Le califat de yazid ier. 1909-21

They are to be met with in scattered groups, prin­cipally in the north of Africa, in the Mzab (Algeria), in the neighbourhood of Ghardaya, in the island of Jerba, at Jebel Nefusa (Tripolitania), and finally in the province of ‘Oman (Arabia), whence they crossed to Zanzibar. In Algeria their opposition to the Sunnis has brought the Mzabites into friendly relations with the French government, especially since the latter has authorized them to be judged according to their own laws. The devotion of Syria to the cause of

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THE SHI'AS. The thorny question of the prophetic vicariate was to provoke the birth of other scissions including that of the Shi'as, the most important of all by reason of its extent and ramifications. They derived their name from the word Shi'a, a party, as they were the ‘partisans’ of ‘Ali, ‘Shi'at ‘Ali’.

The political question which first gave rise to the conflict was reinforced later by doctrinal divergences, some of them exceedingly daring especially among the extremist factions of the Shi‘a: belief in the survival of the Shi'a Imam, in his reappearance, in metem­psychosis, and in the partial or total incarnation of the Divinity in the person of the ‘Alids. ‘Ali's ambitious and numerous descendants soon split up the Shi‘a into a multitude of sects—computed at about seventy—each of which called down anathemas on the others.

All, except the modifications admitted by the Zaid­ites (v. below), deny that the Caliphate—or Imamate as they call it—can be subject to election. They believe it to be reserved for the descendants of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet and wife of ‘Ali, by virtue of an express stipulation of Muhammad. Since ‘Ali, every Imam has the right to nominate his successor from among his sons. The ‘Alids form the caste of the Sherifs or nobles, a title especially reserved for the direct descendants of Hasan, the eldest son of Fatima. That of Seyyid, lord, is the quali­ficative of the Husainids; the line of Husain, younger brother of Hasan. Excluded from power by the Omayyads, imprisoned or killed by the ‘Abbasids, lacking in political acumen, jealous and quarrelling fiercely among themselves over the title of Imam, they constituted an opposition party whose conspira-

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cies and badly organized revolts fill the annals of the two first centuries of the Hijra.

The commemoration of the death of Husain, Muham­mad's grandson, who fell in the mad escapade of Ker­bela (Oct. 10th, 680), forms one of their chief festivals. It is a feast of mourning, celebrated on the tenth of the month of Muharram; a sort of Shi'a Holy Week, filled with dramatic performances (ta'zia) intended to commemorate the tragedy of Kerbela. The fall of Husain, a quite mediocre person, excites the Shi'as to the point of delirium. ‘We shall continue to mourn him unto the very bosom of Paradise,’ writes an Indian Shi'a. ‘The heart of every true Shi'a is the living tomb of Husain.’ And in a book with the pretentious title Husain in the Philosophy of History (Lucknow, 1905) the same author calls his hero ‘the primordial cause of existence'.

Among the Shi'as, even the most moderate, the cult of ‘ahl al-bait’, ‘The People of the Family’, the title borne by the direct descendants of Muhammad, is followed to the detriment of the veneration in which Islam holds its Prophet. Muhammad is slightly eclipsed by ‘Ali, just as ‘Ali is somewhat thrown into the shade by Husain. The pale hero of Kerbela has completely supplanted his elder brother Hasan whom the Shi'as cannot quite forgive for making terms with Mu'awiya, the first Omayyad Caliph. Husain is deemed to have sacrificed himself voluntarily in order to reconcile God with humanity and thus effect, as it were, a redemption. Muhammad, ‘Ali and Husain form a Shi‘a trinity. The first-named represents revelation, ‘Ali interpretation or the esoteric meaning (ta’wil) of the Qoran, and Husain redemption.

The tomb of Husain at Kerbela, and that of ‘Ali at Najaf, are to the Shia's objects of pilgrimage not less sacred than the holy cities of the Hejaz. Kazimain

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and Samarra (Iraq) are also numbered among their holy cities, to which, as well as to Kerbela and Nejd, they like to convey the mortal remains of their dead. In these centres dwell the great ‘ulema, or mujtahid, as they are called, whose authority has the force of law in the sect.

The ‘Kitman’ or ‘Taqiyya’. The surveillance of the Omayyads and still more the bloody repression of the ‘Abbasids having reduced them to dissimulation and conspiracy, they invented the doctrine of ‘kit-man’, or secrecy, which is characteristic among the tendencies of these sectarians. They also called it ‘taqiyya’, prudence, a word borrowed from the Qoranic vocabulary (3, 27). All the Shi'a collections contain a special chapter entitled ‘book of the taqiyya’.

The Hanifites themselves foresee and legitimize the case where to save self or relations and friends recourse is had to mental reservation. The Shi‘a taqiyya goes far beyond this exception. A true Shi'a not only feels authorized, but obliged by conscience to hide his intimate feelings and still more his religious convictions. Among the enemies of his beliefs, he can speak and behave as though he were one of them. In acting thus, in bearing false witness or taking false oaths, when the interests of his sect demand it, he thinks he is obeying the command of the supreme or hidden Imam. The Imam of the Shi'as being, accord­ing to their conception, infallible, the adept acquires by dissembling the right to speak as would the Imam in the same circumstances, while believing inwardly as the Imam believes. It is unnecessary to point out the moral consequences of this doctrine, of this law of secrecy, which maintains and legalizes perpetual equivocation. With the exception of the Zaidites, all the sects which have sprung from the Shi'a have recourse to the taqiyya. It is practised with the utmost

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rigour by those Shi‘a extremists who are organized in secret societies: Isma'ilis, Nosairis, and Druses (vide below), especially the last two.

