i. In the Early Centuries of the Islamic Period

In early Islam, begging must have arisen in the first place from sheer economic necessity, but its continuance was soon buttressed by religious motives and, in particular, by the Sufi stress on tawakkol and toklān, utter dependence on God, which might mean resorting to mendicancy in order to survive. The early mystics state that begging is allowable from three motives: (1) for the sake of mental liberty, giving freedom from anxiety about one’s daily sustenance; (2) for the soul’s discipline, since begging is humiliating and shows a man’s worthlessness in other people’s eyes, hence is an antidote to self-pride; and (3) because begging from men is an act of reverence for God, Who regards all men as His agents, and a servant who petitions an agent is humbler than one who makes petition to God Himself (E. Schroeder, Muhammad’s People. A Tale by Anthology, Portland, Maine, 1955, p. 727, citing Hojvīrī, Neffārī, and Kalābāḏī). From the standpoint of the donor, giving money was regarded as above all good for the donor’s soul rather than as a social relief measure for the recipient (see further “Charity, Almsgiving” in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics III, pp. 382ff., and darvǰš).

We have little information in the sources specifically relating to begging in the Iranian lands, but it should be noted that one of the standard words in early Arabic usage for “beggar” is mokaddī (abstracts: takdīa, kodya “begging”), found in adab literature (e.g., in Jāḥeẓ, with his Ketāb ḥīal al-mokaddīn, cf. Ch. Pellat, “Nouvel essai d’inventaire de l’œuvre ğaḥiẓienne,” Arabica 31, 1984, p. 149, no. 148) from the 3rd/9th century on­wards, and this is clearly derived from Persian gadā “beggar, begging” (see C. E. Bosworth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld. The Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature, Leiden, 1976, I, p. 40, II, p. 244; Pellat, “Mukaddī,” in EI²); while the post-classical Arabic verb darwaza “to wander round, beg,” whence motadar­wez “beggar,” goes back either to Persian darvāza “gate” with the idea of going round begging from door to door (see Dozy, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, I, p. 438) or to Persian daryūza from (Parthian) yūz– “to seek” (Persian jūy-). Moreover, among the Banū Sāsān, the generic name for the beggars, rogues, quacks, trick­sters, etc., who formed the lowest levels of society, we find certain types of beggar denoted by Persian names, e.g., the felawr or self-mutilator (Persian pīla-var “peddler of drugs”) and possibly the kāḡānī or feigned epileptic or madman (perhaps from Persian kāḡ(a), defined by Asadī Ṭūsī as “a person with an afflicted body”); see Bosworth, I, pp. 36, 38, II, p. 220). Certainly, the beggars who roved all over the Islamic lands must have included in their ranks many Iranians; the Kurds, in particular, were notorious for their rapaciousness and violence in extracting money (see further banū sāsān).