fusion, and resemblance of Persian and Indian doctrines and
institutions, if even we were not disposed to seek their fountain-head
in the sacred gloom of the remotest antiquity. Whatever it be, in any
case, it will no more be said, that the Dabistán was written “with
the intention to claim for Persia the pre-eminence over India,
concerning the antiquity of religious revelations.”[157] In fact,
Mohsan Fani never explicitly alludes to a comparative antiquity
between the Persians and Indians, and implicitly acknowledges the
anteriority of the Indian religion over the Zoroastrian, in a part of
Persia at least, by relating that Gushtasp was converted from the
former to the latter by Zardusht, by whom also the Indian sage,
_Sankhara atcharya_, was vanquished.
After a more accurate examination, the resemblance between the said
religions will be found to exist certainly in particular principles
and tenets, but not at all in the general character or the spirit of
these religious systems. Nothing can be more dissimilar than the
austerity of Mezdaism and the luxuriancy of Hinduism in the
development of their respective dogmas, and particularly in their
worship, as was already observed.[158] We cannot however deny, that
not a little of the similarity in the account of different religions
belongs to the author of the Dabistán, who most naturally confounded
the ideas of his own with those of more ancient times, and used
expressions proper to his particular creed when speaking of that of
others. Thus he employs very often the term _angels_ for that of
divinities, and carries the mania of allegorising, so peculiar to the
later Muhammedan Súfis, into his description of the Indian mythology.
This sort of substitution, or these anachronisms of expression, are to
be remarked in the narrative of other authors, praised for general
correctness and veracity; I can here so much the more readily call to
mind similar inaccuracies in the accounts which Greek historians, and
in particular the philosophic Xenophon, gave of Persia, as I may add,
that in many points they agree with our Mohsan Fani.
[147] See above, p. 76.
[148] His Works, vol. IV. p. 105.
[149] _Loco cit._, p. 69.
[150] _Ibid._, p. 51. Among the Persians is even found
_Behesht-i-Gang_, and _Gang-diz_, “the Paradise,” and “the
castle of Ganga” (Hyde, p. 170).――Mr. Julius Mohl says
(_Journal asiatique, mars_ 1841, p. 281): “Zohac is the
representative of a Semitical dynasty, which in Persia took
place of the _Indian_ dynasty, and overthrew the entirely
_Brahmanical_ institutions of Jamshid.” We see the opinion
that Hinduism once resided in Iran daily gaining ground.
[151] The History of Hindostan, etc., by Alex. Dow, 1768, t.
I. p. 12 _et seq._ The same, by J. Briggs, 1829. Introd.,
ch. p. xiv. _et seq._
[152] The Mandauces of Ctesias and of Moses of Chorene. He
reigned, according to Ferdusi, B. C., from 1229-1109;
according to our chronogers, from 730-715.
[153] The Arphaxad of the Hebrews; the Dejoces of Herodotus;
the Arsæus of Ctesias; he is placed B. C. 1075 by the
Orientals; 696 years by the Occidentals.
[154] All kings of Turan were called Afrasiáb.
[155] Lib. IV.
[156] See _The Desátir_, Engl. trans., p. 185.
[157] See before, p. 75.
[158] See page 102.
§ VI.――THE RELIGION OF THE TABITIAN (TIBETANS).
The third chapter of the Dabistán treats of the religion of the _Kera
Tabitán_ (Tibitans). The author says that he received his information
from a learned man of this sect by means of an interpreter, who did
not always satisfy his inquiries; the little he says appears to belong
to a class of Buddhistic Hinduism, and not to be destitute of truth.
§ VII.――THE RELIGION OF THE JEWS.
Then follows, in the fourth chapter, a short account of the religion
of the Yahuds or Jews. The author derived his notion from a Rabbin
converted to Muhammedism, and states nothing which was not really
professed by one of the Jewish sects, which, in his summary narration,
he does not distinguish. He gives a Persian translation of the first
five chapters, and a part of the sixth chapter of the Genesis from the
Hebrew original; a comparison of it with several other translations
known in Europe, proves its general accuracy; I thought it not
altother unimportant to point out the few variations which occur.
§ VIII.――THE RELIGION OF THE CHRISTIANS.
It is not without great interest that an European Christian will
peruse the fifth chapter, in which a Persian treats of the religion of
the _Tarsas_, that is, “Christians.” Mohsan Fani declares, that he saw
several learned Christians, such as the Padre _Francis_,[159] highly
esteemed by the Portuguese in Goa and in Surat. We can scarce doubt,
that it was from that father, or some other Roman Catholic missionary,
that he received his information; as he portrays particularly the
Roman Catholic doctrine, of which, in my opinion, he exhibits a more
faithful idea than that which a great number of Protestants entertain,
and are wont to express.
Every Christian may be satisfied with the picture of his religion,
which, although contracted in a small compass, is nevertheless
faithfully drawn by a foreign but impartial hand. Mohsan Fani, in
seventeen pages of our translation, states only a few circumstances of
the life of Jesus Christ, and a few dogmas relative to him as son of
God, and the second person of the holy Trinity. In the account of
seven sacraments, the eucharist is characterised in a manner which
will not fail to attract attention.[160] Scarce any rites or
ceremonies are mentioned; the greatest part of the statement relates
to the moral precepts of Christianity, which presents an advantageous
contrast with the many absurd and superstitious duties, with which
other religions are encumbered. Thus, we find confirmed in the
Dabistán that the Pentateuch of the Jews and the Gospel of the
Christians were both sufficiently familiar to Muhammedans who had any
pretension to learning.
[159] Probably a Portuguese. From him Mohsan Fani might have
received the information (see vol. II. p. 307) that an image
of St. Veronica is preserved in a town of Spain, probably
within the year 1641, before it was known in India that
Portugal had freed itself from the domination of Spain,
which event took place on the 1st December, 1640. On that
account, the father spoke of the peninsular sovereign as
still possessor of both kingdoms, and, instead of calling
him _king of Spain_, styled him _king of Portugal_, from
fond partiality for his native country. This remark was
suggested to me by the learned viscount of Santarem.――(See
vol. II. pp. 307. 308, note 1.)
[160] See vol. II. p. 315. “The holiest of all the
sacraments, as it presents the Lord Jesus under the form of
bread, that it may become the power of the soul.” This
definition was most likely not that which Mohsan Fani heard
from father Francis, but the intelligent Persian might have
understood that a strong and lively representation of an
object is equivalent to its _real presence_, which latter
words must have been those used, as orthodox, by a Roman
Catholic priest.
§ IX.――THE RELIGION OF THE MUSELMANS.
The author of the Dabistán, after having treated of the most ancient
religions, passes to the comparatively modern religious system of
Arabia. The Arabians, although frequently attacked, were never
conquered by the Assyrians, Medians, Persians, or Romans; they
maintained their political independance, but could not avoid nor
resist the religious influence of nations with whom they were, during
ages, in various relations. The ancient history of Arabia is lost,
like that of many other nations; so much is known of their oldest
religion, that it resembled that of the Persians and Hindus: it was
the Magism or Sabæism; the stars were worshipped as idols from the
remotest times; we read of antediluvian idols. At the time, which we
now consider, that is the seventh century of our era, all the then
existing religions seemed to be far remote from their original
simplicity and purity;[161] idolatry was dominant, and Monotheism
preserved and positively professed only in Judaism and Christianity,
although likewise corrupted by various kinds of superstition.
Followers of both these religions were settled in Arabia, to which
region the Jews fled from the cruel destruction of their country by
the Romans; and the Christians, on account of the persecutions and
disorders which had arisen in the Eastern church.
We see by what facts, circumstances, and notions Muhammed was acted
upon, whilst nourishing his religious enthusiasm by solitary
contemplation in the cavern of mount Hara, to which he was wont to
retire for one month in every year. In his fortieth year, at the same
age at which Zoroaster began to teach 600 years before Christ
(according to some chronologers), Muhammed, as many years after the
Messiah, assumed the prophetic mission to reform the Arabians. He felt
the necessity of seizing some safe and essential dogmas in the chaos
of Magian, Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian notions; broke all the
figures of planets in the temple of Mecca, and declared the most
violent war against all plastic, graven, and painted idols; he left
undisturbed only the _black stone_, Saturn’s emblem before, and at the
time when the Jewish traditions claimed it for Abraham, and even
transported it to heaven. Muhammed preferred the latter to the more
ancient superstition; as to the rest, he abhorred the prevailing
idolatry of the Sabaians; and blamed the corruption of monotheism in
the Jews and Christians. He felt in himself the powerful spirit, and
undertook to re-establish the _Touhid_, “the unity and spiritualism of
God;” he preached with enthusiastic zeal the _Islam_, “devotedness und
resignation to God.”
But, in order to found and to expand the great and necessary truths,
he knew no other means, but to attach the believers to his own person,
and to accustom them to blind obedience to his dictates; he
proclaimed: “There is no God but God, and Muhammed is his prophet;” he
gave them the Koran, the only holy book, in which his precepts were as
many commands proclaimed under the penalty of eternal damnation. In
the Muhammedan all spontaneity is stifled; all desire, all attempt to
be self-convinced is interdicted; every thing becomes exterior, the
religious and civil Code but one.
Muhammed seemed not to know that religion cannot be the gift, as it is
not the property, of any single man; it belongs to mankind. Any
particular creed lives only by its inherent force, independently of
the founder, who retires and leaves nothing behind him but his name as
a mere distinction from that of another religion. Every individual
action is of little avail, if it does not proceed from the free and
pure impulse of the spirit, which must revive in all succeeding
generations. This is acknowledged in the Dabistán[162] by giving a
very philosophic explanation of the expression _prophetic seal_, or
“the last of prophets:” “That which is reared up by superior wisdom,
renders the prophet’s knowledge vain, and takes his color; that is to
say: if one hundred thousand prophets like himself realise in
themselves the person of superior wisdom, they are possessors of the
seal, the last prophets, because it is superior wisdom which is the
seal, and they know themselves to be _effaced_, and superior wisdom
existing.” Muhammed, although wise enough to connect himself with
other prophets, his predecessors, pretended however to close the
series, and to be the last of prophets, or “the seal of prophetism.”
Vain project! immediately after him violent contests arose,
“And discord, with a thousand various mouths.”
Thirty years after his death his family was dispossessed of the
Khalifat. This passed to the Moaviyahs, who, residing in Damascus,
kept it during 90 years, and then ceded it to the Abbasides, who
established their seat at Baghdad. The impulse and development of the
Islam was overwhelming during the one hundred and twenty years after
the prophet’s death; the mighty spirit of conquest had arisen and
was――I shall not say irresistible――but certainly badly resisted by the
nations assailed. The Romans and Persians were then hard pressed
themselves; on the West by the Goths, on the East by the Huns:――whilst
the Greeks had sunk into general luxury and degeneracy; all feebly
sustained the attack of hardy and active men, whose native habit of
rapine and devastation was then exalted and sanctified by the name of
religion, and continually invigorated by rich, splendid, and easy
conquests. Thus, the khalifs, who were divided into two great lines,
the before-mentioned _Abbasides_ and the _Fatimites_, extended their
empire within 600 years after Muhammed, not only over the greatest
part of Asia, but also along the western shore of Africa, Egypt,
Spain, and Sicily; threatening the rest of Europe.
After the first labors, came rest, during which the genius of the
Arabs turned to persevering study, deep speculation, and noble
ambition: this was the scientific age of the Arabs, which began in the
middle of our eighth century, and was most conspicuous in the old
seats of learning, Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Persia, and India. But in
the numerous schools rose violent schisms and bloody contests between
philosophy and religion. In the mean time the khalifs, by becoming
worldly sovereigns, had lost their sacred character, and were in
contradiction with the principle of their origin. The crusades of the
Christians, by reviving their martial energy, maintained for some time
the vacillating power of the Khalifs, but their vast and divided
empire, assailed by Pagan nations, first in the West in 1211, and
forty-seven years afterwards in the East, fell in 1258 of our era.
Muhammedism however revived in the barbarous and energetic conquerors,
Turks, Seljuks, Albanese, Kurds, Africans, who were drawn into its
circle; and science was again cultivated in Tunis, Bulgaria, and
India.
I thought necessary to draw this rapid historical sketch, because
within its outlines is contained the account of the Muhammedan sects
as given in the text of the Dabistán.
Mohsan Fani himself lived in the age of general decline of
Muhammedism. He exhibits in the sixth chapter the religion of his own
nation: we may expect that he will be true and accurate. He divides
the chapter into two sections: the first treats of the creed of the
Sonnites; the second, of that of the Shiâhs. These are the two
principal sects of the Muhammedans, but divided into a number of
others, exceeding that of seventy-three, which Muhammed himself has
announced, and consigned, all except one, to eternal damnation. This
one was that of the _sonnah_ “the traditional law,” or _Jamaât_, “the
assembly.” The Dabistán explains this religion in a manner which, to
Muhammedans, might appear sufficiently clear, in spite of digressions
and want of order in the arrangement of the matter; but an European
reader will desire more light than is afforded in the text, and feel
himself perplexed to understand the meaning of frequent technical
terms, and to connect the various notions disseminated in an unequal
narrative――now too diffuse, now too contracted. The following are the
principal features of the long account of Muhammedism contained in the
Dabistán.
Immediately after the promulgation of the Koran, which followed
Muhammed’s death, it became necessary to fix the meaning and to
determine the bearing of its text. There was one theme in which all
agreed: the grandeur, majesty, and beneficence of one supreme Being,
the Creator, ruler, and preserver of the world, which is the
effulgence of his power. This is expressed in the Koran in such a
strain of sublimity as may unite men of all religions in one feeling
of admiration. This excellence is an inheritance of the most ancient
Asiatic religion. God can but be always the object of boundless
adoration, but never that of human reasoning. Hence the Muhammedan
sects disagreed about the attributes of God.
The residence assigned, although inconsistently with pure
spiritualism, to the supreme Being was the ninth heaven; an eighth
sphere formed the intermediate story between the uppermost heaven and
seven other spheres, distributed among so many prophets, in the same
manner as, in the Desátir, the seven prophet kings of the Péshdadian
dynasty were joined to the seven planets which they, each one in
particular, venerated. Numberless angels, among whom four principal
chiefs, fill the universe, and serve, in a thousand different ways,
the supreme Lord of creation. We recognisee the notions of the ancient
Persian religion in this, and in the whole system of divine
government.
Another subject of violent and interminable dispute was God’s action
upon the nether world, principally upon mankind, or God’s universal
and eternal judgment, commonly called _predestination_. This subject
was greatly agitated by the _Matezalas_, _Kadarians_, _Jabarians_, and
others; they disputed
“_Of providence, foreknowledge. will, and fate,
Fix’d fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost._”
Although this subject appears to be connected with the Zoroastrian
doctrine of the two principles, “good and bad,” yet it has never been
agitated with so much violence in so many particular ways by any
religionists as by the Muhammedans.
It has already been observed that, according to tradition, the ancient
Persian philosophy was carried in the reign of Alexander to Greece,
and from thence, after having been recast in the mould of Greek
genius, returned in translations to its original country. We find it
expressly stated in the Dabistán, that Plato and Aristotle were
acknowledge as the founders of two principal schools of Muhammedan
philosophers, to wit, those of the _Hukma ashrákín_, “Platonists,” and
the _Hukma masháyín_, “Aristotelian, or Peripatetics.” To these add
the Súfí’s _matsherâin_, “orthodox Sufis,” who took care not to
maintain any thing contrary to revelation, and exerted all their
sagacity to reconcile passages of the Koran with sound philosophy.
This was the particular profession of the _Matkalmin_, “scholastics.”
These cede to no other philosophers the palm of mastering subtilties
and acute distinctions. They had originally no other object but that
of defending their creed against the heterodox philosophers. But they
went further, and attacked the Peripatetics themselves with the
intention to substitute another philosophy for theirs. It may be here
sufficient to call to mind the works of three most celebrated men,
_Alfarabi_, _Ibn Sina_ (Avisenna), and _Ghazali_, whose works are
reckoned to be the best specimens of Arabian and Muhammedan
philosophy.[163] They contain three essential parts of orthodox
dogmatism: 1. _ontology_, _physiology_, and _psychology_; these
together are called “the science of possible things;” 2. _theology_,
that is, the discussion upon the existence, essence, and the
attributes of God; as well as his relations with the world and man in
particular; 3. _the science of prophetism_, or “revealed theology.”
All these subjects are touched upon in the Dabistán, but in a very
desultory manner. I shall add, that the author puts in evidence a sect
called _Akhbárín_, or “dogmatic traditionists,” who participate
greatly in the doctrine of the Matkalmin, and in his opinion are the
most approvable of all religious philosophers.
The contest for the khalifat between the family of Ali, Muhammed’s
son-in-law, and the three first khalifs, as well as the families of
Moaviah and Abbas, a contest which began in the seventh century, and
appears not yet terminated in our days――this contest, so much more
violent as it was at once religious and political, occasioned the rise
of a great number of sects. Much is found about Ali in the Dabistán,
and even an article of the Koran,[164] published no where else
relative to this great Muselman, which his adversaries are said to
have suppressed. The adherents of Ali are called _Shiâhs_.
The Persians, after being conquered by the Arabs, were compelled to
adopt the Muhammedan religion, but they preserved a secret adherence
to Magism, their ancient national creed, they were therefore easily
disposed to join any sect, which was more or less contrary to the
standard creed of their conquerors, and bore some slight conformity,
or had the least connection with, their former religion. They became
Shiâhs.
Among these sectaries originated the particular office of _Imám_,
whose power partook of something of a mysterious nature: the visible
presence of an Imám was not required; he could, although concealed, be
acknowledged, direct and command his believers; his name was _Mahdi_,
“the director.” This opinion originated and was spread after the
sudden disappearance of the seventh Imám, called _Ismâil_. His
followers, the Ismâilahs, maintained that he was not dead; that he
lived concealed, and directed the faithful by messages, sent by him,
and brought by his deputies; that he would one day reappear, give the
victory to his adherents over all other sects, and unite the world in
one religion. More than one Mahdi was subsequently proclaimed in
different parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe――always expected, never
appearing――so that it became a proverbial expression among the Arabs
to denote tardiness: “_as slow as a Mahdi_.” We recognize in this an
ancient idea of Zoroaster: he too was to reappear in his sons at the
end of 12,000 years; rather late,――but mankind never tire of hope and
expectation.
A creed, like that of the _Ismâilahs_, because founded upon something
mysterious, vague, and spiritual, was likely to branch out in most
extraordinary conceptions and practices. The Dabistán abounds with
curious details about them. Their doctrine bore the character of
duplicity: one part was manifest, the other concealed. Their manner of
making proselytes was not open; they acted in the dark. They first
induced the neophyte to doubt, then to despise his own creed, and at
last to exchange it for apparently more sublime truths, until, after
having sufficiently emboldened his reasoning faculty, they enabled him
to throw off every restraint of authority in religious matters. We see
in the Dabistán,[165] the degrees through which an Ismâilah was to
pass until he believed in no religion at all.
A most remarkable sect of the Ismâilahs was that of the _Almutians_,
so called from _Alamut_, a hill-fort in the Persian province of
_Ghilan_. This fort was the seat of _Hassan_, a self-created Imám, and
became the capital of an empire, perhaps unique in the history of the
world.[166] An Imám, called by Europeans “the old man of the
mountain,” without armies, or treasures, commanded the country around,
and terrified a great part of Asia by a band of devoted adherents,
whom he sent about to propagate his religion, and to execute his
commands, which were frequently the murder of his enemies. The
executioners were unknown save at the fatal moment of action; mighty
khalifs and sultans met with their murderers among their most intimate
servants, or the guardians of their doors, in the midst of crowded
public places or in the solitude of their secret bed-chambers. The
_Fedayis_, so were they called, devoted themselves not only to the
sacred service of their Imám, but hired their arm also for profane
service to foreign chiefs, such as the Christian crusaders. Among
Europeans, these Ismâilahs were known under the name of _Assassins_,
which well answered their infamous profession, but is better derived
from _Hashishah_[167], a sort of hemp, from which they extracted an
intoxicating beverage for their frequent use. During one hundred and
sixty years the Ismâilahs were the terror of the weak and the mighty,
until they fell in one promiscuous slaughter, with the khalif of
Islámism, under the swords of the ferocious invaders who, issuing from
the vast steppes of Tartary, fell upon the disordered empire of the
Muhammedans.
The Ismâilahs, and other sects connected with them, professed a great
attachment to an Imám, whose lineage was always traced up to Ali
through a series of intermediate descendants; but it belonged to the
_Ali-Ilahians_ to deify Ali himself, or to believe his having been an
incarnation of God.
Another sect, the _Ulviahs_, also devoted to Ali, maintain that he was
united with the sun, that he is now the sun, and having also been the
sun before, he was for some days only united to an elemental body.
Both these sects reject the Koran.
Here terminates the review of the second volume of the English
Dabistán.
[161] See, in what sense, pp. 83-84.
[162] See vol. III. pp. 202-203. See also _ibid._, p. 229
and note 2.
[163] See upon this subject a recent very ingenious work:
_Essai sur les Écoles philosophiques chez les Arabes, et
notamment sur la doctrine d’Algazzalí, par Auguste
Schmölders, docteur en philosophie_, Paris, 1842. Dedicated
to M. Reinaud, member of the Institute of France, and
professor of Arabic.
[164] See vol. II. p. 368.
[165] Vol. II. pp. 404-407.
[166] See vol. II. p. 433 _et seq._
[167] See _Mémoires géographiques et historiques sur
l’Égypte et sur quelques contrées voisines, par Étienne
Quatremère_, vol. II. p. 504. 1811.
§ X.――THE RELIGION OF THE SADIKIAHS.
The third volume of this work begins with the seventh chapter, upon
the religion of the _Sadikiahs_. It is generally known that, during
the life of Muhammed, another prophet, called Musaylima, arose in the
country of Yamáma, and dared offer to himself in a letter to the
former as a partner of his sacred mission, but was treated as a liar.
He had however gained a great number of followers, at the head of whom
he was defeated and himself slain in a bloody battle against Khaled, a
general of the first Khalif, the very same year as Muhammed’s death.
We find in the Dabistán, what appears less generally known, that
Musaylima’s sect, far from being entirely crushed after his fall,
existed under the name of _Sadikias_ in the seventeenth century of our
era, and conformed to a second _Faruk_, or Koran, to which they
attributed a divine origin, and a greater authority than to the
first.[168]
Another account, not frequently met with, is contained in the eighth
chapter of the Dabistán, concerning _Vahed Mahmud_, who appeared in
the beginning of our thirteenth century, and is by his adherents
placed above Muhammed and Ali. Among his tenets and opinions is to be
remarked that of an ascending refinement or perfection of elemental
matter, from the brute or mineral to that of a vegetable form; from
this to that of an animal body; and thence progressing to that of
Mahmud.[169] Further, the particular mode of transmigration of souls
by means of food into which men, after their death, are changed; such
food, _in which intelligence and action may reside_, becomes
continually the aliment and substance of new successive human beings.
We were not a little astonished to find these singular opinions
agreeing with the information, which Milton’s archangel Raphael
imparts to Adam, the father of mankind.[170]
“O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to him return,
If not depraved from good, created all
Such to perfection, one first matter all,
Indued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and in things that live, of life;
But more refin’d, more spirituous, and pure,
As nearer to him plac’d or nearer tending,
Each in their several active spheres assign’d,
_Till body up to spirit work_, in bounds
Proportioned to each kind. So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More aery, last the bright consummate flower
Spirits odorous breathes: _flow’rs and their fruit,
Man’s nourishment, by gradual scale sublim’d,
To vital spirits aspire, to animal,
To intellectual_; give both life and sense,
Fancy and understanding; whence the soul
Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive, or intuitive ―― ―― ――.”
This sort of hylozoism is more expanded in a particular system of
cosmogony of the same Vahed,[171] according to which the materials of
the world existed from the very beginning, which signifies from the
first appearance of _afrad_, “rudimental units.” We can never think
meanly of this opinion, when we find it coinciding with that of
_Leibnitz_ in our seventeenth century, contemporary of Mohsan Fani.
According to the celebrated German philosopher,[172] there exists
already an entirely organical preformation in the seeds of the bodies
which are born, and all souls had always pre-existed in some sort of
organized body, and shall after death remain united with an organic
whole; because in the order of nature souls are not likely to exist
entirely separated from any kind of body. In the eighteenth century
_Bonnet_, a great physiologist, maintained,[173] that all was
preformed from the beginning, nothing engendered; all organized bodies
were pre-existing in a very small compass in the germs, in which souls
may also pre-exist, these indestructible germs may sojourn in such or
such a body until the moment of its decomposition, then pass, without
the least alteration, into another body, from this into a third, and
so on; each of the germs incloses another imperishable germ, which
will be developed but in a future state of our planet, which is
destined to experience a new revolution.
We see here the very same ideas, without any mutual communication,
entertained in the East and the West, in ancient and modern times.
Vahed Mahmud combines his cosmogony with periods of 8000 years, eight
of which form a great cycle of 64,000 years, at the completion of
which the world is renovated. This sect is said to have been widely
spread in the world; in Persia the persecution of Shah Abbas forced
them to lie concealed.
[168] Vol. III. p. 1-11.
[169] The Druids, among the ancient Britons, believed the
progressive ascent of the soul, beginning with the meanest
insect, and arriving through various orders of existence at
its human stage. The soul, according to its choice during
terrestrial life, progressed, even after death, in good and
happiness, or evil and misery; the virtuous could return to
earth and become prophets among mankind: in which belief the
ancient Britons agreed with the Indian Buddhists.
[170] Paradise Lost, V. v. 470-488.
[171] The Dabistán, vol. III. p. 17.
[172] See his _Théodicée, édit. Amsterd. préface, pp._
xxviii _et seq._
[173] See _La Palingénésie philosophique, ou Idées sur
l’État passé et sur l’État futur des Êtres vivans, par C.
Bonnet, de diverses Académies, Amsterd._ 1769, vol. I. pp.
170. 198. 201. 204, etc., etc.
§ XI.――THE RELIGION OF THE ROSHENIANS.
The ninth chapter of the Dabistán introduces to us _Mian Báyezid_,
who, born in the Panjáb, flourished in the middle of the sixteenth
century under the reign of Humayún, the Emperor of India. At first a
strict observer of Muhammedism, he abandoned afterwards the exterior
practices of this religion, and, devoting his mind to contemplation,
assumed with the character of a saint the title of a “master of
light;” his followers were called _Roshenians_, or “enlightened.” His
sayings, several of which are quoted in the Dabistán, express sound
reason, pure morality, and fervent piety. In the spirit of his nation
and time, and for self-defence, he took up arms against the Moghuls.
His history and that of his sons is carried to the middle of the
seventeenth century, the time of Mohsan Fani.
Muhammed was the permanent type of a prophet, in whom the religious
and political character were united. The first Khalifs were all
military chiefs and religious men; the Koran furnished the rules of
foreign and internal policy, the final decision of every tribunal, the
inciting exclamation to combat and carnage, and a prayer for every
occasion. The founders of sects were frequently warriors, or, what in
Asia is generally the same, highwaymen and plunderers of caravans;
such was the just mentioned Miyan Bayezid, and many others. As
possessors of empires, they preserved the austere habits of ascetics:
they carried a sabre and a rosary, counted their beads and gave order
for battle; emaciated by fasts, covered with a woollen mantle, sitting
upon the bare ground, they disposed of empires and received the homage
of millions of men.
The Mohammedans preserved their religion, as long as they were
militant: because all states of mental excitement are apt to support
each other. But, in solitary retirement, and in the precincts of
schools, the doctrine of Muhammed was put to the test of reason: now
began the struggle between religion and philosophy. Fearful to part at
once with early impressions and national feelings, attempts to
reconcile faith and reason were made; religious philosophers had
recourse to allegory, in order to rationalize strange and absurd
dogmas and practices; for the literal they substituted a mystical
sense; under arbitrary acceptations and interpretations, the
foundation of the doctrine itself disappeared, or was confounded with
some old dogma renewed, if not one entirely invented: in short, the
Muhammedan religion appeared to have survived itself; its presumed
period of one thousand years was believed to be completed under the
reign of Akbar.
§ XII.――THE RELIGION OF THE ILAHIAHS.
Akbar was the greatest among the Moghul emperors of India. He began in
his fourteenth year a reign environed by war and rebellion. After
having vanquished all his enemies and established peace and security
around him, he turned his attention to religion. He soon found it
right to grant unlimited toleration to all religions in his empire.
Called the “shade of God,” he took the resolution to realise in
himself the otherwise vain title bestowed by slavish flattery upon all
sovereigns of Asia, and to imitate, according to his faculties, him
who bestows the blessings of his merciful providence on all creatures
without distinction. This he declared to his fanatic son Jehangir, who
did not conceal his discontent about the building of an Hindu temple
in Benares: “Are not,” said Akbar, “five-sixths of all mankind either
Hindus or unbelievers? If I were actuated by motives similar to those
which thou ownest, what would remain to me but to destroy them all?”
The inquisitive emperor was acquainted with the religious history of
the Persian empire; he surrounded himself with men of all
religions――Muhammedans of all sects, Hindus, Jews, and Christians, as
well as with philosophers free from superstition; he liked to question
them all, and to encourage public polemical discussions in his
presence. The Sonnites and Shiâhs reviled reciprocally the chief
personages of their adherence, the three first khalifs and Ali;
Muhammed himself was not more spared than his companions and
successors. The errors of their doctrine, the vices of their
character, and the irregularities of their conduct were freely
exposed, severely blamed, and wittily ridiculed. If Muhammedism was
treated in such a manner, other religions could not claim more
indulgence. The dramatic form, which Mohsan Fani gives to the
religious controversies, is certainly curious; we can scarce suppose
his having known the dialogues of Lucian, nor is it in the least
probable that a late French author ever saw the Dabistán and took from
this book the idea of the twenty-first chapter of his celebrated work,
entitled “Problem of religious “contradictions.”[174] The object aimed
at by these three authors was the same; but their compositions differ
from each other as much as the genius and character of the Greeks,
French, and Persians, in whose language each of them respectively
wrote. In whatsoever point Mohsan Fani may yield to the Greco-Syrian,
or to the French author, he, certainly, I will venture to say, equals
them in force, boldness, and sincerity; and perhaps surpasses either
in pointed application of truth. His objections are not vague attempts
of witticism with the intention to ridicule: they are special and
serious, directed to real and patent falsehood or prejudice; he does
not fence with imaginary shadowy adversaries, but he strikes a present
and tangible foe; his style, never tainted by affectation, is plain
and blunt, such as becomes a reformer combating popular superstition.
The controversies, the scene of which is placed before the throne, or
rather tribunal, of Akbar, obtain the imperial sanction: Muhammedism
is condemned.
Indeed, the emperor abrogated several practices of that religion to
which he had been devoted in his first years; he confined the
cultivation of science, as taken from the Arabs, to astronomy,
geography, medicine, and philosophy, and wished to prevent the waste
of life in futile and useless studies. At last, in the month of
December, A. D. 1579, twenty-six years before his death, he
substituted for the common profession of the Muhammedans the new:
“_There is no God but God, and Akbar his khalif_ (or deputy).” He
received from a great number of Amirs and distinguished persons the
voluntary agreement and consent to four conditions, namely, the
sacrifice of property, life, reputation, and religion, by entering
into the new religious pact, called _Ilahi_, “divine.” Moreover, he
introduced in lieu of the former, a new era, to begin from the death
of his father Huinayún, that is from the year of the Hejira 963, (A.
D. 1555): it was to be called _Ilahi_; the months were regulated
according to the mode of Irán, and fourteen festivals established in
concordance with those of Zoroaster’s religion. It was to this ancient
Persian creed, that he gave the preference, having been instructed in
its sacred tenets and practices by a learned fire-worshipper who had
joined him; and from books which were sent to him from Persia and
Kirmán. He received the sacred fire, and committed it to the faithful
hands of _Abu’l fazil_, his confidential minister: the holy flames of
Zardusht blazed again upon the altars of _Aria_, and, after a
separation of many centuries, Persians and Indians were reunited in a
common worship.
As a proof of Akbar’s expansive mind, directed to all subjects which
may interest mankind, I shall mention his having sequestered a number
of children, before they could speak, from all communition with the
rest of society, in order to know whether they would form a language.
After fourteen years of seclusion, it was found that they were dumb:
“which made it evident,” says Mohsan Fani, “that language and letters
are not natural to man――that language is of a long date and the world
very ancient.”[175]
In the third section of the tenth chapter, the author treats of the
influences of the stars upon the nether world, a very ancient
superstition, common to most nations. Every master of fame is said to
have worshipped particularly one of the stars; Akbar also received
divine commands with regard to them. We find, in a digression of this
section, curious historical details respecting the person of Jangis
khan, his adoration of the celestial bodies, epilepsy, and singular
superstition of combs. The great conqueror addressed to his sons the
most earnest admonitions to remain faithful to the religion of the
stars, to which their fortune was attached; but fifty-three years
after his death one of his successors and a great part of his nation
embraced Muhammedism.
The fourth section of the tenth chapter contains important information
upon the administration of India. Akbar was the first of the Moghul
emperors who considered India as his native country, and directed his
best efforts to the amelioration of its condition. Exalted to the
highest rank, not only by his birth, but also by his personal
acquirements; assisted, besides, by a train of devoted and enlightened
servants, he could promise himself duration of the new religion, which
he had fondly labored to found. In vain: it disappeared with him.
