A literary history of Persia - The Literary History of Persia, Volume 4

Of these books the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát is the most scholarly and comprehensive, but those who read Persian only will Comparison of these works. derive much instruction and some amusement from the Majálisu'l-Mú'minín, Nujúmu's-Samá, and Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá. The older “Books of the Men,” such as the works of aṭ-Ṭúsí and an-Najáshí, are generally very jejune, and suited for reference rather than reading. As it is with the theologians of the Ṣafawí and subsequent periods that we are chiefly concerned here, a very few words about the older 'ulamá of the Shí'a will suffice, though with their names, titles and approximate dates the student should be familiar. The most important The founders of Shí'a theology: the “three Muḥammads” and the “four Books.” of these earlier divines are “the three Muḥam-mads ,” ^358c al-Kulayní (Muḥammad ibn Ya'qúb, d. 329/941), Ibn Bábawayhi (Muḥammad ibn 'Alí ibn Músá, d. 381/991-2), and the already-mentioned Ṭúsí (Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan, d. 460/ 1067). Of these the first composed the Káfí, the second Man lá yaḥḍuru-hu'l-Faqíh (a title which approximates in sense to our familiar “Every man his own Lawyer”), and the third the Istibṣár and the Tahdhíbu'l-Aḥkám, which are known collectively amongst the Shí'a as “the Four Books” (al-Kutubu'l-arba'a), ^359a and of which full particulars will be found in the above-mentioned Kashfu'l-Ḥujub.

We have already seen ^360a what difficulty Sháh Isma'íl experienced on his capture of Tabríz in finding teachers or Scarcity of works of Shí'a theology in early Ṣafawí days. books to inclucate the doctrines of the creed which he was determined to impose throughout his dominions, and it is not strange, though the fact is often overlooked, that it became necessary to introduce into Persia learned Arabs of the Importation to Persia of Shí'a doctors from Arabia. Shí'a persuasion, where such were obtainable. Two districts furnished the bulk of these: Baḥ-rayn, across the Persian Gulf, and Jabal 'Ámil in Syria. ^360b To the divines furnished by each of these two localities a special biographical work has, as we have seen, been devoted, namely the Lú'lú'atu'l-Baḥrayn and the Amalu'l-Ámil. Some of them came to Persia totally ignorant of the Persian language, like Sayyid Ni-'matu'lláh al-Jazá'irí, who, on reaching Shíráz with his brother, had to obtain from a Persian acquaintance the sentence “Madrasa-i-Manṣúriyya-rá mi-khwáhím” (“We want the Manṣúriyya College”), and even then each learned only half of this simple phrase and spoke alternately.^360c

It is the autobiography of this same Sayyid Ni'matu'lláh, as given in the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá, which furnishes us with Autobiography of a student of theology. so unusually vivid a picture of the privations and hardships experienced by a poor student of Divinity. He was born in 1050/1640-1 and wrote this narrative when he was thirty-nine years of age, ^361a “in which brief life,” he adds, “what afflictions have befallen me!” These afflictions began when he was only five years old, when, while he was at play with his little companions,

After pursuing his studies with various other masters, he obtained his father's permission to follow his elder brother Hardships of travel “in search of knowledge.” to Ḥuwayza. The journey thither by boat through narrow channels amongst the weeds, tormented by mosquitoes “as large as wasps” and with only the milk of buffaloes to assuage his hunger, gave him his first taste of the discomforts of travel to a poor student. In return for instruction in Jámí's and Járbardí's commentaries and the Sháfiya, his teacher exacted from him “much service,” making him and his fellow-students collect stones for a house which he wished to build, and bring fish and other victuals for him from the neighbouring town. He would not allow them to copy his lecture-notes, but they used to purloin them when opportunity arose and transcribe them. “Such was his way with us,” says the writer, “yet withal we were well satisfied to serve him, so that we might derive benefit from his holy breaths.”

He attended the college daily till noon for instruction and discussion, and on returning to his lodging was so hungry that, in default of any better food, he used to collect the Study under difficulties. melon-skins cast aside on the ground, wipe off the dust, and eat what fragments of edible matter remained. One day he came upon his companion similarly employed. Each had tried to conceal from the other the shifts to which he was reduced for food, but now they joined forces and collected and washed their melon-skins in company. Being unable to afford lamps or candles, they learned by heart the texts they were studying, such as the Alfiyya of Ibn Málik and the Káfiya, on moonlight nights, and on the dark nights repeated them by heart so as not to forget them. To avoid the distraction of conversation, one student would on these occasions often bow his head on his knees and cover his eyes, feigning headache.

After a brief visit to his home, he determined to go to Shíráz, and set out by boat for Baṣra by the Shaṭṭu'l-'Arab.

The writer remained only a short while at Baṣra, then governed by Ḥusayn Páshá, for his father followed him At College in Shíráz. thither to bring him home, but he escaped privily with his brother, and, as already narrated , ^363a made his way to Shíráz and established himself in the Manṣúriyya College, being then only eleven years of age. He found one of the tutors lecturing on the Alfiyya of Ibn Málik, who, on the conclusion of the lecture, questioned him as to his aims and adventures, and finally, seizing him by the ear and giving it a sharp twist, said, “O my son, do not make thyself an Arab Shaykh or seek for supremacy, and do not waste thy time! Do not thus, that so perchance thou mayst become a scholar.”

In this college also the life was hard and the daily allowance of food inadequate, and the writer's brother Sufferings from cold and hunger. wished to return home, but he himself determined to remain, copying books for a pittance, and working almost all night through the hot weather in a room with closed doors while his fellow-students slept on the roof. Often he had neither oil for his lamp nor bread to eat, but must work by moonlight, faint with hunger, while in the winter mornings his fingers often bled with the cold as he wrote his notes. Thus passed two or three years more, and, though his eyesight was permanently affected by the strain to which it was subjected, he began to write books himself, a commentary on the Káfiya, and another, entitled Miftáḥu'l-Labíb, on the Tahdhíb of Shaykh Bahá'u'd-Dín Muḥammad. ^364a He now began to extend the range of his studies beyond Arabic grammar, and to frequent the lectures of more eminent teachers from Baghdád, al-Aḥsá and Baḥrayn, amongst them Shaykh An exacting Professor. Ja'far al-Baḥrání. One day he did not attend this Shaykh's lecture because of the news which had reached him of the death of certain relatives. When he reappeared on the following day the Shaykh was very angry and refused to give him any further instruction, saying, “May God curse my father and mother if I teach you any more! Why were you not here yesterday?” And, when the writer explained the cause of his absence, he said, “You should have attended the lecture, and indulged in your mourning afterwards”; and only when the student had sworn never to play the truant again whatever might happen was he allowed after an interval to resume his attendance. Finally he so far won the approval of this somewhat exacting teacher that the latter offered him his daughter in marriage; an honour from which he excused himself by saying, “If God will, after I have finished my studies and become a Doctor ('álim), I will marry.” Soon afterwards the teacher obtained an appointment in India, at Ḥaydarábád in the Deccan.

Sayyid Ni'matu'lláh remained in Shíráz for nine years, and for the most part in such poverty that often he Life of a poor student at Shíráz. swallowed nothing all day except water. The earlier part of the night he would often spend with a friend who lived some way outside the town so as to profit by his lamp for study, and thence he would grope his way through the dark and deserted bazaars, soothing the fierce dogs which guarded their masters' shops, to the distant mosque where he lectured before dawn. At his parents' wish he returned home for a while and took to himself a wife, but being reproached by a learned man whom he visited with abandoning his studies while still ill-grounded in the Science of Traditions, he left his parents and his wife (he had only been married for three weeks) and returned to the Manṣúriyya College at Shíráz. Soon afterwards, however, it was destroyed by a fire, in which one student and a large part of the library perished; and about the same time he received tidings of his father's death. These two misfortunes, combined with other circumstances, led him to leave Shíráz and go to Iṣfahán.

During his early days at Iṣfahán he still suffered from the same poverty with which he had been only too familiar in the past, often eating salted meat to increase his thirst,

I have given in a somewhat compressed form the whole of this illuminating narrative, one of those “human docu- Value of this “human document.” ments” which are so rare in Persian books (though indeed, as already noted on p. 361, it was originally written in Arabic), because it throws so much light on the life of the Persian student of theology, which, for the rest, mutatis mutandis, closely resembles that of the mediaeval European student. We see the child prematurely torn from the games and amusements suitable to his age to undergo a long, strenuous, and arid course of instruction in Arabic grammar and philology, reading one grammar after another in an ascending scale of difficulty, with commentaries, supercommentaries, glosses and notes on each; we see him as a boy, now fired with ambition, pursuing his studies in theology and law, half-starved, suffering alternately from the cold of winter and the heat of summer, ruining his eyesight by perusing crabbed texts by the fitful light of the moon, and his digestion by irregular and unwholesome meals, varied by intervals of starvation; cut off from home life and family ties; submerged in an ocean of formalism and fanaticism; himself in time adding to the piles of glosses and notes which serve rather to submerge and obscure than to elucidate the texts whereon they are based; and at last, if fortunate, attracting the favourable notice of some great divine, and becoming himself a mudarris (lecturer), a mutawallí (custodian of a shrine), or even a mujtahid.

But if the poor student's path was arduous, the possible prizes were great, though, of course, attained only by a few. In the eyes of the Ṣafawí kings the mujtahid was the Power and position of the mujtahids under the Ṣafawís and their successors. representative of the Expected Imám, whose name they never mentioned without adding the prayer, “May God hasten his glad advent!” ('ajjala 'lláhu faraja-hu!). He had power of life and death. Ḥájji Ṣayyid Muḥammad Báqir ibn Muḥammad Taqí of Rasht, entitled Ḥujjatu'l-Islám (“the Proof of Islám”), is said to have put to death seventy persons for various sins or heresies. On the first occasion, being unable to find anyone to execute his sentence, he had to strike the first ineffective blow himself, after which someone came to his assistance and decapitated the victim, over whose body he then recited the funeral prayers, and while so doing fainted with emotion.^368a

Another mujtahid, Áqá Muḥammad 'Alí, a contemporary of Karím Khán-i-Zand, acquired the title of Ṣúfí-kush (“the Ṣúfí-slayer”) from the number of 'urafá and darwíshes whom he condemned to death.^368b

Another, Mullá 'Abdu'lláh-i-Túní, induced Sháh 'Abbás the Great to walk in front of him as he rode through the Maydán-i-Sháh, or Royal Square, of Iṣfahán, ^368c with the object of demonstrating to all men the honour in which learning was held.

Mullá Ḥasan of Yazd, who had invited his fellow-townsmen to expel, with every circumstance of disgrace, a tyrannical governor, was summoned to Ṭihrán by Fatḥ-'Alí Sháh to answer for his actions, and threatened with the bastinado unless he disavowed responsibility for this procedure. As he refused to do this, and persisted that he was entirely responsible for what had happened, he was actually tied up to receive the bastinado, though it was not actually inflicted. That night the Sháh was notified in a dream of the extreme displeasure with which the Prophet regarded the disrespect shown by him to the exponent of his doctrine and law, and hastened next morning to offer his apologies and a robe of honour, which last was refused by the indignant ecclesiastic.^369a

Mullá Aḥmad of Ardabíl, called Muqaddas (“the Saint,” died in 993/1585), being asked by one of the King's officers who had committed some fault to intercede for him, wrote to Sháh 'Abbás the Great in Persian as follows: ^369b

“Let 'Abbás, the founder of a borrowed empire, ^369c know that this man, if he was originally an oppressor, now appears to be oppressed; so that, if thou wilt pass over his fault, perhaps God (Glorious and Exalted is He) may pass over some of thy faults.

“Written by Aḥmad al-Ardabílí, servant of the Lord of Saintship.”^369d

To this the Sháh 'Abbás replied:

“'Abbás makes representation that he accepts as a spiritual favour and has fulfilled the services which you enjoined on him. Do not forget [me] your friend in your prayers!

“Written by 'Abbás, the dog of 'Alí's threshold.”

Another mujtahid of Ardabíl entitled Muḥaqqiq (“the Investigator” or “Verifier”) wrote on behalf of certain Sayyids to Sháh Ṭahmásp, who, on receiving the letter, rose to his feet, placed it on his eyes, and kissed it, and gave the fullest satisfaction to its demands. Then, because the letter addressed him as “O brother” (Ayyuha'l-Akh), the Sháh caused it to be placed with his winding-sheet and ordered that it should be buried with him, “in order that,” said he, “I may argue with the Angels of the Tomb, Munkir and Nakír, that I should not be subjected to their torment.”

Still more extraordinary is another anecdote in the same work ^370a of how Prince Muḥammad 'Alí Mírzá gave a thou- A mansion in Paradise bought by a Prince. sand túmáns to each of two mujtahids in return for a paper, duly signed and sealed, promising him a place in Paradise. One of them (Sayyid Riḍá ibn Sayyid Mahdí) hesitated to do this, but the Prince said, “Do you write the document and get the doctors of Karbalá and Najaf to witness it, and I will get it (i.e. the mansion in Paradise) from God Most High.”

Many similar anecdotes might be cited, besides numerous miracles (karámát) ascribed to most of the leading divines, but enough has been said to show the extraordinary power and honour which they enjoyed. They were, indeed, more powerful than the greatest Ministers of State, since they could, and often did, openly oppose the Sháh and overcome him without incurring the fate which would almost in- Modern instances of clerical power. evitably have overtaken a recalcitrant Minister. Nor is this a thing of the past, as is abundantly shown by the history of the overthrow of the Tobacco Concession in 1890-1, which was entirely effected, in the teeth of the Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh and his Court, and the British Legation, by the mujtahids, headed by Ḥájji Mírzá Ḥasan-i-Shírází and Ḥájji Mírzá Ḥasan-i-Ashtiyání, inspired and prompted by that extraordinary man Sayyid Jamálu'd-Dín miscalled “the Afghán.” ^371a Dr Feuvrier, the Sháh's French physician, who was in Ṭihrán at the time, gives a graphic account of this momentous struggle in his Trois Ans à la Cour de Perse. ^371b I have described it fully in my Persian Revolution of 1905-1909, ^371c and also the still more important part played by Mullá Muḥammad Káẓim of Khurásán and other patriotic mujtahids ^371d in the Persian struggle for freedom and independence in the first decade of this century of our era. Mullá Muḥammad Káẓim, a noble example of the patriot-priest, deeply moved by the intolerable tyranny and aggression of the then government of Russia, formally proclaimed a jihád, or religious war, against the Russians on December 11, 1911, and was setting out from Karbalá for Persia in pursuance of this object when he died very suddenly on the following day, the victim, as was generally believed, of poison. ^371e He was not the only ecclesiastical victim of patriotism, for the Thiqatu'l-Islám was publicly hanged by the Russians at Tabríz on the 'Áshúrá, or 10th of Muḥarram, 1330 (January 1, 1912), ^371f a sacrilegious act only surpassed by the bombardment three months later of the shrine of the Imám Riḍá at Mashhad, which many Persians believe to have been avenged by the fate which subsequently overtook the Tsar and his family at the hands of the Bolsheviks.

The mujtahids and mullás, therefore, are a great, though probably a gradually decreasing force, in Persia, and concern themselves with every department of human activity, from the minutest details of personal purification to the The fatwá. largest issues of politics. It is open to any Shí'a Muslim to submit any problem into the solution of which religious considerations enter (and they practically enter everywhere) to a mujtahid, and to ask for a formal decision, or fatwá, conformable to the principles of Shí'a doctrine. Such fatwá may extend to the denunciation of an impious or tyrannical king or minister as an infidel (takfír), or the declaration that anyone who fights for him is as one who fights against the Hidden Imám. The fact that the greatest mujtahids generally reside at Najaf or Karbalá, outside Persian territory, greatly strengthens their position and conduces to their immunity. To break or curb their power has been the aim of many rulers in Persia before and after the Ṣafawís, but such attempts have seldom met with more than a very transient The better side of the “clergy.” success, for the mullás form a truly national class, represent in great measure the national outlook and aspirations, and have not unfrequently shielded the people from the oppression of their governors. And although their scholarship is generally of a somewhat narrow kind, it is, so far as it goes, sound, accurate, and even in a sense critical. The finest Persian scholar I know, Mírzá Muḥammad ibn 'Abdu'l-Wahháb of Qazwín, is one who has superimposed on this foundation a knowledge of European critical methods acquired in England, France and Germany.

