APPENDIX VII.
(a) A SECRET RELIGION IN THE HINDUKUSH [THE PAMIR REGION] AND IN THE LEBANON.
I.—The Muláis of the Hindukush.
A number of conjectures as to the origin of the word “Mulái,” all of which are incorrect, have been made by eminent writers unacquainted with Arabic or the meaning of its theological history and terms. A few of these conjectures, however, go very near some fact or view connected with the “Muláis.” The word may not mean “terrestrial gods,” but there are no other, for practical purposes, in the creed of the “Muláis.” It is certainly not a corruption of “Muláhid” or “heretic,” if not “atheist,” although this term has been specially applied to them by their enemies. It can have nothing whatever to do etymologically with “Muwáhidin” or worshippers of “One” [God], though they, no doubt, call themselves so, i.e., “Unitarians.” There is this additional difficulty, moreover, introduced into the question, that no name can be conclusive as to the esoteric appellation of a sect that has been obliged to practise “Conformity” or “Pious fraud” or “concealment” of its religion, in order to escape persecution or wholesale massacre. The Shiahs,[127] whose belief, in the hereditary succession, through the descendants of A’li, of the spiritual “Imámat” or leadership or apostleship of the prophet Muhammad, rendered them overt or covert enemies of those Sunni rulers who held the temporal power or “the Khiláfat” (misspelt as “the Caliphate”), were, and are, allowed to practise “Taqqîa” (which I have rendered as “Conformity”) outwardly and the more exaggerated or exclusive a particular A’liite or Shiite sect, the more careful had it to be. The Sunni and Shiah may both publicly confess “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet”; but the Shiah adds under his breath, “A’li is the Deputy (Governor) of God and the heir of the prophet of God.” Now this word for “Deputy” is “vali,” “to be close to,” whether it be to God, a king, a priest, a master, or other position of eminence in Arabian belief, society, history, or intellectual creations.[128] “Maulá” or “Mulá” comes from the same root and is generally applied to a spiritual master, but, among the Shiahs, specially to their “Lord” A’li. Therefore, “Muláis” are the special followers of the “Lord A’li,” just as the Jesuits claim to be a fraternity of special followers of “the Lord Jesus.” When, then, the term “Mauláná” or our “Master or Lord” is specially used in the Druse Covenant of Initiation [see further on], there is not far to seek for the meaning of the appellation “Mulái,” though it was left for me to find it out from the A’liite songs of the Muláis of the Hindukush. Whatever the innermost coterie of the “initiated” may practise or believe, a connecting link of the sect with some existing creed is necessary for their safety or respectability. Thus, the Ismailians might call themselves “Sadiqis” or “the righteous,” in order to spread the belief of their being special adherents of the 6th Imám, (in the order of descent from A’li), the Imám Ja’far Sádiq (the righteous), without entering into the vexed question as to whether his son “Ismàîl” was the real “seventh” Imám or his other son, Mûsa (through whom the bulk of Shiahs look for their Mahdi or Messiah, the 12th Imám). Nor would any such special fervour in revering a particular phase or man be necessarily deemed to be heretical, even among Sunnis. I have often heard a Sunni, especially if he was a Persian scholar and the strange magic of that language had subdued him, admit the impeachment of having “a particular love for the house of A’li,” and the numerous class of Sayads, who claim to be descendants of the Prophet, is respected, if not venerated, among Sunnis, who, in theory, oppose the “hereditary” claims of Shiahs.[129] The Máulais, therefore, of the Hindukush, being, consciously or not, a sub-sect of Shiahs, can make friends with the main body of Shiahs, and yet pretend to the Sunnis as being, in many respects, with them. Normally, the Mauláis would profess to be good Muhammadans of the Shiah persuasion, leaning, however, to the 7th Imám; if surrounded by, or in danger of, Sunnis, they would outwardly “conform” (which is all that the Sunnis require), and, at home, practise their own rites. The Khojas of Bombay, who had been converted from Hinduism, but whose very name is Ismailian, used to read the “Das-awtar” or “ten incarnations,” in which “A’li” is made out to be the “Tenth Incarnation,” thus rendering their step from Wishnu Hinduism to Shiah Muhammadanism an easy one. “All things to all men” is the dictum of the Muláis, without, thereby, sacrificing their own convictions. The more a Mulái knows, the more he acts on Disraeli’s sneer that all sensible men are of one religion, but do not tell what that religion is. The less a Mulái knows, the more fanatically is he an A’liite, centreing however his faith on the living descendant of the 7th Imám. “Nothing is a crime that is not found out” may, or may not be, the theory among the Druses, or the practice all over the world; the fact remains that neither the Druses nor the Muláis, whatever their belief, are worse than their neighbours. Even the odious signification that attaches to the term “Assassin” has been a calumny against those misguided Ismailians who sought to rid the world of tyrants who had ordered the general massacre of the sect or who sacrificed one man in order to save a whole people.
