The Dervishes

Among the town’s Shi’a inhabitants were dervishes — followers of a Sufi tradition whose appearance was unmistakable. They wore long robes and wrapped green cloth around their waists, reaching, as I remember it, some twenty metres in length. Another length of cloth, roughly ten metres long, was wound around the head into a broad, wheel-like covering whose end fell over the shoulder. They carried prayer beads in one hand and wore an animal skin, fastened by a chain, over the shoulder. In the other hand they held a staff about a metre and a half long, topped with a small axe.¹

As they walked through the streets they would call out, “Haqq dust!” — a cry used to ask the townspeople for alms and gifts.² Every Jew in the town knew them. By custom, any Jew leaving for distant lands or returning from abroad was expected to give the dervishes a gift. Sweets were often included, while senior dervishes received gifts suited to their rank. It was an old custom, woven into the life of the town and, by my account, still observed when I wrote the diary.

When the First World War began, Russian troops entered the region and established themselves in our town. They set up a base near the Jewish quarter, and their presence drove from the streets the gangs that had tormented us. For a time we were rid of the gangs, but the dervishes continued their practices unchanged.

One day Hakham Pinhas returned from America. Custom required him to bring a gift for the dervishes. Before long, one of them appeared at his house, stood at the gate, and called, “Haqq dust!” When no one answered, he began striking the gate with the small axe in his hand.

Hakham Pinhas heard the noise and sent his assistant to see who was pounding at the gate. When the assistant returned and said that a dervish was waiting outside, Pinhas replied, “Give him one toman and send him on his way.”³

The dervish was not satisfied with the amount. “How generous the hakham is!” he called sarcastically. “He has only just returned from abroad, and yet he gives us a single toman?” Hakham Pinhas then came to the gate. The dervish’s request quickly hardened into a demand, and Pinhas struck him sharply across the face. The long head covering came loose and rolled across the ground. Pinhas seized the dervish by his long hair and shook him from side to side. Neighbours, drawn by the commotion, struggled to separate them, and the dervish fled.

Unable to bear the humiliation, the dervish returned with his ten-year-old son, laid the boy down outside the gate, and threatened, “I will cut him here, in front of your house!” Hakham Pinhas came out and answered coolly, “You do not know how to do it properly. Give me the knife; I will do it better than you.” He took the knife from the dervish’s hand and beat him again, until the man fled with his son.

Hakham Pinhas was a native of the town. According to the tradition passed down to us, his father had received a firman — a royal decree — as a mark of honour during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah.⁴ Pinhas studied in Vienna and in Russia, completed his education in the United States, and became an American citizen. He was said to know twelve languages and to have taught there from time to time.

The Russian occupation gave us the feeling that we had been freed from the street gangs, but the security it provided was only relative. A few days after the encounter with the dervish, Hakham Pinhas set out for Dilman, about twenty kilometres from the town. He met robbers on the road and was stabbed to death in the struggle. We later learned that the attackers were four Armenians who had already tried to kill him once before.