Freeloaders of Old Tehran

In old Tehran, a group of people sustained their lives not through work and production, but off other people's tables. From funeral gatherings and Hosseiniyas to government offices and wealthy households, wherever food was cooked or money changed hands, some people were ready to take their share.

According to ambassador Arjan; In old Tehran, a group of people supported their lives not from work and production, but from other people's tables. From Khatm Majlis and Hosseiniyehs to government offices and noble houses, wherever food was cooked or money was exchanged, some people were ready to take their share. This text is the narration of Jafar Shahri, one of these types of people in the past; The corpse-eaters who wrote down the dates of deaths in order to appear before every assembly, the Sadats who took khums by claiming sovereignty, the bribe-takers of the offices who did not carry out work without interference, the servants of the nobles' houses who demanded ransom from the tradesmen and businessmen, the bowl lickers who collected the bottom of the spilled dishes and the cigarette butt collectors who picked up the half-burned ones on the street. This writing is based on direct reports of the social conditions of that period and without going into general interpretations, it recounts the same scenes and behaviors.

The real dead eaters were the professionals who generally did their business in this way and had accounts, books, notebooks and notes for their work; In such a way that when someone passed somewhere, they immediately kept the date in the chest compartment or wrote it down in a notebook. So when someone died on such and such a day on Monday, such and such a third day, such and such a day at night seven, such and such a night of the night of Cheleh and such and such a night of his year, they came to his table without making any mistake or trouble and being aware of this and that, they took his belongings with them, and in this way, since at least one person died in every place every day, they all had a ransom for every day, week, month and year. They enjoyed it and sold the surplus of it on two or three days. The reciters, the reciters, and the mourners formed the second category of this group, who kept the account of the dead in the same way. It should be noted that it was impossible to prevent this group from entering these assemblies, what if there was a little prevention and strictness in their demands, they would disturb the whole assembly with dishonor and make the dead man look like a menstrual stain. The sacrifices of sheep meat for the Eid al-Adha of the pilgrims and halvah, the annual shalezards of the badas and the like were in their safes and books so that they did not lose them, as well as what they could get in cash, sex, and stomach from anywhere.

In funeral ceremonies, nothing but purity, piety, asceticism, piety, and purity of the hands, eyes, and skirts of the deceased were ever discussed, although in the past he was known as the most filthiest person and the most depraved member of the society, and it was enough for the deceased's owner to pay an amount higher than the wages, in order to hand over such a dead body on a washed pulpit that the deceased's owners would doubt the cleanliness of their dead, and in this sense, what pranks and Ridiculousness also occurred, for example, due to the lack of familiarity, the worshiper would say to the deceased, who had never seen the deceased in the mosque or at the foot of the pulpit, and the like: May God have mercy on him, that this deceased was always at the front of the mosque prayers, and he carried Da'im al-Khumri, which was carried home by acquaintances and passers-by from the tavern most of the nights, or he brought it out through the mud of the rivers and streams of the roads. They were thrown to his side, he used to say: He who has never left his prayer, leads the Isha prayer to the Fajr prayer, and the evil-doer should wipe a dry nail that does not drip water from his hand because of his stinginess and stinginess, and say: the arrester of the weak, the helper of the needy, the one who would not take a bite from the throat until he revives and feeds the poor and helpless, and until the end and in the final assembly, which no one directed His mother had arranged it and this writer was also present; The makhund, without knowing the gender of the person who was the owner of the assembly, said: May God shower his mercy on what kind of person he was, and how many nights I brought this servant to the morning with him, and because of this, he made the speaker and the owner sweat with shame and the members of the assembly looked at each other, surprised, grinned, and ridiculed!