In 1866 I discovered the languages and races of “Dardistan” and gave that name to the countries between Kashmir and Kabul, including Hunza in them. In 1886 I was again on a special mission regarding the language of Hunza-Nagyr and a part of Yasin. I had already pointed out in 1867 the importance which our good friend, His Highness Agha Khan of Bombay, the Head of the Khojas in that city, enjoyed in those, then nearly inaccessible, regions, as also in Wakhan, Zebak, Shignán, Raushan, Koláb and Derwáz, where the Muláis predominate and are governed by hereditary Pîrs or ancient sages of their own choice,[130] to whom they yield implicit obedience, as do also the covenanters with “Al-Hákim” among the “initiated” of the Druses. Of these Pîrs, Agha Khan is Chief, and any command by him would be obeyed in some of the most dangerous parts of the Hindukush. Advantage was only taken in 1886 of this hint, when Colonel Lockhart’s mission was supplied with letters of recommendation by His Highness to the Mulais. My identification of their mysterious rites with those of the Druses connects the Lebanon with the Hindukush through the Ismailia sect, which under the name of the “Assassins” enjoyed such an unenviable notoriety during the Crusades and establishes a link among the nations of Richard Cœur de Lion,[131] of Palestine and of the Pamirs. The connection of Hunza with the Huns or Hunas and the relations between the “Old Man of the Mountain” and our own Richard may be the subject of a future article. At present, I will confine myself to translating from the Persian original a Pythian utterance out of the “Kelám-i-Pîr” or “the Word of the ancient Sage,” which takes the place of the Korán among Mauláis, and of which the following is the first extract ever given from that hidden book. It was partly dictated to me and partly written out on the occasion of His Highness, the present Agha Khan, paying me a visit, by the leader of some Muláis, who had fled, first from Russian tyranny, and then from the still heavier Afghan oppression in the border-countries of Central Asia, my own Hunza man also being present on the occasion.[132] The extract was called the Mulái “Mukti” or “Salvation” Cry of the Muláis. It may be incidentally mentioned that Shah Abdurrahim in Zeibak was (and perhaps still is) the greatest Pîr in Central Asia. He controls Hunza, so far as that God-forsaken country can be controlled. In Wakhan, Khwaja Ibrahim Husain was the Mulái leader, and in Sarikul, Shahzada Makin. Sayad Jafar Khan ruled what there is of the sect in Bokhara, Balkh, Kabul and Kunduz. “The Pîr” or “ancient sage,” however, was the historical Shah Nasir Khosrô, who is styled “a missionary of H. H. Aga Khan’s ancestor.” He is said to have had the complete “Kelám-i-Pîr,” a book of which I have for so many years in vain tried to get a copy, although assisted by my friend, the Mihtar Nizám-ul-Mulk of Yasin and Chitrál. The following extract from it, in one and the same breath, affirms and denies the special doctrine of metempsychosis and other notions opposed to the professed Muhammadanism of the Muláis:
The Mukti or “Salvation.”
The Mulái “A’qil” or “intelligent” = “initiated” [the singular of the Druse “U’qalá” or “initiated”] first asks, in inelegant and enigmatical Persian:
“Ala! In what I say, can I remain knowingly an Á’qil?” or “initiated” or “I remain knowingly an Á’qil, although what I say
1. “Come, solve for me a difficult story [or conjecture]
Come, tell me the Light which the spirit from the world-shape [this world of Phenomena]
When it becomes [gets] beyond [of] this shape, where [is] its abode and station? [place of descent = “manzil”]
Is its place [of existence] in plants or in the Higher Universe [the world above?]