Private persons, camel-drivers, and robbers, emerging from obscurity,
such as Muhammed, and others before and after that Arabian leader,
effected more than an emperor, with every possible advantage united in
and around his person! Human intellect was perhaps then satiated with
religion; its measure was full: it could not receive any more. In
fact, after Muhammed a number of sects, but no new religion, arose: in
this sense he may, with some appearance of truth, be called the last
of prophets, or the _Khátim_, “the seal of prophetism.”
Akbar died in 1605 A. D., eight or ten years before the birth of the
author of the Dabistán. The latter passed his youth and manhood in
India, under the reigns of that emperor’s son, Jehangir, and
grand-son, Shah Jehan, and great-grandson Aurengzeb; and was in
personal connection with the latter’s brother, the religious
Darashukoh. Mohsan Fani had therefore good opportunities to be
informed of the events of their days. The religion of the _Ilahiahs_
is properly the last of which he treats; for what relates to the
religions of the philosophers and Súfis, the subjects of the two last
chapters, are rather selections of all creeds and opinions, than
particular religions. It will be remembered that sir W. Jones supposed
these two last chapters not to have been written by the author of the
rest of the Dabistán, which I dare neither affirm nor deny.[176]
[174] _Les Ruines, ou Méditations sur les Révolutions des
Empires, par M. Volney, député à l’Assemblée nationale de_
1789, _Paris_, 1791.
[175] Thus, our author coincides with lord Monboddo, who
showed that language is the slow product of necessity among
men linked in society. See his work _Of the Origin and
Progress of Language_, with the motto of Horace:
“Mutum ac turpe pecus ―― ―― ―― ――
Donec Verba quibus voces sensusque notarent
Nominaque invenere.”
[176] See note, p. 6, n. 2.
§ XIII.――THE RELIGION OF THE PHILOSOPHERS.
In the eleventh chapter, entitled “Of the religion of the Wise,” we
find it repeated that Philosophers were divided into two great
classes: “the Eastern and the Western.” The first are the
_Hushangians_, teachers of the Greeks until the time of Plato and
Aristotle; it is believed that their philosophy, modified and refined,
returned from Greece to Asia, and was received by the Muhammedan
scholars to be adapted to their own creed. Then took place a singular
mixture and confusion of Siderism, Judaism, Christianity, Muhammedism,
and all sorts of philosophic opinions. The cosmology of the
Hushangians was preserved. Seven special prophets, Ismâil, Jesus,
Joseph, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, and Abraham, inhabit the seven
heavens,[177] to begin from that of the Moon, which is the lowest, and
rising upwards. If, in general, ten spheres are assumed,[178] they are
made the dwellings of so many intelligences. These ideas, so ancient,
as we have seen, were not disowned by eminent men in much later times.
The great Kepler, and after him Reaumur, believed that intelligences
or souls directed the movements of celestial bodies. Philosophers,
struck with the marvellous order of nature, were adverse to admitting
any mechanism――the very name of which frightened them; they therefore
called all occult powers souls or spirits. The same idea is adopted in
morality: whatever is praiseworthy is _angelic_, whatever blamable,
_satanic_. _From goodness arises an angel; from badness, a Satan_: so
said the prophet. Such simple and truth-like ideas were either
originally disguised under the vest of fiction; or existing traditions
of various origin were afterwards more or less ingeniously interpreted
as allegories. Thus, the ordinary names, expressions, tenets,
traditions, and practices of the Arabian prophet received symbolic,
allegoric, mystic interpretations. The _Kabah_ (the square temple of
Mecca), the holy centre of a living, circumambulating world, becomes
an emblem of the sun; its famous _black stone_, hollowed by the kisses
of the pious, represents Venus, the bright star on the borders of
heaven; _paradise_, its milk, honey, wine, _Tuba_ (tree of beatitude),
_Hur_ and _Kasur_ (nymphs and palaces) allude to intellectual
delights; _hell_, its _Zakum_ (tree of nature), and torments, are
explained as unavoidable consequences of depravity. Such
interpretations of the Muhammedans seem often to be like their bridge
_Sirat_, which connects heaven and hell, _sharp as a razor and thin as
a hair_. _Transmigration_, or rather reproduction, is admitted,
although not easily reconciled with the resurrection of the same body.
_The blasts of the trumpet_, and the whole scene of the resurrection
lose their materialism in a sort of rational allegory. _The other
world_ is the destruction and renovation of nature at the completion
and renewal of great periods of time, one of which comprised 360,000
solar years. _Resurrection_ is “the wakening from the sleep of
heedlessness;” whenever an intellect attained that degree of
perfection, it has returned to its origin; it is restored to life;
this indubitably happens when nothing material exists: for, “where
there is no body, there is no death.”
After having treated in this way the great dogmas of religion, the
Muhammedan philosophers found it not more difficult to rationalise
every circumstance respecting their prophet, he who obeyed the voice
of an invisible speaker. Did Muhammed really _split the moon_? Not in
the least――splitting is penetrating from the exterior into the
interior; the fissure of the moon typifies nothing else but the
renunciation of the external for the internal, which is “the superior
wisdom;” who possessed it more than the prophet (the peace of God be
with him!) he, the master of the _lunar sphere_? This, with the
Orientals, is the seat of human intelligence and perfection.[179] One
of their greatest scholars, or as they say “the learned of the world,”
known to us under the name of Avisenna, undertook to give a reasonable
account of Muhammed’s _ascent to heaven_, and framed a wonderful
romance of mystic spiritualism. He terminates by explaining how the
prophet, after his return from such a journey, could find his
bed-clothes still warm: “He had travelled with his mind, and when he
had completed his mental task, returned back to himself, and in less
than an eye’s twinkling recovered his former state; whoever knows,
understands why he went; and whoever knows not, looks in vain for an
explanation.”
We may, not without interest, observe the natural process of the human
mind in reviewing and reforming conceptions, the original form of
which is not seldom entirely obliterated. The author of the Dabistán
does more than satiate the most inquisitive reader with allegoric, now
and then very fanciful, interpretations, which he continues, not
without repetitions of the same subjects, through the subsequent
chapter, upon which I am about to touch. Mohsan Fani, here as
elsewhere, fails not to adduce several philosophers of more ancient as
well as of his own times. Among the latter is _Hakim Kamran_, whose
free and sound opinions, about the origin of societies and the
prophets regulating them, will be read with some interest; as will
also the account of the books which Kamran read and explained, whence
the state of literature of those times may be inferred.
[177] See (vol. I. p. 293, note 1) the seven heavens under
particular names, as given in the Viraf-namah, and the
explanation of them. The seven prophets above-named are
somewhat differently distributed by other authorities. See
the notes to Avisenna’s explanation of Muhammed’s ascent to
heaven (vol. III. pp. 186. 189). I shall subjoin the
distribution of the seven prophet-kings, according to the
Desátir, and that of seven Jewish and Christian prophets,
according to the notes just referred to:
PLANETS: ACCORDING TO ACCORDING TO
THE DESATIR. MUHAMMEDAN AUTHORITIES.
Saturn, Inhabited by Gilshaw. Inhabited by Abraham.
Jupiter, ―― Siamok. ―― Moses.
Mars, ―― Hushang. ―― Aaron.
The Sun, ―― Tahmuras. ―― Idris.
Venus, ―― Jemshid. ―― Joseph.
Mercury, ―― Feridun. ―― Jesus, St. John.
The Moon, ―― Minocheher. ―― Adam.
[178] See the Cosmology of the Desátir, compared with that
of the modern Orientals, vol. III. p. 143, note.
[179] According to the Occidental fabulists (see Ariosto’s
_Orlando Furioso_, canto XXXIV), the moon holds, in a strait
valley between two mountains, all that mortals lose here
below: fame, tears and sighs of lovers, lost time, futile
designs, vain desires, ancient crowns, all instruments of
deceit, treaties, and conspiracies, works of false coiners
and knaves, the good sense of every body, is there bottled;
all is there except folly, which remains below, and never
quits the earth:
_Sol la Pazzia non v’è poca, nè assai,
Chè stà quaggiù, nè se ne parte mai._
§ XIV.――THE RELIGION OF THE SUFIS.
We arrive at the last chapter, “_Upon the Sufis_;” the most abstruse
of the twelve, but to which we are well enough prepared by the
contents of the former.
Súfism, according to the Dabistán, belongs to all religions; its
adherents are known, under different names among the Hindus, Persians,
and Arabians; it appears to be nothing else but the rationalism of any
sort of doctrine. It could never be the religion of a whole nation; it
remained confined to the precincts of schools and societies.
