There is a little Persian book, which many of the little boys learn to read, called “Sad Hikayat” or “A Hundred Stories.” Some of the stories are very like Æsop’s Fables, and they are all supposed to teach the children something. One story tells them that at the end of the world God will take a great pair of scales, and as each person comes up for judgment God will put his good deeds in one scale and his evil deeds in the other. If the good deeds weigh heaviest he will go to Heaven, if his evil deeds weigh the balance down he will go to Hell.

These good deeds are called savabs, and every Persian, whether child or grown-up, hopes to get to Heaven by doing enough savabs to outweigh his sins.So a little Persian boy or girl is not taught to try to always do right or to always try to please and serve God, but only to do enough right to outweigh the wrong he does, and if he feels he has done wrong instead of confessing his sin to God and asking His forgiveness he simply tries to balance it by a good deed.

And what a Persian boy or girl is taught of what is right and wrong is very different from all you have learnt. First there is a definite list of sins, which they can learn by heart, and nothing outside of this list is considered a “sin,” though other things which are not right may be called “errors,” which is a much less strong word.

As to good deeds there is more difference of opinion. One of the “Hundred Stories” deals with this point.

A man was travelling in the desert and came to a well. He dismounted, drove a stable-pin into the ground, and tied his horse to it while he ate his meal. When he resumed his journey he left the pin in the ground that other travellers coming there might tie their horses to it. Presently a man on foot came along, and, not seeing the pin, knocked his foot against it and hurt himself. He pulled up the pin and threw it into the well lest any one else should hurt himself in the same way. A discussion arose as to which of the two had done a savab, the man who drove the nail in or the man who took it out, and finally a learned and holy man was consulted. After much thought he gave it as his opinion that both had done savabs.

Every little act of kindness is a savab, and this encourages good nature and kindliness.The children are taught to look out for chances of doing a kind action and so balancing their wrong-doing. But at the same time they are taught to think that if they do a certain number of kind deeds it will not matter if they do wrong at other times. Little Rajab ‘Ali, the muleteer’s boy, would run to fasten up the trailing head-rope of another man’s mule, he would lend a helping hand to some stranger whose donkey had fallen under its load, and between whiles he would treat his own mules and donkeys most cruelly. He thought his cruelty did not matter, because he had been kind as well.

A dishonest lad will try to wipe out his dishonesty by being regular with his prayers or by an extra day’s fast. A man who has cheated someone of ten krans will give a kran to a beggar and consider his account settled. One man tried to atone for the most outrageous extortion and injustice by spending part of his ill-earned gains on good roads for the villagers and a free school, while all the time he made no pretence of giving up his evil ways. Those he had injured complained that now he would escape the punishment of God.

The Persians seem unable to realise the possibility of any other motive for good works. When the missionaries first went to Yezd and opened a medical mission, the people said, “What terribly wicked people they must be to have to do so much good.”

One curious result of this idea of winning Heaven and securing better places there by good works is that it almost destroys gratitude. The beggar feels that he has helped you one step up in Heaven by accepting your alms; then surely he has done you more good than you have done him, and why should he be grateful to you?

The patients who are treated free at the dispensary have the same feeling; the doctor improved their bodily state, but they have improved his spiritual position.

It is considered a special work of merit to do anything for a Seyid, that is, a descendant of Muhammad, so everyone tries to be kind to Seyids, and they are so spoilt and are made so much of that they are generally unbearably selfish, and think themselves the most important people in the world.

Often in the dispensary the doctor is exhorted to do his utmost or to break through some rule because the patient is a Seyid, and they are incredulous and rather shocked when they are told that an ordinary patient’s pain is just as great as a Seyid’s, and that all must be taken in their turn.

Another result of this doctrine of works of merit, or savabs, as they call them, is that even when a Muhammadan seems straight and honest and altogether a good fellow you cannot entirely trust him, because he has so many good works to his credit that he feels a few sins do not matter, they are more than paid for beforehand.

A Persian’s idea of what is a savab is sometimes curious. Prayers, fasting, pilgrimages, and the reading of the Quran are, of course, all considered works of merit.

Marrying your father’s brother’s daughter is a savab, though there is no particular merit in marrying your father’s sister’s daughter or your mother’s brother’s daughter.

Some Persian women inquired one day what each of three missionaries living together ate for breakfast, and hearing that two had eggs, while the third had not, they nodded at each other, as much as to say, “I told you so,” and remarked, “It is a savab. She wants to get a higher place in Heaven.”

Giving money to beggars is always considered a savab, but it is considered a greater savab on Thursday than on any other day. Friday is the Muhammadan holy day, and they call Thursday “the Eve of Friday,” and on Thursday the beggars all call out as you pass, “It is the Eve of Friday; give me a copper.”

The grown-up beggars generally, but not always, sit by the roadside begging, but the children run alongside of you and are often very persistent. There are nearly always beggars at the gate of any town, asking those who are starting on a journey to give them an alms, and so secure safety on their journey. If Jericho was anything like a Persian town it was most natural that our Lord should find one blind beggar as He went into the town (St Luke 18, v. 35), and one or two more as He came out by another gate (St Matt. 20, v. 30), and that they should address Him in almost exactly the same language.

Begging is often a very paying occupation, for so many people feel that they have sins to make up for, that the cry, “Give me a copper. It will be a savab,” is a difficult one to refuse, especially if the copper is only worth a farthing.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 chadars begging in the streets and at houses. The difficulty of recognising a woman who is completely covered up with a black chadar makes disguise easy.

During the massacre of the Babis, a dissenting sect of Muhammadans, in 1903, it was considered a savab to kill a Babi, but some of the kindlier people thought it also a savab 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 savab; 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 savabs 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 savab. 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 savab, 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 savab, 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.