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Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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The city was soon after taken, and the people commanded, as usual, to
purchase their lives by the surrender of their property--troops were
sent in to take it--numbers were tortured to death--and then the
usual pillage and massacre of the whole people followed without
regard to religion, age, or sex; and about a hundred thousand more of
innocent and unoffending people were murdered. The troops next
massacred the inhabitants of the old city, which had become crowded
with fugitives from the new;[47] the last remnant took refuge in a
mosque, where two of Timur's most distinguished generals rushed in
upon them at the head of five hundred soldiers; and, as the amiable
historian tells us, 'sent to the abyss of hell the souls of these
infidels, of whose heads they erected towers, and gave their bodies
for food to birds and beasts of prey'. Being at last tired of
slaughter, the soldiers made slaves of the survivors, and drove them
out in chains; and, as they passed, the officers were allowed to
select any they liked except the masons, whom Timur required to build
for him at Samarkand a church similar to that of Iltutmish in old
Delhi.

He now set out to take Meerut, which was at that time a fortified
town of much note. The people determined to defend themselves, and
happened to say that Tarmah Shirin, who invaded India at the head of
a similar body of Tartars a century before,[48] had been unable to
take the place. This so incensed Timur that he brought all his forces
to bear on Meerut, took the place, and having had all the Hindoo men
found in it _skinned alive_, he distributed their wives and children
among his soldiers as slaves. He now sent out a division of his army
to murder unbelievers, and collect plunder, over the cultivated
plains between the Ganges and Jumna, while he led the main body on
the same _pious duty_ along the hills from Hardwar[49] on the Ganges
to the west. Having massacred a few thousands of the hill people,
Timur read the noon prayer, and returned thanks to God for the
victories he had gained, and the numbers he had murdered through his
goodness; and told his admiring army that a religions war like this
produced two great advantages: it secured eternal happiness in
heaven, and a good store of valuable spoils on earth--that his design
in all the fatigues and labours which he had undertaken was solely to
render himself _pleasing to God_, treasure up _good works_ for his
eternal happiness, and get riches to bestow upon his soldiers and the
poor. The historian makes a grave remark upon this invasion: The
Koran declares that the highest glory man can attain in this world is
unquestionably waging a successful war in person against the enemies
of his religion (no matter whether those against whom it is waged
happen ever to have heard of this religion or not). Muhammad
inculcated the same doctrine in his discourses with his friends; and,
in consequence, the great Timur always strove to exterminate all the
unbelievers, with a view to acquire that glory, and to spread the
renown of his conquests. 'My name', said he, 'has spread terror
through the universe, and the least motion I make is capable of
shaking the whole earth.'

Timur returned to his capital of Samarkand in Transoxiana in May,
1399. His army, besides other things which they brought from India,
had an immense number of men, women, and children, whom they had
reduced to slavery, and driven along like flocks of sheep to forage
for their subsistence in the countries through which they passed, or
perish. After the murder on the banks of the Jumna of part of the
multitude they had collected before taking the capital, amounting to
one hundred thousand men, Timur was obliged to assign one-tenth of
his army to guard what were left, the women and children. 'After the
murder in the capital of Delhi,' says the historian, an eye-witness,
'there were some soldiers who had a hundred and fifty slaves, men,
women, and children, whom they drove out of the city before them; and
some soldiers' boys had twenty slaves to their own share.' On
reaching Samarkand, they employed these slaves as best they could;
and Timur employed his, the masons, in raising his great church from
the quarries of the neighbouring hills.[50]

In October following, Timur led this army of demons over the rich and
polished countries of Syria, Anatolia, and Georgia, levelling all the
cities, towns, and villages, and massacring the inhabitants without
any regard to age or sex, with the same _amiable view_ of correcting
the notions of people regarding his creed, propitiating the Deity,
and rewarding his soldiers. He sent to the Christian inhabitants of
Smyrna, then one of the first commercial cities in the world, to
request that they would at once embrace Muhammadanism, in the
_beauties_ of which the general and his soldiers had orders
generously and diligently to instruct them. They refused, and Timur
repaired immediately to the spot, that he might 'share in the merit
of sending their souls to the abyss of hell'. Bajazet, the Turkish
emperor of Anatolia, had recently terminated an unavailing siege of
seven years. Timur took the city in fourteen days, December,
1402;[51] had every man, woman, and child that he found in it
murdered; and caused some of the heads of the Christians to be thrown
by his balistas or catapultas into the ships that had come from
different European nations to their succour. All other Christian
communities found within the wide range of this dreadful tempest were
swept off in the same manner, nor did Muhammadan communities fare
better. After the taking of Baghdad, every Tartar soldier was ordered
to cut off and bring away the head of one or more prisoners, because
some of the Tartar soldiers had been killed in the attack; 'and they
spared', says the historian, 'neither old men of fourscore, nor young
children of eight years of age; no quarter was given either to rich
or poor, and the number of dead was so great that they could not be
counted; towers were made of their heads to serve as an example to
posterity.' Ninety thousand were murdered in cold blood, and one
hundred and twenty pyramids were made of the heads for trophies.
Damascus, Nice, Aleppo, Sebaste,[52] and all the other rich and
populous cities of Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and Georgia, then
the most civilized region of the world, shared in the same fate; all
were reduced to ruins, and their people, without regard to religion,
age, or sex, barbarously and brutally murdered.