In the work before us we find it stated, that the belief of the pure
Súfis was the same as that of the Ashrakians (Platonists): we know
what the Muhammedans have made of it. According to the Imám Koshairi,
quoted by Jâmi,[180] the Muselmans, after Muhammed’s death,
distinguished the eminent men among them by no other title but that of
“the companions of God’s apostle.” These were, in the second
generation, called _Tábáyún_, “followers.” Afterwards the Islamites
were divided into divers classes; those among them who particularly
devoted themselves to the practice of religion, were named “servants
of God,” which name was, after the rise of numerous sects, claimed by
some from among all the different sectaries. It was then that the
followers of the orthodox doctrine, in order to preserve the purity of
their faith and the strength of their piety, assumed the name of
_Súfis_, which name became celebrated before the end of the second
century of the Hejira, that is, before the year 815 of our era. We may
believe one of the greatest scholars of Muhammedism, _Ghazáli_, who
ranged himself among the Súfis of his time towards the end of our
eleventh century, when he declares that in their society he found rest
in believing one God, the prophet, and the last judgment: this is the
faith of the _orthodox Súfis_.
The assumption of any particular name carries men, who so distinguish
and separate themselves from their fellows, much further than they
themselves at first intended, particularly when the distinction and
separation are founded upon vague and indeterminate notions of
metaphysics. Under the impression, that there are secrets upon which
their salvation depends, they will stretch reason and imagination to
penetrate them. The Súfis are divided, according to their own
phraseology,[181] into three classes: “_the attracted_, _the
travellers_,” and “_the attracted travellers_;” the last of whom
combine the qualities of the two former. I will class them here, with
respect to their doctrine and manners, into five orders.
1. The religious Súfis, in general, are occupied with something beyond
the limits of our natural consciousness; they exercise to the utmost
their inward organ or inner sense, and acquire a philosophic
imagination――
“The vision and the faculty divine.”[182]
Such was the prophetic gift of Muhammed, and as long as they adhere to
his sayings, they are _the orthodox Súfis_, whom I have already
mentioned.
2. Another order endeavor to comprehend, to fix, and to explain the
attributes of God; the holy object sanctifies their efforts;
unattainable, it exalts their souls above themselves;
incomprehensibility yields to the sacred power of self-intuition;
mysterious darkness to celestial light; their intellect, no more
terrestrial, “knows its own sun and its own stars;”[183] by continual
mental excitement they produce in themselves (according to their own
phraseology) a state of intoxication; in the full enjoyment of their
liberty, they approach the Supreme Being, and finally fancy an
intimate union with their Creator. These are the _mystic Sufis_.
Man, to express his most fervent adoration of the Divinity, uses the
expressions by which he is wont to address the object of his most
tender affections; he has but the fire of earth to kindle in sacrifice
to heaven; and to elevate his soul to the Supreme Being, he makes
wings of the most lively sentiments which he ever experienced, and can
excite in himself. The intensity of inward feeling breaks loose in
outward demonstrations, gesture, song, and dance――
“Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere
Of planets, and of fix’d, in all her wheels
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolv’d, yet regular,
Then most, when most irregular they seem.”[184]
Such in the poet’s eye is the dance of angels, but less refined must
be that of mortals, and really one sort of it strangely contrasts with
the usually grave deportment of bearded ample-robed Muselmans, from
Muhammed, who gave the example, down to the Durvishes of our days,
who, with frantic howls and vehement whirling motions, by ludicrous
and unseemly exhibition, destroy the whole gravity of inward
intention. Mohsan Fani adduces some instances of dancing, and quotes
throughout his work verses of mystical poetry upon Divine love, in
glowing expressions belonging to profane passion. It is known how
equivocal in their meaning they appear in the works of Jelal eddin
Rumi, Sâdi, Hafiz, and others.[185]
3. It was not always vehement enthusiasm which was nourished in the
contemplation of one Supreme Being; mysticism, in Súfis of a milder
character, became _quietism: he to whom all things are one, who
draweth all things to one, and seeth all things in one, may enjoy
peace and rest of spirit_. I have quoted the words of an English
bishop, Jeremy Taylor, and might borrow similar passages from a more
ancient Christian bishop, Synesius,[186] for expressing a sort of
purely _spiritual pantheism_. But there is another, which seems not to
exclude materialism: the great cause from which the infinite series of
all material and spiritual existences originates, is enveloped, as it
were, with the vest of the universe; never known as to its essence,
but always felt in its manifestations; it is
“All in all, and all in every part.”[187]
In short, God is all, and all is God. This appeared not more
incomprehensible, but less complicated than any other system to the
_pantheistical Súfis_.
4. After excessive efforts to transcend the limits of his nature, the
philosophic inquirer re-enters into himself, and coerces his futile
attempts by the precept: “Know thyself.” Having, as it were, recovered
himself, and feeling that every thing proceeds from the depth of his
mind, he sees himself in every thing; heaven and earth are his own;
“he demands from himself whatever he wishes;” for he is every thing;
he finds the God whom he sought in himself, in his own heart, and
says, “Who knows himself, knows God.” This is religious psychology,
the creed of the _egotist class of Súfis_.
It is a fact which appears incredible, but is too well attested for
the admission of a doubt, that Súfis believed themselves to be gods,
and adhered to their belief, amid torments, until death.[188] This
psychological fact may be explained by considering that, according to
Súfism, God is nothing else but an idea of the highest perfection;
_he_, says our author, _from whose sight both worlds vanished, who in
the steps of right faith arrived at the rank of perfect purity, from
truth to truth, became God_; that is, he became one with his own idea
of perfection, which cannot be disputed to him; his divinity is an
illusion, but nothing else to him is the world; it is all and nothing,
dependent upon his own creation and annihilation.
V. Transacting as it were directly with the Divine Being, the Súfis
throw off the shackles of the positive religion; pious rebels, they
neither fast nor make pilgrimages to the temple of Mecca, nay, they
forget their prayers; for with God there is no other but the soundless
language of the heart. From excess of religion they have no religion
at all. Thus is confirmed the trite saying that “extremes meet.” “_The
perfection of a man’s state_,” says Jami, “_and the utmost degree to
which saints may attain, is to be without an attribute, and without a
mark_.” The most fervent zeal sinks into the coldest indifference
about religion. The author of the Dabistán declares positively,[189]
that “whoever says that the Muselmans are above the Christians, does
not know the true Being.” But the whole creed of an _emancipated_
(this is the name I give to one belonging to the fifth order of Súfis)
uniting in himself the egotist, pantheistic, and mystical Súfi will be
found in the following verses of Jelal-eddin Rúmi, before mentioned:
[190]“O Moslims! what is to be done? I do not know myself; I
am neither Jew, nor Christian, nor Gueber, nor Moslim; I am
not from the East nor from the West; nor from land nor sea;
neither from the region of nature nor from that of heaven;
not from Hind nor China; not from Bulgaria nor Irak, nor
from the towns of Khorassan. I am neither water nor dust,
wind nor fire; not from the highest nor deepest, neither
self-existent nor created; I am not from the two worlds, no
son of Adam, not from hell nor from heaven, nor paradise. He
is the first, the last, the interior, the exterior; I know
but him, Yahu! Yahu! Menhu! I looked up, and saw both worlds
to be one; I see but one――I seek but one――I know but one. My
station is without space, my mark without impression; it is
not soul nor body; I am the soul of souls. If I had passed
one single day without thee, I would repent to have lived
one single hour. When one day the friend stretches out his
hand to me in solitude, I tread the worlds under my feet,
and open my hands. O Shams Tabrizi,[191] I am so intoxicated
here that, except intoxication, no other remedy remains to
me.”
We know, by the preceding, what the Súfi is not; we shall now learn
what he is.
“O Moslims! I am intoxicated by love in the world. I am a
believer――an unbeliever――a drunken monk; I am the Shaikhs
Bayazid, Shubli, Juneid, Abu Hanifa, Shafei, Hanbeli; I the
throne and tent of heaven, from the dust up to the Pleyads;
I am whatever thou seest in separation and enjoyment; I am
the distance of two bows-length[193] around the throne; I am
the Gospel, the Psalter, the Koran; I am _Usa_ and
_Lat_,[194] the cross, the _Bál_ and _Dagon_,[195] the
Kâbah, and the place of sacrifice. The world is divided into
seventy-and-two sects, but there is but one God; the
believer in him am I; I am the lie, the truth, the good, the
evil, the hard and the soft, science, solitude, virtue,
faith, the deepest pit of hell, the greatest torment of
flames, the highest paradise, Huri, Risvan,[196] am I. What
is the intent of this speech? Say it, O Shams Tabrizi! The
intended meaning is: I am the soul of the world.”
