IN CENTRAL ASIA by F. F. Oster

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 9, 1913

IN CENTRAL ASIA

By F. F. Oster

In Old Persia

THE other day my eyes met with a sight that would make one think he were living in the eighteenth rather than in the twentieth century. It was a Persian prison. The walls and ceiling were of mud. A small hole covered with oiled paper at one end of the room cast a faint gleam of light into the gloomy prison. In one corner lay a heap of rubbish,—old pieces of broken wagons, scrap-iron, and the like,—which served as a roost for the fowls that frequent the place. In the center sat the prisoners on a few old rugs utterly insufficient to protect them from the cold, damp, mud floor beneath, and affording an excellent breeding-place for the small but numerous “inhabitants” of the place during the hot summer season. The prisoners were fastened together by their necks with heavy iron chains. Some whose necks were sore by reason of long confinement had the chain supported by forked sticks to relieve the pain. At night they were made more secure by fastening their feet in the stocks. It was freezing cold, and all that they had with which to warm themselves was a pan of coals. The prison keeper, as he told me, receives no salary, only such money as he gets from the prisoners, which is usually obtained by extortion.

All this would not be so bad if the prisoners were guilty. But only too often persons perfectly innocent are, upon the least pretext, incarcerated, and even bastinadoed, until they pay the sum asked for. Among the prisoners was a Jew who had been there for three months. The Kurds had raided his village and carried away all his property, thus rendering him unable to pay a debt of one hundred fifty dollars which was due. He must now languish in prison until he pays it, while his family must suffer and beg. The bastinado is very frequently resorted to in order to extort money. A certain number of sticks or rods are broken over the soles of the feet. But there is a far greater bondage that these poor souls are in, the bondage of sin and deception. They are held down by the shackles of a false religion. While wishing to free them from the cruel hands of injustice, one longs to point them to Him who is able to free from the bondage of sin. It is just in this condition, when oppressed by the ruthless hand of injustice, that the Moslem will listen with great interest to the sweet story of the gospel of Christ.

F. F. OSTER.

Urumiah.