In the beginning of 1405, this man recollected that, among the many
millions of unbelieving Christians and Hindoos 'whose souls he had
sent to the abyss of hell', there were many Muhammadans, who had no
doubt whatever in the divine origin or co-eternal existence of the
Koran; and, as their death might, perhaps, not have been altogether
pleasing to his God and his prophet, he determined to appease them
both by undertaking the murder of some two hundred millions of
industrious and unoffending Chinese; among whom there was little
chance of finding one man who had ever even _heard of the Koran_--
much less believed in its divinity and co-eternity--or of its
interpreter, Muhammad. At the head of between two and three hundred
thousand well-mounted Tartars and their followers, he departed from
his capital of Samarkand on the 8th of January, 1405, and crossed the
Jaxartes[53] on the ice. In the words of his _judicious_ historian,
'he thus _generously_ undertook the conquest of China, which was
inhabited only by unbelievers that by so good a work he might atone
for what had been done amiss in other wars, in which the blood of so
many of the faithful had been shed'.

'As all my vast conquests', said Timur himself,[54] 'have caused the
destruction of a good many of the faithful, I am resolved to perform
some good action, to atone for the crimes of my past life; and to
make war upon the infidels, and exterminate the idolaters of China,
which cannot be done without very great strength and power. It is
therefore fitting, my dear companions in arms, that those very
soldiers, who were the instruments whereby those my faults were
committed, should be the means by which I work out my repentance, and
that they should march into China, to acquire for themselves and
their Emperor the merit of that holy war, in demolishing the temples
of those unbelievers and erecting good Muhammadan mosques in their
places. By this means we shall obtain pardon for all our sins, for
the holy Koran assures us that good works efface the sins of this
world.' At the close of the Emperor's speech, the princes of the
blood and other officers of rank besought God to bless his generous
undertaking, unanimously applauding his sentiments, and loading him
with praises. 'Let the Emperor but display his standard, and we will
follow him to the end of the world.' Timur died soon after crossing
the Jaxartes, on the 1st of April, 1406, and China was saved from
this dreadful scourge. But, as the _philosophical_ historian, Sharaf-
ud-din,[55] _profoundly_ observes, 'The Koran remarks that if any one
in his pilgrimage to Mecca should be surprised by death, the merit of
the good work is still written in heaven in his name, as surely as if
he had had the good fortune to accomplish it. It is the same with
regard to the "ghaza" (holy war), where an eternal merit is acquired
by troubles, fatigues, and dangers; and he who dies during the
enterprise, at whatever stage, is deemed to have completed his
design.' Thus Timur the Lame had the merit, beyond all question of
doubt, of sending to the abyss of hell two hundred millions of men,
women, and children, for not believing in a certain book of which
they had never heard or read; for the Tartars had not become
Muhammadans when they conquered China in the beginning of the
thirteenth century. Indeed, the _amiable_ and _profound_ historian is
of opinion, after the most mature deliberation, that 'God himself
must have arranged all this in favour of so great and good a prince;
and knowing that his end was nigh, inspired him with the idea of
undertaking this enterprise, that he might have the merit of having
completed it; otherwise, how should he have thought of leading out
his army in the dead of winter to cross countries covered with ice
and snow?'

The heir to the throne, the Prince Pir Muhammad, was absent when
Timur died; but his wives, who had accompanied him, were all anxious
to share in the merit of the holy undertaking; and in a council of
the chiefs held after his death, the opinions of these amiable
princesses prevailed that the two hundred millions of Chinese ought
still to be sent to 'the abyss of hell', since it had been the
earnest wish of their deceased husband, and must undoubtedly have
been the will of God, to send them thither without delay. Fortunately
quarrels soon arose among his sons and grandsons about the
succession, and the army recrossed the Jaxartes, still over the ice,
in the beginning of April, and China was saved from this scourge.
Such was Timur the Lame, the man whose greatness and goodness are to
live in the hearts of the people of India, nine-tenths of whom are
Hindoos, and to fill them with overflowing love and gratitude towards
his descendants.

