and though it would be folly to count much on its
success, it may conceivably succeed.
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