Vickipedia

MOHAMMEDAN SECTS. ‘My community,’ Mohammed is reported to have said, ‘will separate itself into seventy-three sects; one only will be saved, all the others shall perish.’ This prophecy shall be largely fulfilled. Even during the illness, and immediately after the death of the founder, many differences of opinion arose among his earliest adherents. We have endeavored to show, both under KORAN and MOHAMMEDANISM, how the fundamental book of Islam left certain points undecided by the very fact of its poetical wording, and how, further, the peculiarity of the Arabic idiom at times allowed many interpretations to be put upon one cardinal and dogmatic sentence. To add to this uncertainty, a vast number of oral traditions sprang up and circulated as an expansive corollary to the Koran. Political causes soon came to assist the confusion and contest, and religion was made the pretext for faction-lights, which in reality had their origin in the ambition of certain men of influence. Thus ‘ sects ‘ increased in far larger numbers even than the Prophet had foretold, and though their existence was but short-lived in most instances, they yet deserve attention, were it only as signs and tokens of the ever-fresh life of the human spirit, which, though fettered a thousand times by marrow and hard formulas, will break these fetters as often, and prove its everlasting right to freedom of thought and action.

The bewildering mass of these currents of controversy, has by the Arabic historians been brought under four chief heads or fundamental bases. The first of these relates to the divine attributes and unity. Which of these attributes are essential or eternal? Is the omnipotence of God absolute? If not, what are its limits? Further, as to the doctrine of God’s predestination and man’s liberty — a question of no small purport, and one which has been controverted in nearly all ‘revealed’ religions — How far is God’s decree influenced by man’s own will? How far can God countenance evil? And questions of a similar kind belonging to this province. The third is perhaps the most comprehensive ‘ basis,’ and the one that bears most directly upon practical doctrines —viz., the promises and threats, and the names of God, together with various other questions chiefly relating to faith, repentance, infidelity, and error. ‘The fourth is the one that concerns itself with the influence of reasons and history upon the transcendental realm of faith. To this chapter belong the mission of prophets, the office of Imam, or Head of the Church, and such intricate subtleties as to what constitutes goodness and badness, how far actions are to be condemned on the ground of reason or the ‘ Law; ‘ &c.

One broad line, however, came to be drawn, in the course of time, among these innumerable religious divisions, a line that separated them all into orthodox sects and heterodox sects; orthodox being those only who adopted the oral traditions, or Sunna (see

Much more numerous than the orthodox divisions are the heterodox ones. Immediately after Mohammed’s death, and during the early conquests, the contest was chiefly confined to the question of the Imamat. But no sooner were the first days of warfare over, than thinking minds began to direct themselves to a closer examination of the faith itself, for which and through which the world was to be conquered, and to the book which preached it, the Koran. The earliest germs of a religious dissension are found in the revolt of the Kharejites against Ali, in the 37th year of the Hedjrah; and several doctors shortly afterwards broached heterodox opinions about the predestination and the good and evil to be ascribed to God. These new doctrines were boldly and in a very advanced form, openly preached by Wasil Ibn Ata, who, for uttering a moderate opinion in the matter of the ‘ sinner,’ had been expelled from the rigorous school of Basra. He then formed a school of his own — that of the Separatists or Motazilites (q. v.), who, together with a number of other ‘ heretical ‘ groups, are variously counted as one, four, or seven sects.

We now come to the second great heretic group, the Sefatians. The Sefatians (attributionists) held a precisely contrary view to that of the Motazilites. With them, God’s attributes, whether essential or operative, or what they afterwards called declarative or historical, i.e., used in historical narration (eyes, face, hand), anthropomorphisms, in fact, were considered eternal. But here, again, lay the germs for more dissensions and more sects in their own midst. Some taking this notion of God’s attributes in a strictly literal sense, assumed a likeness between God and created things; others giving it a more allegorical interpretation, without, however, entering into any particulars beyond the reiterated doctrine, that God had no companion or similitude. The different sects into which they split were, first; the Asharians, so called from Abul Hasan al Ashari. who, at first a Motazilite, disagreed with his masters on the point of God’s being bound to do always that which is best. He became the founder of a new school, which held (1) that God’s attributes are to be held distinct from his essence, and that any literal understanding of the words that stand for God’s limbs in the Koran is reprehensible. (2) That predestination must be taken in its more literal meaning, i.e., that God pre-ordains everything. The opinions on this point of man’s free will are, however, much divided, as indeed to combine a predestination which ordains every act with man’s free choice is not easy; and the older authors hold it is well not to inquire too minutely into these things, lest all precepts, both positive and negative, be argued away. The middle path, adopted by the greater number of the doctors, is expressed in this formula: There is neither compulsion nor free liberty, but the way lies between the two; the power and will being both created by God, though the merit or guilt be imputed to man.