Or in the Lower Universe between water, dust and clay” [or stone]? [the strata between the centre and the surface of the earth]
2. “If, knowingly, that secret, come and tell me: ‘Light’
And, if not, away! not knowing, without head-wandering, careless [care not]
Dear ones! The spirit of the knowing when it departs from these chains,
Does it become [wend] towards the skies [heavens]? Is that its Station obtaining?[133]
Or why in the shape of man [anthropomorphic shape] is the Adamite created?[134]
Nay (?) the perfect man [ko-burd] cultured perfect,[135] or ‘the ruling man [if] perfect, develops perfect culture’
But they who are not wanted [the useless] are ignorant doubters”
3. “Let me tell its Commentary; every one, Come! in the ear make it acceptable.
The present is one stride [or state of a man]
When they put him outside the body
They bind him in chains; he becomes with cow or ass entering
Another time his place [of staying] is the [world of] plants. They hold him [there]
He will remain inside these chains for three years [many a year] [under] that vain curse” [this is a vain word]
4. Al Láy! Helper of Chosroes![136] Such secrets to men why recklessly impart? [it only makes them impudent] Not will say ever this the A’qil [or “the initiated one.”]
[The wise do not mention their religion; if they do, they only make the unwise impudent.]
So, after all, we have not been told the process or secret of after-life, whether ascending into air, descending into earth, renewing human life or migrating into animal, plant or stone. In fact, we are made to understand that our inquiry is folly and that its answer, whether true or not, is also folly. Yet are we allowed to conjecture the belief of “the initiated” in transmigration.
As for the Muláis “being all things to all men” in matters of religion—Sunnis with Sunnis and Shiahs with Shiahs—this is, as already stated, a mere amplification of the Shiah doctrine of Taqqîah or concealment in times of danger, to which I have specially referred in my “Dardistan.”
The leaning of the Muláis is, of course, rather to poetical Shiism, with the chivalrous martyr A’li as its demigod or “next to God” in the A’lewia sect, than to prosaic and monotonous Sunniism, so that to strangers they seem to be Shiahs, as will be seen in an extract from a native Indian Diary[137] written some 20 years ago, and which, it may be incidentally stated, still throws much light on the present conflicts in Dir, Bajaur and other petty States bordering on our frontier. No stranger is allowed to see the Kelám-i-Pir, which takes the place of the Koran with Muláis, but in the most popular poem that is recited by them, the Imám-ul Zemán or Sahib-al-Zeman = the Imam or Lord of the Age (H. H. Aga Khan) is worshipped as the Monarch of this World, the visible incarnation of the Deity, offerings or a pilgrimage to whom dispenses a Mulái from prayer, fasting or a visit to the sacred shrines of Mecca or Madina, or rather the Shiah Kerbelá, the place of the martyrdom of Hasan and Husain, which Shiahs annually celebrate by what are inappropriately called “miracle plays,” but which really are “elegies,” and commemorative funeral recitations and processions. A person who has seen “the Lord of the Age” or who possesses some of the water in which he has washed his feet is an honoured guest in Mulái countries. The poem above alluded to is a parallel to the Druse “Contract” which will be considered further on, and begins with an invocation for “Help, oh Ali.”
“Nobody will worship God, without worshipping Thee, Lord of the Age!
Jesus will descend from the fourth heaven to follow Thee, Lord of the Age!
Thy will alone will end the strife with Antichrist, Lord of the Age!
Thy beauty gives light to heaven, the sun and the moon, Lord of the Age!
May I be blessed by being under the dust of Thy feet, Lord of the Age!”
A Maulái is, if sincere, already dead to sin, and can, therefore, not commit any. He needs, therefore, no resurrection or last Judgment day. Obedience to the Pîr is his sole article of faith, and he holds his property, family and life at this Chief’s disposal.