In this brief sketch will perhaps be found the true history of the
origin of the gipsies, the tide of whose immigration began to flow
over all parts of Europe immediately after the return of Timur from
India. The hundreds of thousands of slaves which his army brought
from India in men, women, and children, were cast away when they got
as many as they liked from the more beautiful and polished
inhabitants of the cities of Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and
Georgia, which were all, one after the other, treated in the same
manner as Delhi had been. The Tartar soldiers had no time to settle
down and employ them as they intended for their convenience; they
were marched off to ravage Western Asia in October, 1399, about three
months after their return from India. Timur reached Samarkand in the
middle of May, but he had gone on in advance of his army, which did
not arrive for some time after. Being cast off, the slaves from India
spread over those countries which were most likely to afford them the
means of subsistence as beggars; for they knew nothing of the
manners, the arts, or the language of those among whom they were
thrown; and as Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, Georgia,
Circassia, and Russia, had been, or were being, desolated by the army
of this Tartar chief, they passed into Egypt and Bulgaria, whence
they spread over all other countries. Scattered over the face of
these countries, they found small parties of vagrants who were from
the same regions as themselves, who spoke the same language, and who
had in all probability been drawn away by the same means of armies
returning from the invasion of India. Chingiz Khan invaded India two
centuries before; his descendant, Tarmah Shirin, invaded India in
1303, and must have taken back with him multitudes of captives. The
unhappy prisoners of Timur the Lame gathered round these nuclei as
the only people who could understand or sympathize with them. From
his sixth expedition into India Mahmud is said to have carried back
with him to Ghazni two hundred thousand Hindoo captives in a state of
slavery, A.D. 1011. From his seventh expedition in 1017, his army of
one hundred and forty thousand fighting men returned 'laden with
Hindoo captives, who became so cheap, that a Hindoo slave was valued
at less than two rupees'. Mahmud made several expeditions to the west
immediately after his return from India, in the same manner as Timur
did after him, and he may in the same manner have scattered his
Indian captives. They adopted the habits of their new friends, which
are indeed those of all the vagrant tribes of India, and they have
continued to preserve them to the present day. I have compared their
vocabularies with those of India, and find so many of the words the
same that I think a native of India would, even in the present day,
be able without much difficulty to make himself understood by a gang
of gipsies in any part of Europe.[56]

A good Christian may not be able exactly to understand the nature of
the merit which Tamerlane expected to acquire from sending so many
unoffending Chinese to the abyss of hell. According to the Muhammadan
creed, God has vowed 'to fill hell chock full of men and genii'.
Hence his reasons for hardening their hearts against that faith in
the Koran which might send them to heaven, and which would, they
think, necessarily follow an impartial examination of the evidence of
its divinity and certainty. Timur thought, no doubt, that it would be
very meritorious on his part to assist God in this his labour of
filling the great abyss by throwing into it all the existing
population of China: while he spread over their land in pastoral
tribes the goodly seed of Muhammadanism, which would give him a rich
supply of recruits for paradise.

The following dialogue took place one day between me and the 'mufti',
or head Muhammadan law officer, of one of our regulation courts.[57]

'Does it not seem to you strange, Mufti Sahib, that your prophet,
who, according to your notions, must have been so well acquainted
with the universe and the laws that govern it, should not have
revealed to his followers some great truths hitherto unknown
regarding these laws, which might have commanded their belief, and
that of all future generations, in his divine mission?'

'Not at all,' said the Mufti; 'they would probably not have
understood him; and if they had, those who did not believe in what he
did actually reveal to them, would not have believed in him had he
revealed all the laws that govern the universe.'

'And why should they not have believed in him?'

'Because what he revealed was sufficient to convince all men whose
hearts had not been hardened in unbelief. God said, "As for the
unbelievers, it is the same with them whether you admonish them or do
not admonish them; they will not believe. God hath sealed up their
hearts, their ears, and their eyes; and a grievous punishment awaits
them."'[58]

'And why were the hearts of any men thus hardened to unbelief, when
by unbelief they were to incur such dreadful penalties?'

'Because they were otherwise wicked men.'

'But you think, of course, that there was really much of good in the
revelations of your prophet?'

'Of course we do.'

