Sadeq Hedayat’s vegetarianism: a few notes on the representation of vegetarianism, animals and animal rights in Sadeq Hedayat’s Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī (The benefits of vegetarianism) and Insān-u ḥayvān (Human and animal)

ABSTRACT

Sadeq Hedayat (1903–1951) is an Iranian author known for his short stories and his novel Būf-i Kūr (The Blind Owl). An intellectual from an influential family, Hedayat traveled abroad at a young age and became a vegetarian in his youth. He wrote the essay Insān-u ḥayvān (Human and animal) in 1924, when he was only 21 years old. His later essay Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī (The benefits of vegetarianism, 1927) is understood to be the more mature version of the ideas on animal rights presented in the essay of 1924. This article explores the contents, socio-historical context and the background of Insān-u ḥayvān and Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, focusing in particular on the way in which Hedayat represents vegetarianism and the rhetoric he employs to advocate animal welfare in relation to his perception of the human world.

KEYWORDS:

• Sadeq Hedayat
• vegetarianism
• animals
• animal rights
• Persian literature
• Giyāhkhārī

Introduction

At the age of twenty-four, in 1927, the Iranian author Sadeq Hedayat (1903–1951) wrote an essay entitled Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, or “The benefits of vegetarianism.” Hedayat had become a vegetarian in his youth and was a passionate advocate for vegetarianism. He wrote the first version of this essay at an even earlier age, since Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī was in fact the elaborated version of an essay on a similar topic, entitled Insān-u ḥayvān, “Human and animal,” which Hedayat wrote in Tehran in 1924, when he was only twenty-one years old.

Hedayat’s very first short story, focusing on the theme of animal abuse via an account of the last hours of a badly treated donkey, was published around the same time, in the summer months of 1924. In this story, entitled “Zabān-i ḥāl-i yik ulāgh dar vaqt-i marg”, (“The speech of a donkey at the time of its death”), a dying and discarded donkey is the sarcastic narrator.¹ Hedayat scholars describe both this short story and the essay Insān-u ḥayvān as immature and unpolished in terms of style and structure in comparison to Hedayat’s later work, but recognize the significance of these works as the first writings in which important themes of Hedayat’s later works are already apparent.²

As an intellectual from an influential family, Hedayat traveled abroad at a young age. When he wrote “The benefits of vegetarianism,” Hedayat was living in Paris, where he spent a couple of years in the 1920s for his studies. According to Homa Katouzian, in his monograph on Hedayat entitled Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer, published in 1991, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī was written partly in Paris, partly in Brussels and partly in Ghent.³ Katouzian regards both the earlier essay, “Human and animal,” and “The benefits of vegetarianism” especially as “statements of moral indignation.”⁴

A study specifically devoted to Hedayat’s essays on vegetarianism was written by Hushang Philsooph in a volume edited by Katouzian and entitled Sadeq Hedayat: His Work and Wondrous World, published in 2008.⁵ In this study, Philsooph explores the connections between Hedayat and Leonardo da Vinci and the role that altruism and modernity played in their life and works. Philsooph extensively discusses Hedayat’s background and stresses that his becoming a vegetarian and his efforts to propagate vegetarianism were not simply a result of his experiences in Europe and his European education.⁶ He indicates, on the basis of interviews with family members (Hedayat’s brother Mahmud) and schoolmates that Hedayat was from a very young age totally dedicated to the fate of animals and that his attitude towards animals, though not always understood, was at least accepted in his family circle.⁷

Philsooph also notes that Hedayat’s education at St Louis, a Catholic school in Tehran, will have contributed to the development of his views on vegetarianism. It was via his educators at St Louis that Hedayat became acquainted with a number of European philosophers and scholars, such as Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), whose works were influential in shaping his ideas on the relation between human and animal.⁸

The context of Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī (The benefits of vegetarianism) and Insān-u ḥayvān (Human and animal)

If we look at the broader framework of Persian literature, we can conclude that “The benefits of vegetarianism” and “Human and animal” seem to stand entirely on their own in modern Persian literature. Vegetarianism or animal rights do not really seem to have been a topic to write about in Iran in the first quarter of the twentieth century. This was different in Europe, as Hedayat demonstrates in both essays, in which he introduces to his audience a number of European scholars who wrote on vegetarianism. One of them is Jules Lefèvre (1863–1944), a scholar in biochemistry, who published the work Examen scientifique du végétarisme with the Société Végétarienne de France in Paris in 1904.⁹

Lefèvre’s work fits in the growing interest for vegetarianism since the first half of the nineteenth century, when organized vegetarianism emerged in Britain, Prussia and France. Here, associations were established that propagated animal welfare and vegetarianism. Hedayat explicitly refers to the publications of the Société Végétarienne de France in the eighth chapter of “The benefits of vegetarianism,” on the superiority and the global nature of vegetarianism.¹⁰

Julia Hauser, who recently published on vegetarian discourse in Europe in relation to the Ottoman Empire, explains the emergence of organized vegetarianism in relation to industrialization and modernization and a rapidly transforming society.¹¹ A growing number of people lived in urban areas, and the distance between humans and animals increased, resulting, among many other things, in a new attitude towards animals and a new interest in animal welfare.¹²