I must now conclude this introduction to a comparison of the creeds of the Druses and of the Muláis by quoting a few words from a rhapsody of A’li, repeated by the ordinary Mauláis till the pious frenzy is at white heat:
“Oh A’li, to God, to God, oh A’li, my sole aim, the only one, our Mula A’li; My desire, the only our Mula A’li; My passion only the beauty of A’li; My longing day and night for union with A’li; Higher and Higher A’li, oh A’li; A’li is the Killer of difficulties, oh A’li; He is the Commander of the Faithful, namely A’li; That one is the Imám of the steadfast in faith, namely A’li,” and so on ad infinitum till we come to the natural connection between normal Shiism, its exaggeration into A’li worship, its mysterious interpretation of the self-sacrifice of Husain to save the world, and, finally, to all other aberrations of which Maulaism is one. The poem then goes into wild Turkish and Arabic measures, which exhausted my informant, Ghulam Haidar, who adds on behalf of himself, also in verse: “It is not proper that I should not answer the question which you ask me, but what am I to say? The answer from me is easy, but I see a difficulty in your way. Oh Ghulam Haidar” (thrice repeated). Then in prose. “In the night of Friday, the Mulái men (in Hunza), instead of worship and prayer, taking Guitars and Drums (Rabábs and Ḍaffs) in their hands, play the above “Ghazals” on them. Then six old men, Akhunds (priests), having assembled, read (sing) them in the Mosque, when the men of the mass of the people gather and give ear to them:
‘“Yá A’li, Yá A’li, Yá Imám-i-Zemán”’—
‘“Oh Ali, Oh Ali, Oh Imám (and Lord) of the Age”’—
is the mention (Chorus) which they take on their tongues. From the beginning of the evening till the morning they thus show their zeal; the Raja then as a reward of thanks for that worship bestows (gold dust to the value of) four tilas on the priests and gives them a quantity of butter of the weight of four measures and one sheep or big calf and one maund of wheat in order to hold a feast.”
II.—The Covenant of “the initiated” Druses.
The following is a rendering of the Covenant or Contract which the U’qalá or “the initiated” amongst the Druses are reciting in mysterious seclusion. It was overheard by my informant, an “uninitiated” Druse.[138] It formed, as it were, the evening prayer of his uncle and aunt. Although an educated and highly intelligent person, he was not aware of even its local interest, much less of its general historical and religious importance.
The Covenant = Al Mitháq:
“O Governor [Valî] of the Age,[139] may Allah’s blessing and peace be upon him” (this phrase seems intended to delude Muhammadans into the belief that the Druses have the same Allah or God, but it has an esoteric sense which will become apparent further on). “I put my confidence into ‘our spiritual head the Lord’ (literally ‘our Maula Al-Hákim’) (here is one of the esoteric formulæ)—‘the One, the Single, the Everlasting (Lord), the (serenely) Distinct from Duality and Number.’ (This is a protest not only against the female form of the Deity, but also against the notion of a distinct good and evil principle, an Ahriman or Ormuz, whilst its Muhammadan form would seem to outsiders to be merely a protest against giving any ‘companion to God.’) The initiator and the to be ‘initiated’ then go on repeating together the following, the former using the 3rd, and the latter the 1st, person. ‘I so and so’ (here comes name of the initiated), ‘son of such a one, confess firmly the confession to which he (or I) respond from his [or my] soul, and bears testimony to it upon his spirit, whilst in a condition of soundness of his spirit and of his body, and with the (acceptance of the passing of the) lawfulness of the order, obeying without reluctance and under no violence: that he verily absolves (himself) from all Religions and Dogmas and Faiths and Convictions, all of them, in the various species of their contradictions, and that he does not acknowledge anything except the obedience to our Maula Al-Hákim, may his mention be glorious! and this obedience it is the worship, and that he will not associate in his worship any (other) that is past or is present, or is to come, and that he has verily entrusted his spirit and his body, and whatever is to him and the whole of what he may possess to our Maula Al-Hákim, and that he is satisfied to fulfil all His orders unto himself and against himself without any contradiction, and