THE HIDDEN IMAM. In place of the Sunni Caliph, a usurper in the eyes of the Shi'as, the chief of the latter takes the name of Imam. He must, as we have seen (p. 144), belong to the ‘People of the Family’ or ‘of the House’. This expression is borrowed from the Qoran (33, 33). The context clearly shows that it denotes only the harem and the wives of the Prophet who were united under his roof at the time when the text was given out.

Traditional exegesis began by extending it first to his descendants and then to his kindred. This last exten­sion was artfully made by the ‘Abbasids, who used it to prepare the way for their ascent to the Caliphate. The Shi'as consider it completely valueless for the purpose of deciding who is to hold the Caliphate, or sovereignty of Islam. In their eyes the Imam Caliph should be a direct descendant, not simply a relation of the Prophet. This entails reserving the dignity to the Fatimids, the children of Fatima and ‘Ali , to the exclusion of the offspring of other marriages contracted by ‘Ali, to the exclusion, above all, of the ‘Abbasids, the posterity of ‘Abbas, the uncle of Muhammad.

Persecution obliged them to disguise their religion, and since the decease of their twelfth Imam, who died without issue, the Shi'as, seeing themselves without a leader, invented a strange doctrine: that of the ghaiba, or absence, that is, the absence of the Imam. Since then, they constitute a ‘hidden community’. It is directed by a mysterious Imam, himself immune from death. Be he known or unknown, the adepts are bound to swear fealty to him, as much as to Allah and the Prophet. This is the walaya, or allegiance to the Imam, which is superimposed on the ‘five

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pillars of Islam’ and amongst the Shi'as is placed first in importance.

Unlike the Sunni Caliph, a temporal leader deprived of all authority in the matter of dogma, guardian merely of the Shari'a and civil defender of Islam, the Shi'a Imam becomes its Pontiff and infallible teacher. He is not only Muhammad's temporal successor, but also the inheritor of his dignity, from which he has received the super-eminent prerogatives of witness and interpreter of the revelation. He is in very sooth a religious and spiritual leader, with an even stronger title than that of the Pope in the Catholic Church, since to the privilege of infallibility, ‘isma, he adds the divine gift of impeccability. Thus he is the sole and permanent channel of all sanctifying prerogatives and illuminative inspirations.

In view of this, the Shi‘a cannot, as we have seen, admit the principle of Sufism and its methods of spiri­tual perfection, independent of the hidden Imam and exempt from his control. As for his exceptional pre­rogatives, the Imam is said to owe them to a portion of the divine knowledge and illumination which have descended into his soul. He himself, however, remains a merely human being, as were his ‘Alid ancestors. The distance that separates the Shi‘a Imam from the orthodox Caliph is obvious. He possesses the esoteric knowledge (ta’wil) communicated by Muhammad to ‘Ali and transmitted to the Imam. This is a further reason for the hostility of the Shi‘a to Sufism. The Imam alone has the right to decide controversial questions. In his infallible authority, which admits neither the restriction nor the control of discussion, the Shi'as believe they have found something better than the agreement (ijma') of the community, an agree­ment necessarily incomplete, difficult to establish, and in the last resort open to error. The Shi'as do

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THE IMAMITES OR TWELVERS. These are the points that might be called common to the divers factions into which the Shi‘a divided at an early date. In the family of ‘Ali unity always left much to be desired. Among his numerous descendants, the offspring, or otherwise, of his marriage with Fatima, and then among the ‘Alids, genuine or so-called, the aspirants to the role of Imam continued to multiply and gave birth to new sects. The most widespread and the one which has remained nearest to the starting-point of the Shi‘a is that of the ‘Imamites’ or ‘Twelvers’, ithna-'ashariyya. They are called by the latter name because they acknowledge the existence of twelve Imams, of which the list is appended; it will be found to contain likewise the genealogy of the Imams to which Zaidites and Isma'ilis trace the origin of their sect:

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IMAMISM numbers about seven million adherents in Persia. To this figure must be added five million adepts scattered throughout British India and a million and a half in Iraq. The great majority of Persian Shi'as belong to the faction of the ‘usuli’, directed by the canonists or ‘mujtahids’. The minority —a million in number—have taken the name of ‘Akhbari’, because, beside the Qoran, they only admit the ‘Akhbar’ or traditions. We shall speak later of the Sheikhis (v. Babism) and of the branch of the Imam­ites called Metoualis, scattered throughout Syria.

THE MAHDI. The belief in an Imam-Mahdi and in his second coming forms the centre of the Shi‘a creed.

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The Mahdi of the Sunnis is an ill-defined personality, who, apart from his descent from Fatima, recalls but distantly the Shi'a Imam reappearing after centuries of ‘absence'. He must bear the same name as his ancestor, the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah, a detail which certainly seems designed to rule out the candidature of the Shi'a Imam, Muham­mad ibn Hasan. The mission of restorer of Islam, assigned to the Mahdi, is nevertheless a disquieting matter. Despite its more moderate form, which has indeed enabled it to sink deeply into the popular mind, adventurers and political agitators have been able to exploit the Sunni doctrine right up to recent years (we may recall Muhammad Ahmad, the Mahdi of the Sudan) and to stir up revolution in Muslim countries by giving themselves out as the Mahdi.

Among the Shi'as, the Imam-Mahdi, notwithstanding his ‘absence', is said to remain in constant communi­cation, through the medium of his ‘privileged ones', with his followers, who may not resist his commands. When, in October 1908, the Constitutional Party in Persia launched its appeal to the people, it pressed for ‘consultation with the doctors of the Holy City of

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DIVERGENCES BETWEEN THE SUNNIS AND SHI'AS. The main line of demarcation between the two parties is drawn by the fundamental dogma of the Imam-Mahdi. From the orthodox point of view this doctrine, which is at once political and religious, makes of the Shi'a a heresy and schism. The Shi‘a Imam, heredi­tary chief of Islam, is ‘ma'sum’; he enjoys the double prerogative of infallibility and impeccability Orthodox Islam recognizes these prerogatives only in the prophets who are immune from doctrinal error as well as from physical and moral imperfections which might be harmful to the success of their mission. In matters of dogma, the Shi'as adhere in the main to the theories of the Mu'tazilites. Their devotion consists entirely in the cult of the Imams. All Persians bear the name of an Imam, often preceded by the words ‘'Abd, Gholam’—servant—or by a predicate referring to a prerogative of the Imams.

Otherwise, in the matter of beliefs, rites and discip­line the divergences between the Shi‘a and the Sunna are hardly more marked than those separating the four juridical schools. Indeed, it has been proposed to count it as a fifth school, with the name accepted by the Sunnis of ‘Ja‘ fari’ rite, an appellation derived from the sixth Shi'a Imam ‘Ja'far as-Sadiq’ (v. p. 148), whom the Shi'as regarded as the author of the Imamite fiqh. They cannot forgive the great

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Among the Sunnis the new moon of Ramadan must be established empirically and attested by witnesses; the Shi'as admit its determination by astronomical calculation. They have introduced a slight variant in the adhan or call to daily prayers. In the funeral prayers they add a fifth takbir to the four in use among the Sunnis. The latter take as their chosen title ‘ahl as-Sunna’, people of the Sunna, or Sunnis, in order to mark their attachment to the custom and traditions of the Prophet.

From this it has been erroneously deduced that the Shi'as reject the Sunna and the hadith which are supposed to establish it and that they do not recognize these as the second ‘root’, after the Qoran, of dogma and religious discipline. But they claim to possess their own Sunna and traditions or ‘akhbar’, a word which they substitute for hadith. These akhbar, which they consider as the only ones authorized, differ from the hadith because the isnad admits only the testimony of the ‘Alids, the Imams and their partisans. These collections, scarcely less voluminous than those of the Sunnis, have been compiled and are interpreted with still less regard for internal criticism; the sole object is to support the privileges of the Imam, the Shi'a dogma of the Imam-Mahdi and the exclusive claims of the ‘Alids to the Caliphate.

SHI'A EXEGESIS. They also believe that they find these claims in the Qoran, by means of ta’wil, or allegorical interpretation. This elastic symbolism has furnished them with a rich exegetical literature which they trace back to the Imams. Ta’wil allows them to utilize and preserve the text of the official Qoran, while awaiting the hour when the hidden Imam shall come to reveal the original text to the world. The

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Ta’wil is often puerile; for example, in the Cow which is to be sacrificed (Sura II, v. 63) they propose to recognize ‘Ayesha, the mortal enemy of ‘Ali. In effect they agree that they interpret the same Qoran as the orthodox, while affirming that it does not repre­sent the first version. In places they assume the exist­ence of variants, they slip in glosses, without, however, going so far as to keep these tamperings in the text used for religious ceremonies.

The absence of mention of ‘Ali in the book of Allah embarrasses them greatly. But in the epithet ‘Ali which the 43rd Sura, verse 3, applies to the Qoranic revelation, they recognize the name of Fatima's husband. Elsewhere, in place of Ilyasin (37, 130), the Qoranic name of the prophet Elias, they suggest reading “Ali ya sin’. Obsessed by their Imamite theories, they substitute for the word ‘omma’, na­tion, ‘a’imma’, very similar in Arabic writing, which permits of their finding in the sacred text (Qoran 2, 137; 3, 106, etc.) an allusion to the Imams. They discover yet another allusion—this time to the esoteric wisdom of the Imams, in the verse ‘Allah has taught the bees’, meaning the ‘Alids. ‘The wholesome fluid produced by the bees’ (16, 70) can be nothing other than the Qoran. It is to this bold exe­gesis that ‘Ali owes his original sobriquet of Emir of the Bees conferred on him by the Shi'as, especially by the religious writings of the Nosairis. One last trait will complete the description of the ‘tafsir’ of the Shi'as. He found thee ‘erring’ (dallan). Thus Allah addresses Muhammad in the 93rd Sura, v. 7. This verse refers to the polytheistic error, professed by the future Prophet, prior to his mission. A Shi'a interpreter found this a stumbling-block. Substituting the nomi­native for the accusative of the text, he has read ‘dal­lun’ in place of ‘dallan’. This correction gives the

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meaning ‘one gone astray has found thee', or has met thee, which appears to him to save the prestige of the Prophet, the ancestor of the Imam.