'And that those who believed in it were likely to become better men
for their faith?'

'Assuredly.'

'Then why harden the hearts of even bad men against a faith that
might make them good?'

'Has not God said, "If we had pleased, we had certainly given unto
every soul its direction; but the word which hath proceeded from me
must necessarily be fulfilled when I said, _Verily, I will fill hell
with men and genii altogether_ ".[59] And again, "Had it pleased the
Lord, he would have made all men of one religion; but they shall not
cease to differ among them, unless those on whom the Lord shall have
mercy; and unto this hath he created them; for the word of thy Lord
shall be fulfilled when he said, _Verily, I will fill hell altogether
with genii and men_".'[60]

'You all believe that the devil, like all the angels, was made of
fire?'

'Yes.'

'And that he was doomed to hell because he would not fall down and
worship Adam, who was made of clay?'

'Yes, God commanded him to bow down to Adam; and when he did not do
as he was bid, God said, "Why, Iblis, what hindered thee from bowing
down to Adam as the other angels did?" He replied, "It is not fit
that I should worship man, whom thou hast formed of dried clay, or
black mud". God said, "Get thee, therefore, hence, for thou shalt be
pelted with stones; and a curse shall be upon thee till the day of
judgement". The devil said, "O Lord, give me respite unto the day of
resurrection". God said, "Verily, thou shalt be respited until the
appointed time ".'[61]

'And does it not appear to you, Mufti Sahib, that in respiting the
devil Iblis till the day of resurrection, some injustice was done to
the children of Adam?'

'How?'

'Because he replies, "O Lord, because thou hast seduced me, I will
surely tempt men to disobedience in the earth".'

'No, sir, because he could only tempt those who were _predestined_ to
go astray, for he adds, "I will seduce all, except such of them as
shall be _thy chosen servants_". God said, "This is the right way
with me. Verily, as to my servants, thou shalt have no power over
them; but over those only who shall be seduced, and who shall follow
thee; and hell is surely denounced to them all ".'[62]

'Then you think, Mufti Sahib, that the devil could seduce only such
as were predestined to go astray, and who would have gone astray
whether he, the devil, had been respited or not?'

'Certainly I do.'

'Does it not then appear to you that it is as unjust to predestine
men to do that for which they are to be sent to hell, as it would be
to leave them all unguided to the temptations of the devil?'

'These are difficult questions,' replied the Mufti, 'which we cannot
venture to ask even ourselves. All that we can do is to endeavour to
understand what is written in the holy book, and act according to it.
God made us all, and he has the right to do what he pleases with what
he has made; the potter makes two vessels, he dashes the one on the
ground, but the other he sells to stand in the palaces of princes.'

'But a pot has no soul, Mufti Sahib, to be roasted to all eternity in
hell!'

'True, sir; these are questions beyond the reach of human
understanding.'

'How often do you read over the Koran?'

'I read the whole over about three times a month,' replied the
Mufti.[63]

I mentioned this conversation one day to the Nawab Ali-ud-din,[64] a
most estimable old gentleman of seventy years of age, who resides at
Muradabad, and asked him whether he did not think it a singular
omission on the part of Muhammad, after his journey to heaven, not to
tell mankind some of the truths that have since been discovered
regarding the nature of the bodies that fill these heavens, and the
laws that govern their motions. Mankind could not, either from the
Koran, or from the traditions, perceive that he was at all aware of
the errors of the System of astronomy that prevailed in his day, and
among his people.'

'Not at all', replied the Nawab; 'the prophets had, no doubt,
abundant opportunities of becoming acquainted with the heavenly
bodies, and the laws which govern them, particularly those who, like
Muhammad, had been up through the seven heavens; but their thoughts
were so entirely taken up with the Deity that they probably never
noticed the objects by which he was surrounded; and if they had
noticed them, they would not, perhaps, have thought it necessary to
say anything about them. Their object was to direct men's thoughts
towards God and his commandments, and to instruct them in their
duties towards him and towards each other.

'Suppose', continued the Nawab, 'you were to be invited to see and
converse with even your earthly sovereign, would not your thoughts be
too much taken up with him to admit of your giving, on your return,
an account of the things you saw about him? I have been several times
to see you, and I declare that I have been so much taken up with the
conversations which have passed, that I have never noticed the many
articles I now see around me, nor could I have told any one on my
return home what I had seen in your room--the wall-shades, the
pictures, the sofas, the tables, the book-cases,' continued he,
casting his eyes round the room,' all escaped my notice, and might
have escaped it had my eyes been younger and stronger than they are.
What then must have been the state of mind of those great prophets,
who were admitted to see and converse with the great Creator of the
universe, and were sent by him to instruct mankind?

'I told my old friend that I thought his answer the best that could
be given; but still, that we could not help thinking that if Muhammad
had really been acquainted with the nature of the heavenly bodies,
and the laws which govern them, he would have taken advantage of his
knowledge to secure more firmly their faith in his mission, and have
explained to them the real state of the case, instead of talking
about the stars as merely made to be thrown at devils, to give light
to men upon this little globe of ours, and to guide them in their
wanderings upon it by sea and land.

'But what', said the Nawab, 'are the great truths that you would have
had our holy prophet to teach mankind?'

'Why, Nawab Sahib, I would have had him tell us, amongst other
things, of that law which makes this our globe and the other planets
revolve round the sun, and their moons around them. I would have had
him teach us something of the nature of the things we call comets, or
stars with large tails, and of that of the fixed stars, which we
suppose to be suns, like our sun, with planets revolving round them
like ours, since it is clear that they do not borrow their light from
our sun, nor from anything that we can discover in the heavens. I
would also have had him tell us the nature of that white belt which
crosses the sky, which you call the ovarious belt, "Khatt-i-abyaz",
and we the milky-way, and which we consider to be a collection of
self-lighted stars, while many orthodox but unlettered Musalmans
think it the marks made in the sky by "Borak", the rough-shod donkey,
on which your prophet rode from Jerusalem to heaven. And you think,
Nawab Sahib, that there was quite evidence enough to satisfy any
person whose heart had not been hardened to unbelief? and that no
description of the heavenly bodies, or of the laws which govern their
motion, could have had any influence on the minds of such people?
'[65]

'Assuredly I do, sir! Has not God said, "If we should open a gate in
the heavens above them, and they should ascend thereto all the day
long, they would surely say, our eyes are only dazzled, or rather we
are a people deluded by enchantments."[66] Do you think, sir, that
anything which his majesty Moses could have said about the planets,
and the comets, and the milky way, would have tended so much to
persuade the children of Israel of his divine mission as did the
single stroke of his rod, which brought a river of delicious water
gushing from a dry rock when they were all dying from thirst? When
our holy prophet', continued the Nawab (placing the points of the
four fingers of his right hand on the table), 'placed his blessed
hand thus on the ground, and caused four streams to gush out from the
dug plain, and supply with fresh water the whole army which was
perishing from thirst; and when out of only _five small dates_ he
afterwards feasted this immense army till they could eat no more, he
surely did more to convince his followers of his divine mission than
he could have done by any discourse about the planets, and the milky
way (Khatt-i-abyaz).'

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We do not know the women's names, but their voices are quite distinct. All are pregnant. But while the first woman awaits the birth of her baby with a moon-like serenity, the other two are not so lucky. One, whose previous pregnancies have failed to go to term, is experiencing a heartbreaking late miscarriage; the other is a young student whose accidental pregnancy will end in her child being put up for adoption.

Sylvia Plath's only play was never intended for the stage, being broadcast instead on BBC radio in August 1962. Less than six months later, Plath killed herself, but not before the burst of astonishing creative energy that produced her extraordinary, terrifying Ariel poems.

Anyone who knows Plath's poetry will see the connection between Three Women and Plath's subsequent poems, particularly in the way she talks about the agony of childbirth, the rush of love for this tiny alien being, and both the wonder and wounded rawness of motherhood. It is a beautiful piece, full of startling imagery that draws you in through the sheer intensity of its femaleness, and because it so precisely articulates the emotions that are often thought but seldom voiced by women - certainly not in the early 1960s - about men, motherhood and our relationship to our bodies.

It's been 20 years since there has been an attempt at a professional stage version and - in a theatre world that happily accepts the poetic offerings of Sarah Kane and Debbie Tucker Green, or the staged possibilities of The Waves, one of Plath's own inspirations for the piece, I see no reason why it shouldn't be brought to life. Sadly, it doesn't breathe here, in a production by Robert Shaw that is clearly a labour of love, but which never finds a way to give the internal a physical reality. Plath's poetry, like most babies, is more robust than it appears - and won't break if treated with a little less reverence and considerably more grit.

Instead, what we are offered is tinkling piano music, mournful mood lighting, an innocuous pale setting, as well as three perfectly good but indisputably ladylike performances that capture none of the wounded redness of Plath's poetry, and do her the disservice of making her sound bleached and somewhat prissy. It's a pity. What might have been a wonder ends up a mere curiosity.

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