not refusing anything and not denying (refusing) anything of His actions, whether this injures him or rejoices him, and that he, should he ever revert (apostatize) from the religion of our Maula Al-Hákim which he has written upon his soul, and to which he has born testimony unto his spirit, that he shall be bereft (free) of the Creator, who is worshipped and deprived of the benefits of all the sanctions (rules, laws), and that he shall be considered as deserving the punishment of God, the High, may His mention be glorious! And that he, if he acknowledges that there is not to him in Heaven and not in the Earth an Imám in existence except our Maula Al-Hákim” (this confession distinguishes the Druses of the Lebanon and the Muláis of the Hindukush from the orthodox Shiahs, who believe in the coming of the ever-present Mahdi, or the twelfth Imám, a view that had been fostered by us in the Sudán to our endless confusion by our inexcusable opposition to the Sultan of Turkey as the Khalifa of the Sunnis), “then will the mention of him (who only believes in Al-Hákim) become glorious, and he will be of the Muwáhidîn (who profess the unity of God), who will (eventually) conquer.” (This appellation is common to the Druses and to the Muláis, but is not admitted as being applicable to them by orthodox Shiahs or Sunnis. In retaliation they call the Sunni a dog, and the Shiah an ass.) “And (the above) has been written[140] in the month so and so of the year (chronology) of the I’d (festival) of our Maula Al-Hákim, whose nation be glorious, whose Empire be strengthened to Him alone.” (The Maulái Chronology is said to begin with the special revelation of the Imám on the 17th Ramadan in the 559th year of the Hejira, at the castle of Alamût.)
The Special Recitation.
The following is repeated by Druses at the conclusion of their prayers: “May God’s blessing be upon him who speaks (confesses) the Lord of goodness and benefits. May God bless the Ruler of the Guidances (Hidāyā); to him be profit and sufficiency. May God’s blessing be on our Lord the Hādi” (the Guide or “Mehdi” means one who is guided aright by God = the coming Messiah of the Shiah world,) “the Imám, the greatest of the perfect light” (this is an allusion to the 7th Imám, Ismail, descendant of the light[141] (Mohammed)), “who is waiting for the refuge (salvation) of all living beings. On Him may be (our) trust, and from him (may be) the peace. May God bless him and them whatever passes of nights and of days and of months and of years, whenever flashes the dawn of morning or night remains in darkness may abundant peace and trust be for ever! O Allah-humma!” (the mystic Muhammadan remnant of Elohim = Lords, Gods) “provide us with Thy contentment” (this is a play of words implying that our best “daily bread” is God’s contentment with us) “and with Their contentment” (this is either a Trinitarian or Polytheistic invocation to “Elohim”) “and with their intercession and with Thy mercy and with their mercy in this world and in the next! O our Maula! and Lord of the Imám” (this is indeed significant as to the pretensions of Al-Hákim to the godhead, or to some dignity very near it).
Now comes an ancient curse with a modern application and an appeal to arms (whispered along the line of assembled Druses):
“Pray for the ornament of sons,
In the East the five[142] residing (compare also the Shiah ‘Panjtan’[143] and the five main Shiah sects)[144]
They say: Father Abraham has appeared,
and they announce the good tidings to the worshippers of One (the Druses).
They say: With the sword has Father Abraham appeared;
A violence to his enemies
O brethren! Prepare earnestly for the campaign,
Visiting the House of Mecca.
The House of Mecca and the sacred places,
On them has destruction been ordained.
Oh people of the Berbers! Extermination is lawful.
With the sword shall ye be sacrificed.
The French are coming with stealth.
The ‘A’ql’ [or ‘the body of the initiated’] will protect us with its sword.
Rejoice, people of China, in the hour of Thy arrival.
Welcome to thee, city of Arin (?), oh my Lady!” [Fatima?].
A Druse wedding-song may also be quoted here: (“Allah, billáli, billáli.”) The Chorus: “O God, with the pearls, with the pearls,” “Sway on to me, oh my Gazelle!” Song: “Thou maid who combest her (the bride’s) tresses, comb them gently, and give her no pain; for she is the daughter of nobles, accustomed to being a pet” [delláli]. Chorus: Allah, billáli, billáli; wa tanaqqalí, yá Ghazáli!