The word "overhead" included those who earned money without hard work and made a living except through profitable activities and public benefit jobs and useful works. This group was not only a minority, but also the majority of the population, and according to foreign statisticians at that time, on average, every single adult male would be fourteen freedmen, which includes his family and belongings, from disabled father, old mother, brother, sister, minor, divorced daughter, relatives and relatives, and had not yet paid attention to the other group, while if it was fully and accurately calculated, Paying, perhaps more than one hundred and thirty people of the country, which we will briefly introduce:

First of all, it should be said that one of the reasons for the emergence of these freeloaders was the religious beliefs of the people and the illiteracy and lack of social culture that made them resort to religion and its branches in every work and need, and the pity of the hearts and goodwill of the people towards beggars and beggars, and the fear and habit of being afraid of every bully, government, rascal, thug, arrogant and dishonorable. The tyranny of the sultans and oppressive rulers and their agents and the chaos of the state of the country from the clans, khans, serf lords and the like originated from centuries ago and continued...

If they gave money to a beggar, they would give it to the beggar of Sayyid, although he did not ax his body, luggage, body, and strength, believing that their needs would surely be met, and if they wanted to buy new clothes, wedding dresses, shoes, new hats, dowry, wedding accessories, and anything like that, they should definitely buy from Sayyid, who would have good omens for them, and if it was delivered in the New Year, or a house They used to buy new ones, the first person who should step in it must be a Sayyid, and if they were doing the new moon, after seeing the crescent moon, they must look at the Sayyid's face, and if they were praying, they should recite the Sayyid because the reward is greater. and if they had namers, they should definitely name him Seyed or call him Seyed first, until the end they asked for all the blessings and blessings from Seyed in every matter, to the point that if Mirab was a Seyed neighborhood, its people considered themselves lucky that the water of their reservoirs and reservoirs would be Seyed, and that water would go down their throats that worked well and happily. The only thing that Seyyed and Seyedah were inferior was Seyed's husband and Seyed's daughter-in-law, and they said that he did not come, and of course, not from a special aspect, but because they said that respect for Seyed's husband is so obligatory that every woman cannot afford it, and the least is that a woman should not sit in front of him until he has given permission, and the respect of Seyed's wife to such an extent that when he goes to bed, he must enter from the bottom of the bed and step on top of his bed. And because everyone cannot fulfill the necessary conditions of respect for Sayyid's husband or wife, he will not be pleased with him, but the main point was their supplication and self-satisfaction, who fed up with the wife or husband, and their work leads to bitterness and divorce.

In this case, it was clear what honor and status the Sayyid had in the eyes of the people, and these Sadats were the conventional members of the society, and it should be seen what kind of status the Sayyid had, such as mullahs, mujtahids, imams of the mosque, and the like, and what kind of status this honor and status had created for the people, the drums, and the codes of the society. They used to be the burden of ten people...

The interesting thing about Khums and Sadat's right is that, except for a few who refused to pay Khums or refused to pay it, the rest of them not only sent, or sent, but also went and kissed the hand of the receiver and presented it to the last dinar, and after receiving the bill, they bequeathed those bills when they died on their shroud. Leave it! While these same people were able to avoid the burden of government taxes when they had to pay them, although they used to avoid it by resorting to advice and bribery and other illegal things, now by paying direct and indirect government taxes that were used to regulate and meet the needs of the country, they have to pay khums and its regulations in the name of zakat and rejecting oppressors to an idle handful who are nothing more than piling up their stomachs. Their insatiableness and having fun and putting them on top of each other was of no use. What kind of concubine was it is a problem that still remained unsolved.

After the previous groups, classes, and categories, the other overheads were formed by bribe-taking groups, and it will surely be remembered that how many of them were there when they were mentioned to open a chapter for them? It should be said that any number, even if it seems to be the highest number, should be considered higher than that, whether everyone was considered a servant of the government (employee) and everyone in government offices and attributed to it, everything in the army and its branches, everything in the security and its belongings, everything in the order and attached to it, everything in every ministry from the minister to the waiter, the mail carrier, the door opener, everyone included bribe takers, even themselves. The king was taking bribes from them, whether this was stipulated in the original contract; In this way, no candidate for a government job, including a minister, ruler, governor, and dehdar, even wanted the smallest government job, until in the first conversation, through the mediator, who himself was one of the first-hand bribe takers, he brought up the name of rights and the talk of rights, which is (obligatory), but he would say, for example, that much is obligatory. Its name has been tarnished, and it remains with the same name until today.