After having sounded human nature in its depth, and viewed it in its
various forms, the Muhammedan philosophers conceived a high idea of
man in general, and call him _insan kamil_, “the perfect man.” He is
the reunion of all the worlds, divine and naturaf, universal and
partial; he the book, the pure, sublime, and venerable pages of which
are not to be touched, nor can be comprehended, but by those who have
thrown off the dark veils of ignorance. His soul is to his body what
the universal soul is to the great world, which bears the name of “the
great man.”
Sir William Jones refers,[197] for a particular detail of Súfi
metaphysics and theology, to the Dabistán. These are given with a
particular phraseology, for which it is not easy to find corresponding
expressions in any European language; and which I have endeavored, to
the best of my power, to explain in my notes. A particular
signification is attached even to the most common terms, such as
state, station, time, duration, existence, non-existence, possibility,
presence, absence, testimony, sanctity, annihilation, etc., etc.
Besides, we find particular divisions and classifications: different
attributions and names of the Deity, the unity of which is to be
preserved in all; the division of spirits, prophetism, true and false
miracles, revelation, inspiration; four sorts of mankind, as many of
life and death; seven degrees of contemplative life, in each of which
degrees the Súfi sees a different color; four lights of God; four
sorts of manifestations, the sign of which is annihilation, called
“the science,” or “positive knowledge.” Further we meet with a
metempsychosis for the imperfect soul, and an _appearance_ for the
perfect; even with a geography of the invisible, the land of shades in
the towns of _Jabilkha_, _Jabilsa_, and _Barzah_, etc., etc.; and, in
addition, manifo I pinions of Asiatic philosophy.
Here should be pointed out how Muhammedan or other Súfis may be
confounded with the Hindu Yogis or Sanyásis, although in reality
distinguishable from each other. The Yajur veda, and other sacred
books of the latter inculcate the precept that a man ought to acquire
perfect indifference concerning the whole exterior world, and in all
places to lay aside the notion of diversity. This is what a Yogi or
Sanyasi endeavors to attain: he quits every thing, house, wife,
children, even his _caste_; the world has no more right upon him than
he upon the world. In this he agrees with the Súfi; but the latter
generally aspires to the divine gift of inspiration, prophetism,
mystical enthusiasm, whilst the common state of a Yogi is that of
complete impassiveness or torpor.
It is only towards the end of the Dabistán that Mohsan Fani mentions
particularly the _Sabeans_, whose religion was, from the very
beginning of the work, treated of under different names of the ancient
Persian religions, such as _Yezdanians_, Jamsaspians, etc., etc.
[180] See _Journal des Savans, décembre 1821_, pp. 721, 722,
_art. de Silvestre de Sacy_.
[181] The _Sálik_, _Mejezub_, and _Mejezub Salik_. (See A
Treatise on Sufism, or Muhammedan Mysticism, by lieutenant
J. William Graham. In the Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of
Bombay, vol. I. p. 99, 1811.
[182] Wordsworth.
[183] “―― ―― ―― Solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.”
_Æneis_, c. VI. v. 641.
[184] Milton’s Paradise Lost, V., v. 620-624.
[185] The two first give their name to the mystic and moral
age; from 1203 to 1300; the third to that of the highest
splendor of Persian lyrical poetry and rhetoric, from 1300
to 1397 of our era.――(See _Schöne Redekünste Persiens Von
Joseph Von Hammer, Wien_, 1818.)
[186] He was born in Cyrene, in Africa, towards the end of
our fourth century, and died, about 430, bishop of
Ptolemais.
[187] Cowley.
[188] See vol. III. p. 291 n. 1.
[189] See vol. III. pp. 123 n. 4; 293 n.
[190] I follow the German translation of Baron von Hammer,
_loco cit._, p. 189.
[191] Shams-eddin Tabrisi, whom Jelal-eddin names at the end
of nearly all his lyric poems, is said to have been the son
of Khuand Ala-eddin, chief of the Assassins (Ismâilahs). He
gained a great celebrity as a Súfi and a saint. From Tabriz,
from which town he took his surname, he came to Konia; there
Jelal-eddin chose him for his spiritual guide, and remained
attached to him all his life, which terminated A. D. 1262.
Shams-eddin survived him. The tombs of the master and
disciple, near each other in Konia, are even in our days
objects of veneration to pious Muselmans.
[192] _Ibid._, p. 191,
[193] The distance to which Muhammed approached God in
heaven.
[194] Two Arabian idols, the Dusares and Allitta of
Herodotus.
[195] Syrian deities.
[196] The guardian of paradise.
[197] In his Treatise on the mystical poetry of the Persians
and Hindus: vol. IV. of his Works, p. 232.
§ XV.――RECAPITULATION OF THE CONTENTS OF THE DABISTAN.
Thus I have indicated the principal contents of the Dabistán.
Considering the philosophic opinions touched upon, we may remark that
truth, although in different times and places variously colored,
veiled, sometimes mutilated, often running into falsehood, is
nevertheless widely diffused, inasmuch as it reappears in the
concurring declarations of the greatest thinkers of all times. Thus,
among the notions of the Asiatics, we find implied the sense of the
ἐντελέχεια (_entelechia_) of Aristotle, this untranslatable word,[198]
which however can but signify “some continued and perennial
motion,[199] activity, moving force, perfection, principle of
things”[200]――we find _time_ and _space_, the necessary substrata of
all our notions, as taught by the Kantians――the want of substantial
reality in the objects of senses, maintained by the sceptics in
general――the prototypes and ideas of the Pythagoreans and
Platonists――the necessary connections of all things of the Stoics――the
atomic doctrine of Moschus, Leucippus, Democritus, Empedocles,
etc.――the universality of sensation and life of the Hermetites――the
preformation and pre-existence of the soul, alleged by Synesius,
Leibnitz, and others――the successive transformation, transmigration,
gradual perfection of beings; the periodical renovation of the world
professed by many Greek schools――the palingenesis of Bonnet――the _one_
and the _all_ of Parmenides, Plotinus, Synesius, Spinoza, not to omit
the refined Egoismus of Fichte, etc., etc. I shall not proceed further
in the enumeration of opinions ascribed in the Dabistán to different
sects, and reproduced in the doctrine of celebrated ancient and modern
philosophers of Europe. Who will realize that criterion of true
philosophy indicated by the great Leibnitz, namely, that which would
at once collect and explain the fragments of truth scattered through
all, and apparently the most incongruous, systems?
This is perhaps the prize to be gained, not by one mortal, but by a
series of generations, in a laborious task, so often interrupted and
recommenced, but never abandoned. The struggle of the human mind is
without term, but not without aim. We see two principal movers of
human intellect――PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION. The one employs reason as a
sufficient power for the solution of a solvable problem, which
comprehends knowledge, morality, and civilisation. The other distrusts
reason, and relies upon a supernatural power for the revelation of a
secret, or for the word of an enigma, which relates to a destination
beyond the bounds of this world. The philosopher, self-confident, is
liable to error for various reasons; but always capable of correction
and improvement, in the only possible way, that of self-activity, the
virtuous exertions of his faculties towards attainable perfection in
his whole condition. The religionist is exposed to deception by his
gratuitous faith in superhuman guidance, and, if mistaken, is
precluded from regress and improvement by his essential virtue,
fidelity; that is, the pious surrender of his soul to a spiritual and
mystical sovereignty. The Dabistán shows us more religionists than
philosophers; it is the school of sects, or rather that of inveterate
superstition, with which, in spite of the correctives which human
nature affords to its errors, the general character of the Asiatics
remains stamped, from time immemorial to the present day.
Although the twelve chapters of the Dabistán bear the titles of as
many religions, the author says himself, at the end of his work, that
there are only _five_ great religions――those of the Hindus, Persians,
Jews, Nazareans, and Muselmans. He no where mentions the Egyptians nor
the Chinese, apparently because, in his times and long before, no
trace of the Egyptian religion existed, although it certainly had once
occupied a great circle of influence, and because the Chinese creed
was known to be Buddhism.