Another Song: “Sing the praises of the shore, oh daughters; sing the praises of the daughters of the shore; for we have passed by the pomegranate-tree bearing full fruit, and we have compared it with the cheeks of the daughters of the shore.”
(b) THE KELÁM-I-PÎR AND ESOTERIC MUHAMMADANISM.
It is not my wish to satisfy idle curiosity by describing the contents of a book, concealed for nine hundred years, the greater portion of which accident has placed in my hands after years of unsuccessful search in inhospitable regions. The fragmentary information regarding it and the practices of its followers which I had collected, were contributed to publications, like this Review, of specialists for specialists or for genuine Students of Oriental learning. Nothing could be more distressing to me than the formation of a band of “esoteric Muhammadans,” unacquainted with Arabic, which is the only key to the knowledge of Islám. The mastery of the original language of his holy Scripture is, still more emphatically, the sine quâ non condition of a teacher, be he Christian, Muhammadan, or other “possessor of a sacred book.” Nor should anyone discuss another’s faith without knowing its religious texts in the original as well as its present practice.
The term “esoteric” has been so misused in connection with Buddhism, the least mystic of religions, by persons unacquainted with Sanscrit, Pali and modern Buddhism, that it has become unsafe to adopt it as describing the “inner” meaning of any faith. Were Buddha alive, he would regret having made the path of salvation so easy by abolishing the various stages of Brahminical preparation, through a studious, practical and useful life, for the final retirement, meditation, and Nirvana. Yet there are mysterious practices in the Tantric worship of “the Wisdom of the Knowable,” which Buddha alone brought to the masses that were to be emancipated from the Brahminical yoke. Even transparent Judaism has its Kabala, and the religion that brought God to Man has mysteries of grace and godliness, the real meaning of which is only known to the true Christian of one’s own sect or school. Thus open, easy and simple Muhammadanism has its two triumphant orthodoxies of Sunnis and Imamîa Shiahs and 72 militant, or outwardly conforming, heterodoxies. Indeed, as long as words can be fought over, and even facts do not impress all alike, so long will the more or less proficient professors of a creed reach various degrees of “esoteric” knowledge.
It is the unknown merit of the religious system of the so-called Assassins of the Crusades to have discussed, dismissed and yet absorbed a number of faiths and philosophies. It adapted itself to various stages of knowledge among its proselytes from various creeds, whilst the circumstances of its birth, history and surroundings gave it a Muhammadan basis. Non omnia scimus omnes may be said by the most “initiated” Druse, Ismailian or “Mulái,” the latter being the name by which I will, in future, designate all the ramifications of this remarkable system of Philosophy, Religion and Practical politics.
This system elaborates the principle that all truths, except one, are relative. It treats each man as it finds him, leading him through stages, complete in themselves, to the final secret. We, too, in a way admit that strong meat and drink are not the proper food for babes. We speak of professional training and of the professional spirit, of esprit de corps, terms which all have an “esoteric” sense, and imply preparation; indeed, every experience of life is an “initiation” which he, who has not undergone it, cannot “realize;” we, too, have medical and other works which the ordinary reader does not buy and which are, so far, “esoteric” to him, but we have not laid down in practice that he, who does not know, shall not teach or rule. This has been systematized, with a keen sense of proportion, by the Founders of the Ismailian sect. Fighting for its existence against rival Muhammadan bodies and in the conflicts of Christianity, Judaism, Magianism and various Philosophies, its emissaries applied the Pauline conduct of being “all things to all men” in order to gain converts.
