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Pahlavi Texts, Part II (SBE18), E.W. West, tr. [1882], at sacred-texts.com


CHAPTER LXIII.

1. The sixty-second question is that which you ask thus: Would they authorisedly carry off any property whatever from foreigners and infidels, or not?

2. The reply is this, that wealth and property and anything that foreigners (an-aîrânŏ) possess and is carried off by them from the good with violence, and which through obstinacy they do not give back

p. 197

when it is proper, it is well allowable in that case that they should seize from the foreigners. 3. So long as it is the lawful order of the procurator of its owners 1 it is allowable for a just decider to consider properly, and to demand authoritatively the sending of interest (sûdŏ) thereon for himself. 4. But if they proceed in their obstinacy he is sent to come up with them in obstinacy, not to dissemble with them 2.

5. It is the custom to give an infidel (ak-dînô), who is not a foreigner, food, clothing, and medicine, when his renunciation (vâz) has come, for keeping away matters (kisânŏ) of death and sickness owing to hunger and thirst, cold and heat; but wealth, horses, accoutrements, wine, and land are not given authorisedly, it is said, unto foreigners and idolators 3.


Footnotes

197:1 Reading vad zak amatas khûdâyân ayâvî-aîtâr farmân-î dâdîk. The form of ayâvî-aîtâr has not yet been met with elsewhere, but it seems to mean 'one who holds the obtainment,' though whether as agent or officer of justice is uncertain.

197:2 M14 has merely 'but should they proceed in their obstinacy, to come with them is not to dissemble.'

197:3 Literally 'demon-worshippers.'


Next: Chapter LXIV