‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎241v] (489/722)

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H usain and Hasan/’ but God, they say, will show his thigh, and display a
cloth that covers a wound upon it, while a voice will be heard to exclaim .
“That arrow which Nimrod shot at heaven with intention to destroy me
wounded my thigh. I have not permitted it to heal, that I might show
it you, and that you should know that if the God you adore sustained
so great a wrong from a being whom he created, you should not be sur
prised at the sufferings your sons endured from their own tribe.” “ The
followers of this doctor,” the same writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. observes, “assert that the
Almighty had one day a pain in his eyes; and that he informed the enquiring
angels that it was an inflammation, brought on by the torrents of tears
which he had shed at the deluge.” And they also affirm, “that every
Thursday night God assumes the shape of a beautiful boy, and descends
from heaven upon an Egyptian ass ; and that it was very common to build
a small manger on the tops of their mosques, near which they burnt
incense and deposited some fine straw and grain, which was declared to be
for the refreshment of the animal on which the Almighty rode, in the
event of his descending at that spot.”
It is evident, from this example, that the Shiah writers endeavour to
defame and discredit the Imams, or saints, of the Sunnis, by ascribino-
to them not only every doctrine that has been propagated by the most
absurd or visionary of their followers, but those of other sects. The
impious tenets which are here charged upon the disciples of Hanbal should
properly be ascribed to those of Ibn-ul Kiram, the celebrated founder
of the schism of the Kiramites—a sect which, by their literal accept
ation of the figurative parts of the Kuran, have been led into a gross
heresy, that is deemed at once monstrous and blasphemous by almost all
other Muhammadans, who, generally speaking, entertain the purest and most
sublime belief of the divine nature and attributes of the Almighty.
The Shiahs also accuse the four Sunni Imams of having altered several
sacred institutions, particularly that of the division of the khums,*or fifth
share of spoil taken in war, regarding which, they affirm, they have estab
lished doctrines at complete variance with the practice of Muhammad and
the text of the Kuran. They also assert that they have altered forms of
prayer, and made deviations on other points from wfiat is enjoined by
traditions of acknowledged authority, for the express and sole object of
establishing usages opposite to those of the Shiahs; and on these grounds
they hold the names of Hamfah, Malik, Shafei, and Hanbal in complete
abhorrence, and consider as wanderers from the true path all who follow
their abominable and heretical doctrines.
It would be tedious to enter into a methodical disquisition of the innu
merable points of difference between these two Muhammadan sects. A short
reference to some of their most popular productions will be the best mode
of elucidating the character of their opposite tenets, and of showing the
style of their most esteemed theological disputants.
In a letter, written oy some priests of the Sunni sect that accompanied
the army of a Tartar monarch who attacked Mashhad, we find, compressed
in a short compass, a. catalogue of those heresies with which the Shiahs
are charged, and for which they are justly doomed (if we are to believe
the authors. of this violent anathema) to total destruction in this world
and everlasting misery in that to come. They are accused of not only
denying the authority, but of vilifying the character, of those who are
* ‘ khums ’ is Arabic for fifth.