Regarding mortal sin, it was held by this sect, that if a believer die guilty of it without repentance, he will not, for all that, always remain a denizen of hell. God will either pardon him, or the Prophet will intercede on his behalf, as he says in the Koran: ‘My intercession shall be employed for those among my people who shall have been guilty of grievous crimes;’ and further, that he in whose heart there is faith but of the weight of an ant, shall be delivered from hell-fire. From this more philosophical opinion, however, departed a number of other Sefatian sects, who, taking the Koranic words more literally, transformed God’s attributes into grossly corporeal things, like the Mosshabehites, or Assimilators, who conceived God to be a figure composed of limbs like those of created beings, either of a bodily or spiritual nature, capable of local motion, ascent, or descent, &c. The notions of some actually went so far as to declare God to be ‘ hollow from the crown of the head to the breast, and solid from the breast downward; he also had black curled hair.’ Another sub-division of this sect were the Jabarians, who deny to man all free agency, and make all his deeds dependent on God. Their name indicates their religious tendency sufficiently, meaning ‘Necessitarians.’

The third principal division of ‘ heretical sects ‘ is formed by the Kharejites, or ‘ Rebels’ from the lawful Prince—i.e., Ali— the first of whom were the 12,000 men who fell away from him after having fought under him at the battle of Seffein, taking offence at his submitting the decision of his right to the califate (against Moawiyyah) to arbitration. Their ‘ heresy ‘ consisted, first, in their holding that any man might be called to the Imamat though he did not belong to the Koreish, nor was even a freeman, provided he was a just and pious man, and fit in every other respect. It also followed that an unrighteous Imam might be deposed, or even put to death; and further, that there was no absolute necessity for any Imam in the world.

Of the fourth principal sect, the Shiites, or’ Sectaries,’ the followers of Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, we have spoken under that special heading.

It remains only to mention a few of the many pseudo-prophets who arose from time to time in the bosom of Islam, drawing a certain number of adherents around them, and threatening to undermine the church founded by Mohammed, by either declaring themselves his legal successors, or completely renouncing his doctrines. The first, and most prominent among these, was Mosaylima (q. v.). Next to him stands Al-Aswad, originally called Aihala, of the tribe of Ans, of which, as well as of that of a number of other tribes, he was governor. He pretended to receive certain revelations from two angels, Sohaik and Shoraik. Certain feats of legerdemain, and a natural eloquence, procured him a number of followers, by whose aid he had made himself master of several provinces. A counter-revolution, however, broke out the night before Mohammed’s death, and Al-Aswad’s head was cut off; whereby an end was put to a rebellion of exactly four months’ duration, but already assuming large proportions. In the same year (11 Hedjrah), but after Mohammed’s death, a man named Toleiha set up as prophet, but with very little success. He, his tribe, and followers were met in open battle by Khalid, at the head of the troops of the Faithful, and being beaten, had all finally to submit to Islam.

A few words ought also to be said regarding the ‘Veiled Prophet,’ Al-Mokanna, or Borkai, whose real name was Hakem Ibn Hashem, at the time of Al-Mohdi, the third Abbaside calif. He used to hide the deformity of his face (he had also but one eye) by a gilded mask, a circumstance which his followers explained by the splendor of his countenance being too brilliant (like that of Moses) to be borne by ordinary mortals. Being a proficient in jugglery besides, which went for the power of working miracles, he soon drew many disciples and followers around him. At last he arrogated the office of the Deity itself, which by continual transmigrations from Adam downwards, had at last resided in the body of Abn Moslem, the governor of Khorassan, whose secretary this new prophet had been. The calif, finding him growing-more and more formidable every day, sent a force against him, which filially drove him back into one of his strongest fortresses, where he first poisoned and then burned all his family; after which he threw himself into the flames, which consumed him completely, except his hair. He had left a message, however, to the effect that he would reappear in the shape of a gray man riding on a gray beast, and many of his followers for many years after expected his reappearance. They wore, as a distinguishing mark, nothing but white garments. He died about the middle of the 2d c. Hedjrah.

Of the Karmathians and the Ismailis, we have spoken under these special headings. We can scarcely enumerate among the prophets Abul Teyeb Ahmed Al-Motanebbi, one of the most celebrated Arabic poets, who mistook, or pretended to mistake, his-poetical inspirations for the divine afflatus, and caused several tribes to style him prophet, as his surname indicates, and to acknowledge his mission. The governor of his province, Lulu, took the promptest steps to stifle any such pretensions in the bud, by imprisoning him, and making him formally renounce all absurd pretensions to a prophetical office. The poet did so with all: speed. He was richly rewarded by the court and many princes for his minstrelsy, to which henceforth he clung exclusively; but the riches he thus accumulated became the cause of his death. Robbers attacked him while he was returning to his home in Kufa, there to live upon the treasure bestowed upon him by Adado’d-dawla, Sultan of Persia.—The last of these new prophets to be mentioned is Baba, who appeared in Amasia, in Natolia, in 638 Hedjrah, and who had immense success, chiefly with the Turkmans, his own nation, so that at last lie found himself at the head of nearly a million men, horse and foot. Their war-cry was, God is God, and Baba—not Mohammed—is his prophet. It was not until both Christians and Mohammedans combined for the purposed of self-defence, that this new and most formidable power was annihilated, its armies being routed and put to the sword, while the two chiefs were decapitated by the executioner.