Had the sovereignty not been Shiah, it would long ago have disappeared between its Sunni neighbours.

With them the persecution of the 'accursed Rafizi,' as they speak of the sect, is the exercise of a holy duty, and their enslavement by Sunnis is a meritorious act, giving the heretics an opportunity of benefiting by example, and of rescue from perdition by conversion to the orthodox faith.

Thus it was that the Hazaras and Shiah inhabitants of the small principalities on the head-waters of the Oxus were sold into Sunni slavery, and the purchase of the Shiah Circassians in the Turkish markets was justified on the same grounds.

The bitter experience of ages has taught all Shiahs that, once helplessly at the mercy of the Sunnis, there must be absolute submission on all points.

This conviction has buried itself deep in the minds of the Persian people, and they now and then are painfully reminded of the savage readiness of their Sunni neighbours to emphasize the fact.
In 1892 a bazaar quarrel in Herat between Sunni and Shiah traders grew to a disturbance, and culminated in some of the latter, Persian subjects, being slain and their goods plundered, the Moullas solemnly pronouncing their judgment that it was 'lawful' for Sunnis to take the lives as well as the property of the heretical Shiahs.