After the central theory of the Imam-Mahdi and the corollaries which proceed from it, the most serious point of discipline which separates Shi'as and Sunnis consists in mut'a, or temporary marriage. This union, which may be dissolved after a period stipulated between the parties, is severely condemned by the orthodox fiqh, which classes it with adultery.

THE METOUALIS. The Shi'as, with the exception of the Zaidites, are still further distinguished from the Sunnis by an attitude markedly more intolerant toward other religions. They differ also in interpreting literally this dictum of the Qoran (9, 28): ‘The Infidel is unclean.’ They infer from it that to touch him or merely to be in his company entails moral defilement, they refuse to eat or drink out of a utensil touched by one of the heterodox, to partake of food prepared by him, or to marry a Scripturary woman. They curse all the enemies of ‘Ali, namely, all those among his contemporaries who did not take up his quarrel, without excepting even the most intimate friends of Muhammad. This is an excess severely criticized by the orthodox Shari'a, since the Qoran (9, 101) has canonized the whole company of ‘Companions’ of the Prophet by declaring them ‘the object of Allah's favour'.

This savage intolerance can still be observed to-day among the Shi'as of Syria, known in that country by the name of Metoualis, an appellation derived from ‘muta­wali’, a partisan, that is of ‘Ali and the ‘Alid Imams. They are chiefly to be found in communities gathered in the territory of the Great Lebanon, where they number about 130,000, to which must be added 25,000 scattered over other parts of Syria. They reject the historical title of Metoualis, popularized by the early

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documents, and substitute for it the name of Shi'as or Ja'farites, after the juridical rite to which they adhere. They belong, like the Persians, to the sect of the Imam­ites or Twelvers, but are neverthess Syrians by race.

THE ZAIDITES. Settled in the mountain groups of Yemen (Southern Arabia), they have founded an inde­pendent ‘Alid Imamate and rejoice in an organization which is in theory very democratic. They are the most moderate of the Imamite factions and the nearest to the Sunnis. In place of the fifth Imam of the Twel­vers, they acknowledge a certain Zaid, grandson of Husain, himself the Prophet's grandson (see table, p. 148). This Zaid conceived it his duty to vindicate, by force of arms, the rights of the ‘Alid family. He perished while fighting in Iraq against the troops of the Omayyad Caliph Hisham (740). The manner of his death brought him into prominence. His name has been borrowed without justification; since all through his lifetime he remained in perfect harmony with current orthodoxy. The Zaidites, none the less, consider him as the founder of their sect and of their particular legislation.

The Zaidites maintain the highest right of ‘Ali to the Caliphate, less on account of his relationship to the Prophet than in virtue of the super-eminent qualities with which they endow him. But this does not cause them to contest the legitimacy of Muhammad's two first successors. They refuse to curse them, they admit neither the esoteric science of the infallible ‘Alid Imams nor temporary marriage (v. p. 154), as do the Twelvers, nor temporary hell for the Muslim who has died impenitent and guilty of ‘Kaba'ir'. The Imam, a Hasanid or Husainid, it matters little which, must be a man of action and assert his right. Thus it is clear that they do not adhere to the theory of the hidden Imam nor to the practice of taqiyya. All these char-

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On the whole the Zaidite opinions are in obvious agreement with what has been called ‘laudable’ or ‘moderate’ Shi'ism, tashayyu‘ hasan. This theory, held in the past by Sunnis of high standing, professes a discreet cult for ‘the People of the House’, that is to say, the Prophet's family, without falling into the exaggerations of the Shi'a. It reserves all its severity for the Omayyad Caliphs. The ancient dynasty of the Sherifs of Mekka who belong to the line of Hasan (v. table, p. 148) at first adhered to the Zaidite confession.

The following sects sprung from Imamism are strictly secret and initiatory, that is to say, admis­sion is by way of initiation only. They have preserved the principles laid down by the Twelvers on the pre-eminence of the ‘Alid Imams to their most extreme conclusions. None has constituted a graver menace to the future of Islamic orthodoxy than Isma'ilism, a doctrine which continued to develop until by way of Carmathianism and Fatimidism it gave birth to Drusism.

THE ISMA'ILIS take their name from Isma‘il (762), son of the sixth Imam of the Twelvers, Ja'far as-Sadiq (v. p. 148). In this Isma‘il they end the line of ‘visible Imams’. But because he died before his father or was disowned by him, the other Shi'as disputed his right to the title of Imam. The Isma'ilis, more logical in their ‘Alid legitimism, claim that his title must have passed to his son Muhammad and they practically

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consider Isma‘il and his son together as the seventh Imam. It is for this reason that they are also called ‘Sab'iyya’, or the Seveners.

