A Persian bath, or hammám (from the Arabic hamma --to make hot), is an elaborate affair, quite unlike the American three-minute shower.

      Requiring great quantities of desert thorn (as many an over-burdened donkey could testify) to heat the water, it is somewhat of a luxury, and includes rooms of different temperatures, with at least one large, very hot chamber where the floor is slabs of stone, light filters down through the steam, and the walls resound with voices.

      Bath procedures comprise sudsing and rinsing, rubbing the body with rough mitt, attention to finger- and toe-nails, shaving, use of henna and black dye on beard and head, and removal of body hair by a quick-acting depilatory made of lime and orpiment (an age-old custom practiced by peoples from the ancient Greeks to the pagan Arabs).

      Hours may be spent at the hammám, where, traditionally, food is served, tea is drunk, the water pipe is smoked, and even musicians and dancers may complete the festivities. Men and women, it goes without saying, do not frequent the bath at the same time.

      Since Persians do not care for nudity, each bather is wrapped in a towel, often of cotton with a design of dark blue and yellow checks.(22)

      When Bahá'u'lláh was exiled out of Baghdad, traveling north to Constantinople with the spring, He sometimes rode His thoroughbred--a red roan stallion--along with the caravan, and sometimes rested in a howdah reserved for His use.

      The caravan consisted of "fifty mules, a mounted guard of ten soldiers with their officer, and seven pairs of howdahs, each pair surmounted by four parasols..."(23) The journey from Baghdad to Samsun on the Black Sea took one hundred and ten days.

      The Persian howdah (depicted on p. 24 of this book) consisted of two wooden compartments, each just large enough for one traveler--arched, cloth covered, and balanced on either side of a sturdy pack animal.

      Other modes of travel included the kajávih, two open crates roped together and balanced on either side of a pack animal (the word is said to mean "that which hangs crooked," because the crates certainly did), and the "running chair" or takht-i-raván, like a small room with door and windows, fixed on shafts, onto which mules are fastened at either end. According to C. Colliver Rice, "from the nose of the mule to the tail of the other the length is at least twenty feet."(24) He adds that this was Persia's first-class travel, but very difficult in turning corners; also that some travelers could not stand the motion, because the mules do not walk in step.

      Lighting up and maintaining a water pipe (ghalyán) is not the easiest of tasks.

      The Persian water pipe is about two feet high and consists primarily of a large glass bowl or vase holding one quart of water. From the vase rises a wooden tube, perhaps fifteen inches high, possibly of elaborately carved wood, and surmounted by a decorative container. A wooden stem to smoke through is inserted at an angle into the vase. The stem has a silver mouthpiece.

      The tobacco, a kind grown in Shiraz, said to be scented rather like sandalwood--and which can be smoked only in a water pipe--is moistened, squeezed out, and packed in the decorative top of the ghalyán, under a piece of burning coal made from the root of the tobacco plant. The coal itself must first be placed in a small metal basket on a wire, lit, and whirled around until it catches. (The lit coal makes a circle in the dark.)

      The smoke passes through the water and is drawn straight into the lungs. Each smoker takes three or four puffs--this makes a chugging sound--and passes the pipe on to the smoker at his right.(25)

      Persians of an earlier day, if they had the means, lived in walled compounds enclosing trees, pools and flowers, utility buildings such as cook house and stables, and two main houses: one for men, called the bírúní; the other for women, the andarún.

      Men servants took care of the bírúní; women, the andarún.

      The women of the time were not only black-veiled (almost impenetrably) in public, but they wore Madonna-like house veils, brightly colored, in the andarún as well. Should any man other than her husband or a close relative appear there, a woman would quickly draw part of the veil across her face. To keep the veil adjusted, she would sometimes hold a corner in her teeth. Doctors were obliged to make their diagnoses somehow around the veil: they would be vouchsafed one sore eye, or perhaps a bruised elbow would appear among the folds.

      Women did not frequent the bírúní, which was devoted to a man's more or less public life, while the andarún was the focus of domestic life. The two buildings might be equally beautiful, but as a rule the private bath with its tank of water, fed through an opening in the wall by a stream from outside, was located in the andarún.

      A Presbyterian missionary named James Bassett, who spent fourteen years in Iran, starting in 1871, has provided

      Persians of the nineteenth century did not use surnames. Men were given proper names, such as Muhammad, Husayn, or Ibráhím, and often more then one-- Muhammad-`Alí, or Ridá-Qulí. Many times the second name was one of the ninety-nine Most Beauteous Names of God, from the Qur'án. For example, `Abdu'r-Rahím [Servant of the All-Merciful].

      To distinguish one individual from another, titles and descriptions would be added to the given name. Hájí Muhammad-Hasan Isfahání, for example, would indicate the man from Isfahan named Muhammad-Hasan who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca; Ustád Mahmúd Banná would designate the Mahmúd who was the master builder; and so forth.

      The following are a few of the many titles and descriptions added to Persian names:

      Áqá: Sir, mister. General term of respect.

      Darvísh: A Muslim mystic. Often a wandering, mendicant ascetic who traditionally carries an ax and a begging bowl (kashkúl).

      Hájí: One who had made the Muslim pilgrimage.

      Káshí: Someone from Kashan.

      Mírzá: A general term of respect which usually indicates that the one designated is literate. Used after the name it indicates a prince.

Biographical notes