Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/431

419 SUPPOSED RELIGION OF TAMERLANE. 419 pretty nearly those of the Decalogue, but he despised the dreams of the Koran, and he was the enemy both of idolaters and Mussulmans, while he did not object to the law of Jesus Christ." According to this author, " Tamerlane retained the same sentiments to the last hour of his life, when the only person he allowed to ap- proach him was an Imaum, well instructed in his own principles of religion. This Imaum, it is said, exhorted him, in accordance with these doctrinal principles, and succeeded in softening his heart, so that he expired confessing the unity of God, and full of fear of His justice, and confidence in His mercy." After having given this rather strange account, the historian ex- claims, " It is our part to bow to the decrees of heaven with respect to a hero who was acquainted with the Christian religion, who loved it, and protected it, but who did not ever profess it ! " The testimony of various Arab authors, however, and of the celebrated Orientalist Herbelot, would jro to prove that Tamerlane was a fanatic Mussulman, who pursued, with equal fury, Christians and idolaters ; and that after havingjoined the sect of the Sumites*, he two sects ; the greatest difference between them is, that the Sumites regard the succession of the four first Caliphs as legitimate, while the Shi-ites acknowledge no rights but those of Ali. The Sumites have a horror of the murder of Osman, while the Shi-ites cannot pardon that of Ali and his sons. . . In the course of ages, these dif- ferences have assumed a more marked character, and been increased by the various political interests of the nations which have followed one or the other. From time immemorial, almost all the wars be- tween the Turks and the Persians, the former of which are Sumites, and the latter Shi-ites, have been religious as well as national wars, and the attempts so continually repeated, and lastly by Shah- e e 2
 * Islamism, almost at its commencement, was divided into these