“Know that of the number of those things whereon the Shí'a are agreed, nay, which are of the essentials of the true doctrine of that Truth-pursuing body, is the ‘Return.’ That is to say that in the time of His Holiness the Qá'im, * before the Resurrection, a number of the good who are very good and of the bad who are very bad will return to the world, the good in order that their eyes may be brightened by seeing the triumph of their Imáms, and that some portion of the recompense of their good deeds may accrue to them in this world; and the bad for the punishment and torment of the world, and to behold the double of that triumph which they did not wish to accrue to the Imáms, and that the Shí'a may avenge themselves on them. But all other men will remain in their tombs until they shall be raised up in the general Upraising; even as it has come down in many traditions that none shall come back in the ‘Return’ save he who is possessed of pure belief or pure unbelief, but as for the remainder of mankind, these will [for the time being] be left to themselves.”

It is true that here the sentence most Arabian in con­struction may be the literal translation of a tradition not given in the original Arabic, which must evidently run something like this:

<text in Arabic script omitted> but the influence of Arabian syntax is constantly apparent.

Another class of Shí'a theological writings consists of polemical works directed against the Sunnís, the Ṣúfís,

Polemical works against— (1) The Sunnís. the Shaykhís, the Bábís and Bahá'ís, and the Christians. The Sunnís are naturally attacked in all manuals of doctrine with varying degrees of violence, for from Nádir Sháh downwards to Abu'l-Ḥasan Mírzá (“Ḥájji Shaykhu'r-Ra'ís”), an eager contemporary advocate of Islamic unity, * no one has been able to effect an appeasement between these two great divisions of Islám, and a more tolerant attitude in the younger generation of Persians, so far as it exists, is due rather to a growing (2) The Ṣúfís. indifference to Islám itself than to a religious reconciliation. Attacks on the Ṣúfís, especially on their Pantheism (Waḥdatu'l-Wujúd), are also often met with in general manuals of Shí'a doctrine, but several independent denunciations of their doctrines exist, such as Áqá Muḥammad 'Alí Bihbihání's Risála-i-Khayrátiyya, * which led to a violent persecution of the Ṣúfís and the death of several of their leaders, such as Mír Ma'ṣum, Mushtáq 'Alí and Núr 'Alí Sháh; * and the Maṭá'inu'ṣ-Ṣúfiyya of Muḥammad Rafí' ibn Muḥammad Shafí' of Tabríz, com­posed in 1221/1806. * The latter even has recourse to the Gospels to prove his case, quoting Christ's saying “Beware of them which come to you in sheep's clothing (ṣúf, wool), but within they are ravening wolves.”

The Islamo-Christian controversy has also produced a considerable literature in Persian, which has been discussed (3) The Christians. by Professor Samuel Lee in his Controversial Tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism (Cambridge, 1824). Several such works were written in the first quarter of the seventeenth century by Sayyid Aḥmad ibn Zaynu'l-'Ábidín al-'Alawí, one in refu­tation of Xavier's Á'ína-i-Ḥaqq-numá (“Truth-revealing Mirror”), and another directed against the Jews. Later the proselytizing activities of Henry Martyn the missionary called forth replies from Mírzá Ibráhím and others.*

The Shaykhí sect or school derived its origin and its name from Shaykh Aḥmad ibn Zaynu'd-Dín al-Aḥsá'í, a (4) The Shaykhís. native not of Persia but of Baḥrayn, who died, according to the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát, * at the advanced age of ninety in 1243/1827-8, and was succeeded by Sayyid Káẓim of Rasht, who numbered amongst his disciples both Sayyid 'Alí Muḥammad the Báb, the originator of the Bábí sect, and many of those who sub­sequently became his leading disciples, and Ḥájji Muḥam-mad Karím Khán of Kirmán, who continued and developed the Shaykhí doctrine. This doctrine, essentially a rather extreme form of the Shí'a faith, was accounted heterodox by several eminent mujtahids, such as Ḥájji Mullá Muḥam-mad Taqí of Qazwín, the uncle and father-in-law of the celebrated Bábí heroine Qurratu'l-'Ayn, whose hostility to the Shaykhís and Bábís ultimately cost him his life, but earned for him from the orthodox Shí'a the title of the “Third Martyr” (Shahíd-i-Thálith). * Some account of the Shaykhís and their doctrines, sufficient for the ordinary student of Persian thought, is given in Note E (pp. 234-44) at the end of the second volume of my Traveller's Narrative. * Shaykh Aḥmad was the author of numerous works, all, I think, in Arabic, of which the titles are given in the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát (p. 25), which asserts amongst other things that he held the Ṣúfís in great detestation, not­withstanding his own unorthodox views on the Resurrection. Naturally the pantheistic and latitudinarian opinions of these mystics are distasteful to dogmatic theologians of every kind, whether orthodox Shí'a or Sunní, Shaykhí, Bábí and Bahá'í, or Christian. Henry Martyn evidently felt that he had far more in common with the ordinary fanatical mullá of Shíráz than with the elusive and eclectic Ṣúfí. The later Shaykhís and Bábís, though both derive from a common source, hold one another in the utmost detestation; and at least one of the doctors of theology who examined and condemned the Báb at Tabríz towards the end of the year A.D. 1847, Mullá Muḥammad Mámaqání, belonged to the Shaykhí school.*

The Bábí-Bahá'í movement, of which the effects have now extended far beyond the Persian frontiers even to America,

(5) The Bábís and Bahá'ís. has naturally given rise to a far more extensive literature, which forms a study in itself, and which I have discussed elsewhere. * Of the Báb's own writings the Persian Bayán and the Dalá'il-i-sab'a (“Seven Proofs”) are the most important of those composed in Persian. * Bahá'u'lláh's Íqán (“Assurance”) is the earliest reasoned apology, and was written before he advanced his claim to be “He whom God shall manifest.” His later “Tablets” (Alwáḥ), many of which are in Persian, are innumerable; amongst them the “Epistles to the Kings” (Alwáḥ-i-Saláṭín) are the most interesting and important. There is also an abundant Azalí literature; and each dichotomous schism has given rise to a fresh crop of controversial pamphlets. Of systematic refutations of the Bábí and Bahá'í doctrines in Persian the most elaborate are the Iḥqáqu'l-Ḥaqq (“Verification of the Truth”) of Áqá Muḥammad Taqí of Hamadán, * composed about 1326/1908; and the Minháju'ṭ-Ṭálibín * of Ḥájji Ḥusayn-qulí, an Armenian convert to Islám, lithographed at Bom­bay in 1320/1902. The Bábís and Bahá'ís have developed a somewhat distinctive style of their own in Persian which possesses considerable merits. Some of Bahá'u'lláh's “Tablets” (Alwáḥ) addressed to Zoroastrian enquirers are even written in pure Persian without admixture of Arabic. Their most important works, like the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (“Most Holy Book”), are, however, written in Arabic. From the point of view of style, both in Persian and Arabic, an immense improvement was effected by Bahá'u'lláh, for the style of Mírzá 'Alí Muḥammad the Báb was, as Gobineau says, “terne, raide, et sans éclat,” “dull, stiff, and devoid of brilliance.”