Such a development did not take place at the same time in Iran, or in other parts of the Middle East and the Islamic world, but that is of course not to say that vegetarianism was entirely unknown: it was especially in the framework of abstinence as part of asceticism related to religious thought that vegetarianism played a role. An example of a famous figure of the Islamic past who was supposedly a vegetarian is the Syrian poet Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (973–1058), who wrote in correspondence with an Ismāʿīlī missionary that he refrained from eating “fish, meat, milk, eggs and honey”—and he connected this to esoteric knowledge.¹³ Efforts have been made to explain al-Maʿarrī’s vegetarianism via Hindu or Jain influences, though others believe that his closeness to the Byzantine Christian community might have influenced him.¹⁴

Among the Christians in the Middle East, vegetarianism was certainly commonplace, in the context of fasting during Lent. But this is vegetarianism as a spiritual exercise and has to do with abstinence. This is also the case for certain Sufis who followed an ascetic lifestyle and who are known to have abstained from eating meat.¹⁵ In this context vegetarianism is predominantly a practice to enhance the spiritual quest for purity of the individual: this is much less, if at all, a case of serving the animal rights cause. In his plea for vegetarianism, Hedayat includes those who refrain from meat as a spiritual exercise. By providing a brief introduction into the context of their work, he implicitly points to the fact that animal welfare was not their priority.

However, Persian authors do not play a major role in Hedayat’s two works on vegetarianism. “The benefits of vegetarianism” and “Human and animal” do not necessarily relate specifically to animal welfare in Iran, although the context and the background of some of his other writings, notably the aforementioned short story “Zabān-i ḥāl-i yik ulāgh dar vaqt-i marg” (The speech of a donkey at the time of its death), and his more famous short story “Sag-i vilgard” (The Stray Dog) are clearly set in Iran and read as accusations against cruelty or at best indifference of Hedayat’s fellow-countrymen regarding animals.

In both “The benefits of vegetarianism” and “Human and animal,” Hedayat seems to have been especially inspired by the work of a number of European authors and philosophers who were active in the decades before he wrote his essays; but he also dwells on the ideas of ancient Greek philosophers. Like many others, he locates the origin of vegetarianism in Asia, from where it spread westwards.¹⁶

Which audience Hedayat had in mind when he wrote his works on vegetarianism is not entirely clear. It would seem that he addressed an elite, learned and cosmopolitan audience who could afford to consider alternative patterns of food consumption and production and who could appreciate the arguments of Hedayat against eating meat or making use of animals.

Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī (“The benefits of vegetarianism”) : a closer look at its contents

In “The benefits of vegetarianism” humankind is sharply accused of hateful cruelty against animals; the first chapter of the essay is entitled “Fidā’iyān-i shikam”, or “Those who are sacrificed for the belly.”¹⁷ This is one of two chapters that contain a precise date and place name. This first chapter is dated 18 September 1926, Brussels, while the second chapter was finished in Ghent on 22 December 1926.¹⁸ The introduction and the conclusion are also both signed with a place, name and date. These were written in Paris and dated according to the Iranian calendar, respectively 18 Mordad 1306 (10 August 1927) and 23 Mordad 1306 (15 August 1927). The first passage of Chapter One (Faṣl-i avval) reads:

Before going into the subject at hand, it is appropriate to consider the tyranny and the ferocity which emerged from the habit of eating meat. Do you know that the need or the pleasure of eating meat is the cause of the killing of millions of domestic animals each day? Much more than millions? If we count the countless armies of helpless animals who are convicted to be sacrificed on a daily basis in hunting, fishing, chicken markets and so on, then we reach a number of four hundred million feeling beings who are killed each year only to please the corrupted appetite of humans and their worship of the belly. It has been calculated that on the flood of blood caused by this horrific killing one can easily sail ships. Moreover, to sacrifice them does not take place easily: flocks of animals have to be driven with wooden sticks and whips from far away cities in fifteen or thirty days. If they fall on the road from exhaustion, they force them up with a cattle prod and sometimes they have to move for days without food under the scorching sun, or they have to be in dirty and stinking sheepfolds. Some of them die and every time one amongst them gives birth, they kill the young animal before the eyes of its mother so that the caravan doesn’t fall behind. Without any rest the poor animals are driven into slaughterhouses with whips. In these filthy and sad buildings, their hearts are suffocated by the smell of blood, the slippery floor, the fresh blood which flows from every direction, the soul splitting cries of animals, corpses impregnated with blood, trembling in spasms; meagre half-dead horses walk around, surrounded by hanging cadavers and butchers who come to buy them … ¹⁹

This very vivid description goes on for quite some time. This passage is typical for the tone of the entire essay, which reads indeed as a passionate plea for a different, better world, in which humankind should reconsider its decision to eat meat. Eating meat is presented as outright barbarianism.

