The Reconciliation of Races and Religions by Thomas Kelly Cheyne
page 21 of 173 (12%)
page 21 of 173 (12%)
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continued the line of the national religious development. The majority
of Persians were Shi'ites; they regarded Ali and the 'Imams' as virtually divine manifestations. This at least was their point of union; otherwise they fell into two great divisions, known as the 'Sect of the Seven' and the 'Sect of the Twelve' respectively. Mirza Ali Muhammad belonged by birth to the latter, which now forms the State-religion of Persia, but there are several points in his doctrine which he held in common with the former (i.e. the Ishma'ilis). These are--'the successive incarnations of the Universal Reason, the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and the symbolism of every ritual form and every natural phenomenon. [Footnote: _NH_, introd. p. xiii.] The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is not God, and that love between two human hearts is but a type of the love between God and his human creatures, and the bliss of self-annihilation, had long been inculcated in the most winning manner by the Sufis. SHEYKH AHMAD Yet they were no Sufis, but precursors of Babism in a more thorough and special sense, and both were Muslims. The first was Sheykh Ahmad of Ahsa, in the province of Bahrein. He knew full well that he was chosen of God to prepare men's hearts for the reception of the more complete truth shortly to be revealed, and that through him the way of access to the hidden twelfth Imam Mahdi was reopened. But he did not set this forth in clear and unmistakable terms, lest 'the unregenerate' should turn again and rend him. According to a Shi'ite authority he paid two visits to Persia, in one of which he was in high favour with the Court, and received as a |
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