Therefore, these interventions include everything from wet and dry, cash, sex, movable and immovable, animate and inanimate, solid and liquid, and anything and everything, even human bodies, male and female, are received as requested. There was no person who referred to any institution or to any of the institutions, i.e. the government (whether in civil or official form) who did not want to obtain the right rate and account and the price of the setup work before approaching, and there was no official who did not look at the hands of the first person before answering the greeting, and did not consider whether he was aware or unaware of his duty.

In fact, this large group, with whom almost all members of the state, whether they like it or not, were dealing with them in one way or another, were love brokers who had to negotiate and agree on their duties beforehand, otherwise, the popular face of that work and demand would never come out of the veil of the veil, and in this case, it is clear that whoever has more financial power and the ability to pay their demands, his job is more desirable and It would have been done in a more pleasant way, and the person who did not have it, or his consciousness did not reach such a state, not only failed, he never saw his desire, need, and oppression in the right way, but also the damages, deprivations, and oppression that he received, and from this summary, you can understand what rights and atrocities, and what oppressions and oppressions were inflicted on such a painful tribe. It has happened, what rights and injustices and what injustices have been justified, what sighs and lamentations could be heard from the oppressed!

The smallest of these cases were the affairs of inheritance and the purchase and sale of property, endowment affairs, real estate transactions, and their seizure and appropriation, which because the registry office and the system for identifying immovable property of individuals were not involved, every bully, influential person, and bagpiper who had an eye on someone's endowment or house, property, ten, village, land, shop, and real estate could see the tail of the notary and official of the ruler, and a fake, with their help. Provide the certificate of lease, purchase and ownership of that place and seize it by their own force, and in case of seizure, refrain from handing it over to the owner and guardian or the heir, and terminate it with the seal and signature of the person who took possession.

This was a part of the state of bribery and bribery and its effects in the affairs of the society, which was extended to government employees and officials in the plural word after the reign of Ahmad Shah and Reza Shah's reign and continued in the same period of succession until the time of writing this book. Therefore, no one had a job in a municipality, and could not have one, except for the governor, deputy, clerk, and higher and higher, he would put something in the palm of his hand and in the drawer of the table, and no one could do business with supplies, order, justice, finance, and the like, except from the waiter at the door to the stability, officers, secretary, and the deputy, the director general, the minister, and whoever was satisfied with something appropriate, until the end It is necessary to read a detailed hadith from this collection of hadiths and you have come back helpless and outstretched, who did not do his duty without knowing the way and customs of the work, that his finger remained on the other side of the water and not only his work was not corrected in any way, but each of them threw such a stone in the way of his case that even the Almighty Nawzballah could not remove it.

After these, the staff and servants of the houses of the nobles and the rulers and the princes and the children of the nobles and the men and the elders and the scholars and the imamzades and the taverns, from the porter and servant and the gardener and the waiter and the waiter and the farash and the farashbashi and the carriage driver and the sourchi and the mahtar and the sartoilehdar and the qabuchi and the cheraghchi and the lale and the nanny and the editor and the man and the talkers and There were custodians and chains and the like, who were considered the heaviest burdens, according to the rule that: first of all, no tradesman, shopkeeper, or furniture seller had the right to demand the price of goods from one of this group, what if he demanded the same and in his work and business, he was attributed to the great and the scholar, the imamzade owner, and the tavern owner, and the least risk was that he would be an infidel and apostate, which would lead to If the tongues fell, his lineage would be lost, unless that businessman and salesman himself was one of their own factors, or his lack of wealth was so great that the people would cry for him and feel sorry for him.

