Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/748

* MOHAMMEDAN SECTS. 670 MOHAMMEDAN SECTS. personal frieiul. pcrsuadod him to conclude a treaty liy which the pilgrimage was again al- lowed, on payment of 5 dinars for every camel and 7 for every horse. The Black Stone was re- turned for an enormous ransom in U50, seven years after Abu Tahir's death. At that time the Karmathians were masters of Irak, Syria, and Arabia. Little of importance is heard of them again till 9fl0, when they were defeated before Kufa — an event which seems to have made an end of their dominion in Irak and Syria. About 993 they were again defeated by Asfar, and their chief lost his life. They retreated to Wiasa, where they fortihed themselves, while Asfar marched against Allvatif, captured it, and ■carried away all the baggage, slaves, and animals of the Karmathians of that town and then re- tired to Basra. The Karmathians retained Lhasa for a considerable time, but nothing further is lieard of them in history. In 18(j2-(j3 Palgrave found remnants of them still living in Najran, and in Bahrein and Oman, and their hatred of Islam seemed in no wise abated. Concerning the special beliefs of the Kar- mathians, so far as they have been preserved, their system seems in the beginning to have been merely a sort of reformed Islam. The prophet Al-Karraat. it was held, had brought a new law into the world, by whieh numy of the tenets of Slohanunedanism were altered, many ancient ceremonies abrogated, new forms of prayer intro- duced, and an entirely new kind of fast ineul- ealed. Wine and a few other things i)rohil)iled by the Koran were allowed. Certain of the pre- cepts of the book were turned into mere alle- gories. Instead of tithes they gave the liflh part of their property to the imam. Prayer was mere- ly the symbol of obedience to the imam. Fast- ing was the symbol of silence, or rather of con- cealment of religious doctrine from the stranger. Another offshoot of the Ismailians is the sect known a.s Assassins {hashsJiishin, a name de- rived from hashixh, a drink drawn from hemp, to which the members of the sect were addicted). The sect owed its origin to Hasan ibn Sabbah, a Persian fanatic, who at the beginning of the eleventh century formed a secret society, the members of which swore blind obedience to theii- leader, known to history as the 'Old Man of the Mountain.' From their mountain fastnesses in Persia (Alanuit) they bade defiance for two centuries to the strongest armies sent against them by Moslem rulers, ai»l they were reduced to harmlessness only by the Mongol invasion (125-")). They owed their ])ower cliielly to the perfection of their secret organization and to the un-crupulousness with which they carried out their i)ians. They were perhaps best known for the countless assassinations of whieli the members of the sect were guilt}-. From Persia they spread into Syria and Asia Minor, ^'hile Hasan ibn Sabbah was still alive, the Governor of Aleppo bad invited them to settle in his ter- ritory, anil they had taken jKis.session of various mountain fasltics--es from whieh they were en- abled to play an important role in the t'rusailes. There are still a few Assassins in the neighbor- hood of llonis. .See As.SASSIXS. When the Assassins eame into Syria they found the mountain regions anuiml llama in possession of the Xo.sAlBlANS. apparently a remnant of the ancient Syro-Pluenieian population of the lanil, whieh had preserved its own religion through the centuries despite all the etVorts of Christianity. Most of the Xosairians displayed a bitter en- mity toward the Ismailians. though some em- braced their cause, and at the eml of the tenth century there was a strong infiltration of Ismai- lian doctrines into the general Xosairian religious system. In fact, the Xosairian religion, without being identical with Ismailism, shows many strong points of analogy with it. The Xosairi- ans are divided into four sects — Uaidariyyah, Kalaziyyuh (or Kiinuiriiijiiih), l^haiiialiyyah (or f!liai>isiy!jali ) , and (lliiiibiiiyiih. The Shamaliyyah and Kalaziyyuh are the most im])ortant. They all possess the same religious book (Kituh at- ilajmu'). and differ from one another only on points of minor importance. The chief variations from the Ismailian doctrines are these: While the Ismailians taught that of the .seven cycles corresponding to the various manifestations of the deity, the sixth, that of Mohammed, was closed with the death of .Tafar. and the seventh, which was to be characterized by the coming of the Mahdi, or Messiah, was thereby opened, the Xosairians taught that the seventh was closed by the seventh divine manifestation, that of Ali. Furthermore, the Xosairians recognized ilusa in- stead of Ismail as the successor of .lafar al-Sadik. This was probably due to the fact that they had accepted as their leader Mohammed ibn Xosair, who was a partisan of the eleventh imam, a de- scendant of Musa. . d with Musa (died 799), who was the seventh imam, they considered the number of imams to have been comjjleted. An- other striking characteristic of the Xosairian belief was their attitude toward the nutilfs, the various divine incarnations. The Ismailians held that all the natiks excepting Mohammed were superior to their ossas ( fiiunilations) or samets, while the Xosairians placed all of their assas above the natiks. Hut of greatest importance was the degree to which they carried their doc- trine of the divinity of .li. Ali. wliile he confided the irord to Jrohanuued. had reserved the Dia'iia (meaning) for himself. Ali is their god in heaven and their inuiiu on earth: he is concealed from man because of his divine nature; he is not created and has no attributes: his essence is the light. He created Mohammed to be the veil with which he conceals himself, the place in which he resides, the bearer of his name. Mo- hammed in his turn created Salman al-Farisi to Im> the lj<ih, or gate — the one through whom man eonununieates with the deity, and who is charged by the divinity with the making of his propaganda. Sahnan created the five 'inconi- parables" (in reality five planets) which created the world. The Xosairians are sometimes called Ansabies (q.v.). Besides the Assassins anil Xosairians. a third sect with Ismailian tendencies found refuge in the Syrian mountain districts — the Dri'SES. When .bd Allah ibn Maimun found himself per- seeuteil by the authorities be fled to Syria, and continued to preach there the coming of the Mahdi. His son .Mohanuncd contiiuieil the propa- ganda, and finally the .Mahdi himself njipeared among the Berbers of X'orlli .Xfriia. This .Mahdi foiuided the Egvptian dvnastv of the Fatimites (909). the sixth of which.' Hakim, probably under Ismailian infiuenee, ileclared himself an incarnation of the deity. He disajjpeared m.vs- teriously. which hel|M'il to support bis conten- tions. Hamza and Al-Darzi (whence the name