ABSTRACT
In Central Asia a change of reign is always a highly critical moment. In Persia, in Turkestan, in the Arab states, a longer or shorter period of anarchy establishes itself which assumes a more or less violent and tormented character but which never fails to suspend the action of the law, in function of the principle that the sovereign will has for the time being disappeared. There are concrete reasons for this as well as many reasons arising from mere habit, and I believe it is appropriate to concentrate on the latter in order to explain better the Asiatic mind.