Each of them, individually and collectively, were unjust sultans who ruled over everything of the people, and no one could be a friend of independence and disobedience to their wishes and orders, in such a way that every tradesman and tradesman could not start work and establish an institution without sending initial gifts and offerings. Their insides and outsides were the safe havens and shelters where anyone could, by giving cash and gender, be safe from any attack, persecution and harassment by the government, nation, friend and enemy; In this case, if the businessman has taken the people's money and declares bankruptcy in these cases, and no one has the courage to claim from him. Also, thieves, murderers, outlaws, evildoers, and trespassers were kept safe in those enclosures, and of course, the first condition for all these people to enter was to grease under the mustache of each part of that house and deliver enough money to the master himself. In this situation, it becomes clear that all these atrocities are going around the helpless and oppressed classes of the society, what kind of businessman you are, who has lifted up tens and hundreds of people and threw himself into the privacy of the people, pretending to take possession of the people's property, you are all the people who are taking over the property of the lost, in the same way, the thieves and the lives, existence and honor of the handouts were the victims and fallen of the powerful and the owners of the privacy.

From this example, we can see that when no-ones could achieve such steel armors of immunity under the power of these all-rounders, no one would have the power to assert their rights, what would be the encroachments and encroachments on people's property, lives, existence and lives, what bloodthirsty parasites they could be!

Now, with a simple calculation that more than two-thirds of these people made up the population of Tehran, it can be clearly seen that every single efficient man was a few others besides the expenses of his family and attributed to himself, and of course it should be known that this particular condition of Tehran could not be only because its cities and villages were far worse than this and there were more aggressors, bullies and free-suckers in them, whether they were owners, stewards, code lords and (The rights of the nobles) and the gendarmes, the collection agents, the black men, etc. were more in them, and their rulings were also more current...

In contrast to the beggars with past dignity and status, who were never satisfied, there were also the destitute poor who, with all their humiliation and poverty, never reached out to anyone in the form of a beggar, did not disturb or touch anyone, but instead sated their hunger by eating leftovers and licking bowls, in this way that during lunch and dinner, they went to the cooking shops as if there was something left in the bottom of the bowl of the customers, they cleaned them They would take it and if there was nothing left, they would be content to lick the bottom of their dishes; In the same way, the bottom of the plates and the leftovers from the kitchens of the parties and the cooks belonged to this group (Kaselisan), which was collected for them at the end of the party and when the work was finished; Licking spills from dishes and dishes in the street and market, such as: a bowl of yogurt or Shabireh or broth and rice, and the like that was spilled on the ground due to the foot of the student of the cooks who took them to the customer's house and shop and occasionally fell from their head or from their hands, or the food from people's own hands, whose contents were scattered on the ground due to a collision or accident. Those who fell to the ground hurriedly devoured the handles and licked the spread, and of course, it should not be assumed that this number was few, or where the lick could be found at that time, but as soon as the bowl fell and the sound of its falling or breaking was heard, a number of them rushed to the ground like moths and grasshoppers and threw themselves on the food, which is also the unpaved ground full of dirt and mud. The dirt and excrement of the four-legged animals that formed the passages of that time should not be overlooked, and the fact that when they left the side, it was as if the ground had been cleaned with a handkerchief and the like, as evidenced by this verse: were doing

The people above and in their ranks were also some who, because they could not afford to buy tobacco and cigarettes, extinguished their desires by collecting the cigarette butts of the smokers, in such a way that since the cigarettes had not yet been filtered, they stretched them until they did not burn the finger, and threw away the bottoms, which were as long as the length of a fingernail and less than that, and this group collected them from the ground of the roads. They used to take it, and when they got the end of their cigarette, they had the problem of a match and its fire, and they had to hold it between two fingers and go around the street and the market until they got hold of a cigarette lighter, a glue stick, and a match holder and set it on fire, or when they reached a coffee house, they would catch it with the fire of their oven, to the extent that they would throw it away with only one or two puffs on it, burning their lips and fingers!