On the other hand, apart from corruption, fanaticism and other serious faults, many of the 'ulamá are prone to petty The worse side: jealousy and vulgar abuse. jealousy and mutual disparagement. A wellknown anecdote, given by Malcolm ^372a and in the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá, ^372b shows that great doctors like Mír Dámád and Shaykh Bahá'u'd-Dín al-'Ámilí could rise above such ignoble feelings; but, as the author of the latter work complains, their less magnanimous colleagues were but too prone to call one another fools and asses, to the injury of their own class and the delight of irreligious laymen. Nor was this abuse rendered less offensive by being wrapped up in punning and pedantic verses like this: ^373a

“Thou art not worthy to be advanced; nay, thou art nothing more
than half of the opposite of ‘advanced’!”

The opposite of “advanced” (muqaddam) is “postponed” (mu'akhkhar), and the second half of the latter word, khar, is the Persian for an ass. This is a refined specimen of mullás' wit: for a much coarser one the curious reader may refer to an interchange of badinage between Mullá Mírzá Muḥammad-i-Shírwání the Turk and Áqá Jamál of Iṣfahán recorded in the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá. ^373b That some mullás had the sense to recognize their own rather than their neighbours' limitations is, however, shown by a pleasant anecdote related in the same work ^373c of Jamálu'd-Dín Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn-i-Khwánsarí. As a judge he was in receipt of a salary of four thousand túmáns a year. One day four persons successively put to him four questions, to each of which he replied, “I do not know.” A certain high official who was present said to him, “You receive from the King four thousand túmáns to know, yet here to everyone who asks you a question you reply ‘I do not know.’” “I receive these four thousand túmáns,” replied the mullá, “for those things which I do know. If I required a salary for what I do not know, even the Royal Treasury would be unable to pay it.”

Jurisprudence (fiqh) and theology ('aqá'id), with the ancillary sciences, all of which are based on a thorough Akhbárís and Uṣúlís. knowledge of the Arabic language, normally constitute the chief studies of the “clergy,” though naturally there is a certain tendency to specialization, the qáḍí, or ecclesiastical judge, being more concerned with fiqh, and the theologian proper with doctrine. We must also distinguish between the prevalent Uṣúlí and the once important but now negligible Akhbárí school, between whom bitter enmity subsisted. The former, as their name implies, follow the general “principles” (uṣúl) deducible from the Qur'án and accredited traditions, and employ analogy (qiyás) in arriving at their conclusions. The latter follow the traditions (akhbár) only, and repudiate analogical reasoning. Mullá Muḥammad Amín ibn Muḥammad Sharíf of Astarábád, who died in 1033/1623-4, is generally accounted the founder of the Akhbárí school, and was, according to the Lú'lú'atu'l-Baḥrayn, ^374a “the first to open the door of reproach against the Mujtahids, so that the ‘Saved Sect’ (al-Firqatu'n-Nájiya, i.e. the Shí'a of the Sect of the Twelve) became divided into Akhbárís and Muj-tahids ,” and the contents of his book al-Fawá'idu'l-Mada-niyya ^374b consist for the most part of vituperation of the Mujtahids, whom he often accused of “destroying the true Religion.” A later doctor of this school, Mírzá Muḥammad Akhbárí of Baḥrayn, entertained so great a hatred for the Mujtahids that he promised Fatḥ-'Alí Sháh that he would “Envoûtement” of a Russian general. in forty days cause to be brought to Ṭihrán the head of a certain Russian general who was at that time invading and devasting the frontier provinces of Persia, on condition that Fatḥ-'Alí Sháh would, in case of his success, “abrogate and abandon the Mujtahids, extirpate and eradicate them root and branch, and make the Akhbárí doctrine current throughout all the lands of Persia.” The Sháh consented, and thereupon the Akhbárí doctor went into retirement for forty days, abstained from all animal food, and proceeded to practise the “envoûtement” of the Russian general, by making a wax figure of him and decapitating it with a sword. According to the story, the head was actually laid before the Sháh just as the period of forty days was expiring, and he thereupon took council with his advisers as to what he should do. These replied, “the sect of the Mujtahids is one which hath existed from the time of the Imáms until now, and they are in the right, while the Akhbárí sect is scanty in numbers and weak. Moreover it is the beginning of the Qájár dynasty. You might, perhaps, succeed in turning the people from the doctrine [to which they are accustomed], but this might be the cause of disastrous results to the King's rule, and they might rebel against him. Moreover it might easily happen that Mírzá Muḥammad should be annoyed with you, arrive at an understanding with your enemy, and deal with you as he dealt with the Russian ‘Ishpukhtur.’ ^375a The wisest course is that you should propitiate him, excuse yourself to him, and order him to retire to the Holy Thresholds (Karbalá or Najaf) and stay there; for it is not expedient for the State that such a person should remain in the capital.” This advice Fatḥ-'Alí Sháh decided to follow.

The very dry, narrow and formal divines are called by the Persians Qishrí (literally “Huskers,” i.e. externalists), and The Qishrí theologians. to these the Akhbárís in particular belong, but also many of the Uṣúlís, like Mírzá Ibráhím, the son of the celebrated Mullá Ṣadrá, one of the teachers of Sayyid Ni'matu'lláh Jazá'irí, who used to glory in the fact that his belief was that of the common people, and Mullá 'Alí Núrí, who used to pray that God would keep him in the current popular faith. ^376a On the other hand we have the more liberal-minded divines, whose Latitudinarians. theology was tinctured with Philosophy or Ṣúfíism, the Mutakallimún, who strove to reconcile Philosophy with Religion and closely resemble the School-men of mediaeval Europe, and finally the pure philosophers, like the celebrated Mullá Ṣadrá of Shíráz, who, however little their ultimate conclusions accorded with orthodox theology, had generally had the training of the 'ulamá and were drawn from the same class.

The literature produced by this large and industrious body of men, both in Arabic and Persian, is naturally Literary fecundity of the 'ulamá. enormous, but the bulk of it is so dull or so technical that no one but a very leisured and very pious Shí'a scholar would dream of reading it. The author of the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá remarks ^376b that the 'ulamá often live to a very advanced age, and as their habits are, as a rule, sedentary and studious, and they devote a large portion of their time to writing, it is not unusual to find a single author credited with one or two hundred books and pamphlets. Thus the author of the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá enumerates 169 of his own works, besides glosses, tracts and minor writings; ^377a of those of Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ (Fayẓ), 69 by name, but he adds that the total number is nearly 200; ^377b of those of Muḥammad ibn 'Alí…ibn Bába-wayhi, entitled aṣ-Ṣadúq, 189; ^377c and so on. Many of these writings are utterly valueless, consisting of notes or glosses on super-commentaries or commentaries on texts, grammatical, logical, juristic or otherwise, which texts are completely buried and obscured by all this misdirected ingenuity and toil. It was of this class of writings that the late Grand Muftí of Egypt and Chancellor of al-Azhar Shaykh Mu-ḥammad 'Abduh, one of the most able and enlightened Muhammadan divines of our time, was wont to say that they ought all to be burned as hindrances rather than aids to learning.

The works on Jurisprudence (Fiqh) also, even the best, are as a rule very unreadable to a non-Muslim. What is taught Jurisprudence (fiqh). in English universities as “Muhammadan Law” is, of course, only a portion of the subject as understood in the Lands of Islám. The Sharí'at, or Holy Law, includes not only Civil and Criminal Law, but such personal religious obligations as Prayer and the Purifications necessary for its due performance; Alms; Fasting; Pilgrimage; and the Holy War (Jihád), which subjects, with their innumerable ramifications and the hairsplitting casuistry applied to all sorts of contingencies arising from them, constitute perhaps one half of the whole. It is curious that, in spite of the neglect of Shí'a theology by European Orientalists, one of the best European books on Muhammadan Jurisprudence treats of Shí'a Law. This is M. Amédée Querry's Droit Musulman: Recueil de Lois concernant les Musulmans Schyites; ^378a and the European reader who wishes to form an idea of the subject, with all its intricate, and, to the non-Muslim mind, puerile and even disgusting details, cannot do better than consult this monumental work, which is based on the Sharáyi'u'l-Islám fi masá'ili'l-Ḥalál wa'l-Ḥarám ^378b of the celebrated Shí'a doctor Najmu'd-Dín Abu'l-Qásim Ja'far ibn al-Ḥasan…al-Ḥillí, commonly called al-Muḥaqqiq al-Awwal (“the First Verifier” or “Investigator”), who died in 676/1277-8. Other works of authority, enumerated in the Preface (vol. i, p. vii) were also consulted, as well as leading contemporary Persian jurists, by M. Querry, whose twenty-five years' sojourn in Turkey and Persia, where he occupied important official positions, such as counsellor of the French Legation at Ṭihrán, singularly fitted him for the arduous task which he so ably accomplished. An excellent Index of Arabic technical terms explained in the course of the book greatly enhances its value.

Mention should be made in this connection of a Persian catechism on problems of jurisprudence (fiqh) entitled Su'ál u Jawáb. Su'ál u Jawáb (“Question and Answer”), by the eminent mujtahid Ḥájji Sayyid Muḥammad Báqir, whose severity in enforcing the death-penalty in cases where it is enacted by the Ecclesiastical Law has been already mentioned. ^378c This work, composed subsequently to 1236/1820, was very beautifully printed in 1247/1832, apparently at Iṣfahán, under the supervision of Mírzá Zaynu'l-'Ábidín of Tabríz, “the introducer of this art into Persia.” It comprises 162 ff. of 29.6 × 20.5 c. and 28 lines, and the letters (su'ál, “question”) and (jawáb, “answer”) are throughout inserted by hand in red. I possess only one volume, which was to have been followed by a second, but whether this was ever completed I do not know. ^379a The topics are arranged in the usual order, beginning with the personal obligations of purification, prayer, alms, fasting and pilgrimage, and ending with the Kitábu'l-Wadí'at, dealing with objects deposited in trust in the hands of another. An Introduction on “Principles” (Uṣúl) is prefixed to the whole, and in each book, or section, various problems connected with the topic in question are propounded, with the author's decisions, the whole in the form of dialogue. Thus the Introduction begins abruptly, without any doxology, with the following question:

Q. “If a person follows the opinions of one of the muj-tahids (may God increase the like of them!) during the life of that mujtahid, is it lawful after his death for that person to continue to follow him and act according to his sayings, or not?”

The answer, which fills nearly a page, is to the effect that it is not lawful so to do, and that the person in question should transfer his allegiance to some other mujtahid. Numerous authorities are cited in support of this view, amongst them Muḥammad Báqir (presumably al-Majlisí), Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdí, the “Second Martyr” (ash-Shahídu'th-Thání ), and the “Second Verifier” or “Investigator” (al-Muḥaqqiqu'th-Thání).

The “books,” or sections, are of very unequal length, that on Prayer occupying nearly 70 ff., and other “books,” including the last, on Trusts, only half a page. Of the latter, which contains only two questions and their answers, the full translation is as follows:

Q.—“Zayd ^380a sends an article in trust to a trustee, bidding him give it to So-and-so. After the arrival of the article, the trustee learns for certain that the article entrusted to him belongs to 'Amr, ^380b and that the hand of the sender, etc., is the hand of borrowing and usurpation. Moreover 'Amr lays claim to the trust, saying, ‘This trust committed to thee is my property.’ The trustee also admits the validity of his claim to the property, but says, ‘He sent it to me to give it to So-and-so; I will not give it to thee.’ Has 'Amr legally power to assume possession of the property and take it from the trustee, or not? And to whom should the trustee surrender the trust, so that he may be cleared of all further responsibility?”

A.—“If what has been penned actually corresponds with the facts of the case, that is to say, if the trustee knows that the property belongs to 'Amr, and that the hand of the sender of it is the hand of usurpation and violence, it is incumbent on the said trustee to surrender such property to its owner, whether the sender gives permission for such surrender or not. For such trustee to say to 'Amr, having knowledge of the fact that the said property really belongs to him, ‘I will not give it to thee, in view of the fact that the sender of it bade me give it to So-and-so, not to thee,’ is incompatible with the functions of a trustee, and is not conformable to the Holy Law.”

Q.—“If Zayd shall have deposited an article in trust with 'Amr, and if nearly seventeen years shall have passed, and if, notwithstanding 'Amr's urgent insistance with Zayd that he should remove the said article, he neglects to do so, and the said article, without any excess or defect of action ^380c [on 'Amr's part], perishes, is 'Amr liable to any penalty, or not?”

A.—“Provided the details as set forth in writing correspond with the facts, there will be no penalty.”

This sample of Shí'a jurisprudence must suffice, but such as desire a further illustration of the matters which preoccupy the minds of these jurisconsults and doctors may with profit read the narrative of the trial of the Báb at Tabríz for heresy about A.D. 1848, of which an account, based on the principal Persian narratives, will be found in vol. ii of my Traveller's Narrative, pp. 277-90.

We turn now to the more interesting subject of Shí'a theology, which has hitherto hardly attracted the attention Popular theological doctrine. it deserves from European Orientalists, and can only receive brief and inadequate treatment here. It must suffice to sketch in outline the current popular creed, without considering its evolution from early times, and to mention a few of the chief doctrinal works written in Persian during or since the Ṣafawí period. For the purpose of this outline, however, I choose not one of the larger, more authoritative and more famous books like the Ḥaqqu'l-Yaqín (“Certain Truth”) of Mullá Muḥammad 'Aqá'idu'sh. Shí'a. Báqir-i-Majlisí, but a little manual entitled 'Aqá'idu'sh-Shí'a (“Beliefs of the Shí'a”) composed during the reign of Muḥammad Sháh Qájár (before the middle of the nineteenth century of our era) by a certain 'Alí Aṣghar ibn 'Alí Akbar, and lithographed in Persia without indication of place or date. This work, comprising 438 (unnumbered) pages, consists of an Introduction (Muqaddama), five sections called Mishkát, and a Conclusion (Khátima). The contents are briefly as follows:

Sets forth that God has not created mankind in vain, but that they should worship and serve Him, and reap the recompense of their actions in the next world. He has sent, to make known to them His Will and Law, numerous prophets, of whom Muḥammad is the last and greatest. He left behind him the Scripture (the Qur'án) and his holy descendants and representatives for the continued guidance of mankind. In these days of the Greater Occultation (Ghaybat-i-Kubrá) ^381a wherein we live, the true faith is deduced from the Qur'án and the sayings and traditions of the Holy Imáms. According to these, three things are required of us: (1) heartfelt belief; (2) oral confession; (3) certain prescribed acts. These are ascertained either by personal investigation and “endeavour” (ijtihád), or by adopting the opinions of such investigator (mujtahid) by conformity to his authority (taqlíd). The author concludes by enume- Various heresies denounced. rating a number of heresies to be avoided, such as Pantheism (waḥdatu'l-wujúd); Apotheosis and Incarnation (ittiḥad wa ḥulúl); Determinism or Fatalism (jabr); Antinomianism (suqúṭ-i-'ibádát) consequent on self-mortification and discipline (riyáḍát); Communism (ibáḥat); ^382a Deification and adoration of the Imáms; denial of the Resurrection of the body, or of any future life; sanction of the use of musical instruments, and of narcotic or intoxicating substances; Metempsychosis (tanásukh); Anthropomorphism (tashbíh), and the like.

