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A body of religionists who were also called abdals, and pretended to be inspired with the most enthusiastic raptures of divine love. They were regarded by the vulgar as saints. Olearius, tom. I. p. 97 1. D'Herbelot, p. 5.

The term dervich signifies a poor man, and is the general appellation by which a Mahometan monk is named. There are, however, discriminations that distinguish this class from the others already mentioned. They are bound by no vow of poverty, they abstained not from marriage, and, whenever disposed, they may relinquish both their blue shirt and profession. D'Herbelot, Suppl. 214.—It is observable that these different orders, though not established till the reign of Nasser al Samani, are notwithstanding mentioned by our author as coeval with Vathek, and by the author of the Arabian Nights, as existing in the days of Haroun al Raschid: so that the Arabian fabulists appear as inattentive to chronological exactness in points of this sort, as our immortal dramatist himself.