Message #122037

[Trena Alloway]

The course of instruction in this university pro. seeded, according to Macrisi, by the following nine degrees:--1. The object of the first, which was long and tedious, was to infuse doubts and difficulties into the mind of the aspirant, and to lead him to repose a blind confidence in the knowledge and wisdom of his teacher. To this end he was perplexed with captious questions; the absurdities of the literal sense of the Koran, and its repugnance to reason, were studiously pointed out, and dark hints were given that beneath this shell lay a kernel sweet to the taste and nutritive to the soul. But all further information was most rigorously withheld till he had consented to bind himself by a most solemn oath to absolute faith and blind obedience to his instructor. 2. When he had taken the oath he was admitted to

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the second degree, which inculcated the acknowledgment of the imams appointed by God as the sources of all knowledge. 3. The third degree informed him what was the number of these blessed and holy imams; and this was the mystic seven; for, as God had made seven heavens, seven earths, seas, planets, metals, tones, and colours, so seven was the number of these noblest of God's creatures. 4. In the fourth degree the pupil learned that God had sent seven lawgivers into the world, each of whom was commissioned to alter and improve the system of his predecessor; that each of these had seven helpers, who appeared in the interval between him and his successor; these helpers, as they did not appear as public teachers, were called the mute (samit), in contradistinction to the speaking lawgivers. The seven lawgivers were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and Ismaïl, the son of Jaaffer; the seven principal helpers, called Seats (soos), were Seth, Shem, Ishmael (the son of Abraham), Aaron, Simon, Ali, and Mohammed, the son of Ismaïl. It is justly observed * that, as this last personage was not more than a century dead, the teacher had it in his power to fix on whom he would as the mute prophet of the present time, and inculcate the belief in, and obedience to, him of all who had not got beyond this degree. 5. The fifth degree taught that each of the seven mute prophets had twelve apostles for the dissemination of his faith. The suitableness of this number was also proved by analogy. There are twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve months, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve joints in the four fingers of each hand, and so forth. 6. The pupil being led thus far, and having shown no symptoms of restiveness, the precepts of the Koran were once more brought under consideration, and he was told that all the positive portions of


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religion must be subordinate to philosophy. He was consequently instructed in the systems of Plato and Aristotle during a long space of time; and (7), when esteemed fully qualified, he was admitted to the seventh degree, when instruction was communicated in that mystic Pantheism which is held and taught by the sect of the Soofees. 8. The positive precepts of religion were again considered, the veil was torn from the eyes of the aspirant, all that had preceded was now declared to have been merely scaffolding to raise the edifice of knowledge, and was to be flung down. Prophets and teachers, heaven and hell, all were nothing; future bliss and misery were idle dreams; all actions were permitted. 9. The ninth degree had only to inculcate that nought was to be believed, everything might be done *.

In perusing the accounts of secret societies, their rules, regulations, degrees, and the quantity or nature of the knowledge communicated in them, a difficulty must always present itself. Secrecy being of the very essence of everything connected with them, what means had writers, who were generally hostile to them, of learning their internal constitution and the exact nature of their maxims and tenets? In the present case our authority for this account of a society which chiefly flourished in the tenth and eleventh centuries is Macrisi, a writer of the fifteenth century. His authorities were doubtless of more ancient date, but we know not who they were or whence they derived their information. Perhaps our


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safest course in this, as in similar cases, would be to admit the general truth of the statement, but to suffer our minds to remain in a certain degree of suspense as to the accuracy of the details. We can thus at once assent to the fact of the existence of the college at Cairo, and of the mystic tenets of Soofeeism being taught in it, as also to that of the rights of the Fatimites to the khalifat being inculcated on the minds of the pupils, and missionaries being thence sent over the east, without yielding implicit credence to the tale of the nine degrees through which the aspirant had to pass, or admitting that the course of instruction terminated in a doctrine subversive of all religion and of all morality.