Belief in the Unity of God (tawḥíd) is fourfold, namely:

Section i. Unity of the Divine Essence (Tawḥíd-i-Dhátí). God is One, without partner, peer or equal; Holy; Perfect;

Here again the author digresses to denounce various heresies of the Ṣúfís, especially the idea that beautiful Ṣúfís denounced. persons are especially the Mirrors or Tabernacles of God, and the doctrine of Pantheism (Waḥda-tu'l-Wujúd ), according to which the relation of Phenomena to Absolute Being is similar to that between the Waves and the Sea, or to sunlight passing through windows of variously coloured glass.

Section ii. Unity of the Divine Attributes (Tawḥíd-i-Ṣifátí) . These Attributes are of several kinds, namely Tawḥíd-iṢifátí. (1) “Essential Attributes” (Ṣifát-i-Dhátí), ^383a to wit, Life, Power, with its derivative Speech, and Knowledge, with its derivatives Will and Comprehension. To these six some theologians add Eternity and Truth, but these, like Speech, Will and Comprehension, are Secondary Attributes, while Life, Power and Knowledge are primary. (2) The “Privative” or “Negative Attributes” (Ṣifát-i-Salbiyya), also called the “Attributes of Glory” (Jalál) as opposed to “Perfection” (Kamál) and “Beauty” (Jamál), are seven qualities from which God is exempt, namely, Compositeness, Corporeality, Visibility, Locality, Association or Partnership, Unreality, and Need. (3) “Effective Attributes” (Ṣifát-i-Fi'lí), or “Attributes of Beauty” (Ṣifát-i-Jamál), are acts which may be ascribed or not ascribed to God at different times and in different circumstances, like “the Provider” (Ráziq), “the Creator” (Kháliq), “the Merciful, the Compassionate” (Raḥmán, Raḥím), “the Bounteous” (Jawád), and so forth. In this section reference is made to other views entertained by the Ash'arís, the Mu'tazila, the Kirámís, al-Balkhí, an-Najjár, Ḥasan of Baṣra, etc.

Section iii. Creative Unity of God (Tawḥíd-i-Khalqí). God alone can create, and it is heresy to believe with the Tawḥíd-iKhalqí. Zoroastrians that God creates only what is good, and the Devil what is evil. But God can and does use means to this end, and can delegate His creative powers to Angels or other agents. “The good or evil manifested through God's plenipotentiary servants ^384a is not God's act but their act, wherefore they are the recipients of reward or punishment, by reason of the option which they enjoy, so that they themselves, by their own volition, do those things which God hath commanded or forbidden. For although they act by virtue of a power and strength which they do not in themselves possess, but which God hath conferred upon them, yet, since He hath given them this option, He hath also assigned to them rewards and punishments. Yet God is the Creator of Good and Evil, while His servant is but the agent and doer thereof. Since, however, this treatise is designed for the common people, it would be out of place for us to discuss this matter [more fully] here.”

The author next proceeds to refute certain opinions entertained by the extreme Shí'a (Ghulát), such as that 'Alí

It is also necessary to believe in al-Bidá, or God's sovereign Will, that He does what He pleases; and that He can create what He pleases “without material or period” (bilá mádda wa mudda), that is, from nothing in the twinkling of an eye.

Section iv. Unity of Worship (Tawḥíd-i-'Ibádatí). Worship is the exclusive prerogative of God, and of the Divine Tawḥíd-i'Ibádatí. Essence, not of the Attributes. To worship an Attribute or Name (such as “the Word of God”) apart from the Essence is unbelief, while to worship an Attribute in conjunction with the Essence is polytheism. This is of two sorts, patent and latent. The former includes the external worship of idols, trees, stars, the sun and moon, fire and human beings; or of symbols, such as crucifixes or pictures of holy persons; the latter includes excessive devotion to wife or child, or worldly wealth, or ambition, or hypocritical ostentation of piety. The visitation of the Ka'ba at Mecca and the Tombs of the Holy Imáms is, however, permitted; as also bowing down before kings or holy and learned men, provided there be not actual prostration (sujúd), and that no worship be intended.

“It is necessary to believe that God is just, not a tyrant, and that at no time hath He acted, or doth He or will He Free Will and Predestination. act, unjustly towards any one. This is a fundamental article of our Faith, and whosoever holds the contrary is eternally damned.” Thus begins this section, of which the most interesting portion again deals with the question of Free Will and Predestination. “It is also necessary to believe that God neither compels His creatures to act in a given way (jabr, ‘compulsion’), nor allows them unrestricted choice (tafwíḍ), but pursues a course intermediate between these two: that is to say that He has created them equally capable of both good and evil, so that they neither act under such compulsion that their deeds are in reality God's deeds, nor can they do what they do by their own strength and power without God's assistance. The former belief is Determinism or Fatalism (jabr) and the latter Free Will (tafwíḍ). The correct view is that, whatever they do, they do voluntarily, not by compulsion and constraint, although God furnishes them with the power, means, and instruments, and has indicated to them the paths of good and evil, so that whoever elects to do good becomes deserving of reward, while he who elects to do evil becomes deserving of punishment.”

The author illustrates this by the example of a carpenter's apprentice, who, having been taught his craft and furnished with the necessary tools, is bidden by his master to make a window of a certain size and description. If instead of this he makes a door, he cannot excuse himself by pleading that his master taught him the craft and gave him the tools which enabled him to make the door. Such is the case of man if he misuses the powers and limbs which God hath given him. Here follows the well-known story ^387a of the sceptic whose three questions were answered by a darwísh who struck him on the head with a clod, but here Abú Ḥanífa and Buhlúl (the “wise fool”) take the parts of the sceptic and the darwísh respectively.

The author's theory that God created the hearts of believers, unbelievers, and waverers each from a different clay, “Knowing before He created them that the believer by reason of his belief would be good, and the unbeliever by reason of his unbelief bad, and so creating each of the appropriate substance, so that there might be no question of compulsion” (jabr), is not very convincing.

Section i. The general Prophetic Function (Nubuwwat-i-'ámma) . The number of the true prophets antecedent to The Prophetic Function. Muḥammad, “the Seal of the Prophets and the last of them,” is variously stated as from 140 to 124,000. It is necessary to believe that these, whatever their actual number, were true and immaculate (ma'ṣúm), that is, that during the whole of their lives they were guilty of no sin, major or minor; that they all enunciated the same essential truths; and that the revelations which they received were essentially identical, though in detail the later abrogate the earlier, to wit, the Qur'án the Gospel, and the Gospel the Pentateuch (Tawrát). These three, together with the Psalms of David (Zubúr) and the Books of Abraham (Ṣuḥuf), are the principal Scriptures, but the total number of revealed books is estimated by some as 104 and by others as 124. Of the Prophets sent to all mankind (mursal) four (Adam, Seth, Enoch or Idrís and Noah) were Syrians; five (Húd, Ṣáliḥ, Shu'ayb, Ishmael and Muḥammad) were Arabs, and the remainder of the Children of Israel. The five great Prophets called Ulu'l-'Azm are Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muḥammad.

Section ii. The Special Prophetic Function [of Muḥam-mad] (Nubuwwat-i-Kháṣṣa). It is necessary to believe The Prophethood of Muḥammad. that Muḥammad was the last of all the Prophets, and that anyone after him who claims to be a prophet is an unbeliever and should be killed by the Muslims. Also that in every virtue and excellence he surpasses all other beings; that his “Light” (Núr-i-Muḥammad ) was created thousands of years before all other creatures; that he was sent not only to all mankind but to the Jinn; and that his doctrine and law abrogate all preceding ones.

Section iii. What is to be believed touching the Qur'án. It is the last and greatest of revealed Scriptures, abrogating The Qur'án. all others, and is the miracle of Muḥammad, though not the product of his mind; it is temporal (ḥadíth), not eternal (qadím); was revealed in the pure Arabic language (as were all the Scriptures, though each prophet received his revelation in the language of his people), and was sent down on the Laylatu'l-Qadr (“Night of Worth”) in its entirety from the Preserved Tablet (Lawḥ-i-Maḥfúẓ), but was revealed by Gabriel in instal-ments, as occasion arose, over a period of 23 years. Neither men nor Jinn, though all should combine, can produce the like of the Qur'án, or even one chapter or verse of it. It contains all truth and all knowledge, and the full interpretation of it is known only to God, the Prophet, and the Imáms, and those “firmly established in Knowledge” to whom they have imparted it. The original Qur'án is in the keeping of the Hidden Imám, and has undergone no change or corruption.

Section iv. The Prophet's Attributes. He was “illiterate” (ummí), having never studied or received instruction from Character of the Prophet. men or Jinn; he cast no shadow; a cloud used to overshadow his head; he could see behind his back as well as before his face; he was luminous to such a degree that in his presence on the darkest night his wives could find a lost needle without the aid of lamp or candle. His birth was heralded and accompanied by miracles, enumerated in detail. He was immaculate (ma'ṣúm), and the most excellent of all beings. Gabriel was really his servant, and 'Azrá'íl (the Angel of Death) could not approach him to receive his soul without his permission. He was neither a poet (shá'ir), nor a magician (sáḥir), nor a liar (kadhdháb), nor a madman (díwána), and to assert any of these things is blasphemy. He had five souls or spirits, of which the first three (called Rúḥ-i-mudraj, Rúḥ-quwwat, and Rúḥ-i-shahwat) are common to all men; the fourth, Ruḥ-i-ímán, “the Spirit of Faith,” is peculiar to true believers; while the last, “the Holy Spirit” (Rúḥu'l-Quds ), belongs to the Prophet alone, and his successors, the Holy Imáms.

Section v. The Prophet's Miracles. These included the Cleaving of the Moon (shaqqu'l-qamar); knowledge of the Miracles of the Prophet. Past, the Future, and the Unseen; raising the dead; knowledge of 72 out of the 73 Names of God, whereof not more than twenty were known to any previous Prophet, and the like. He saw Paradise and Hell with his own eyes, and ascended into Heaven in his material body, clad in his own clothes, and wearing his sandals, which he would have put off on approaching God's Throne, but was forbidden by God to do so.

Section vi. The Prophet's Ascension (Mi'ráj). He ascended in his material body to the Station of “Two Ascension of the Prophet. bow-shots or less,” ^390a a point nearer to God than that attained by Enoch or Jesus or any angel or archangel. To assert that this Ascension was allegorical, or within himself, or spiritual and esoteric, is heresy.

Section vii. Sundry other beliefs concerning the Prophet. He was “a mortal man to whom revelations were made”^390b

Section i. Enumeration of the Twelve Imáms of the Ithnà-'ashariyya or “Sect of the Twelve,” and refutation of The Imámate the Sunnís, who recognize Abú Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthmán as the Khulafá, or successors and vicegerents of the Prophet; of the Kaysániyya, who accept Muḥammad ibnu'l-Ḥanafiyya, a son of 'Alí by another wife than Fáṭima, as Imám; of the Zaydiyya, who accept Zayd ibn Ḥasan; of the Isma'íliyya, who accept Isma'íl in place of his brother Músà al-Káẓim; of the Aftaḥiyya, who accept 'Abdu'lláh al-Aftaḥ, another son of Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq the sixth Imám, and so forth. The Kaysánís, Zaydís, Isma'ílís, Ṭá'úsís, Aftaḥís and Wáqifís all belong to the Shí'a, but not to the “Sect of the Twelve,” and they will all be tormented in Hell for their error, though they are Muslims, as are even the Sunnís, who are therefore pure, wherefore, according to the prevailing view, it is not lawful to interfere with their lives, wives or property, though some Shí'a doctors hold the contrary view.

Section ii. Knowledge of the Prophet and Imáms. This Knowledge of the Prophet and Imáms. section is entirely historical or quasi-historical, giving the dates of the births, deaths, and chief events in the lives of Muḥammad and the Twelve Imáms.

The Prophet Muḥammad was born on Friday 17th (or 12th) of Rabí' i in the “Year of the Elephant,” in the year The Prophet Muḥammad. 1021 of Alexander, and in the Seventh year of the reign of Anúsharwán “the Just.” He lived 63 years, of which 53 were spent at Mecca and ten at al-Madína, and his “Mission” began when he was forty years old. He had nine (or 12, or 15) wives and two concubines; four sons, Qásim, Ṭáhir and Ṭayyib by Khadíja, and Ibráhím by Mary the Copt; and three daughters, Fáṭima (who married 'Alí), and Zaynab and Ruqayya, who were married to 'Uthmán. He died (poisoned by a Jewess of Khaybar, as asserted) on Monday the 27th or 28th of Ṣafar, and was buried at al-Madína.

'Alí ibn Abí Ṭálib was the immediate legitimate successor of the Prophet and the First Imám, though not 'Alí ibn Abí Ṭálib, the First Imám. formally recognized as Khalífa until after the deaths of Abú Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthmán (whom the Shí'a regard as usurpers). He waged three great wars, with the Qásiṭín (“wrong-doers”), i.e. Mu'áwiya the Umayyad and his partisans; the Nákithín (“troth-breakers”), i.e. 'Á'isha, Ṭalḥa and Zubayr; and the Máriqín (“rebels”), i.e. the Khárijites. He was assassinated by Ibn Muljam on Ramaḍán 21 at the age of sixty-three. He married twelve wives after the death of Fáṭima and had seventeen sons and nineteen daughters. His father Abú Ṭálib was inwardly a believer, though he made no outward profession of Islám. 'Alí is supposed to have been the twelfth of the Awṣiyá (executors, trustees, or vicegerents) of Jesus Christ.

Fáṭima was the daughter of the Prophet by Khadíja, and the wife of 'Alí, to whom she bore three sons (al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn and Muḥassin), and two daughters (Zaynab the elder and Umm Kulthúm). She died, aged about eighteen, on the 3rd of Jumádà ii, A.H. 11 (26 August, 632).

Ḥasan ibn 'Alí, the Second Imám, was born in Sha'bán or Ramaḍán, A.H. 3 (January or March, 625), resigned the Ḥasan ibn 'Alí, the Second Imám. position of Khalífa to Mu'áwiya, to safeguard himself and his followers, after he had held it for ten years and a half, and died of poison administered to him by Ja'da the daughter of al-Ash'ath ibn Nafís, known as Asmá, at the instigation of Mu'áwiya, nine years and a half later. He is said to have had 60 wives, besides concubines, but others say 300 or even 600, of whom he divorced so many that he earned the nick-name of al-Miṭláq (“the great divorcer”); and to have had fifteen sons and two daughters, though here again there is much difference of opinion. The best known of his numerous titles is al-Mujtabà.

Ḥusayn ibn 'Alí, the Third Imám, was born only six months (sic) after his brother Ḥasan; had five wives besides Ḥusayn ibn 'Alí, the Third Imám. concubines; six sons, 'Alí Akbar, who succeeded him as Imám, 'Alí Awsaṭ, 'Alí Aṣghar, Muḥammad, Ja'far and 'Abdu'lláh; and three daughters, Fáṭimatu'l-Kubrà, Sakína and Fáṭimatu'ṣ-Ṣughrà. Account of his death at Karbalá on Muḥarram 10, A.H. 61 (October 10, 680) with 72 of his kinsmen and partisans at the age of 56, 57 or 58. Of his titles the best known is “the Chief of Martyrs” (Sayyidu'sh-Shu-hadá ).

'Alí ibn Ḥusayn, the Fourth Imám, commonly known as Zaynu'l-'Ábidín and Sayyid-i-Sajjád. His mother was 'Alí Zaynu'l 'Ábidín, the Fourth Imám. the daughter of Yazdigird, the last Sásánian King of Persia. Her name was Shahrbánú, or, according to others, Ghazála or Saláma. He was born in 36/656-7 or 38/658-9. He had one wife, his cousin Umm 'Abdi'lláh, daughter of al-Ḥasan, besides concubines. He had sixteen children (seven or twelve sons, and nine or four daughters). One of his sons, Zayd, was killed by the Umayyad Caliph Hishám ibn 'Abdu'l-Malik, who is also said to have poisoned him in 94/712 when he was fifty-seven years of age.