In twelve short chapters, each of which reads as a small essay in itself, Hedayat continues to offer his views on a wide variety of aspects concerning the relation between animals and humans, and in particular on the unsuitability of animals as food for humans. The chapter titles give a good idea of the themes treated:

Dībācha – “Introduction”, 7-8

1. Faṣl-i avval. Fidā’iyān-i shikam – “Those who are sacrificed for the belly,” 9–16

2. Faṣl-i duvvum. Khurāk-i ṭabīʿī-yi insān – “The natural food of humankind,” 17–26

3. Faṣl-i sivum. Tajziya-yi shīmāʾī-yi mavād-i khurākī – “The chemical analysis of food substances,” 27–33

4. Faṣl-i chahārum. Tārikh-i giyāhkhārī – “The history of vegetarianism,” 34–49

5. Faṣl-i panjum. Mażarrāt-i gūsht – “The harmfulness of meat,” 50–56

6. Faṣl-i shisum. Pukhtan-i khurāk – “Cooking food,” 57–61

7. Faṣl-i haftum. Akhlāq-u giyāhkhārī – “Morals and vegetarianism,” 62–74

8. Faṣl-i hashtum. Bartarī-yi giyāhkhārī – “The superiority of vegetarianism,” 75–81

9. Faṣl-i nuhum. Āzmāyishhā-yi ʿamalī – “Practical experiments,” 82–88

10. Faṣl-i dahum. Iqtiṣād-u giyāhkhārī – “The economy and vegetarianism,” 89–92

11. Faṣl-i yāzdahum. Javāb-i īrādāt – “Reacting against criticism,” 93–103

12. Faṣl-i duvāzdahum. Anjāmnāma – “Conclusion,” 104–106

As can be seen from the list of chapters, in “The benefits of vegetarianism” Hedayat combines history with chemistry and medical data, and morals and philosophy with economics. In the scope of this short article, it would be impossible to discuss in any detail the contents of each chapter, therefore I focus here briefly on a few aspects and more in particular on the contents of a few chapters of “The benefits of vegetarianism” and parts of “Human and animal”.

With fifteen pages, Chapter Four (Faṣl-i chahārum) of “The benefits of vegetarianism”, entitled “Tārikh-i giyāhkhārī”, is one of the longer chapters in this work and deals with the history of vegetarianism. On the first page Hedayat presents a lengthy quote from the Argentinian sociologist Carlos Octavio Bunge (1875–1918), whose work he had consulted via a French translation, Le droit c'est la force: théorie scientifique du droit et de la morale, published in 1911. Hedayat quotes (in his Persian translation) a passage where Bunge argues that fruit is the natural and original food of humans: Hedayat repeats the Darwinian images sketched by Bunge, describing apes as the ancestors of humans. Bunge is introduced with the following passage, which is also the beginning of the chapter:

The history of vegetarianism starts with the history of the emergence of humankind on earth; as has been confirmed in science humans lived in warm regions in the same way as large apes, and their only food was the fruit of trees; they have lived millions of years on this food. But because of some sudden events such as earthquakes and so on they were forced to migrate to other regions and because of hunger and the lack of fruit, related to the change of climate, they were forced to eat the meat of the animals killed out of self-defence. After they had discovered fire, humans could retain this habit.

Professor “Būnzh” [Bunge] in his scientific work writes as follows … ²⁰

Hedayat argues, quoting from the theories of Bunge, that the body of humans, until today, is suited to eating fruit and vegetables. The change of diet and introducing meat to the menu described in the passage above was harmful, as it produced poison in the bodies of humans, which resulted in the appearance of intestinal diseases.²¹

Hedayat continues by making a point that vegetarianism is feasible in every climate and amongst all peoples.²² He claims that the most intelligent scholars and wise men of each time, as well as all prophets and leading thinkers and all those who have an interest in the moral well-being of humankind and who have strived for the mental progress and the superiority of the position of humans, that all those people were known to have been vegetarians, who also encouraged their followers to refrain from eating meat.²³

This is quite a claim, and Hedayat supports this claim by what he calls “a few examples.” This is actually a long and at first sight a rather random list of a very diverse group of people from the past and the present. The list starts with the following names and group definitions: Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, the Magians of Iran, the wise men of India, the priests of Egypt, the philosophers of Greece: Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Epicurus, Seneca, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius (mārkūril), Virgil, Zeno (zinon) and the Christian monks—Eriugena (irīzhin), Chrysostom (krīzustum), Saint Clement of Alexandria (sin klimān dāliskāndrī) and the Islamic philosophers, mystics and Sufis (falāsifa-u ʿurafā-u mutisavvifīn-i islāmī).²⁴

The names he provides under this last category are: Hażrat Amīr (in reference to ʿAlī b. Abū Ṭālib), Abū ʿAlī Sīnā (Ibn Sīnā / Avicenna), Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Shaykh Najm al-Dīn Rāzī, Abū al-ʿAlā Maʿarrī, Shaykh ʿAṭṭār, and Mawlavī [Jalāl al-dīn Rūmī]. These are all well-known philosophers, poets, Sufis and scholars. Without even so much as a conjunction Hedayat continues this list with ghaybiyūn, yazdāniyān, mazdāsnān—terms which seem to refer to various Iranian (yazdāniyān, mazdāsnān) or Islamic (ghaybiyūn) religious groups.²⁵ After these three terms follows va ghayra—et cetera.