They proclaim the necessity for a ta'lim, or teach­ing placed above human discussion, whence their sobriquet of ‘Ta'limiyya’. They consider that this doctrine can only be dispensed by the Imam. As a natural corollary they exact from their partisans a blind adherence to the ta'lim of the Isma‘ili Imam, whose character of infallibility and superhuman prerogatives they stress, even more forcibly than do the pure Imamites. The Isma'ilite ta'lim did not at first differ substantially from the ‘ta’wil’, or allegorism, in use among the Shi'as. Since the Carmathians, the last word of this teaching seems to have been that the divers religions are symbols for the use of the masses. For the initiated is reserved a philosophical and abstract doctrine, the science of ‘batin’, of the inner meaning, concealed in the verses of the Qoran. This exegetical method has gained for them a third title, that of ‘Batiniyya’.

In the midst of the disintegration of the Shi'a, when the claimants, almost all insignificant, multiplied and fought amongst themselves, the Seveners seemed destined to form an Imamite sub-sect propagated by emissaries (da'i, pl. du'at) in the service of a new hidden Imam. They would have vegetated in obscurity but for the doctrinal adhesion of Carmathians, savage revolutionaries, whose career of violence drenched Syria and Mesopotamia in blood in the ninth to eleventh centuries. In its turn, Carmathian Isma'ilism begot the Imamism of the Fatimid Caliphs (909-1171). This dynasty, which was founded in the Maghrib by the adventurer ‘Ubaidallah (909-934), and which gained control of Egypt and Syria, was able to modify the fierce energy of the Carmathians and turn it into

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Since its adoption by the Carmathians, Isma'ilism had been transformed into a kind of carbonarism uniting all the malcontents, Arabs and Iranians, in order to lead them to the assault on the ‘Abbasid Caliphate. The principle of the ‘Alid legitimism served to mask a complete programme of social revolu­tion and democratic justice. They endowed these claims with the attraction of mystery and of scientific novelty, by exploiting the Platonic ideas current since the translation of the Greek philosophers. In religion, Carmathianism made use of a systematic catechism adapted to all religions, races and castes, by incessant recourse to gnostic cabbala, and reference to the inner meaning, ‘batin’, of the sacred Books.

The Carmathian leaders ended by ceasing to have any interest in ‘Alidr legitimism and by working for their own ends. The Fatimids who claim descent from ‘Ali and the seventh Imam were primarily concerned with dynastic interests, and reverted to Isma'ilian Imamism. Social reform faded into the background. Of its Carmathian stage it preserved nothing but its hermetic science, a secret organization concerned with propaganda and the grades of initiation, recalling the degrees of freemasonry.

We possess only in fragmentary form the original writings of the sect. Other sources of a later date fail to give us adequate information as to the evolution of the Isma'ilian doctrine in its passage from Car­mathianism to Fatimism and finally to ‘da'wa jadida’, Neo-Isma'ilism or reform, inaugurated by the ‘Assas­sins’ of Alamut (1090) and those of Syria. Beside the postulata, borrowed from the most advanced factions of Imamism, the most striking feature in the system of the Seveners is the part played by the

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number seven, maintained, in spite of the addition of Muhammad to his father Isma‘il, in the number of the Imams and later in that of the degrees of initiation.

Isma'ilite cosmogony seems to be gnostic in origin. God is without attributes and inaccessible. He has no communion with the universe except through seven degrees of emanation: God, Universal Reason ('aql), the Universal Soul, primitive Matter, Space, Time and the terrestrial World. God has created the lower world by Universal Reason and the Universal Soul. Time is divided into seven cycles, each corresponding to a manifestation of the divinity. Seven is likewise the number of the prophets or ‘natiq’, speakers. The list of these speakers begins with Adam and ends with Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and, lastly, the Isma'ilite Imam. The ‘natiq’ is the in-carnation of Universal Reason. He is helped by the Universal Soul, also incarnate, and called asas, or base. These helpers or bases are again seven in number. Their mission consists in making manifest by the method of the inner meaning the esoteric doctrine of the speaker. Thus it is that Aaron has helped and completed Moses, and Simon-Peter Christ. ‘Ali has given the allegorical and final interpretation of the Qoran or of the preaching of Muhammad.

Finally, there are seven degrees of initiation, brought up to nine under the Fatimids. First, by insinuation and a series of insidious questions, then by systematic doubt (tashkik), the adept is gradually brought to take an oath of blind submission to the ta'lim of the in-fallible and half-deified Imam. Arrived at the stage of ta’sis, or stabilization, he then finds himself placed above all beliefs, and freed from all religious obliga­tions. For these are nothing more than symbols: hell denotes ignorance; paradise the state of the soul which has attained to perfect knowledge; resurrection

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The great majority of adepts never go further than the third degree, where they deliver themselves over to the authority of the Isma'ilite Imam. The mission­aries and propagandists (da'i) scarcely attain to the last but one. The political assassinations to which the Seveners owe their sinister reputation do not form a tenet of their ta'lim, or secret doctrine. It is ‘propaganda by deed’, one of the excesses ordered by the terrible Grand-Masters of Alamut which Car­mathian carbonarism had already put into practice.