Muḥammad Báqir, the Fifth Imám, was born in A.H. 57 or 58 (A.D. 676-8), and is said to have been poisoned by the Umayyads in 104/722 or 107/726-7. [From this Muḥammad Báqir, the Fifth Imám. point onwards there are so many discrepancies and conflicting statements that a more rigorous abridgment seems desirable. Thus the age of this Imám is given as 57 or 58, or even 78, all of which, especially the last, are absolutely incompatible with the dates given for his birth and death.]

Ja'far aṣ-Ṣádiq, the Sixth Imám, born 80/699-700, poisoned by the 'Abbásid Caliph al-Manṣúr in 148/765-6.

Músà al-Káẓim, the Seventh Imám, born 129/746-7, poisoned by Hárúnu'r-Rashíd in 180/796-7.

'Alí ar-Riḍá, the Eighth Imám, poisoned by al-Ma'mún in 203/818-9, and buried at Mashhad.

Muḥammad Taqí, the Ninth Imám, born 195/810-11, poisoned by his wife at the instigation of the Caliph al-Mu'taṣim in 220/835.

'Alí Naqí, the Tenth Imám, born in 212/827-8, poisoned in 245/868 at the instigation of the Caliph al-Mu'tazz.

Ḥasan al-'Askarí, the Eleventh Imám, born 232/846-7 poisoned in 260/873-4 at the instigation of the Caliph al-Mu'tamid.

The Imám Mahdí, also called Qá'imu Áli Muḥammad, Ḥujjatu'lláh and Baqiyyatu'lláh, the Twelfth and last The Imám Mahdí. Imám, born in 255/869 by Narjis Khátún to Ḥasan al-'Askarí, disappeared in 260/873-4, is still living and will return “in the last Days” to establish the Shí'a faith and “fill the earth with justice after it has been filled with iniquity.”

Section iii. Attributes of the Imáms. It is necessary to believe that the Imáms were created from one pre-existing Character of the Imáms. Light; that all blessings and all knowledge of God come through them; that through them the universe lives and moves and has its being; and that they are in every respect the most excellent of beings after the Prophet Muḥammad, and superior to all other Prophets and to the Angels, though subject to all human needs and functions. They are also immaculate (ma'ṣúm), innocent of any sin, small or great, co-equal, endowed with every virtue, knowledge and power. Their birth was not as that of ordinary mortals, and, like the Prophet, they were born circumcised. After many further amplifications of the Imáms' perfections, the author proceeds to warn his readers against certain opinions of the Ghulát, or most extreme Shí'a, who would put them above the Prophet and even deify them.

Section i. Death. The Angels, the Prophet and the Imáms are present at every death-bed, whether of a believer or an Death. unbeliever. When the spirit leaves the body, it attaches itself to a subtle invisible body (qálib-i-mithálí-i-laṭíf ) which is a simulacrum of the material body in the intermediate world or “World of the Barrier” ('Álam-i-Barzakh ). To believe, as do some of the common people, that these disembodied spirits enter the crops of green birds or lamps attached to the Throne of God ('Arsh) is an error. This disembodied spirit watches the body it has quitted and the preparations for its burial, urging haste if it be a believing spirit, and delay if unbelieving, but none hears or heeds its appeal. It also sees its place in Heaven or Hell, as the case may be. A believer's death is not always easy, nor an unbeliever's hard. The Prophet's description of the Angel of Death, whom he saw during his Night Ascent to Heaven.

Section ii. The Questioning of the Tomb. When the body has been buried and the mourners have dispersed, the spirit The “Questioning of the Tomb.” returns to the body to undergo the Questioning of the Tomb (Su'ál-i-qabr) at the hands of the Angels Munkir and Nakír, whose terrible aspect is described. If the deceased is a believer and gives satisfactory answers to their questions on his beliefs, they leave him in peace, saying, “Sleep as the bride sleeps in her bridal chamber,” and they enlarge his Tomb as far as the eye can see, and open from it a door into Paradise, so that the air of Paradise enters it and gladdens the occupant. But if he is an unbeliever, they revile him and beat him with their clubs, and fill the tomb with fire; and he cries out in agony, so that if men and Jinn could hear, they would die of terror. But the animals hear, and that is why a sheep grazing or a bird gathering grain will suddenly stop and shiver and listen intently. Those of the Shí'a who are buried at Karbalá are said to be exempt from this Questioning, and some believe that the whole plain of Karbalá, rid of all impurities, including the bodies of unbelievers and hypocrites, will be bodily transferred to Paradise. The good deeds and kindnesses of the dead may take the form of a beautiful companion who will bear them company in the tomb and dispel their loneliness.^396a

Section iii. The Squeezing of the Tomb. It is not certain whether all are subject to this, or only the unbelievers. This The “Squeezing of the Tomb.” squeezing is not confined to those who are buried in the ground, for those who are hanged, drowned or eaten by wild beasts are equally subject to it. After the Questioning and the Squeezing, the spirit again leaves the material body and reunites with the subtle invisible body. Opinions differ as to whether this last always existed within the material body, or apart from it in the “World of Similitudes,” or is specially created for each spirit at the moment of dissolution.

Section iv. ^397a Concerning the Intermediate World ('Álam-i-Barzakh). Barzakh means something intermediate be- The “World of the Barrier.” tween two other things, in this case a state or world between this life and the next, more subtle than the former and more gross than the latter. Some identify it with the World of Similitudes ('Álam-i-Mithál ), others believe it to exist in this world, but in an Eighth Clime outside the Seven Climes, called Arḍ-i-Huwar-qilyá . ^397b The Terrestrial Paradise is in the Wádi's-Salám in the western part of this region, and the Terrestrial Hell in the Wádí Barahút, ^397c in the eastern part. In these places respectively the souls of the Blessed and the Lost congregate and experience pleasure or pain, and when a new spirit arrives they let it rest for a while to recover from the “Questioning” and the “Squeezing,” and then interrogate it as to the friends who survived them on earth, whether they be still living or dead.

Section v. ^397d The departed spirits visit their former homes on earth to watch their families and friends, some daily,

Section vi. ^398a On the spirits of the wicked. These are also permitted from time to time to visit their homes, but they State of the wicked after death. see only the evil done by their friends, and strive to warn them, but cannot, and return to the Earthly Hell more miserable than before. Discussion as to the state after death of the children of believers and unbelievers, the ignorant and feeble-minded, and the insane; and concerning the Recording Angels. According to some, the male children of believers are, after their death, committed to the care of Abraham, and the female children to that of the Virgin Mary.

Section i. On his Occultation (Ghaybat). Three Occulta-tions are distinguished, entitled “Lesser,” “Greater” and The “Occultation” (Ghaybat) of the Imám. “Least.” The “Lesser Occultation” (Ghaybat-i-Ṣughrà ) began on the 8th of Rabí' i, 260 (Jan. 1, 874), lasted 69 years, and ended with the death of the last of the four wakíls ^399a who maintained communication between the Hidden Imám and his followers in 329/940-1. Then began the “Greater Occultation” (Ghaybat-i-Kubrà), wherein no one has direct access to the “Hidden Imám,” ^399b and wherein we are now living. The “Least Occultation” (Ghaybat-i-Aṣghar) will last only from The Signs of the Last Time. noon on the Friday succeeding his “Return” (Raj'at), when he will behead the preacher (Khaṭíb) at Mecca and forthwith disappear again, until the morning of the next day (Saturday). The time of the Advent or “Return” of the Imám is known to God alone, but it will be heralded by numerous signs, of which forty-eight or more are enumerated by our author, and of which the most celebrated are the coming of the wicked and hideous Sufyání, whose army the earth will finally swallow up; the appearance of a figure in the sun; the multiplication of misleading divines and lawyers and of poets; the abounding of tyranny and oppression; the appearance of Antichrist (Dajjál) riding on his Ass; the assembling of 313 chosen supporters of the Imám in Ṭáliqán of Khurásán, etc. After a “reign of the Saints” lasting seventy years, the Imám will die, poisoned by a woman The “Lesser Resurrection.” named Malíḥa, and the Imám Ḥusayn will return to earth to read the Burial Service over him. This is the beginning of what is called the “Lesser Resurrection” (Qiyámat-i-Ṣughrà), when the Prophet and all the Imáms, as well as their chief antagonists, shall return to earth for a while, and fight their battles over again, but with a different result, since the unbelievers shall be uniformly defeated. In this first temporary Resurrection only those who are purely believers or unbelievers (Mú'mini-Kháliṣ or Káfir-i-Kháliṣ) will come to life. Then they will again disappear from the face of the earth, and, after forty days' anarchy and confusion, the tribes of Gog and Magog (Yájúj u Májúj) will burst through the Wall (Sadd) which keeps them back, and will overrun the earth, and eat up all the grass and herbs, and drink up the rivers.

The “Greater Resurrection” (Qiyámat-i-Kubrà), when all the dead shall be raised to life in the same bodies they had The “Greater Resurrection.” while on earth, re-created by God's Power as a broken brick can be re-made from its original materials, will be inaugurated by the blast of Isráfíl's trumpet, which shall draw into itself all the spirits of the quick and the dead, so that no living thing shall remain on earth save the “Fourteen Immaculate Ones” (Chahárdah Ma'ṣúm). ^400a Then, when their bodies have been re-created, Isráfíl will again blow his trumpet, and the spirits will emerge from it like a swarm of bees, and fly each one to its own body. All animals will also be raised to life to undergo the Reckoning and be judged for their acts of violence towards one another. Then the Balance (Mízán) will be set up for the weighing of the good and bad acts of each soul, and the scroll of each man's deeds, written down by the Recording Angels Sá'iq and Shahíd, will be placed in his hand.

The Seven Hells (Jihannam, Sa'ír, Saqar, Jaḥím, Laẓẓá, Ḥutama and Háwiya) are next enumerated, whereof the The Seven Hells. first is for Muslims who died in sin without repenting, and who will be released when adequately punished; the second for the Jews; the third for the Christians; the fourth for the Sabaeans; the fifth for the Magians; the sixth for the idolatrous Arabs; and the seventh for the hypocrites. Unbelievers will remain in Hell for ever, but some, on account of their virtues, will remain there without suffering torment, as, for example, Khusraw Anúsharwán on account of his justice, and Ḥátim of Ṭayy on account of his generosity.

Next follows a description of the Bridge of Ṣiráṭ, “finer than a hair, sharper than a sword, and hotter than fire,”

[Section ii.] On the meaning of Unbelief (Kufr) and Belief (Ímán). Five meanings of Kufr in the Qur'án are distinguished, and three chief kinds in ordinary life, namely spiritual (qalbí), verbal (qawlí), and actual (fi'lí). Three Belief and unbelief. kinds of Ímán are also distinguished, and Ímán is distinguished from Islám. Sunnís and Shí'a not of the “Sect of the Twelve” are believers (mú'min), but not Muslims; they are not unclean, but will remain for ever in Hell-fire. The apostate (murtadd) from Islám is deserving of death, nor is his repentance accepted in this world, though, according to some theologians, it may be accepted in the next. But from the convert to Islám who reverts to his original faith repentance may be accepted; and a woman who apostasizes should not be killed, but imprisoned and beaten until she repents or dies in prison. The book ends with a description of five kinds of Faith and six kinds of Repentance.

Such in outline is the Shí'a creed of contemporary Persia in its crudest and most popular form. It would be interesting to trace the evolution of that creed from the earliest times of Islám, to compare (so far as the available materials allow) the historical with the legendary Imáms, and to contrast in detail the beliefs, both doctrinal and eschatological, of the Shí'a and the Sunnís. This, however, transcends the scope of this book, even had the preliminary work indispensable to such a study been adequately done. Even amongst the orthodox and formal (qishrí) mujtahids and mullás these doctrines must often have been held in a form less crude and childish than that outlined above, though they may have deemed it wiser to leave the popular beliefs undisturbed, and to discourage speculations which might become dangerous amongst a people only too prone Broad divisions of religious thought in Persia. to scepticism and heresy. Taking only the broad divisions of theological and philosophical thought in Persia, we may distinguish in each field three main types; amongst the theologians the Akhbárís, the Uṣúlís (or Mujtahidís), and the Shaykhís; amongst the philosophers the Mutakallimún or School-men,

Autograph of Mullá Muḥammad Báqir-i-Majlisí
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the Falásifa or Ḥukamá (Philosophers pure and simple),

Yet Mullá Muḥammad Báqir, in spite of his formalism and fanaticism, his incredible industry in writing books in simple and easily intelligible Persian in order to popularize the Shí'a doctrines, and his ruthless persecution of the Ṣúfís, is credited with posthumous gleams of a higher humanity. ^404b One saw him in a dream after his death and asked of him, “How fares it with you in that world, and how have they dealt with you?” He answered, “None of my actions profited me at all, except that one day I gave an apple to a Jew, and that saved me.”

The Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá contains 153 biographies of eminent divines, of whom the following twenty-five appear to me the most interesting and important. They are here arranged, as far as possible, chronologically, the serial number of each biography in the book being indicated in brackets after the name.^404c

1. Muḥammad ibn Ya'qúb al-Kulayní (No. 96), entitled Ten great divines of the pre-Ṣafawí period. Thiqatu'l-Islám, author of the Káfí, d. 329/941.

2. Muḥammad ibn 'Alí ibn Ḥusayn ibn Músà ibn Bábawayhi of Qum, called Ṣadúq (No. 95), d. 381/991-2. Of his works 189 are enumerated in the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá, the most important being that entitled Man lá yaḥḍuruhu'l-Faqíh, which, like the Káfí mentioned in the last paragraph, is one of the “Four Books.”

3. Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Nu'mán ibn 'Abdu's-Salám al-Ḥárithí, commonly called Shaykh-i-Mufíd (No. 97), d. 413/1022. The Qiṣaṣ enumerates 171 of his works.

4. Sayyid Murtaḍà, entitled 'Alamu'l-Hudà (No. 98), d. 436/1044. He was the great-great-grandson of the Seventh Imám, Músà al-Káẓim.

5. Aḥmad ibn 'Alí an-Najjáshí (No. 132), d. 455/1063. He was a disciple of the Shaykh-i-Mufíd, and the author of the well-known Kitábu'r-Rijál.

6. Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan ibn 'Alí aṭ-Ṭúsí, called Shay-khu'ṭ-Ṭá'ifa (No. 100), d. 460/1067. He was the third of the older “three Muḥammads” (the others being Nos. 1 and 2 supra), and the author of two of the “Four Books,” the Tahdhíbu'l-Aḥkám and the Istibṣár, and of the wellknown Fihrist, or Index of Shí'a books.

7. Naṣíru'd-Dín-i-Ṭúsí, entitled Muḥaqqiq (“the Investigator”), even more celebrated as a philosopher and man of science than as a theologian (No. 90), d. 672/1274. His most famous works are the Akhláq-i-Náṣirí on Ethics, the Astronomical Tables called Zíj-i-Ilkhání, compiled for Húlágú Khán the Mongol, and the Tajríd on Scholastic Philosophy, a favourite text for the countless host of commentators and writers of notes and glosses.

8. Najmu'd-Dín Ja'far ibn Yaḥya, known as Muḥaqqiq-i-Awwal (“the First Investigator”), author of the Shará-yi'u'l-Islám (No. 89), born 638/1240-1, died Muḥarram 726/Dec. 1325. As a youth he showed some poetic talent, which was, however, sternly repressed by his father, who told him that poets were accursed and poetry incompatible with a devout life.