As we have seen, the Dai-al-doat, or chief missionary, resided at Cairo, to direct the operations of the society, while the subordinate dais pervaded all parts of the dominions of the house of Abbas, making converts to the claims of Ali. The dais were attended by companions (Refeek), who were persons who had been instructed up to a certain point in the secret doctrines, but who were neither to presume to teach nor to seek to make converts, that honour being reserved to the dais. By the activity of the dais the society spread so widely that in the year 1058 the emir Bessassiri, who belonged to it, made himself master of Bagdad, and kept possession of it during an entire year, and had money struck, and prayer made, in the name of the Egyptian khalif. The emir, however, fell by the sword of Toghrul the Turk, whose aid the feeble Abbasside implored, and these two distinguishing acts of Mohammedan sovereignty were again performed by the house of Abbas. Soon afterwards the society at Cairo seems to have declined along with the power of the Fatimite khalifs. In 1123 the powerful vizir Afdhal, on occasion of some disturbance caused by them, shut up the Dar-al-hicmet,

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or, as it would appear, destroyed it. His successor Mamoon permitted the society to hold their meetings in a building erected in another situation, and it lingered on till the fall of the khalifat of Egypt. The policy of Afdhal is perhaps best to be explained by a reference to the state of the East at that time. The khalif of Bagdad was become a mere pageant devoid of all real power; the former dominions of the house of Abbas were in the hands of the Seljookian Turks; the Franks were masters of a great part of Syria, and threatened Egypt, where the khalifs were also fallen into incapacity, and the real power had passed to the vizir. As this last could aspire to nothing beyond preserving Egypt, a society instituted for the purpose of gaining partisans to the claims of the Fatimites must have been rather an impediment to him than otherwise. He must therefore have been inclined to suppress it, especially as the society of the Assassins, a branch of it, had now been instituted, which, heedless of the claims of the Fatimites, sought dominion for itself alone. To the history of that remarkable association we now proceed.


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Footnotes
26:* See Ockley's History of the Saracens.

28:* Hence they were named the Standing (Wakfiyah).

28:† Abbas, the ancestor of this family, was one of the uncles p. 29 of the Prophet. They obtained possession of the khalifat A.D. 750, and retained it through an hereditary succession of princes for 500 years. Al-Mansoor, the second khalif of this dynasty, transferred the royal residence from Damascus, where the Ommiades had dwelt, to Bagdad, which he founded on the banks of the Tigris. This city, also named the City of Peace, the Vale of Peace, the House of Peace, has acquired, beyond what any other town can claim, a degree of romantic celebrity by means of the inimitable Thousand and One Nights. Such is the ennobling power of genius!

30:* Khizer, by some supposed, but perhaps erroneously, to be the prophet Elias, is regarded by the Mohammedans in the light of a beneficent genius. He is the giver of youth to the animal and the vegetable world. He is clad in garments of the most brilliant green, and he stands as keeper of the Well of Life in the Land of Darkness. According to the romances of the East, Iskander, that is, Alexander the Great, resolved to march into the West, to the Land of Darkness, that he might drink of the water of immortality. During seven entire days he and his followers journeyed through dark and dismal deserts. At length they faintly discerned in the distance the green light which shone from the raiment of Khizer. As they advanced it became more and more resplendent, like the brightest and purest emeralds. As the monarch approached, Khizer dipped a cup in the verdant Water of Life, and reached it to him; but the impatience of Iskander was so great that he spilt the contents of the cup, and the law of fate did not permit the guardian of the fount to fill it for him again. The moral of this tale is evident. Its historic foundation is the journey of the Macedonian to the temple of Ammon.

32:* See Frazer's Khorasān.

33:* Lari and Macrisi, quoted by Hammer.

35:* Macrisi is Hammer's authority for the preceding account of Abdallah. It is to be observed that this Abdallah is unnoticed by Herbelot.

36:* The genuineness of the descent of Obeid-Allah has been a great subject of dispute among the eastern historians and jurists. Those in the interests of the house of Abbas strained every nerve to make him out an impostor.

37:* That is, Missionary of Missionaries.

37:† Cadhi of Cadhis.

39:* Hammer, p. 54.

40:* Mr. De Sacy (Journal des Savans, an 1818) is of opinion that the Arabic words Taleel and Ibahat will not hear the strong sense which Hammer gives them. The former, he says, only signifies that Deism which regards the Deity as merely a speculative being, and annihilates the moral relations between him and the creature; the latter only denotes emancipation from the positive precepts of laws, such as fasting prayer, &c., but not from moral obligations.



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