I came across this article because of the "educational" pencil drawing Mattbuck kept, as mentioned on Jimbo's talk page. According to the Wikipedia article, it depicts a purported "structure in the form of a playground slide which was used by Persian kings of the Qajar dynasty as a sex device in their harem."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naser ... lide_1.jpg
This drawing also exists in several other versions on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naser ... lide_2.jpg
http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%BE%D8% ... _slide.jpg
Now, the Wikipedia article Naser al-Din Shah's slide (T-H-L) has some uncited statements, and seems to disguise the fact that one of its main sources describes the thing as a legend. First, here is the source:
Now see what Wikipedia makes of the passing mention in this source:Ervand Abrahamian in A History of Modern Iran wrote:In yet another article Dehkhoda managed even to overreach himself. He wrote that since he had stopped his column in Sur-e Esrafil lately, he was about to be sick, because, as the Persian expression has it, "stopping a habit results in sickness." And he went on to add that he would have taken ill, just as Fath'ali Shah would have done if every day he did not lie with his back down beneath the slide in the Negaristan Palace, alluding to the legend that Fath'ali did so every day naked so that his wives would slide down naked over him.
So Wikipedia makes the one reference look like two separate ones, manages to produce more words than are devoted to the topic in the cited source itself, and omits to say that in the cited source, the quoted passage is clearly marked as a legend rather than historical fact, and referred to in passing.Wikipedia wrote:Fat′h-Ali Shah, who had about 1000 concubines, allegedly built several in different parts of Iran. It was said that the Shah lay on his back awaiting each concubine: "Fath'ali did so every day naked so that his wives would slide down naked over him."[2]
Referring to the story, the Iranian linguist Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda once joked that if he stopped writing he would feel ill because "as the Persian expression has it 'stopping a habit results in sickness'," adding that "he would have taken ill just as Fath'ali Shah would have done if every day he did not lie with his back down beneath the slide in the Negaristan Palace."[2]
The Wikipedia passages referring to actual slides having been built, and still having been in existence in the early 20th century, cite no sources at all.
The 1891 source (!) has the following passage:
The page number Wikipedia gives is wrong, and Wikipedia describes this account as "somewhat sanitised" – an assertion that is again, unsourced (if anything, this 1891 account sounds rather more realistic than the fanciful scenario depicted in Mattbuck's "educational drawing").Its imperial master occasionally joins in the outdoor amusements of his harem ; indeed, he himself invented a game a few years since, which sounds more original than amusing. A slide of smooth alabaster about twenty feet long, on an inclined plane, was constructed in one of his bath-houses. Down this the Shah would gravely slide into the water, followed by his seraglio. The sight must have been a strange one, the costumes on these occasions being, to say the least of it, scanty !
There are other warning signs: the article says that this sort of thing is known as a "Naserian slide" ... yet at the time of writing, Google finds only two matches for this phrase, both on Wikipedia.
It looks rather like Wikipedia substituting fantasy for historical reality again – probably because of the films mentioned in the last section of the article (although that, too, lacks citations). Is anyone familiar with the films, or aware of other historical background that would exonerate the Wikipedia article at least to some extent?