9. Ḥasan ibn Yúsuf ibn 'Alí ibnu'l-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillí, commonly called 'Alláma-i-Ḥillí (“the Sage of Ḥilla”) (No. 83), died in the same month and year as the above-mentioned Muḥaqqiq-i-Awwal, who was ten years his senior. Of his works 75 are enumerated in the Qiṣaṣ. 'Alláma-i-Ḥillí came of a great family of theologians, which produced in a comparatively short period ten mujtahids. His father was one, and his son, entitled Fakhru'l-Muḥaqqiqín (No. 86), another.

10. Shaykh Shamsu'd-Dín Muḥammad ibn Makkí ??. al-'Ámilí, called Shahíd-i-Awwal (“the First Martyr”) (No. 82), was put to death at Damascus about midsummer 786/1384 ^406a by judgement of the two Qáḍís Burhánu'd-Dín the Málikí and Ibn Jamá'a the Sháfi'í.

11. Núru'd-Dín 'Alí ibn 'Abdu'l-'Álí, known as Muḥaq-qiq-i-Thání (“the Second Investigator”) (No. 84), came Divines of the Ṣafawí and postṢafawí periods. to Persia from Karak, his native place, and was highly honoured and esteemed by Sháh Ṭahmásp I. He died in 940/1533-4.

12. Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, called Muqaddas-i-Arda-bílí “the Saint of Ardabíl” (No. 83), was highly honoured by Sháh 'Abbás the Great. He died in 993/1585.

13. Mír Muḥammad Báqir-i-Dámád (No. 77), the grandson of Muḥaqqiq-i-Thání (No. 11 supra), also stood high in the favour of Sháh 'Abbás, and died in 1041/1631-2. Concerning his book the Ṣiráṭu'l-Mustaqím (“the Straight Path”) a Persian poet composed the following epigram:

^407a He himself wrote poetry under the takhalluṣ, or pen-name, of Ishráq.

14. Shaykh Muḥammad Bahá'u'd-Dínal-'Ámilí, commonly called Shaykh-i-Bahá'í (No. 37), was equal in fame, influence and honour with the above-mentioned Mír Dámád, these two being amongst the men of learning who gave most lustre to the court of Sháh 'Abbás the Great. The literary activities of Shaykh-i-Bahá'í, who was born near Ba'labakk in 953/1546, and died in 1031/1622, were not confined to theology. In that subject his best-known work is the Jámi'-i-'Abbásí, a popular Persian manual of Shí'a Law, which he did not live to complete. He also compiled a great collection of anecdotes in Arabic named the Kashkúl (“Alms-bowl”), a sequel to his earlier and less-known Mikhlát. He also wrote several treatises on Arithmetic and Astronomy, and composed the Persian mathnawí poem entitled Nán u Ḥalwá (“Bread and Sweetmeats”).

15. Muḥammad ibn Murtaḍà of Káshán, commonly known as Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ (No. 76), though reckoned “a pure Akhbárí” (), and detested by Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsá'í the founder of the Shaykhí sect, who used to call him Musí' (“the Evil-doer”) instead of Muḥsin (“the Well-doer”), was in fact more of a mystic and a philosopher than a theologian. His best-known theological work is probably the Abwábu'l-Janán (“Gates of Paradise”), composed in 1055/1645. Ten years later he went from Káshán to Shíráz to study philosophy with Mullá Ṣadrá, whose daughter he married. He was also a poet, and in the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá ^408a the number of his verses is said to amount to six or seven thousand.

16. Mír Abu'l-Qásim-i-Findariskí, though omitted from the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá, was accounted “the most eminent philosopher and Ṣúfí of his time, and stood high in the estimation of Sháh 'Abbás I, whom he is said, however, to have scandalized by his habit of mixing with the lowest orders and attending cock-fights.” ^408b He spent some time in India in the reign of Sháh-Jahán and died in Iṣfahán about 1050/1640-1.

17. Mullá Ṣadru'd-Dín Muḥammad ibn Ibráhím of Shíráz, commonly called Mullá Ṣadrá, is unanimously accounted the greatest philosopher of modern times in Persia. That in the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá no separate article should be devoted to one whose life was a constant conflict with the “clergy,” and whose clerical disguise was even more transparent than that of his teachers Mír Dámád and Shaykh-i-Bahá'í, is not surprising, but much incidental mention is made of him in this and other similar works, like the Lú'lú'atu'l-Baḥrayn, and his teaching affected theology, notably that of the Shaykhí school, ^408c in no small degree. His death is placed by the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát about 1070/1660, ^408d but by the Lú'lú'atu'l-Baḥrayn twenty years earlier.

18. 'Abdu'r-Razzáq-i-Láhijí, like Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ, was a pupil of Mullá Ṣadrá. His two best-known works, both in Persian, are the Sar-máya-i-Ímán (“Substance of Belief”) and the Gawhar-i-Murád (“Pearl of Desire”). He

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shared with Shaykh Ṭabarsí, the author of the Majma'u'l-Bayán , the curious belief in the “essential meaning” of words, by which he meant that there existed a real relation between the sound and meaning of every word, so that having heard the sound of a strange word it was possible by reflection to conjecture the sense.^409a

The last six persons mentioned were all philosophers as well as, or even more than, theologians. The following, except the last, Ḥájji Mullá Hádí, are all Shí'a divines of the strictest type.

19. Mullá Muḥammad Taqí-i-Majlisí (No. 36) is said to have been the first to compile and publish Shí'a traditions, which he received from the Muḥaqqiq-i-thání, in the Ṣafawí period. Allusion has already been made to his alleged Ṣúfí proclivities. He died in 1070/1659-60, a date expressed by the ingenious chronogram: ^409b

“The crown of the Holy Law fell: scholarship become headless and
footless.”

By removing the “crown,” i.e. the initial letter, of , and the “head” and “foot,” i.e. the initial and final letters of , we get the three letters = 800 + 200 + 70 = 1070.

20. Mullá Muḥammad Báqir-i-Majlisí (No. 33), son of the above, who has been already mentioned repeatedly in this chapter, was even more famous than his father. His great work is the Biḥáru'l-Anwár (“Oceans of Light”), an immense compilation of Shí'a traditions; but he composed many other works, of which the following are in Persian: 'Aynu'l-Ḥayát (“the Fountain of Life”); Mishkátu'l-Anwár (“the Lamp of Lights”); Ḥilyatu'l-Muttaqín (“the Ornament of the Pious”); Ḥayátu'l-Qulúb (“Life of Hearts”), not completed; Tuḥfatu'z-Zá'irín (“the Pilgrims' Present”); Jalá'u'l-'Uyún (“the Clearing of the Eyes”), ^410a etc. He died, as already stated, in 1111/1699-1700.

21. Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdí of Burújird, entitled Baḥru'l-'Ulúm (“the Ocean of Learning”) (No. 27), was born in 1155/1742-3, and appears to have died about 1240/ 1824-5.

22. Sayyid Muḥammad Báqir ibn Sayyid Muḥammad Taqí of Rasht, entitled Ḥujjatu'l-Islám (No. 26), has been already mentioned for his severity in inflicting punishments for infractions of the Sharí'at. He was wealthy as well as influential, and, according to the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát (p. 125), spent 100,000 “legal dínárs” ^410b in building a great mosque in the Bídábád quarter of Iṣfahán. He was born about 1180/1766-7, went to 'Iráq to pursue his studies at the age of sixteen or seventeen, returned to Iṣfahán in 1216 or 1217 (1801-3), and died on Sunday the 2nd of Rabí' i, 1260 (March 23, 1844). According to his namesake, the author of the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát, his death was mourned for a whole year by the people (presumably the devout and orthodox only!), because none after him dared or was able to enforce the rigours of the Ecclesiastical Law to the same extent. By a strange coincidence, the “Manifestation” of Mírzá 'Alí the Báb, and the subsequent rise of that heresy which did so much to weaken the power of the orthodox Shí'a faith, took place just two months after his death.

23. Shaykh Aḥmad ibn Zaynu'd-Dín ibn Ibráhím al-Aḥsá'í , the founder of the Shaykhí school or sect, spent most of his life at Yazd, whence he went by way of Iṣfahán to Kirmánsháh. There he remained until the death of the governor of that city, Prince Muḥammad 'Alí Mírzá, son of Fatḥ-'Alí Sháh, who favoured him and invited him to make his abode there. He then retired to the Holy Shrines of 'Iráq, where he composed most of his numerous works, of which the most famous are the Sharḥu'z-Ziyárati'l-Kabíra and the Sharḥu'l-Fawá'id. He vehemently opposed Mullá Ṣadrá, Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ, and the Ṣúfís, but was himself denounced as a heretic by Ḥájji Mullá Muḥammad Taqí of Qazwín, whose death at the hands of a Bábí assassin about A.D. 1847 earned for him the title of “the Third Martyr” (Shahíd-i-Thálith). Shaykh Aḥmad died in 1243/1827-8, being then nearly ninety years of age.^411a

24. Mullá Aḥmad-i-Niráqí, who died of cholera in 1244/ 1828-9, was a poet as well as a theologian, and composed a Persian poem entitled Ṭáqdís in imitation of the Mathnawí of Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí. His poetical name was Ṣafá'í, and an article is consecrated to him in the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá (vol. ii, p. 330).

25. Ḥájji Mullá Hádí of Sabzawár, ^411b the last great Persian philosopher, also wrote poetry under the nom de guerre of Asrár. He was born in 1212/1797-8 and died in 1295/1878.

Oriental writers on the art of rhetoric classify prose writings, according to their form, into three varieties, plain Varieties of Prose. ('árí), rhymed (muqaffá), and cadenced (musajja'). We may divide them more simply into natural and artificial. To us, though not always to our ancestors, as witness the Euphuists of Elizabethan days, artificial prose is, as a rule, distasteful; and if we can pardon it in a work like the Arabic Maqámát of al-Ḥarírí or the Persian Anwár-i-Suhaylí, written merely to please the ear and display the writer's command of the language, we resent it in a serious work containing information of which we have need. It is a question how far style can be described absolutely as good or bad, for tastes differ not only in different countries but in the same country at different periods, and a writer deemed admirable by one generation is often lightly esteemed by the next, since, as the Arab proverb says, “Men resemble their age more than they do their fathers.”^412a

Of prose works written simply to display the linguistic attainments and rhetorical ingenuities of the authors I do An instance of misplaced floridity. not propose to perpetuate the memory, or to say more than that, when they embody historical and other matter of sufficient value to render them worth translating, they should, in my opinion, if they are to be made tolerable to European readers, be ruthlessly pruned of these flowers of eloquence. As an instance I will take one passage from that very useful and by no means very florid history of the early Ṣafawí period the Aḥsanu't-Tawáríkh (985/1577-8), of which I have made such extensive use in the first part of this volume. It describes the war waged on the blind Sháhrukh Dhu'l-Qadar by Muḥammad Khán Ustájlú in the spring of 914/1508-9, and begins thus: ^{414a 414b}

“In the spring, when the Rose-king with pomp and splendour turned his face to attack the tribes of the Basil, and, with thrusts of his thorn-spear, drove in rout from the Rose-garden the hibernal hosts—

A roar ^414c arose from the cloud-drums, the army of the basils was
stirred;
The cloud contracted its brows, and drew Rustam-bows ^414d for the
contest;
The flowering branches raised their standards, the basils prepared
their cavalry and their hosts;
The cloud in its skirts bore in every direction hail-stones for the
head of Afrásiyáb—

Khán Muḥammad Ustájlú encamped in summer quarters at Márdín.”

All this could much better be said in one line:

“In the spring Khán Muḥammad Ustájlú encamped in summer quarters at Márdín.”

Graceful poetic fancies are all very well in their proper place, but in a serious history they are inappropriate and irritating. The trouble is that, as has been remarked already, nearly all literary Persians, and consequently historians, are poets or poetasters, and they unhappily find it easier and more entertaining to mix poetry with their history than history with their poetry, even their professedly historical poetry. In discussing the later prose literature of Persia I shall therefore confine myself to what has substantial value apart from mere formal elegance, and shall treat of it, according to subject, under the five following headings:

(1) Theology.

(2) Philosophy.

(3) The Sciences—mathematical, natural and occult.

(4) History—general, special and local.

(5) Biography and autobiography, including travels.

Theology in Persia during the period with which we are dealing, that is from the establishment of the Ṣafawí dynasty Theological literature. to the present day, means Shí'a theology, and by extension the semi-heterodox doctrines of the Shaykhís and the wholly heterodox doctrines of the Bábís and Bahá'ís. A large portion of this theological literature—in older times almost all, and even now a considerable amount—is in Arabic, the sacred language of Islám and of the Qur'án, and much of it in all Muslim countries is almost unreadable, save for a few professional theologians, and, it may be added, quite unprofitable. Some A worthless class of books. learned man writes a theological, philological, or logical treatise which achieves renown in the Colleges where the 'ulamá get their mediaeval training. Some one else writes a commentary on that treatise; a third produces a super-commentary on the commentary; a fourth a gloss on the super-commentary; a fifth a note on the gloss; so that at the end we are confronted with what the immortal Turkish wit Khoja Naṣru'd-Dín Efendí called “soup of the soup of the soup of the hare-soup,” a substance devoid of savour or nutriment, and serving rather to conceal than to reveal its original material. Shaykh Muḥammad 'Abduh, late Grand Muftí of Egypt and Chancellor of the University of al-Azhar, than whom, perhaps, no more enlightened thinker and no more enthusiastic lover of the Arabic language and literature has been produced by Islám in modern times, used to say that all this stuff should be burned, since it merely cumbered bookshelves, bred maggots, and obscured sound knowledge. This was the view of a great and learned Muhammadan theologian, so we need not scruple to adopt it; indeed the more we admire and appreciate the abundant good literature of Islám, the more we must deplore, and even resent, the existence of this rubbish. In reading the lives of the 'Ulamá in such books as the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát and the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá we constantly find a theologian credited with forty, fifty, or sixty works of this type, which nobody reads now, and which, probably, no one but his pupils ever did read, and they only under compulsion. Even to enumerate these treatises, were it possible, would be utterly unprofitable.

The great achievement of the Shí'a doctors of the later Ṣafawí period, such as the Majlisís, was their popularization Popular theological works in Persian. of the Shí'a doctrine and historical Anschauung in the vernacular. They realized that to reach the people they must employ the language of the people, and that in a simple form, and they reaped their reward in the intense and widespread enthusiasm for the Shí'a cause which they succeeded in creating. We have already seen ^417a how few Shí'a books were available when Sháh Isma'íl first established that doctrine as the national Achievement of the Majlisí. faith of Persia, and, according to the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát , ^417b Mullá Muḥammad Taqí Majlisí was “the first to publish the Shí'a traditions after the appearance of the Ṣafawí dynasty.” His even more Works of Mullá Muḥammad Báqir-i-Majlisí. eminent son Mullá Muḥammad Báqir compiled on this subject the immense Biḥáru'l-Anwár (“Oceans of Light”) in Arabic, and in Persian the following works: ^417c 'Aynu'l-Ḥayát (“the Fountain of Life”), containing exhortations to renunciation of the world; Mishkátu'l-Anwár (“the Lamp of Lights”); Ḥilyatu'l-Muttaqín (“the Ornament of the Pious”), on example and conduct; Ḥayátu'l-Qulúb (“the Life of Hearts”) in three parts, the first on the Prophets before Muḥammad, the second on the Prophet Muḥammad, and the third on the Twelve Imáms, but only part of it was written and it was never completed; Tuḥfatu'z-Zá'irín (“the Pilgrims' Present”); Jalá'u'l-'Uyún (“the Clearing of the Eyes”); Miqbásu'l-Maṣábíḥ , on the daily prayers; Rabí'u'l-Asábí' (“the Spring of Weeks”); Zádu'l-Ma'ád (“Provision for the Hereafter”), and numerous smaller treatises. Oddly enough one of the most notable of his Persian theological works, the Ḥaqqu'l-Yaqín (“Certain Truth”), which was compiled in 1109/1698, and beautifully printed at Ṭihrán so early as 1241/1825, is omitted from this list. The late M. A. de Biberstein Kazi-mirski began to translate this book into French, but abandoned his idea, sent his manuscript translation to me, and urged me to continue and complete the work he had begun; a task which, unfortunately, I have never had leisure to accomplish, though it would be well worth the doing, since we still possess no comprehensive and authoritative statement of Shí'a doctrine in any European language.