Neo-Isma'ilism or ‘da'wa jadida’, half schism, half reformed Fatimism, inaugurated by Hasan ibn Sabbah (†1124), was in fact the religion of the partisans of the ‘Sheikh al-Jabal’, or ‘The Old Man of the Mountain’, nicknamed ‘Assassins’ (from the Arabic Hashshashin) because they were said to be addicted to hashish and other narcotics. In the time of the Crusades they terrorized Syria by their political assassinations. Their descendants, numerically much diminished and in any case quite harmless, still form a small group there (about 20,000) in the mountains between Hama and Latakia, as well as in Salamiya, to the east of Homs. They are equally widespread in Persia and Afghanistan.

Their chief centre is in India, where they take the title of Khoja or Maula. There they form wealthy communities in which emigration to East Africa is popular. They are Nizariyya, that is to say, partisans of the Imamate of Nizar, eldest son of the Fatimid

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Caliph Mustansir (1094). This Nizar had been ousted in favour of his younger brother, who became the Caliph Musta'li (1094-1101). The Bohoras or proto-Isma'ilis of India support the Imamate of the latter. The Bohoras are themselves divided into sub-sects of which the most numerous, that of Daudis, numbers 130,000 adherents.

The present Chief of the Khojas is Sir Muhammad Shah ibn Agha ‘Ali, commonly called the Agha Khan. This descendant of Hasan ibn Sabbah, the first Grand-Master of Alamut and initiator of Neo-Isma'ilism, is counted as the forty-seventh Imam, going back to ‘Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet. He is a great noble-man, fabulously rich, and very well known in high society in the West. The Khojas hand over to him a tenth of their revenue and a visit to this deified per­sonage takes the place of the pilgrimage to Mekka.

A few representatives of Carmathian Isma'ilism are still to be encountered in Arabia (in the country of Najran) and in the province of Ahsa (Arabia), an old Carmathian stronghold. The Isma‘ili sects trouble no more about the other ‘pillars of Islam’ than they do about pilgrimage. Notwithstanding the dislike which the Sunnis and Shi'as vie with one another in showing towards them, it is remarkable that the leading Isma'ilis, and foremost the Agha Khan, exhibit a lively feeling of Muslim solidarity of which they have given proofs in the recent crisis of the Caliphate.

THE DRUSES. The Sunni theologians have always been careful to maintain the distance separating God from His creatures. They show Him as communi­cating with them only by the summary revelation of

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indispensable laws and sanctions. The Shi‘a sects, on the contrary, have sought to diminish this distance. They thought to achieve success by exalting, in various degrees, the pre-eminence of the ‘Alid Imams. Did the Imams or Fatimid Caliphs share in the divine nature? The Isma’ilite doctrine does not affirm it ex professo: but is content to insinuate it.

In an official letter, intended to recall the dissident Carmathians to their allegiance, the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Mu'izz (952-975), under whom the conquest of Egypt was completed, did not hesitate to proclaim the pre-existence of the Imams, his ancestors. It was for their sake, he asserted, that the world had been created. ‘They were the eternal world of Allah, His perfect names, His dazzling lights, His brilliant signs and the ineluctable decrees of the divine Fatum: the Uni­versal Soul proceeding from the earthly Intellect, celestial wonders which had become tangible and visible.'

When the fanatical Fatimid, Hakim (996-1020), gave himself out as the final incarnation of the Divinity, he merely drew the ultimate conclusions from those premises, which are contained in germ in the system of Fatimid Isma‘ilism; he gave birth to Drusism.

The Druses do not dispute the inconsistencies and eccentricities of their hero, any more than the Christian doctors disavow ‘the follies and the shame of the Cross’. The creators of the sect even insist on them with complacency, look them full in the face and experience no embarrassment in giving them an allegorical interpretation. All these oddities were intentional and symbolical. ‘They must not be re­garded as other than emblems whose object was to establish the unitarian doctrine’ (S. de Sacy), that is, the doctrine of the Druse religion. Hakim allowed his hair to grow long because the hair is the emblem of

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the external practices of the Law. He affected woollen apparel, which is the symbol of ta’wil, or the inter­nal Law. He adopted as his steed an ass which represents (sic) the ‘natiq’ or speakers of the previous religions which he came to abolish.

Among the earliest and the most active propa­gandists of Drusism must be named Darazi, an inti­mate companion of the Caliph Hakim. Forced to leave Egypt in consequence of excess of zeal, Darazi spread the sect in the cazas of Syria where the presence of Isma‘ili communities had prepared the soil for him. From Wadi't-taim, at the foot of Hermon, it spread into the Lebanon, then into Jabal Summaq and other mountainous districts in the region of Aleppo. Darazi entered into conflict with Hamza ibn ‘Ali, the spokesman of Hakim and the real creator of the religious system of the Druses. He endeavoured to supplant his rival but went down in the struggle; his name was given over to execration and himself condemned to death. His ministry must have been remarkably fruitful, since, in spite of these sorry memories, the Druses have inherited from Darazi their popular and historic name, which they themselves disown.

The Caliph Hakim perished mysteriously. His partisans refused to believe in his death. As his human form was only a semblance and ‘the transparent veil of his divinity’, this death could only be a test intended to separate the Believers from among the hypocrites. Hakim was temporarily concealed in his divine Essence in order to reappear at the chosen moment, to give over to his Faithful the dominion of the world and to punish evil-doers. Until the time of his return, no other appearance or incarnation of the Divinity was expected.