Hedayat then moves on with another set of names, mostly European scholars, philosophers, composers and poets: Bacon [Roger], Cornèr [Luigi Cornaro], Gassendi, Milton, Swedenborg, Newton, Pascal, Fénelon, Montaigne, Bernardin de St Pierre, Anquetil-Duperron, Charles Nodier, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Franklin [Benjamin], Shelley, Lamartine, Wagner, Michelet [Jules], Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Fabre [Jean-Henri], Reclus [Jean-Jacques Élisée], Bossuet [Jacques-Bénigne], Voltaire, Edison, Maeterlinck, Carpenter [Edward], ending this list again with the phrase va ghayra.²⁶

It is as if Hedayat means to show his readership that he is knowledgeable and familiar with all these very different people from different geographical and time zones, and with different professions. Incidentally, many names that appear in Hedayat’s list (and elsewhere in both “The benefits of vegetarianism” and “Human and animal”) also appear in The ethics of diet: A catena of authorities deprecatory of the practice of flesh-eating, a biography on vegetarians through the ages published in 1883 by the vegetarian activist Howard Williams (1837–1931).²⁷ Hedayat is, however, not very open on his sources, and it is difficult to establish exactly which sources he consulted for “The benefits of vegetarianism” and “Human and animals.”

Further on in Chapter Four, Hedayat comes back to many of the names in the list. He first embarks on a discussion of the beliefs of Hindus and Buddhists regarding vegetarianism. He credits Brahman Hindus and Buddhists with refraining from eating animals altogether, as this is prohibited by their religion, and he maintains that in most religions abstinence in this matter is emphasized (dar bīshtar-i kīshhā parhīz az gūshtkhārī taʾkīd shuda):²⁸

As is concluded in the old books of the Hindus, the Aryan race abstained from eating meat in the beginning; in one of the laws of Mānū (Mānāvādhārmāsāstrā), which is one of the old books of the Hindus, it is written: “Someone who follows the laws and does not eat meat in the same way as a bloodthirsty demon, will achieve a completely good nature, and will be safeguarded from the torment of unpleasant things.”

The first law of Buddha says: “Don’t kill and be compassionate; and do not ruin the course of the evolutionary cycle of animals.” This is why the people of Japan, China and India, who make up the majority of people on earth, are vegetarian.²⁹

Hedayat connects these points of view to the ideas and beliefs of the Iranian prophet Zarathustra, who stated in his counsels that killing innocent animals who are creatures of the supreme God Ahura Mazda is an ugly crime.³⁰ In addition, Hedayat mentions that according to the Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrians, working the land is the first holy task of humans, and that the purest food is that which the earth provides humans in the form of fruits. He also quotes in this respect the Zoroastrian hymn (gāthā) 32, which says: “Ahura Mazda resents anyone who kills four-legged animals.”³¹

Hedayat mentions in this passage also the Parsee traditions (rivāyāt), according to which Zarathustra’s food consisted only of milk and vegetables.³² Also Mazdak and Mānī, founders of puritan religious movements after Zarathustra, forbade the consumption of meat, “just like the Buddhists,” as Hedayat claims.³³ Hedayat is well-known for his interest and admiration in ancient Iran, and refers in this context to the ancient Iranians as people who refrained from the uncleanliness and impurity of animal food.³⁴

In this chapter, Hedayat quickly moves between religious figures and philosophers of the past, without much of a transition and without observing a certain order in presenting these figures. Mazdak and Mānī feature in the same paragraph as Pythagoras (fīsāghūrās), who is said to have reached an age of hundred and who warned his people in the following manner: “Be afraid oh mortals, with such food you will turn yourself into polluted filth.”³⁵ Pythagoras’ followers are described as having lived from a diet of figs, vegetables, fruits, honey and bread.

At this point Hedayat briefly brings up vegetarianism in Islam, starting with Ḥażrat Amīr (ʿAlī b. Abū Ṭālib, d. 661), who led an ascetic life and who is believed to have said the following words, quoted by Hedayat in Arabic: “Do not make your stomachs animal graves” (lā tajʿalū baṭūnikum muqābir al-ḥayawānāt).³⁶ Hedayat does not translate this phrase for his audience—this implies that his intended audience was, perhaps naturally, a Muslim one and familiar with Arabic. He continues by stating that in Islam, many of the Sufi and gnostic brotherhoods were vegetarians. The Sufi author mentioned in this paragraph is Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (1177–1256), who is said to have advised against eating too much meat in his Sufi handbook Mirṣād al-ʿIbād. Hedayat introduces in this short passage on vegetarianism in an Islamic context also the “famous doctor” (pizishk-i nāmdār) Abū ʿAlī Sīnā (Ibn Sīnā, tenth–eleventh century) who was “a follower of vegetarianism” (murīd-i giyāhkhārī) and who explained in his works the harm of meat.