The basic works of the Shí'a faith, namely the Qur'án (the Word of God) and the Traditions (the sayings and Classification of Persian theological works. deeds of the Prophet and the Imáms), are naturally in Arabic. The numerous Persian religious treatises may be roughly classified in three groups—the doctrinal, the historical, and the legal. In practice doctrine and history are almost inevitably intermixed, especially in the sections dealing with the Imámate, where attempts are made to prove that the Prophet intended 'Alí to succeed him; that Abú Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthmán were usurpers of his rights; that the Imáms were twelve in number, no more and no less, and that they were the twelve recognized by the “Sect of the Twelve” (Ithnà-'Ashariyya) and none other. Thus while the earlier sections of these doctrinal works dealing with God and His Attributes border on Metaphysics, the later sections are largely composed of historical or quasi-historical matter, while the concluding portions, dealing with Heaven, Hell, the Last Judgment, and the like, are eschatological.

The style of these books is generally very simple and direct, and totally devoid of rhetorical adornment, but Simple style of these works. commonly affects an imitation of the Arabic idiom and order of words, not only in passages translated from that language, but throughout, as though these theologians had so steeped their minds in the Qur'án and the Traditions that even when using the Persian language the thought must follow Arabic lines. The following example, taken from the beginning of the second volume of the Ḥaqqu'l-Yaqín, ^418a will suffice to illustrate this peculiarity:

“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, ^419a 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:

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,

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.^421a

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, ^421b 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). ^421c 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. ^422a 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.^422b

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

Philosophy (Ḥikmat, Filsafa) is defined by the Muslims as “a knowledge of the true essence of things, as they really Divisions of Philosophy. are, so far as is possible to human capacity.” It is divided into two branches, the theoretical (naẓarí), and the practical ('amalí). The former comprises Mathematics (Riyáḍiyyát), Natural Science ('Ilmu'ṭ-Ṭabí'at), and Metaphysics (Má wará'ba'd or fawq aṭ-Ṭabí'at); the latter Ethics (Tahdhíbu'l-Akhláq), Economics (Tadbíru'l-Manzil), and Politics (Siyasatu'l-Mudun). The three best-known Persian treatises on Practical Philosophy, namely the Akhláq-i-Náṣirí, Akhláq-i-Jalálí, and Akhláq-i-Muḥsiní, ^424a all belong to the period preceding that which we are now discussing, and I do not recollect any important Persian work on the subject which has appeared since. We may therefore confine our attention here to the first, or theoretical, branch of Philosophy, and in this section to Metaphysics, which on the one hand borders on Theology, and on the other on Science. It is generally Shí'a and Mu'tazila. admitted that a very close connection existed between the Shí'a and the Mu'tazila ^424b in early 'Abbásid times, and it is well known that the latter were the most enlightened and philosophic of the theological schools of Islám, and that in particular they were the champions of Free Will against the rigid Determinism which subsequently triumphed, to the great detriment of the intellectual development of the Muhammadan world. Those sections of Shí'ite theological works which treat of the Nature and Attributes of God are, therefore, of a more philosophical character than is commonly the case in Sunní books of a similar type.

Muslim Philosophy, like Muslim Science, admittedly and avowedly owes almost everything to the Greeks. Its develop- Debt of Muslim philosophers to the Greeks. ment from the middle of the eighth century of the Christian era, when under the early 'Abbásid Caliphs the work of translating into Arabic the works of the most eminent and celebrated Greek thinkers began, down to the deadly blow inflicted on Islamic civilization by the Mongol Invasion and the destruction of Baghdád and the 'Abbásid Caliphate in the middle of the thirteenth century, has been repeatedly traced by European scholars. For a broad general view, characterizing the chief exponents of the different schools of Islamic thought, Dr T J de Boer's History of Philosophy in Islam, translated into English by E. R. Jones, may be recommended to the general reader. It will be observed that only one of the thinkers mentioned in that book, Ibn Khaldún (b. A.D. 1332 at Tunis, d. A.D. 1406 at Cairo), flourished after the fall of the 'Abbásid Caliphate, and he was a unique and isolated phenomenon, “without forerunners and without successors.” ^425a The question we have to answer here is, has Persia, which Difficulty of determining the value of later Persian philosophical systems. in earlier times produced so large a proportion of the so-called “Arabian Philosophers,” ^425b produced any metaphysician of note since the beginning of the sixteenth century? To answer this question one would need to combine with a competent knowledge of Arabic and Persian a grasp of the history and subject-matter not only of “Arabian” but of Greek Philosophy (and, indeed, of Philosophy in general) to which I cannot lay claim. This, indeed, constitutes the difficulty of judging the value of the scientific literature of Islám. How many of those who admire the Persian quatrains of 'Umar Khayyám can follow M. Woepcke in the appreciation of his Arabic algebraical treatises? A knowledge of Arabic does not suffice to enable us to decide whether ar-Rází or Ibn Síná (Avicenna) was the greater physician. Much valuable work of this technical character has been done in Germany, by Dr E. Wiedemann of Erlangen (Optics, Physics, etc.), Dr Julius Hirschberg of Berlin (Ophthalmology), Dr Max Simon (Anatomy), and others, but very much remains to be done, and few scholars are competent to undertake it. As regards Philosophy in Persia during the last three or Six modern Persian philosophers of repute. four centuries, all one can say is that half a dozen thinkers have established a great reputation amongst their countrymen, but how far this reputation is deserved is a question which has not yet received a satisfactory answer. These thinkers are, in chronological order, as follows: (1) Shaykh Bahá'u'd-Dín al-'Ámilí (d. 1031/1622); (2) Mír Dámád (d. 1041/1631-2); (3) Mullá Ṣadrá (d. 1050/1640-1); (4) Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ (d. after 1091/1680); (5) Mullá 'Abdu'r-Razzáq al-Láhijí; and, in quite modern times, (6) Ḥájji Mullá Hádí of Sab-zawár (d. 1295/1878).

Now Muslim philosophers are of two sorts, those whose philosophy is conditioned by and subordinated to revealed Ḥikmat and Kalám. Religion, and those whose speculations are not so limited. The former are the Mutakallimún or Ahl-i-Kalám, the Schoolmen or Dialecticians; ^426a the latter the Ḥukamá (pl. of Ḥakím) or Falásifa (pl. of Faylasúf), the Philosophers proper. Of the six persons mentioned above, Mullá Ṣadrá certainly and Ḥájji Mullá Hádí possibly belong to the second class, but the four others to the first. These four, however, if less important from the point of view of Philosophy, were in other ways notable men of letters. Biographies of all of them except Mullá Hádí, who is too modern, are given in the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát , or the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá, from which, unless otherwise stated, the following particulars are taken.

The first five were more or less contemporary, and are, to a certain extent, interrelated. Shaykh Bahá'u'd-Dín and Mír Dámád both enjoyed considerable influence and stood in high favour at the court of Sháh 'Abbás the Great, yet there was no jealousy between them, if we may believe the pleasing anecdote about them and the Sháh related by Sir John Malcolm. ^427a Mullá Ṣadrá was the pupil of both of them, ^427b while Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ and Mullá 'Abdu'r-Razzáq al-Láhijí were both his pupils and his sons-in-law.

Shaykh Bahá'u'd-Dín Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn ibn 'Ab-du'ṣ-Ṣamad al-Ḥárithí al-'Ámilí al-Hamdání al-Jab'í was Shaykh-i-Bahá'í, b. 953/1546; d. 1031/1622. one of the numerous Shí'a doctors who came to Persia from Jabal 'Ámil in Syria, whence he derived the nisba by which he is commonly known, though by the Persians he is most often spoken of as “Shaykh-i-Bahá'í.” His father Shaykh Ḥusayn, a disciple of Shaykh Zaynu'd-Dín “the Second Martyr” (Shahíd-i-Thání ), came to persia after his master had been put to death by the Turks for his Shí'ite proclivities, bringing with him the young Bahá'u'd-Dín, who applied himself diligently to His teachers. the study of Theology in all its branches, Mathematics and Medicine. His teachers included, besides his father, Mullá 'Abdu'lláh of Yazd, a pupil of Jalálu'd-Dín-i-Dawání, the author of the Akhláq-i-Jalálí, who was in turn a pupil of the celebrated Sayyid-i-Sharíf-i-Jurjání. In Mathematics he studied with Mullá 'Alí Mu-dhahhib (“the Gilder”) and Mullá Afḍal of Qá'in, while in Medicine he was the pupil of 'Alá'u'd-Dín Maḥmúd. ^427c In due course he attained great celebrity as a theologian and jurist, and became Ṣadr or Shaykhu'l-Islám of Iṣfahán. After a while he was possessed with the desire to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his homeward journey visited, in the guise of a darwísh, Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Ḥijáz and Palestine, and made the acquaintance of many learned men and eminent doctors and mystics.

Shaykh-i-Bahá'í was born at Ba'labakk in Syria on Mu-ḥarram 17, 953 (March 20, 1546), and died on Shawwál 12,

Mír Muḥammad Báqir of Astarábád, with the pen-name of Ishráq, commonly known as Dámád (“son-in-law”), a title Mír Dámád d. 1041/1631-2. properly belonging to his father Sayyid Muḥam-mad, whose wife was the daughter of the celebrated theologian Shaykh 'Alí ibn 'Abdu'l-'Álí, pursued his earlier studies at Mashhad, but spent the greater part of his life at Iṣfahán, where, as we have seen, he stood in high favour with Sháh 'Abbás the Great, and where he was still living when the author of the Ta'ríkh-i-'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí wrote in 1025/1616. He died in 1041/1631-2. Most of his writings were in Arabic, but he wrote poetry in Persian under the takhalluṣ of Ishráq. He seems to have Observes the habits of bees. had a taste for Natural History as well as Philosophy, for, according to the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ula-má , he made an observation hive of glass in

Autograph of Shaykh Bahá'u'd-Dín-i-,Ámilí
Or. 4936 (Brit. Mus.), 15
To face p. 428

order to study the habits of bees. It is stated in the same work that after his death his pupil and son-in-law Mullá Ṣadrá saw him in a dream and said, “My views do not differ from yours, yet I am denounced as an infidel and you are not. Why is this?” “Because,” replied Mír Dámád's spirit,

Ṣadru'd-Dín Muḥammad ibn Ibráhím of Shíráz, commonly known as Mullá Ṣadrá, was the only son of an aged and Mullá Ṣadrá, d. 1050/1640-1. otherwise childless father. On his father's death he left Shíráz and went to Iṣfahán, where, as we have seen, he studied with Shaykh-i-Bahá'í and Mír Dámád, from both of whom he held ijázas. or authorizations to expound their works. He subsequently retired to a village near Qum, where he lived a secluded and austere life, engaged in profound meditations on Philosophy. He is said to have made the Pilgrimage to Mecca on foot seven times, and to have died at Baṣra on his return from his seventh journey in 1050/1640-1, leaving a son named Ibráhím who did not follow his father's doctrine but denounced and controverted it, boasting that “his belief was that of the common people.” To these meagre particulars of Mullá Ṣadrá's life, derived from the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát (pp. 331-2) and the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá, I can only add that it is clear from some expressions in the Preface to his Asfár that he suffered a good deal at the hands of the His influence on Shaykhí and Bábí theology. orthodox divines, and that Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsá'í, the founder of the Shaykhí school, wrote commentaries on two of his works, the Ḥik- matu'l-'Arshiyya and the Mashá'ir. Shaykh Muḥammad Iqbál is therefore probably right when he says ^430a that “the Philosophy of Ṣadrá is the source of the metaphysics of early Bábíism,” and that ^430b “the origin of the philosophy of this wonderful sect must be sought in the Shí'a sect of the Shaykhís, the founder of which, Shaykh Aḥmad, was an enthusiastic student of Mullá Ṣadrá's philosophy, on which he had written several commentaries.”

The two most celebrated of Mullá Ṣadrá's works, all of which, so far as I know, are in Arabic, are the Asfár-i-

Of Mullá Ṣadrá's philosophical doctrines, in spite of their high reputation in Persia, I know of only two brief and Gobineau's account of Mullá Ṣadrá. necessarily superficial accounts in any European language. The Comte de Gobineau devotes several pages ^431a to them, but his information was probably entirely derived orally from his Persian teachers, who were very likely but ill-informed on this matter, since he concludes his notice with the words “la vraie doctrine de Moulla-Sadra, c'est-à-dire d'Avicenne,” while the Raw-ḍátu'l-Jannát ^431b explicitly states that he was an Ishráqí (“Illuminatus” or Platonist) and strongly condemned the Aristoteleans or Peripatetics (Mashshá'ún), of whom Avi-cenna was the great representative.

The other shorter but more serious account of Mullá Ṣadrá's doctrine is given by Shaykh Muḥammad Iqbál,

Muḥammad ibn Murtaḍà of Káshán, commonly called Muḥsin with the poetical pen-name of Fayḍ, was a native Mullá Muḥsin-iFayḍ, d. about 1091/1680. of Káshán, and, as already said, the favourite pupil and son-in-law of Mullá Ṣadrá. In the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát (pp. 542-9) and the Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá much fuller notices of him are given than of his master, and, since he was not only a theologian and a philosopher but likewise a poet of some note, he is also mentioned in the Riyáḍu'l-'Árifín (pp. 225-6) and the Majma'u'l-

Autograph of Mullá Muḥsin-i-Fayḍ
Or. 4937 (Brit. Mus.), p. 84
To face p. 432

what appears to be an autograph copy, made in 1042/1632-3, now bearing the class-mark C. 18.

When Mullá Muḥsin wished to leave his home in Káshán and go to Shíráz to study under the celebrated theologian His travels in search of knowledge. Sayyid Májid of Baḥrayn, his father opposed this project, and it was finally agreed to take an augury (tafa”ul) from the Qur'án, and from the poems ascribed to the first Imám 'Alí ibn Abí Ṭálib. The former yielded the verse (ix, 123) “if a part of every band of them go not forth, it is that they may diligently instruct themselves in Religion”; the latter the following lines rendered An apposite augury. particularly apposite by the words ṣuḥbatu Májidi, “the society of some noble one,” which might in this case be taken as referring particularly to the above-mentioned Sayyid Májid:

“Go abroad from the home-lands in search of eminence, and travel,
for in travel are five advantages:
The dissipation of anxiety, the acquisition of a livelihood, know-
ledge, culture, and the society of some noble one (májid).
And if it be said, ‘In travels are humiliation and trouble, the
traversing of deserts and the encountering of hardships,’
Yet the death of a brave man is better for him than his continuance
in the mansion of abasement, between humiliation and an
envious rival.”

After these clear indications, Mullá Muḥsin's father no longer opposed his desire to go to Shíráz, where he pursued his studies not only with the aforesaid Sayyid Májid, but also with Mullá Ṣadrá. It is difficult to accept the statement of the Qiṣaṣ that this took place in 1065/1654-5, for this would make him nearly sixty years of age before he began his serious studies with Mullá Ṣadrá or married his daughter.