The five religions mentioned constitute indeed so many bases, upon
which the whole creed of mankind has been, and remains founded. They
comprise, in general, _polytheism_ and _monotheism_. In all times and
places, the religion of the “Enlightened” was distinguished from that
of the “Vulgar;” the first as interior, being the product of universal
reason, was every where nearly uniform; the second, as exterior, being
composed of particular and arbitrary rites and ceremonies, varied
according to the influence of the climate, and the character, history,
and civilisation of a people. But, in the course of time, no religion
remained entirely the same, either in principle or form. Polytheism,
by mere simplification, tended to monotheism; this itself, in its
awful incomprehensibility, was modified according as it originated, or
assumed its notions, from anthropomorphism, hylozoism, spiritualism,
or pantheism. Nor did any religion remain simple and pure, as
proceeding from only one principle; all religious ideas, elemental,
sidereal, allegorical, symbolical, mystical, philosophical, and others
were mixed, as well as all sorts of worship interwoven. It is now
impossible to range in chronological order their rise and transition
into different forms. Still the one or the other of these kinds
predominated: thus _physiolatry_, or “the adoration of personified
nature,” in India; _astrolatry_, or “the worship of stars,” in Arabia
and Iran; none of the religions entirely disclaimed _monotheism_,
which was positively and exclusively professed in Judaism,
Christianity, and Muhammedanism.
Magism and the three last-named religions were founded or modified by
holy personages, or prophets, that is, by individuals whose historical
existence in more or less remote times is positively fixed; Hinduism
alone acknowledges _Manu_ as an ideal or mythological person, whose
laws are however derived from Brahma himself. This may perhaps be
assumed as a proof of its remotest antiquity; and India, having been
less disturbed by invasions, and conquered in much later times by
foreign nations, preserved its institutes complete in their
originality. There is scarcely a tenet to be found in any other creed
which does not, at least in its germ, exist in the Hindu religion.
It is most remarkable that, although men revered as divine messengers
of religion have existed, still the works containing the heaven-sent
doctrine are, either not at all or not incontestably, ascribed to
them; and in any case devolved upon posterity in a more or less
corrupted and mutilated state; so as to entail for ever an
inexhaustible subject of dispute, a heavy task for belief, and severe
trial of faith. If the Vedas are the best preserved, it is to no
general purpose, inasmuch as they are the least known and most
obscure. These facts the author of the Dabistán has set in full light,
and says,[201] as it were to tranquillise mankind with regard to the
multifarious inheritance of their prophets: “The varieties and
multitudes of the rules of prophets proceed only from the plurality of
names; and as in names there is no mutual opposition or contradiction,
the superiority in rank among them is only the predominance of a name.
To this I subjoin another passage, although it occurs in connection
with another subject:[202] “The time of a prophet is a universal one,
having neither priority nor posteriority――neither morning nor
evening:” that is, if I understand these words: As the same sun ever
shines upon us, so shines the same wisdom of all times, incorruptible
in its divine source.
If we take a rapid comparative view of the principal features of the
five religions mentioned, we find _emanation of all beings,
intellectual and material, from one great source_, to be the
fundamental and characteristic dogma of Hinduism, established and
developed in the most explicit and positive manner. _The division of
supernatural beings in good and bad_ is adopted in the five religions,
but in Magism it is of a somewhat different origin: for Ahriman and
his host are not rebellious or fallen good genii; they are an original
creation. _A primitive innocence and posterior corruption_ is
generally believed; but by the Hindus as coming from riches and
abundance, by the other nations as caused by seduction of the bad
spirits. _The destruction of mankind by a deluge_ is no part of the
Persian creed; it occurs in the Indian as one of the past periodical
renovations of the world, which are to be followed by others, and is
also admitted by the Persians, whilst the Jews, Christians, and
Muhammedans believe a deluge not very ancient, as a punishment of
human depravity. _Incarnations of the Deity for the benefit of
mankind_, are believed only by Hindus and Christians; to the latter
belongs exclusively the dogma of _a propitiatory sacrifice. Human
souls, immaterial_, have pre-existence according to the Vedas and the
Zand-Avesta; in the first, as parts of the Divinity; in the latter, as
created in their _fervers_, or “pre-established ideals” at the
beginning of the world. _Transmigration_ is taught in the sacred books
of the Hindus and Persians. _The immortality of the soul, reserved to
future beatitude or damnation_, is maintained generally, less
positively, by the ancient Jews; the righteous are cheered by the
prospect of the same heaven, the wicked threatened by the same
punishments, which are held to be eternal by Christians and
Muhammedans; the Hindus and Persians place the future life in a long
series of purifications or _purgatories_, leading, howsoever late,
finally to heaven, to which, according to the first, the most perfect
only are admitted immediately after their terrestrial life, and are
not to be born again, except by their own choice. _The resurrection
with the same body, and the last judgment_, are among the most
essential tenets of the Magi, Christians, and Muhammedans; the other
world is vaguely represented among the ancient Hebrews. It is just to
attribute to the Persians exclusively one of the most beautiful
personifications that was ever imagined:[203] the soul of the deceased
meets at the bridge of eternity an apparition either of an attractive
or repulsive form; “Who art thou?” asks the uncertain spirit, and
hears the answer: “I am thy life.”
Although the variety and multitude of human conceptions may appear
boundless, yet they may perhaps be reduced to a few fundamental
principles. In general, there is one object common to all sorts of
religion: this is to detach man from gross sensual matters, and to
accustom him to hold converse with holy supernatural beings, guides to
salvation, _omnipresent_ witnesses of all his actions, remunerators of
good, punishers of bad deeds; the belief in such beings, one or more,
is in fact the most essential support of morality, which, being fixed
in each individual, insures the peace and happiness of all. In short,
the most important object of all religion is to ennoble, refine, and
sanctify man’s inmost thoughts and feelings, as well as his exterior
actions. No wonder, that the same virtues are recommended by all
religions.
But, if these virtues be the same as to names, there is a great
difference as to their practical application. Thus, the Hindus,
tending excessively to the extinction of sensual propensities, and a
contemplative life, destroy spontaneity, and produce apathy. The
Persians recommend more practical virtues. Both nations, however, as
well as the Jews and Muhammedans, are subject to a great number of
dietetical and ritual observances, which divert them from useful
activity, confine their practical sense, and render inert the innate
perfectibility, the most precious prerogative of mankind. Among all
the Asiatic nations, considered in this work, theocracy, that is, the
junction of the religious and civil laws, doubles the power of
despotism, and commands equally the spiritual and material, the
present and the future world. The Western Christians were in the
course of time fortunate enough to modify the _Asiatic_ morals, to
enlarge the circle of civilization, and to open to themselves a
boundless prospect of progressive knowledge, morality, and happiness.
Finally, there is one idea common as an adjunct to the five religions
of mankind. Common are their failings, common their sufferings, common
is also their consolation――hope. Always regretting a purity,
simplicity, and independence, supposed to have been lost in the past,
because not to be found any where in the present, and never exempt
from oppression, men look to the future, and listen gladly to the
promise of universal reform and restoration to one rule, which each
religionist says, will be his own, to be effected among the Hindus by
_Kalki_, an incarnation of Brahma[204], among the other nations by the
reappearance of their respective _prophet_, _Messiah_, _Mahdi_.
“And then shall come,
When the world’s dissolution shall be ripe,
With glory and pow’r to judge both quick and dead,
To judge th’ unfaithful dead, but to reward
His faithful, and receive them into bliss,
Whether in Heav’n or Earth, for then the Earth
Shall all be Paradise.”[205]
[198] Hermelaus Barbaro relates that, finding the
interpretation of that word so difficult, he one night
invoked the devil for assistance. The old scoffer did not
fail to appear, but told him a word still more unintelligible
than the Greek. Hermolaus at last brought forth the strange
term _perfectihabia_, which, I think, nobody adopted.
[199] Cicero circumscribes the word: _Quasi quandam
continuatam motionem et perennem_ (_Tusc. Quæst._, I. 10).
Budæus translates it _efficacia_.――(On this subject see
_Thesaurus Græcæ linguæ ab Henr. Stephano constructus_, new
edit., Paris, 1838.)
[200] Leibnitz (Op. t. II. p. II. p. 53; t. III. p. 321),
after having said, that to the material mass must be added
some superior principle, which may be called _formal_,
concludes: “This principle of things, whether we call it
_entelechia_, or ‘force,’ is of no matter, provided we
recollect that it can only be explained by the notion of
force.”
[201] Vol. III. p. 276.
[202] _Ibid._, p. 289.
[203] Vol. I. p. 286.
[204] Vol. II. p. 24, and _Vishnu-purana_, transl. of
Wilson, p. 484.
[205] Milton’s Paradise Lost, XII. v. 458-464.