The focus of the following pages in Chapter Four is again on the classics, in particular Seneca, and Pythagoras (quoting Plutarchus); but it does not take long before Hedayat embarks on the views of eating meat by Christian scholars of the past ages, starting with [Pierre] Gassendi (1592–1655), who he refers to as Professor Gassendi.³⁷ He then devotes short paragraphs to John Chrysostom (zhān krīzustum, 347–407), John Ray (jān rāy, 1627–1705),³⁸ Comte de Buffon (būfūn, 1707–1788),³⁹ and continues with mostly short passages on many more scholars, poets and thinkers of various times in history. Some of these had not yet appeared in the list he presented earlier in the chapter. Among these are John Ray and Comte de Buffon, but also Jean-Antoine Gleizes (klayzis, 1773–1843)⁴⁰ and, later in the chapter, Romain Rolland (1866–1944).⁴¹ Only in a very few cases, Hedayat refers to the work these intellectuals had written: he does so in case of Romain Rolland by mentioning his work Jean-Christophe (1915).

Towards the end of this chapter Hedayat quotes the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) and the Russian writer Lev Tolstoy (1828–1910), both well-known for their compassion towards animals. The verse (bayt) he quotes from Lamartine is the following:

The meat of animals screams like the torture of the soul and death inside you gives birth to death.⁴²

According to Hedayat, Lamartine wrote many poems on vegetarianism.⁴³ Lamartine is described as shāʿir-i ḥassās-i faransavī, “the sensitive French poet”—perhaps in the sense of “romantic French poet.” The phrase Hedayat chose to quote from Tolstoy, whom he describes as “the great Russian philosopher and famous writer” (fīlsūf-i buzurg va nivīsanda-yi nāmdār-i rūsī), is:

The habit of eating meat dates from the times of Barbarianism and the emergence of vegetarianism must be seen as very natural and as the first token of education and upbringing.⁴⁴

Hedayat ends this chapter in a rather optimistic tone: he is convinced that the vegetarian way of life will ultimately succeed:

Fortunately, countless doctors, scientists, literati and philosophers support vegetarianism and nowadays there are many groups in all countries of the world who have adopted this kind of food.⁴⁵

The final passages of the chapter demonstrate to a certain degree the importance of ancient Iran and ancient Iranian religion in Hedayat’s thought and work, and his apparent wish to connect vegetarianism firmly to the Iranian tradition. Here, he states that “the followers of the beliefs of the Mazdāsnān and the Yazdāniān and others who have great influence” (payruvān-i ʿaqīda-yi mazdāsnān va yazdāniyān va ghayra ki dārā-yi nufūẕ-i buzurgī hastand) also follow the vegetarian lifestyle and—so he implies—may thus contribute to further propagating it.⁴⁶

The term Mazdāsnān (mazdāsnān), though undoubtedly rooted in and related to the term Mazdeism (mazdayasnā) and the term Yazdāniān (yazdāniyān), derived from the word yazdān (God), may however not point simply to the belief systems of ancient Iran. Earlier on in Chapter Four, Hedayat used the term Yazdāniān in relation to ancient Iranians (īrāniyān-i bāstānī),⁴⁷ but it seems that with the same term he also refers to people who believe in God but who are not necessarily followers of a particular religion—more specifically the theosophists who played a role in the vegetarian movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. He elaborates on the theosophists in Chapter Seven, where he introduces Annie Besant (1847–1933, née Wood), a theosophist and a political activist with a broad agenda that included vegetarianism.⁴⁸

Rather than referring to Mazdeism (i.e. Zoroastrianism)—normally mazdayasnā in Persian, and not mazdāsnān—the term Mazdāsnān may also refer to a spiritual movement called Mazdaznan, founded in the early twentieth century by the thinker and health guru Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha’nish (Hanish, for Otto Hanisch: 1844–1936), who saw Zoroastrianism as a major source for his movement. One of the cornerstones of this movement was vegetarianism.⁴⁹ Because of this focus, it may well be that Hedayat was acquainted with the Mazdaznan. Hedayat does however not expand on either Mazdāsnān and Yazdāniyān. Chapter Four ends rather abruptly by a statement that he cannot elaborate further on these due to lack of space.⁵⁰

From Chapter Four, and also from a number of other chapters which largely consist of a collection of quotes by a variety of people who wrote on vegetarianism in past and present, one gets the impression that Hedayat very much wrote his essay “The benefits of vegetarianism” almost as a kind of notebook for himself, though apparently he agreed to have it published also.

In Chapter Seven, on morals and vegetarianism, Hedayat seems to refer to the actual publishing of the essay, in relation to poetical quotations; he gives the impression that he would have wanted to include much more poetic material than the fragment from the poet Saʿdī (ca. 1210–1292) he actually quotes.⁵¹

Since the pages of this book are very limited and since these pages do not allow me to put in all the documents that are available from the poets (hama-ye asnādī ki az shuʿarā dar dast mībashād), I have to be content by quoting this fragment (qitʿa) from Saʿdī who criticizes the ferocity of human beings and equals human with a wolf:⁵²

I heard about a large sheep

Who was rescued from the mouth and claws of a wolf

At night they put the knife on his throat

The soul of the sheep lamented:

Even if you robbed me from the claws of the wolf

I now see that in the end you yourself are the wolf.⁵³

This fragment is part of the thirty-first anecdote in the second chapter of Saʿdī’s Gulistān (Rose Garden, 1258), “On the morals of dervishes” (dar akhlāq-i darvīshān). In its original context this anecdote is not at all meant to illustrate animal suffering. It points to an ascetic who was enslaved and subsequently emancipated, to end up as the husband of a cruel wife, and who compares himself to a sheep who was freed from the wolf but killed by a man.⁵⁴

In this chapter, Hedayat also includes poetic examples from contemporary Persian poets such as Mihdī Qulī Khān Hidāyat (1864–1955)⁵⁵ and Pizhmān (Pizhmān-i Bakhtiyārī, 1900–1974),⁵⁶ alongside a number of philosophers. The title of this chapter, “Morals and vegetarianism” is directly connected to the German expression, provided in a footnote, Man ist was er isst, which Hedayat attributes to Kant (1724–1804):⁵⁷

Everyone knows that morals consist of knowledge, behavior and customs, and food is an important element of life, which has an undeniable influence over morals and the behavior of humans. There is a proverb in France that seems to have been taken from Kant. They say: “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are.” […] Most philosophers and moralists attribute the ferocity of the human race to their bloody food.⁵⁸

“Human and animals” (Insān-u ḥayvān ) in relation to “The benefits of vegetarianism” (Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī ): The role of Persian Poetry

In the aforementioned earlier version of “The benefits of vegetarianism,” entitled “Human and animal,” there is relatively speaking more emphasis on examples from the Persian poetical tradition as a plea for the vegetarian cause than in Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī. Insān-u ḥayvān consists of 26 pages in print and is therefore much shorter than “The benefits of vegetarianism,” which has 106 pages in print.⁵⁹ By using a very well-known verse ascribed to the 10th-century poet Firdawsī as an epigraph,⁶⁰ Hedayat immediately sets the tone for “The benefits of vegetarianism”:

Do not injure the ant that is carrying grain

For he has a soul and the sweet soul is beautiful.⁶¹

In “Human and animal” Hedayat quotes Firdawsī once more, adding the phrase ʿalayhi al-raḥmat (mercy be upon him) to his name. The verse he quotes is:

Everyone who passes beyond being human

Count him as a demon, not as a man.⁶²

Hedayat brings up this verse in a passage where he states that humans are worth less than animals:

Humans are not only animals who have less tools at their disposal than animals, but they also do not know their way in life. The pages of their history are written in blood.⁶³

Already a few pages before Hedayat made the superiority of animals over humans very clear when he writes:

Animals are superior to us, because humans need them, while they do not need us.⁶⁴

In several passages of “Human and animal” Hedayat passionately argues that men are not intrinsically superior to animals, as they themselves often believe, but that they are often inferior in all respects, despite their apparent potential and unrestricted mental capacity:⁶⁵

I have read and heard often that humans are more perfect than animals. That is a huge mistake: on the contrary, it is humankind that will never reach perfection; in the same way animals are not able to evolve or reach perfection. That is simply because of this: they [animals] have no need for progress, they are what they should be, nothing more and nothing less, they do not need to learn something or to forget something. As individuals they must protect reproduction. Humankind is in no way perfect, not as regards morals, not as regards body or intellect. One can find fault in the best and most beautiful and most intelligent human being.⁶⁶

Hedayat’s image of humanity is very bleak here—as it is in many of his writings. In another passage of “Human and animal,” Hedayat relates humankind’s inferiority to the role of animal sacrifice in religion, as he understands it from the holy books—he follows here, so he says, the ideas of Abū ʿAlī Sīnā (Ibn Sīnā), the eleventh-century poet Nāṣir-i Khusraw and many Sufi scholars (ʿulamā-yi ṣūfiya). The reason that sacrifice plays such an important role in religion, so he argues, is none other than to symbolize the killing of humans’ bestial or lower soul. To illustrate this, he quotes a verse from the twelfth-century Sufi poet ʿAṭṭār, who says in his narrative poem Manṭiq al-ṭayr:⁶⁷

Inside every person there are a hundred pigs

One must kill the pig; or wear a Christian belt.⁶⁸

This verse can be found in a well-known story from Manṭiq al-ṭayr, the story of Shaykh Ṣanʿān, a pious but conceited Sufi shaykh who had to fall deep (in this case to succumb to a Christian girl) in order to “kill his pig,” that is to do away with what was left of his lower self and to rise again, in a better and purer form.

Humiliation or even annihilation of the self in order to move forward on the Sufi path seems to resonate with Hedayat’s idea of how humans should behave in this world: first and foremost humans should not inflict pain. It is with this point that Hedayat ends Insān-u ḥayvān: referring to its opening, he says that he started his essay with a quote by Firdawsī, and will now end with a quote from Khwāja Ḥāfiẓ, the famous fourteenth-century Persian poet, who is qualified, in the same way as Firdawsī, by the phrase ʿalayhi al-raḥmat (mercy be upon him), and described as “the complete compendium of moral philosophy” (jāmiʿa-yi tamām-i falsafa-yi akhlāq):

Do whatever you want but don’t go for hurting

For in our rules there is no sin but for this.⁶⁹

Thus, the role of the classical Persian poets seems more prominent in Insān-u ḥayvān than it is in “The benefits of vegetarianism,” and even forms a kind of frame for the essay. But in the same way as “The benefits of vegetarianism,” also “Human and animal” abounds with references to more or less famous figures from the distant or recent past, in connection to raising awareness for animal rights and matters of education and child-raising. Both “Human and animal” and “The benefits of vegetarianism” are in that respect extremely rich, brimming with ideas of how the world should be or should become. That this results at times also in a certain repetitiveness and incoherence might be the reason that these two works of Hedayat found much less fame than his later work, especially his novels and short stories.

