"Shiah" Quotes from Famous Books
... smokers—were easily worked upon by the priests, ever ready to assert the supremacy of the Church over the State. And then the biggest 'strike' I know of took place. Mirza Hassan, the High-Priest of Kerbela, the most sacred shrine of the Shiah Mohammedans, declared tobacco in Persia to be 'unlawful' to the true believer, and everyone—man, woman, and child—was forbidden to sell or smoke it. The 'strike' took place on a gigantic scale, a million or two certainly being engaged in ... — Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon |