SECTION II.—AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THEIR TENETS. —The author of this book heard from a person who was one of the safá, “pure” Durvishes, from the Durvish Bakáí Váhed, from the Durvish Ismâíl, and from Mizza Takí, from Shaikh Látef illa, and Shaikh Shaháb, who belonged to the Imaná, what follows: Any single person is a being which longs after earth; but other elements also exist with an abhorrence of earth. These sectaries consider the sun as the spirit of fire, and call it the Kâbah of worship, the fire-temple of obedience to the holy being. Hakím Khákani says:

“O Kâbah of the traveller of heaven,
O zemzem,* sacred well of fire to the world.”

They hold the heaven to be air, and the moon to be the spirit of water. They agree upon transmi­gration in the following manner: when a man dies and is buried, the component parts of his body manifest themselves in the shape of minerals or vegetables, until the latter become the food of ani­mals, or serve as aliment to mankind. These secta­ries subjoin: in the food may reside intelligence and action; for the dispersed ingredients of a body are in the food; intelligence and action collect all in one place, where * they experience no dispersion, although the conformation of the body may be dis­joined; whether in the producing of a mineral, a vegetable, an animal, or a man.** They do not agree upon the existence of a rational unsubstan­tial soul. They know of no heaven without the elements, and believe the necessary original prin­ciple to be a point of earth. Instead of Bísmilla hirrehma nirrehím, “in the name of the bountiful and merciful God,” they write “Isteâín ba ne fseg illazi la illah hú, “I assist myself of thy essence which alone is God;” and instead of láysa kamsil­lah shaya, “nothing is like it;” they say Ana merkeb almabin, “I am the vehicle of him who explains the truth.”