Conclusion: what does vegetarianism mean for Hedayat?

I would like to end this brief introduction to Hedayat’s works on vegetarianism and animal welfare by bringing up a key issue: what did the term vegetarianism actually mean for Hedayat? “Human and animal” initially focuses more on animal rights than vegetarianism in comparison to “The benefits of vegetarianism,” though ultimately the only way to do justice to animals is to refrain from eating meat, as Hedayat argues in both works. Towards the end of “Human and animal” Hedayat introduces the world nabātīkhār (plant-eater) for vegetarian, in the following context:

To refrain from eating meat – although nowadays this has found a certain medical and scientific interest and though thousands of individuals in the civilized countries of Europe and America gave up eating meat – is not a new conviction and has since ancient times always existed. The majority of mystics (ʿurafā) and philosophers (ḥukamā) have always been plant-eaters (nabātīkhār): the Magians (mughān) of Iran, the wise men (ʿuqalā) of India, ancient Egypt and Greece, the Sufis (mutiṣavvifīn) and great individuals such as Buddha.⁷⁰

Attached to the word nabātīkhār is a footnote, in which an explanation of this word is offered. According to Hedayat, nabātīkhārī refers to végétarisme, from the Latin vegetus; and he clarifies that this implies not eating meat, but allows for some animal products, such as milk and eggs. He introduces the term nabātīkhārī-yi muṭlaq here as well, and translates this as végétalisme: a diet of only vegetables, cereals and fruits, in other words, veganism.⁷¹

In “The benefits of vegetarianism” he refers to vegetarianism with the word giyāhkhārī, which literally means “eating vegetables/herbs.” He elaborates on this term in Chapter Eight, “On the superiority of vegetarianism,” without offering a translation into French, as he did for nabātīkhārī in Insān-u ḥayvān. Instead Hedayat presents a quote in Persian translation from the French Society of Vegetarianism (Société Végétarienne de France) by way of defining giyāhkhārī:

The Society of Vegetarians of France introduce their doctrine as follows: “Vegetarianism (giyāhkhārī) forbids eating meat of all animals, but allows the use of other animal products: eggs, milk, butter, honey, etc., but favors cereals, vegetables and in particular fruits as the natural food of humans.”⁷²

Throughout “The benefits of vegetarianism” however Hedayat seems to imply that vegetarianism is not only about not eating meat, but also refers to a lifestyle of abstinence and sobriety, and a preference for eating unprocessed food, already hinted at in the definition above. In Chapter Six, “On cooking food,” Hedayat addresses the advantages of eating raw food—to eat simple and to live in a simple way:

Humans are always after making things complicated and artificial. Everything that is easy and natural is contemptible in his eyes … nature shows that humans must live from fruit and raw plants. Cooking destroys and alienates food from its natural state, or covers up its flavor, as in the case of meat, in order to please our corrupted sense of taste; all this will have a negative effect on health.⁷³

The many varied ideas of Hedayat related to food, humans and animals certainly deserve a more systematic investigation than the one I can offer here and I hope this can be a project for the future. It is sad that Hedayat’s dreams for a better world did not materialize in his own time and that the hopes he had for a vegetarian world proved in vain. In his concluding Chapter Twelve he makes clear that he is convinced that the generations after him will realize that vegetarianism is the only way forward to a better world and the salvation of humankind.⁷⁴ The last sentence of “The benefits of vegetarianism” reads as follows:

If humankind must reach one day the pinnacle of progress and perfection, it will be in a natural environment with vegetable food, since eating meat and an artificial civilization will corrupt and draw humankind into the abyss of annihilation; unless a promising and blooming generation who live by the rules of nature will come in its place, humankind will be extinguished in shame.⁷⁵

I find it striking how Hedayat’s work of almost a hundred years back so vividly reflects present-day global issues—issues that are obviously not new, and are still part of current debates on climate and sustainability, and of course on animal rights.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Sociale en Geesteswetenschappen, NWO: [grant number 277-69-001].

Notes

1 Hedayat, “Zabān-i ḥāl-i yik ulāgh dar vaqt-i marg”. Text included in Ṭāhbāz, Yādbūdnāma-yi Ṣādiq Hidāyat, 149–54.

2 Katouzian, Sadeq Hedayat The Life, 25, 40; Ṭāhbāz, Yādbūdnāma-yi Ṣādiq Hidāyat, 150, Philsooph, “Hedayat, Vegetarianism and Modernity”, 152.

3 Katouzian, Sadeq Hedayat The Life, 40.

4 Ibid., 41.

5 Philsooph, “Hedayat, Vegetarianism and Modernity”, 144–77 (chapter 12). Compare, e.g. 153.

6 Philsooph, “Hedayat, Vegetarianism and Modernity”, 146–54.

7 Ibid., 147.

8 Ibid., 150.

9 See https://archive.org/details/b28086983/page/16/mode/2up ; Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 76.

10 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, Chapter Eight, 75–88.

11 Hauser, “A Frugal Crescent”, 292–316.

12 Ibid., 294.

13 Smoor, “al-Maʿarrī.”

14 Blankinship, “Missionary and Heretic”, 266.

15 Hauser, “A Frugal Crescent”, 304–5.

16 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, Chapter Twelve, 104.

17 Ibid., 9.

18 Ibid., 16 and 26.

19 Ibid., 9–10.

20 Ibid., 34.

21 Ibid., 35.

22 Ibid., 37.

23 Ibid., 37–8.

24 Ibid., 38.

25 Yazdāniyān and mazdāsnān will be discussed in some more detail below. Ghaybiyūn may also refer to “occultists:” it is known that Hedayat had an interest in occultism. See for example Philsooph, “Hedayat, Vegetarianism and Modernity”, 148.

26 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 38.

27 See The ethics of diet : a catena of authorities deprecatory of the practice of flesh-eating : Williams, Howard, 1837–1931 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive and The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ethics of Diet, by Howard Williams.

28 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 38.

29 Ibid., 38–9.

30 Ibid., 39.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid., 40.

34 Ibid., 39.

35 Ibid., 40.

36 In the edition of Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī used for this article, this phrase is added to the title page of the book, between the author’s name and the title, and accompanied by a Persian translation: shikamhā-yi khudatānrā maqbara-yi ḥayvānāt nasāzīd. This is not the case in another edition I have at my disposal, published in Tehran by Muʾassisa-yi tawsiʿa-yi ʿidālat, 1355/1976.

37 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 42.

38 Ibid., both on 42.

39 Ibid., 43.

40 Ibid., 45.

41 Ibid., 48.

42 Ibid., 46. The French verse is: “La chair des animaux crîrait comme un remord / Et la mort dans ton sein engendrerait la mort!” In Hedayat’s Persian translation: gūsht-i ḥayvānāt mānand-i shikanja-yi rūḥ faryād mīkashad va marg dar darūn-i tu tawlīd-i marg mīkunad). The verse comes from Lamartine’s La chute d’un ange (Tome second, huitième vision), 69.

43 Lamartine’s poetry, in particular La chute d’un ange, contains many references to his philosophy about animals. Apart from the verse cited by Hedayat, see also La chute d’un ange, Tome second, 12–14 (Septième vision)and 77–79 (Huitième vision). On Lamartine and animals, see Hastings, “Man and Beast”; Walters and Portmess, Ethical Vegetarianism, 75–9.

44 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 46.

45 Ibid., 48.

46 Ibid., 49.

47 Ibid., 39.

48 Ibid., 71.

49 Bigalke, “Krankheitslehren, Heilkonzepte und therapeutische Praktiken”, 30–40; see also Hanish, Mazdaznan Encyclopaedia of Dietetics, 1904.

50 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 49.

51 Ibid., 70.

52 Saʿdī, Gulistān, 100, 13–5.

53 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 70.

54 Saʿdī, Gulistān, 100, 3–12.

55 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 68–9.

56 Ibid., 69–70.

57 Ibid., 63.

58 Hedayat, Favāʾid-i giyāhkhārī, 63–4. The expression does not seem to have anything to do with Kant, but goes back to the French author Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1826), and the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1863–64).

59 Hedayat, Insān-u ḥayvān, 263 (264)-290.

60 Mayāzār mūrī ki dānakash ast/ki jān dārad-u jān-i shīrīn khwash ast: this is actually a verse quoted by the poet Saʿdī, who ascribes this verse to Firdawsī in the second chapter (“On doing good”) of his Būstān. Saʿdī, Būstān, 87, vs. 1331.

61 Hedayat, Insān-u ḥayvān, 264.

62 Ibid., 276.

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid., 271.

65 Ibid., 277.

66 Ibid.

67 ʿAṭṭār, 96, vs. 1393. The text in Hedayat is: dar darūn-i har kasī ṣad khūk hast/khūk bāyad kusht yā zunnār bast (instead of dar nihād-i har kasī ṣad khūk hast/khūk bāyad sūkht yā zunnār bast).

68 Hedayat, Insān-u ḥayvān, 281.

69 Hedayat, Insān-u ḥayvān, 290; Ḥāfiẓ, Dīvān, 168, ghazal 76, vs. 6. Hedayat presents Ḥāfiẓ’s verse as: mabāsh dar pay-i āzār-u har chi khāhī kun/ki dar ṭarīqat-i mā ghayr az īn gunāhī nīst; in the Khānlarī edition of the Dīvān we find in the second half verse sharī ʿat (law) instead of ṭarīqat (rules; mystical path).

70 Hedayat, Insān-u ḥayvān, 280.

71 Ibid., 280, fn.2.

72 Ibid., 75,

73 Ibid., 87.

74 Ibid., 106.

75 Ibid.