"دليل بلاد فارس، المجلد I ويشمل محافظات أستراباد، شاهرود-بوستان، خراسان، وسيستان" [و‎‎٢‎٤‎١] (٧٢٢/٤٨٨)

allowing his followers to drink wine after its spirit had been a little evaporated
by boiling; and that he also altered a number of practices regarding prayer
and purifications, which are inculcated both in that volume and the admitted
traditions. As a proof of the ignorance of this Imam, the Shiah writer,
with apparent triumph, alleges that he confessed his inability to decide
whether a hermaphrodite could be admitted into paradise, or a ‘ jinni J become
perceptible to the human vision.
The second Imam, Malik, was also born in the first century of the
Hijra; and if we are to believe Sunni writers, he was not less remark
able than Hanifah for his modesty and piety. We are informed that out
of forty-eight questions which we re put to him, he returned thirty-two with
a declaration that he could not answer them. “ A noble and frank confession
of ignorance,^ observes a Muhammadan writer, “which could, in a man of
such learning and reputation, have only proceeded from a mind whose sole
object was truth and the glory of God/'’ This modest and wise doctor,
however, is accused by Shiah writers of being the bold propagator of
falsehood and of vice.
They assert that he taught that the flesh of all animals, except swine
and beings endowed with reason, might be eaten; and they quote from his
own writings to prove that, in certain cases, he affirmed the legality of a
practice which cannot be named, but which all other Muhammadan teachers
have concurred in deeming infamous.
Shafei, the third Imam of the Sunnis, who was born in the second
century of the Hijra, is said by all Sunni writers to have been a
learned and virtuous man, who laboured to arrange the traditions so as
to render them useful as a code of laws. He introduced several alterations
of religious forms, but advanced few doctrines that can be deemed innova
tions. We may judge of the injustice of his enemies from the character
of their accusations, one of the principal of which is that this Imam
departed from that text of the Kuran which prohibits gambling, by allowing
disciples to indulge in the recreation of a few games of chess.
Hanbal, the fourth Imam, w r as born in the second century. He was at
first an opposer, and afterwards a follower of Ash-Shafei, from whom he
boasted to have learnt most of the traditions he knew ; and we are assured
that he was able to repeat a million. This Imam appears to have been
bolder than any of his predecessors, and to have taught doctrines which
subjected him to the most cruel persecution. The Shiahs accuse him, not
only of having allowed his followers to relieve occasional lowness of spirits
by the use of intoxicating drugs, but of propagating the most profane
doctrines regarding the nature of the Almighty, whom his followers, they
assert, were taught to believe was a corporeal being.
One Shiah author describes the god of the sect of Hanbali as “ hav
ing curled locks, of being immaterial from the head to the breast, but
consisting, from the breast downward, of one solid soft mass/ - ’ And he
asserts that this learned doctor explained that verse in the Kuran, which
states that “ the merciful God is upon the heavens,'” to mean, a that the
deity sat four fingers above the firmament in such a manner that his
knees reached below it.” He adds that the followers of Hanbal have
proclaimed opinions still more impious. “ Ihey believe, ” he informs us,
“ that on the day of resurrection, when men shall be called before God
to worship him, Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad, shall advance to
the judgment-seat to petition for justice on the murderers of her sons,