To-day the Druses no longer exist except in Syria, where their wild spirit of independence has caused

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them to rise against successive governments in that country. Colonies of them occur in Southern Lebanon, Wadi't-taim and in the mountain of Hauran, which is called after them ‘Mountain of the Druses’. Their number slightly exceeds 100,000 adherents.

As this account implies, Drusism, the outcome of Fatimid Imamism, is really nothing more than an Isma‘ili sect, but a sect of extremists. Their early theories readily borrowed from the Isma'ilis the num­ber seven in the enumeration of the Imams, the ‘speakers', the ‘bases’, etc. They observe, in accord­ance with this cabbalistic arithmetic, that Hakim allowed his hair to grow for seven years and only rode on asses. They have adopted the most audacious theories of Isma'ilism, and confine themselves to adapt­ing them indifferently to the postulate of the divinity of Hakim.

This postulate brought about the revision of the Isma‘ili system. It was effected by Hamza ibn ‘Ali, who arrogated to himself the lion's share in this work of recasting. The Fatimid Caliph having risen to the rank of God, it was necessary to hand on to another the title which had previously belonged to him. Hamza inherited it. The Druses have preserved the Isma‘ili theories concerning the Universal In­telligence and Universal Soul, which they regard as the two chief ministers of the God Hakim. A third minister embodies the Word (Kalima), produced by the Soul through the Intelligence. The two last ministers are the ‘Forerunner', sabiq’, and the ‘Fol­lower’, ‘tali’.

These five ministers are alleged to have been incar­nated in historical personages who played a prominent part in the foundation of Drusism. It is thus that, in Hakim's lifetime, Universal Intelligence was called Hamza ibn ‘Ali. It is to Hamza that all living

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creatures owe their existence. He is the sole medi­ator between them and God, the channel of all super-natural knowledge. Further, we may mention the fifth minister, whom the Druse writings call Muqtana and Baha ad-din. He was one of their most active emissaries, and, perhaps, the most fertile controver­sialist in their religious literature. This latter, somewhat lacking in variety, habitually takes its polemical arguments from the Isma'ilite arsenal.

During their short period of expansion, the Druses also adopted in outline the propagandist organization of the Isma'ilis, or rather they confined themselves to maintaining that of the Fatimids. The Druse emissaries were divided into three categories: the ‘da'i’ or missionaries, the ‘ma’dhun’ or licentiates, and the ‘naqib’ or watchers. These agents formed a class apart and all other men were commanded to offer them the most absolute submission. At the head of this quasi-clerical caste appeared the da‘i, or chiefs of mission, who commanded the members of the two other classes. The licentiates received the oaths and the signed promises of the adepts. The function of the ‘naqib’, also called ‘mukasir’, or breakers, is im­perfectly known to us. This organization, possessed of a well-marked hierarchy—exceptional in Islam—was not destined to survive the period of expansion. One is entitled to wonder whether it was not exclusively designed for that period.

Druse propaganda appears to have gained adherents in all the centres where Isma'ilis were to be found in Egypt and Arabia, in Syria and India. It was like-wise addressed to Christians. The whole movement stopped abruptly in consequence of the troubles caused by the Hamza-Darazi quarrel and by the death of Hakim. Since that date Drusism, in order to be more sure of preserving its secret, has retired jealously

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The Druse dogma is summed up in ‘the knowledge of God Our Lord, maulana’, that is to say, Hakim. Its theodicy, as is the case with all Shi'a sects, reflects the ideas of Mu'tazilism concerning the ineffable unity and simplicity of the Divine nature. ‘God’ (Hakim), says Hamza, ‘is One, without attributes; He is alone, but not through limitation, too exalted to be defined. The tongue is mute, the reason confesses its incapacity adequately to express the unity of its Creator.’ The Druses are so transported by these reasonings that they esteem themselves alone able to profess the ‘tauhid’ or divine unity in all its strictness. That is why they call themselves ‘Muwahhidun’, or Unitarians. We have seen above how they try to bring about in Hakim the union of humanity with the divine nature. ‘He has permitted us,’ says Hamza again, ‘to see the veil beneath which he is hidden and the place whence he has deigned to speak to us in order to be adored in tangible form; and all this through pure mercy and kindness to man.’ It is this mystery, so argue their theorists, which constitutes ‘the merit of the Druse faith and permits it to become a free acquiescence of the spirit’.

In the ethics of Drusism we encounter once more the number seven borrowed from Isma'ilism. Accord­ingly, seven precepts are substituted for the ‘five pillars’ of Islam which Hamza had arbitrarily aug­mented by two through the addition of the Holy War and submission to authority. Druse unitarianism

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The first duty of a Druse is truthfulness. This must be absolute and unrestricted between ‘unitarian’ adepts. With others they are authorized to resort with a clear conscience to the subterfuge of taqiyya (v. p. 145). This theory, common to the whole Shi'a, has nowhere been further developed than among the Druses. One of their religious books dispenses them from ‘frankness with people plunged in ignorance and darkness'. Truthfulness is then reduced, says the same writing, to a mere duty of politeness, but entails no moral obligation towards non-Druses. This obligation only exists towards Unitarians. The latter, where a non-Druse is concerned, may deny everything: debts that have been incurred, trusts which have been received, participation in a crime—when avowal would compromise either themselves or a Unitarian or when they are in temporary financial difficulties.