Mullá Muḥsin is described in the Qiṣaṣ as a “pure Akhbárí” (Akhbárí-yi-Ṣirf), a Ṣúfí, and an admirer of Antagonism between Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsá'í and Mullá Muḥsin. Shaykh Muḥyi'd-Dín ibnu'l-'Arabí. Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsá'í, who, as we have seen, ^434a wrote commentaries on two of the books of his master Mullá Ṣadrá, detested him, and used to call him Musí' (“the ill-doer”) instead of Muḥsin (“the well-doer”), and to speak of the great Shaykh as Mumítu'd-Dín (“the Slayer of Religion”) instead of Muḥyi'd-Dín (“the Quickener of Religion”). According to an absurd story in the Qiṣaṣ, Mullá Muḥsin was chosen by Sháh 'Abbás to Mullá Muḥsin triumphs over a Christian missionary. confute a Christian missionary sent by the “King of the Franks” to convert the Persians. The sign offered by this missionary was that he would specify any article held in the closed hand of his opponent. ^434b Mullá Muḥsin chose a rosary (tasbíḥ) made of clay taken from the tomb of the Imám Ḥusayn. The Christian hesitated to speak, but, when pressed, said, “It is not that I cannot say, but, according to the rule I observe, I see that in thy hand is a portion of the earth of Paradise, and I am wondering how this can have come into thy possession.” “Thou speakest truly,” replied Mullá Muḥsin, and then informed him what he held, and bade him abandon his own faith and accept Islám, which, according to the narrator, he was constrained to do. Though extremely pious in most respects, Mullá Muḥsin scandalized the orthodox by his approval and sanction of singing. His best-known Persian compilation is probably the Abwábu'l-Janán (“Gates of Paradise”) composed in 1055/1645, on prayer and its necessity, ^435a but few of his numerous writings have been published or are now read, and at the present day, at any rate, his name is more familiar than his works.

The subject of this notice resembled Mullá Muḥsin in being a pupil and son-in-law of Mullá Ṣadrá and a poet,

I have been obliged to omit any further notice than that already given ^435c of the somewhat elusive figure of Mír Abu'l- Mír Abu'lQásim-iFindariskí. Qásim-i-Findariskí, mentioned by Gobineau ^435d as one of the three teachers of Mullá Ṣadrá, because, apart from the brief notices of him contained in the Riyáḍu'l-'Árifín ^436a and the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá , in both of which the same poem is cited, and the passing reference in the Dabistán ^436b to his association with the disciples of Kaywán and adoption of sun-worship, I have been unable to discover any particulars about his life or doctrines. He appears to have been more of a qalandar than a philosopher, and probably felt ill at ease in the atmosphere of Shí'a orthodoxy which prevailed at Iṣfahán, and hence felt impelled to undertake the journey to India. He must, however, have subsequently returned to Persia if the statement in the Riyáḍu'l-'Árifín that his tomb is well known in Iṣfahán be correct.

Gobineau (op. laud., pp. 91-110) enumerates a number of philosophers who succeeded Mullá Ṣadrá down to the time of his own sojourn in Persia, but most of them have little importance or originality, and we need only mention one more, who was still living when Gobineau wrote, and whom he describes as “personnage absolument incomparable.”

It is not, however, necessary to say much about this celebrated modern thinker, since his philosophical ideas are Ḥájji Mullá Hádí of Sabzawár, b. 1212/1797-8, d. 1295/1878. somewhat fully discussed by Shaykh Muḥam-mad Iqbál at the end of his Development of Metaphysics in Persia, ^436c while I obtained from one of his pupils with whom I studied in Ṭihrán during the winter of 1887-8 an authentic account of his life, of which I published an English translation in my Year amongst the Persians. ^436d According to this account, partly derived from one of his sons, Ḥájji Mullá Hádí the son of Ḥájji Mahdí was born in 1212/1797-8, studied first in his native town of Sabzawár, then at Mashhad, then at Iṣfahán with Mullá 'Alí Núrí. Having made the pilgrimage to Mecca, he visited Kirmán, where he married a wife, and then returned to Sabzawár, where the remainder of his life was chiefly spent until his death in 1295/1878. His best- His works. known works, written in Persian, are the Asráru'l-Ḥikam (“Secrets of Philosophy”) and a commentary on difficult words and passages in the Mathnawí; in Arabic he has a versified treatise (Manẓúma) on Logic; another on Philosophy; commentaries on the Morning Prayer and the Jawshan-i-Kabír; and numerous notes on the Shawáhidu'r-Rubúbiyya and other works of Mullá Ṣadrá. He also wrote poetry under the pen-name of Asrár, and a notice of him is given in the Riyáḍu'l-'Árifín (pp. 241-2), where he is spoken of as still living and in the sixty-third year of his age in 1278/1861-2, the date of composition. Most of his works have been published in Persia in lithographed editions.

As stated above, ^437a Mathematics (Riyáḍiyyát) “the Disciplinary” and Ṭabí'iyyát the Natural Sciences, in con- Evolution of “Arabian” Science, and its connection with Philosophy. junction with Metaphysics (Má wará or Má ba'da'ṭ-Ṭabí'at), constitute the subject-matter of the theoretical or speculative branch of Philosophy, of which, therefore, they form a part. It is probable that to this manner of regarding them is partly due the unfortunate tendency noticeable in most Muslim thinkers to take an a priori view of all natural phenomena instead of submitting them to direct critical observation. The so-called “Arabian,” i.e. Islamic, Science was in the main inherited from the Greeks; its Golden Age was the first century of the 'Abbásid Caliphate (A.D. 750-850), when so much trouble and expense was incurred by the Caliphs, especially al-Manṣúr, Hárúnu'r-Rashíd and al-Ma'mún, to procure good and faithful Arabic translations of the great Greek philosophers, naturalists and physicians; and the great service it rendered to mankind was to carry on the Greek tradition of learning through the Dark Ages of Europe down to the Renaissance.

So much is generally admitted, but there remains the more difficult and still unsolved question whether the Arabs What, if anything, did the Arabs add to what they inherited from the Greeks? were mere transmitters of Greek learning, or whether they modified or added to it, and, in this case, whether these modifications or additions were or were not improvements on the original. This question I have endeavoured to answer in the case of medical science in my Arabian Medicine, ^438a but I was greatly hampered by insufficient acquaintance with the original Greek sources. For such investigation, whether in the Medicine, Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy or Chemistry of the Muslims, three qualifications not often combined are required in the investigator, to wit, knowledge of the science or art in question, knowledge of Arabic (and, for later writers, of Persian and even Turkish), and knowledge of Greek. In the case of the “Arabian” (i.e. Muslim) physicians the conclusion at which Eminence of Rhazes (ar-Rází) as an observer. I arrived (already reached by Dr Max Neu-burger in his monumental Geschichte der Medizin) ^438b was that Rhazes (Abú Bakr Muḥam-mad ibn Zakariyyá ar-Rází, i.e. a native of Ray in Persia) was, as a physician, far superior to the more celebrated and popular Avicenna (Ibn Síná), and was, indeed, probably the greatest clinical observer who ever existed amongst the Muslims. The notes of actual cases which came under his observation, as recorded in parts of his great “Continens” (al-Ḥáwí), have an actual and not merely a historical or literary value; and even from his methods of treatment it is possible that here and there a hint might be obtained. Avicenna was more logical, more systematic, and more philosophical, but he lacked the Hippocratic insight possessed by his great predecessor.

In my Arabian Medicine I sketched the history of the art amongst the Muslims from its beginnings in the eighth Decay of learning after the Mongol Invasion. century of our era down to the twelfth, but made no attempt to follow it down to the period which we are now considering. The Mongol Invasion of the thirteenth century, as I have repeatedly and emphatically stated, dealt a death-blow to Muslim learning from which it has not yet recovered. Medical and other quasi-scientific books continued, of course, to be written, but it is doubtful if they ever approached the level attained under the early 'Abbásid Caliphs and maintained until the eleventh, and, to some extent, until the thirteenth century of our era. That they added anything which was both new and true is in the highest degree improbable, though I cannot claim to have carefully investigated the matter. A long list of these books is given by Dr Adolf Fonahn in his most useful work entitled Zur Quellenkunde der Persischen Medizin, ^439a which has pointed the way for future investigators. Of these later works the most celebrated is probably the Tuḥfatu'-Mú'minín, compiled for Sháh Sulaymán the Ṣafawí by Muḥammad Mú'min-i-Ḥusayní in A.D. 1669. It deals chiefly with Materia Medica, and there are numerous editions and manuscripts, besides translations into Turkish and Arabic.^439b

What has been said about Medicine holds good also of Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, etc., and in a lesser degree of Mathematics, Astronomy and Mineralogy. Fine work has been done in some of these subjects by experts who also How far did the Muslim scientists observe for themselves? possessed an adequate knowledge of Arabic. I will only instance Woepcke in Algebra, Wiedemann in Mechanics, Hirschberg in Ophthalmology, and, amongst younger men, Holm-yard in Chemistry. All these, I think, have come to the conclusion that the standard attained by the best Muslim investigators surpassed rather than fell short of what is generally supposed. Yet it is often difficult to assure oneself that direct observation, which is the foundation of true science, has played its proper part in ascertaining the phenomena recorded. Dr Badhlu'r-Raḥmán, now Professor of Arabic in the Oriental College at Lahore, when he was a Research Student in this University, took as the Al-Jáḥiẓ on instincts in ants. subject of his studies the works of al-Jáḥiẓ, who, on the strength of his great book on animals, the Kitábu'l-Ḥayawán, is often regarded as one of the leading naturalists of the Arabs. ^440a At my request this able and industrious young scholar devoted especial attention to the question whether the writings of this author afforded any proof that he had himself observed the habits of any of the animals about which he wrote. A passage was ultimately found which seemed conclusive. In speaking of instinct al-Jáḥiẓ says that when the ant stores corn for food it mutilates each grain in such a way as to prevent it from germinating. After numerous fruitless enquiries as to the truth of this statement, I finally ascertained from Mr Horace Donisthorpe, one of the chief British authorities on ants, that it was correct, and I began to hope that here at last was proof that this old Muslim scholar had himself observed a fact of Natural History apparently unknown to many modern Zoologists. Unhappily I subsequently discovered the same statement in Pliny, and I am afraid it is much more likely that it reached al-Jáḥiẓ by tradition rather than by direct observation.

In each of the “Arabian” sciences the same question arises and demands an answer which only one thoroughly versed in the scientific literature of the ancients can give. Does Ibnu'l-Bayṭár's great Arabic work on medicinal plants, for example, contain any information not to be found in Dioscorides? Be the answer what it may, it is doubtful Modern European Science in Persia. whether the later Muslim writers on these various sciences ever surpassed, or even equalled, their predecessors. In quite recent times, especially since the foundation of the Dáru'l-Funún, or Polytechnic College, at Ṭihrán early in the reign of Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh, numerous Persian translations or adaptations of European scientific works have been made, but these are entirely exotic, and can hardly claim to be noticed in a work on Persian Literature. A number of them are mentioned in my Press and Poetry of Modern Persia, pp. 154-66, under the heading “Modernising Influences in the Persian Press other than Magazines and Journals.” But of those Persians who since the middle of the nineteenth century have successfully graduated in the European schools of science, I know of none who has hitherto made a reputation for original research.

In conclusion a few words must be said about the Occult Sciences, excluding Astrology and Alchemy, which are in The Occult Sciences. the East hardly to be separated from Astronomy and Chemistry. Alchemy is called in Arabic and Persian Kímiyá, and the names of four other Occult Sciences, dealing with Talismans, Necromancy, and the like, are formed on the same model, Límiyá, Hímiyá, Símiyá, and Rímiyá, the initial letters being derived from the words Kulluhu Sirr (), “All of it is a Mystery.” The book entitled Asrár-i-Qásimi (“Secrets of Qásim”) ^442a in Persian, and the Shamsu'l-Ma'árif (“Sun of Knowledges”) ^442b of the celebrated Shaykh al-Búní in Arabic, may be regarded as typical of this class of literature, but to the uninitiated they make but arid and unprofitable reading. Ibn Khaldún is the only Muslim writer I know of who has sought to discover a philosophical and rational basis for these so-called sciences, and his ideas have been collated with the theories of modern Psychical Research in a most masterly manner by Professor Duncan Black Macdonald in his interesting and suggestive book entitled The Religious Attitude and Life in Islam. ^442c I have always kept an open mind as to the reality of the powers claimed by Occultists, and, when opportunity offered, have always gone out of my way to investigate such manifestations. Disappointment has invariably been my portion, save in two cases: a “magician” whom I met in Kirmán in the summer of 1888, who, amidst much vain boasting, did accomplish one feat which baffled my comprehension; ^442d and the late Shaykh Ḥabíb Aḥmad, author of an astonishing work in English entitled The Mysteries of Sound and Number, ^442e who, if nothing more, was an amazingly skilful thought-reader.

It must be admitted, with whatever unwillingness and regret, that in the art of historical compilation the Persians fall far short of the Arabs, who, indeed, excel in this branch of literature. The earlier Muslim annalists like Ṭabarí, with Superiority of the Arabs to the Persians as historians. their verbatim narratives by eye-witnesses of the events recorded transmitted orally through carefully scrutinized chains of traditionists, are not only singularly graphic but furnish us, even at this distance of time, with materials for history of which, thanks to these isnáds, it is still possible to estimate the authenticity, even if our judgment as to the strength of the respective links in the chain does not always agree with that of Muslim critics. The later Arab historians selected, condensed, and discarded these somewhat wearisome if valuable isnáds, but their narrative, as a rule, continues to be crisp, concise, graphic and convincing. The best of the earlier Persian historians, down to the thirteenth century, though lacking the charm of the Arabian chroniclers, are meritorious and trustworthy. The bad taste of their Tartar and Turkish rulers and patrons gradually brought about a deterioration both of style and substance,

It would be a wearisome and unprofitable task to enumerate the many Persian historical works composed during Some notable later Persian histories. the last four centuries. Of the histories of special periods the most important have been not only described but freely quoted in the first part of this volume, notably the Ṣafwatu'ṣ-Ṣafá for the life of Shaykh Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín from whom the Ṣafawí kings were descended; the monograph on Sháh Isma'íl described by Sir E. Denison Ross in the J.R.A.S. for 1896, pp. 264-83; the Aḥsanu't-Tawáríkh, completed in 985/1577-8 by Ḥasan-i-Rúmlú; and the Ta'ríkh-i-'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí of Iskandar Munshi, composed in 1025/1616. There are other monographs on the later Ṣafawí period, such as the Fawá'id-i-Ṣafawiyya (1211/1796-7) and the Tadhkira-i-Ál-i-Dáwúd (1218/1803-4), which I would fain have consulted had they been accessible to me. For the post-Ṣafawí period we have several excellent European accounts which render us less dependent on the native historians, some of whose works moreover (e.g. the Ta'ríkh- i-Zandiyya ^445a and the Mujmalu't-Ta'ríkh-i-Ba'd-Nádiriyya) ^445b have been published in Europe, while others, such as the Durra-i-Nádirí of Mírzá Mahdí Khán of Astarábád, are easily accessible in Oriental lithographed editions. These monographs contain valuable material and are indispensable to the student of this period, but they are generally badly arranged and dully written, and further marred by the florid and verbose style of which we have just been complaining.

For the general histories of our present period, from Khwándamír's Ḥabíbu's-Siyar (929/1523) at the beginning Poor quality of most of the Persian general histories. to Riḍá-qulí Khán's Supplement to the Raw-ḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá and Lisánu'l-Mulk's Násikhu't-Tawáríkh at the end, with the very rare Khuld-i-Barín (1071/1660-1) in the middle, there is even less to be said, since, though for events contemporary with their authors they have the same value as the monographs just mentioned, for the earlier periods they are not even good or judicious abstracts of the carelessly selected authorities from whom they derive their information. They are, moreover, histories not of the Persian people but of the kings, princes and nobles who tyrannized over them and contended with one another for the spoils; wearisome records of bloodshed, violence and rapine from which it is hard to derive any general concepts of value. ^445c Only by diligent and patient study can we extract from them facts capable of throwing any real light on the religious, political and social problems which a historian like Ibn Khaldún would have handled in so masterly a manner.

