So well does begging pay that on more than one occasion the mothers and wives of well-to-do tradesmen have been detected in old _chādars_ begging in the streets and at houses. The difficulty of recognising a woman who is completely covered up with a black _chādar_ makes disguise easy.
During the massacre of the Babis, a dissenting sect of Muhammadans, in 1903, it was considered a _savāb_ to kill a Babi, but some of the kindlier people thought it also a _savāb_ to save a life, even if it was a Babi’s. One man is said to have been seen with a prisoner, in great perplexity, saying, “I am quite sure of Hell for my sins, unless I can do a big _savāb_; if this man is a Babi, my chance of salvation is to kill him, but I am not sure whether he is, and if I kill a true believer I shall be worse off than ever.”
But there are _savābs_ of a very different sort.
There was an old woman friendless and ill, and a Persian man found her in the street, too ill to get home to the one wretched room where she lived all alone. He did not know her, but he decided to undertake the _savāb_. He sent across the town for a medical missionary, knowing the Christians had the reputation of never refusing to help the sick poor. He stayed there till the doctor arrived, and said that if she would visit the old woman and provide the medicines he would send for them, and would provide the food and nursing, and this he did until the old woman died a few days later.
The adoption of a destitute child is not an uncommon _savāb_, and these children are often treated very well and given a good start in life.
A kind action, as we have seen, is always considered a _savāb_, whether it is helping a fallen mule to get up, giving a copper to a beggar, or tending a friendless stranger in sickness and death. We may almost say that this is the one redeeming point of a Persian’s religion. Generally speaking, Persians are not improved by their religious ideas, for the stronger their religious ideas are the worse their lives are, and what one most admires in Persian character is least in accordance with their religious beliefs.
Muhammad did not write down his teaching, for he could not write, but his followers learnt it by heart, and wrote it down, and after his death it was collected into one book called the Quran. It was arranged in a haphazard way, and probably the early chapters were really spoken last, and the later ones first. However, the Muhammadans believe it to be, as it now stands, the Word of God, and they treat it with great respect. When they pick the book up or lay it down they put it first to the forehead and then to the lips, and they hold it in both hands. Many Christians might learn from them to treat God’s Word more reverently. They consider it a work of merit to read the Quran or listen to it, and they read it over their sick folk in hopes of curing them. But perhaps the commonest and most popular edition is a two-inch hexagonal one which is almost illegible. This is sewn up in two little round or hexagonal cases, each containing half, and is worn on the arms to keep off evil of every kind. The cases may be plain leather or cloth, or they may be more elaborate and ornamental, or silver cases may be used with texts from the Quran engraved upon them.