Except in these cases truth claims all its rights and candour becomes an obligation, in order, sententiously conclude the Druse moralists, ‘not to destroy reciprocal commerce in the world'. It is this theory which has led them, as in freemasonry, to invent signs and passwords which permit them to recognize one another.

The second duty comprises the mutual help which Druses ought to render each other. The third, the fourth and the fifth enjoin the recognition of the religion of Hakim, the profession of the unity of ‘Our Lord’ and the renunciation of all other cults. These precepts compel them inwardly to embrace the Unitarian doctrine and cleave to it with heart and mind; but

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do they impose the public profession of this belief at all costs?

The actual teaching of the Druses, as well as their formulary, authorizes them not only to dissimulate their religion, as the doctrine of taqiyya recommends, but also to conform outwardly to the practices of the dominant cult. Among the Druses to take advantage of this authorization is to incur no discredit, neither does it amount to apostasy. One of their religious books forbids them ‘to communicate the mystery of "Our Lord" (Hakim)', and the formulary adds that ‘preaching is abolished and its door is shut’, to the non-Druses, be it understood. The sixth and seventh rules enjoin ‘to be satisfied with the works of Our Lord and obedient to His will'. The number of souls is considered as invariable; metempsychosis condemns them to pass successively into divers bodies and they are unceasingly and immediately reincarnated. There is, therefore, a constant balance between births and deaths.

This whole religious and moral code applies to initiates of both sexes, for women have an equal right to initiation. The proportion of women initiates has always remained extremely low.

To-day the Druses are divided into two categories: the spirituals, ‘ruhani’, and the corporeals, ‘jismani’. The first category comprises those initiated ‘into the mystery of Our Lord’. The initiation is supposed to have, as it were, dematerialized them by uniting their limited intelligence with the Universal Intelligence. These ‘spirituals’ guard the treasure of doctrine, kept strictly secret. Among the ‘spirituals’ are distin­guished the ‘ra’is’, or ‘ra’is ad-din’, or again ‘sheikh al‘aql’, religious chiefs properly so-called, always few in number; then the ‘aqil’ (pl. ‘uqqal), literally the wise, the general title given to the initiated. That of

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‘ajawid’ denotes the initiated of the second degree. For the women spirituals or initiates, there are likewise three degrees of initiation: (a) ‘aqila’, (b) ‘jawida’, (c) ‘raqiya’.

The category of ‘corporeals’ comprises the multitude of the profane, or non-initiated: the Emirs, then the ‘jahil’ (pl. juhhal), literally the ignorant. The Emirs administer the temporal affairs of the Druse com­munity, of which they constitute the secular arm. The ignorant are the soldiers. This duty is equally incumbent on the spirituals of every grade, not except­ing the religious chiefs who, in time of war, go into battle democratically mingled, without distinction, in the ranks of the ‘ignorant’. The Druse freemasonry does not possess even the embryo of a liturgy. It has no religious edifices, but contents itself with lodges or ‘khalwa’, retreats, reserved for the initiates alone.

THE NOSAIRIS. Several of these sects had, as we have just seen, carried their fanatical veneration for ‘Ali and his line to extremes. The Muslim heresiolo­gists apply to them collectively the name ‘gholat’, fanatics, persons of exaggerated views. Some pro-claimed ‘Ali the equal or even the superior of Muham­mad. Consciously or not, the archangel Gabriel is said to have transmitted the Qoranic message to Muhammad instead of to ‘Ali so that the Imamite faction of the ‘Ghurabiyya’ considered themselves justified in cursing the archangel. Other Shi‘a groups admitted the infusion of the divine nature into ‘Ali and the Imams. Certain Isma‘ili sub-sects had, in deifying ‘Ali , paved the way for Drusism and the Neo-Isma'ilism of the Khojas. Among the Isma‘ili extrem­ists, ‘Ali, already the incarnation of the Universal Soul, the emanation of the Divine Essence and creator of the external world, rose one step in order to become God.

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The sect dates back to a certain Ibn Nosair. He was a fanatical partisan of the eleventh ‘Alid Imam, Hasan al-'Askari (v. p.149), who died in 873. His existence in Syria is referred to by Baqilani (†1012), Ibn Hazm (†1062) and by the Druse polemicists, Hamza ibn ‘Ali (p. 164) and others. The religious system of the Nosairis forms a bizarre syncretism of Christian, pagan and Muslim elements, the latter borrowed from the most fanatical Shi‘a theories and closely resembling Isma'ilism, which appears to have influenced them. With the Nosairis, ‘Ali became an incarnation pure and simple of the divinity. Another characteristic feature of their religion is the development given to the liturgy which in all the other factions of Islam has remained in the embryonic stage.

The first of their dogmas is that of a divine triad. It consists of a first cause called ‘Ma‘na’ or Idea, and of two hypostases proceeding from the Idea. The two hypostases are called ‘Ism’, or name, and ‘Bab’, or door. The Idea represents the archetypal divinity, the very Essence of God. These appellations ‘derive from a very curious theory of the mechanism of knowledge, the genesis of ideas and initiation into truth’ (Massignon). The Name, called also veil, is the outward manifestation, the public revelation of the Idea. The door leads to it, and is a kind of Paraclete, whose

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