There are, however, hopeful signs of improvement in recent times. Poor Mírzá Jání of Káshán, though a mer- Signs of improvement in modern times. chant without much literary training, wrote his Nuqṭatu'l-Káf ^446a on the history of the Bábí sect, of which in 1852 he was one of the proto-martyrs, with violence and passion indeed, but with knowledge, in plain and simple language without that florid rhetoric which we find so intolerable; while the unfinished “History of the Awakening of the Persians” (Ta'ríkh-i-Bídárí-yi-Íráni-yán ) of the Náẓimu'l-Islám of Kirmán, ^446b with its ample documentation and endeavour to estimate personal characteristics and influence on political events, seems to me to stand on an altogether higher level than any preceding Persian historical work composed during the last six or seven centuries.

Muslim writers have always evinced a great partiality for biography, which may be general, dealing with the lives of Biography popular with the Muslims. eminent men of all sorts, like Ibn Khallikán's Wafayátu'l-A'yán (“Obituaries of Notable Men”) and the Rawḍátu'l-Jannát, of which I have made such extensive use in the latter part of this volume, the former composed in the thirteenth, the latter in the late nineteenth century, and both in Arabic; and the ambitious but unfinished modern Persian Náma-i-Dánish-warán (“Book of Learned Men”) compiled by a committee of some half a dozen scholars, of which the first volume Different types of biographical works. was lithographed at Ṭihrán in 1296/1879 and the second in 1312/1904-5. ^447a More often such works treat of the biographies of some particular class of men, such as Ministers, Physicians, Poets or Theologians; or they follow a geographical or a chronological arrangement, merging on the one hand into geography and on the other into history. Khwándamír's Dastúru'l-Wuzará (“Models for Ministers”), ^447b composed, according to the chronogram implicit in the title, in 915/1509-10, affords us a Persian example of the first type falling at the beginning of the period reviewed in this volume. For the Physicians and Philosophers no Persian work approaches the level of al-Qifṭí's Ta'ríkhu'l-Ḥukamá ^447c and Ibn Abí Uṣaybi'a's 'Uyúnu'l-Anbá fí Ṭabaqáti'l-Aṭibbá, ^447d both composed in the thirteenth century of our era, a period so rich in Arabic biographical works. Biographies of poets, on the other hand, abound in Persian, especially in the later period, since Sháh Isma'íl's son Sám Mírzá set the fashion with his Tuḥfa-i-Sámí (a continuation of Dawlatsháh's “Memoirs of the Poets”) compiled in 957/1550. Eminent representatives of the Shí'a sect, both Arabs and Persians of every category from kings to poets, form the subject-matter of the very useful Majálisu'l-Mú'minín (“Assemblies of Believers”), the author of which, Sayyid Núru'lláh of Shúshtar, was flogged to death in 1019/1610-11 by order of Jahángír at the instigation of the Sunnís, and who is therefore called by his fellow-believers the “Third Martyr” (Shahíd-i-Thálith).^447e

Of the older geographico-biographical works the Átháru'l-Bilád (“Monuments of the Lands”) of Zakariyyá ibn Mu-ḥammad ibn Maḥmúd al-Qazwíní, ^448a and the Persian Haft Iqlím (“Seven Climes”), composed in 1028/1619 by Amín Aḥmad-i-Rází, are typical specimens. ^448b Monographs on different provinces or cities of Persia are also fairly common, and generally include notices of the more eminent natives of the region discussed. Of modern biographical works produced in Persia I have made extensive use,

The other book which I have constantly consulted as to the lives of the theologians is the Persian Qiṣaṣu'l-'Ulamá

Mention must also be made of another modern biographical work of a somewhat special character, which, though the work of a Persian, is written in Turkish. This Calligraphists. is the Khaṭṭ u Khaṭṭáṭán (“Writing and Writers”), ^450a a history of the art of Calligraphy and its votaries by the learned Mírzá Ḥabíb of Iṣfahán, who spent the latter period of his life in Constantinople, where he was a member of the Anjuman-i-Ma'árif, or Turkish Academy.

These are but a selection of the more useful or less known biographical works, of which many more will be Autobiographies. found described in Rieu's, Ethé's, and other catalogues of Persian manuscripts. Of autobiographies the most notable is that of Shaykh 'Alí Ḥazín, which contains one of the few first-hand Persian accounts of the Afghán Invasion and fall of Iṣfahán in A.D. 1722. Travels are a special form of autobiography, in which His Travels. late Majesty Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh indulged freely. An account of the mission of Farrukh Khán Amínu'l-Mulk to London and Paris at the close of the Anglo-Persian War in 1857-8 was written by one of his staff, Mírzá Ḥusayn ibn 'Abdu'lláh, but has never been published. ^450b It concludes with a description of the French Departments of State and Public Institutions. More The Bustánu'sSiyáḥat. valuable and varied in its contents is the Bustánu's-Siyáḥat (“Garden of Travel”) of Ḥajji Zaynu'l-'Ábidín of Shírwán, ^450c who wrote it in 1247/1831-2. In a brief autobiography under the heading Shamákhí he tells us that he was born in mid-Sha'bán, 1194 (August 15, 1780), and was taken to Kar-balá, where he thenceforth made his home, when only five years old. He travelled extensively in 'Iráq, Gílán, the Caucasus, Ádharbáyján, Khurásán, Afghánistán, India, Kashmír, Badakhshán, Turkistán, Transoxiana, the Persian Gulf, Yaman, the Ḥijáz, Egypt, Syria, Turkey in Asia and Armenia, and in Persia also visited Ṭihrán, Hamadán, Iṣfahán, Shíráz and Kirmán. He was a Shí'ite and a darwísh of the Order of Sháh Ni'matu'lláh, and in this double capacity made the acquaintance and enjoyed the friendship of many eminent doctors ('ulamá) and “gnostics” ('urafá). The author, a man of intelligence and a keen observer, does not give a continuous narrative of his travels, but arranges his materials under the following heads:

Chapter I. Account of the Prophet, his daughter Fáṭima, and the Twelve Imáms.

Chapter II Account of certain doctors, gnostics, philosophers, poets and learned men.

Chapter III. On sundry sects and doctrines.

Chapter IV. Geographical account of towns and villages visited by the author in Persia, Turkistán, Afghánistán, India, parts of Europe and China, Turkey, Syria and Egypt, the names of these places being arranged alphabetically.

Promenade (Sayr). Prolegomena on the arrangement of this Garden, and on certain matters connected therewith.

Rose-bed (Gulshan). Countries and persons to describe which is the ultimate object of the book, arranged alphabetically in twenty-eight sections, corresponding with the letters of the Arabic alphabet.

Spring (Bahár), containing four Rose-bowers (Gulzár):

(i) On the interpretation of dreams;

(ii) Names of certain halting-places of the author on his travels;

(iii) Various anecdotes;

(iv) Conclusion.

The book contains a great deal of miscellaneous biographical and geographical information, which, owing to the alphabetical arrangement generally observed, and the very full table of contents prefixed, is fairly accessible to the reader. The author was full of curiosity, and, though unable to visit Europe, lost no opportunity of cultivating the society of European travellers and acquainting himself with the peculiarities of their countries by hearsay. Under the article Firang (pp. 385-7) he discusses the general characteristics of the chief European nations, amongst whom he puts the French first, the Austrians second, and the English third; and he gives a long account of his conversations with an Englishman whom he calls “Mr Wiklís” () ^452a and with whom he became acquainted at 'Aẓímábád. He also cultivated the society of the Austrian ambassador at Constantinople, who invited him to visit his country, “but,” he concludes, “since there was no great spiritual advantage to be gained by travelling in that country, I declined.” More valuable is his account of the various religions and sects of Asia, in which he treats, amongst other matters, of the Zoroastrians, Mazdakites, Jews, Christians, Hindús, Ṣúfís and Ghulát (extreme Shí'a).

It would be impossible to notice here the many excellent books of reference, historical, biographical and geographical, which have been produced in Persia since the middle of the nineteenth century. Many of them, it is true, are for the most part compiled and condensed from older works, both Arabic and Persian, but some contain valuable new matter, not to be found elsewhere. Something must, however, be said as to certain peculiarities connected with this later literature and with the world of books in modern Persia.

European students of Persian are, as a rule, unless they have lived in that country, accustomed to think in terms of manuscripts, and to turn to Dr Rieu's admirable catalogues of the British Museum MSS. for information as to literary history. But since the introduction into Persia of printing and lithography, especially since about 1880, the importance of the manuscript literature has steadily diminished, the more important books written being either transferred to stone or set up in type from the original copy. This printed and lithographed literature has not hitherto received nearly so much attention as the older manuscript literature, and it is often impossible to obtain ready and trustworthy information as to the authors and contents of these modern books. The recent publication of Mr Edwards's Catalogue of the Persian printed books in the British Museum ^453a marks a great step in advance of anything previously accomplished, but the notices are necessarily very brief, and contain, as a rule, no particulars about the authors and only the most general indication of the character of their works. What is needed is a catalogue raisonné of Persian books composed during the last century and lithographed or printed in Persia, for it is much easier, for reasons which will be stated immediately, to ascertain what has been published in Persian in Turkey, Egypt and India.

The fact is that the Persian book trade is in the most chaotic condition. There are no publishers or booksellers of substance, and no book-catalogues are issued. Most books have no fixed price or place of sale; many have no pagination; hardly any have indexes or tables of contents. Often books comprising several volumes change their size and shape, their plan, and even their nature, as they proceed, while the author not unfrequently changes his title. Let us take as an illustration a few of the numerous works of reference published under the name of Mírzá Muḥammad Ḥasan Khán, who successively bore the titles of Ṣaní'u'd-Dawla, Mú'tamanu's-Sulṭán, and I'timádu'd-Dawla, and was the son of Ḥájji 'Alí Khán of Marágha, originally entitled Ḥájibu'd-Dawla and later I'timádu's-Salṭana. Now first of all it is very doubtful whether these books were really written by Ṣaní'u'd-Dawla at all; at any rate it is commonly asserted that he coerced various poor scholars to write them, and ascribed the authorship to himself, ^454a proceedings of which the latter must be regarded as wholly reprehensible, whatever may be said in extenuation of the former. In 1293/1876 he published the first volume of the Mirátu'l-Buldán (“Mirror of the Lands”), a geographical dictionary of Persian towns and villages, largely based on Yáqút's well-known Arabic Mu'jamu'l-Buldán, containing the first four letters of the alphabet (). Of this volume, however, there appear to have been two editions, the first ending with the notice of Tabríz and containing 388 pages, the second, published a year later (1294/1877), extending to Ṭihrán, and containing 606 pages. Having reached Ṭihrán, however, the author, growing tired, apparently, of geography, decided to continue his work as a history of the reigning king Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh, and to add at the end of each remaining volume a Calendar and Court Directory for the current year. Vol. ii, therefore, comprises the first fifteen years of the Sháh's reign (298 pp.) and the Calendar (45 pp.) for the year of publication (1295/1878). Vol. iii continues on the same lines, and contains the years xvi-xxxii of the current reign (264 pp.) and the Calendar (50 pp.). At this point, however, the author seems to have remembered his original plan, and in vol. iv he continues the geographical dictionary with the next two letters of the alphabet (), at which point he reverts to history, and gives an account of the events of the year of publication (1296/1879), followed by the annual Calendar. Moreover, in order to celebrate this reconciliation of geography and history, the size of this fourth volume is suddenly enlarged from 10 1/2 × 6 3/4 inches to 13 1/2 × 8 1/4 inches.

By this time the author appears to have grown weary of the “Mirror of the Lands,” for after a year's rest he began the publication of a new book entitled Muntaẓam-i-Náṣirí, of which also three volumes appeared in the years 1298-1300/ 1881-3. Of these three volumes I possess only the first and the third. The first contains an outline of Islamic history from A.H. 1-656 (A.D. 622-1258), that is, of the history of the Caliphate (pp. 3-239), followed by an account of the chief events of the solar year beginning in March, 1880, both in Persia and Europe (pp. 239-57), and the usual Calendar and Court Directory (42 pp.). The third volume contains a history of the reigning Qájár dynasty from 1194/1779 to 1300/1882 (pp. 32-387), followed again by the Calendar for the last mentioned year.

Next year the author began the publication of a new work in three volumes entitled Maṭla'u'sh-Shams (“the Maṭla'u'shShams, A.H. 1301-3 (A.D. 1884-6). Dawning-place of the Sun”). This opens with a perfunctory apology for the incomplete condition in which the “Mirror of the Lands” was left. However, says he, since the next two letters of the alphabet are ḥá () and khá (), and since Khurásán is the most important province beginning with the latter, and since His Majesty Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh, whose faithful servant he is, and to whom this and his other works are dedicated, had recently made the journey thither in order to visit the holy shrine of the Imám 'Alí Riḍá at Mashhad, he has decided to devote this book to an account of that province, which, since it lies to the East, is hinted at in the title. In the first volume (published in 1301/1884) he accordingly describes the route to Mashhad by way of Damá-wand, Fírúzkúh, Bisṭám, Bujnúrd and Qúchán, giving a full account of each of these places and the intervening stations. The second volume (published in 1302/1885) contains a detailed description of Mashhad, its monuments, its history from 428/1036 to 1302/1885, the most notable men to whom it has given birth, a monograph on the eighth Imám 'Alí Riḍá, and in conclusion (pp. 469-500) a valuable list of the books contained in the Mosque library. In the midst of all this topographical matter is inserted (pp. 165-216) the text of Sháh Ṭahmásp's diary, of which such free use was made in a previous chapter. ^456a The third volume (published in 1303/1886) contains an account of the Sháh's return journey by the ordinary Pilgrim route through Níshápúr, Sabzawár, Sháhrúd, Dámghán and Samnán, with full descriptions of these and the intervening stations, and biographical notices of eminent men connected with each. A Sál-náma, or Calendar and Court Directory for the current year, completes each volume, and it is only fair to add that the price of each is stated on the last page as twelve qráns, at that time about seven shillings.

Henceforward most of Muḥammad Ḥasan Khán's numerous works included a Sál-náma, or “Year Book” for Other works by the same author. the current year, placed at the end of each volume and having a separate pagination. His biographies of eminent Muslim women, entitled Khayrát^un Ḥisán^un, published in three volumes in the years 1304-7/1887-90, lacks this addition, which is, however, found in the Kitábu'l-Ma'áthir wa'l-Áthár (published in 1306/1888-9), on the Memorabilia of forty years of the reign of Náṣiru'd-Dín Sháh, an invaluable book of reference for students of the history, biography and evolution of modern Persia down to the date of publication. The plan of a geographical dictionary was taken up by another writer,

These Persian lithographed books, notwithstanding their shortcomings, are, as a rule, pleasant to handle, well written, well bound, and printed on good paper. Some of them, like the Khaṭṭ u Khaṭṭáṭán (“Calligraphy and Calligraphists”) of Mírzá-yi-Sanglákh, and the excellent edition of the Mathnawí with Concordance of Verses (Kashfu'l-Abyát) associated with the name of 'Alá'u'd-Dawla, are really beautiful books, while almost all are far superior to the Indian lithographs. They are, however, hard to obtain in Europe, and indeed anywhere outside Ṭihrán, Tabríz and perhaps Iṣfahán. Even the British Museum collection is very far from complete, while my own collection, originally formed by purchase in Persia, ^457a owes much to the fact that I was able to add to it a number of volumes from two very notable Persian libraries, those of the late M. Charles Schefer and of the late Sir A. Houtum-Schindler. As has been already said, few greater services could be rendered to Persian scholarship than the proper cataloguing and describing of these lithographs, and the devising of means to place them on the European book-market. Since lithography can be carried on with simple apparatus and without any great technical skill or outlay of money, it is often practised by comparatively poor scholars and bibliophiles, who print very small editions which are soon exhausted, so that many books of this class rank rather with manuscripts than with printed books in rarity and desirability.^457b