After the establishment of mutual confidence, a Christian might be confronted with puzzling questions regarding the Trinity, the Atonement, the Holy Communion, etc.—the Jew be called to explain an Universal God, yet exclusively beneficent to His people, or might be cross-examined on the miracles of Moses; a Zoroastrian, to whom much sympathy should be expressed, would be sounded as to his Magian belief; an idolater, if ignorant, could be easily shown the error of his ways and, if not, his pantheism might be checked by the evidences of materialistic or monotheistic doctrine; the orthodox Sunni would be required to explain the apparent inconsistencies of statements in the Korán, and the various sects of Shiahs would be confounded by doubts being thrown on this or that link of the hereditary succession of the apostleship of Muhammad; sceptics, philosophers, word-splitters, both orthodox and heterodox, would be followed into their last retrenchments by contradictory arguments, materialistic, idealistic, exegetical, as the case may be. With every creed, to use an Indian simile, the peeling of the onion was repeated, in which, after one leaf after the other of the onion is taken off in search of the onion, no onion is found and nothing is left. The enquirer would thus be ready for the reception of such new doctrine as might be taught him by the “Mulái”[145] preacher, or Dái, who then revealed himself one step beyond the mental and moral capacity of his intended convert, whilst sharing with the latter a basis of common belief. Now this required ability of no mean order, as also of great variety, so as to be adapted to all conditions of men to whom the Dái might address himself. Sex, age, profession, heredity and acquired qualities, antecedents and attainments, all were taken into consideration. At the same time, in an age of violence, the missionaries of the new faith had to keep their work a profound secret and to insist on a covenant, identical with, or similar to, the one of the Druses, which I published in the last number of the Asiatic Quarterly Review. Even when confronted by Hinduism, the new creed could represent that Áli, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, was the 10th incarnation of Vishnu, which is expected, as was the Paraclete and as are the Messiah and the “Mehdi” (many of those who adopted that title being secret followers of the Ismailian creed).[146] I have pointed out in my last article how the very name of ’Ali, his chivalrous character, his eloquence, his sad death and the martyrdom of his sons lent themselves to his more than apotheosis in minds already prepared by Magian doctrine and the spirit of opposition to the successful Sunni oppressor. I think that I can quote extracts, in support of this statement from the “Kelám-i-pîr” or the “Logos of the Ancient,” showing how the contributor to it (for I take the “Kelám-i-pîr” to be a collective name like “Homer”), the eminent mathematician, historian and poet, Shah Násir Khosrû, who was born in the year 355 A.H. = 969 A.D. was led, after a long life of purity and piety, of abstemiousness and study, to examine and reject one religion after the other and, finally, adopt the one with which we are now concerned and of which His Highness, Agha Sultan Muhammad Shah is the present hereditary spiritual head. His authority extends from the Lebanon to the Hindukush and wherever else there may be Ismailians, who either openly profess obedience to him, as do the Khojahs in Bombay; or who are his secret followers in various parts of the Muhammadan world in Asia and Africa.[147] The present young, but enlightened, Chief is, as his father and grandfather, likely to exert his influence for good.
The following is a short biographical sketch of this lineal descendant of the prophet Áli. His genealogy is incontestable and will, I hope, be included in my next paper.[148]
“H. H. Agha Sultan Muhammad Shah was born at Karachi on Nov. 2nd, 1877. It was soon seen that it would be necessary to give him a good education, and his father, H. H. the late Agha Ali Shah, early grounded him in the history of Persia and the writings of its great poets. But this education was certainly not sufficient in the present day, and Lady Ali Shah, after the death of her husband, very wisely carried out his wishes by placing his son under an English tutor, so that, whilst Persian was by no means neglected, a course of English reading was begun. Four years ago he stumbled over the spelling of monosyllables. The progress made now is really surprising; with natural talents he has found it easy to acquire a thorough English accent and converses freely with Englishmen. The histories of Persia, India and England, the series of the Rulers of India and the Queen’s Prime Ministers, McCarthy’s ‘History of our Own Times’ and the lives of eminent men that stock his library, mark a predilection for History and Biography. The subjects of conversation during a morning’s ride are often the politics of the day or the turning points in the lives of illustrious men. But with this reading his other studies are not neglected. Algebra, Geometry, Arithmetic, elementary Astronomy, Chemistry and Mechanics, with English authors like Shakespeare, Macaulay, and Scott, form a part of his scholastic course.
“Unlike his father and grandfather, the Aga Sahib has little love for hunting, though he is seen regularly on the racecourse and is well known in India as a patron of the turf. In the peculiarity of his position it will be difficult for him to travel for some years, but his eyes are directed to Europe and he looks forward to the pleasure of witnessing at some future time an important debate in the House of Commons. From the fact that every mail brings English periodicals to his door, it will be seen that he closely follows everything that relates to English politics.
“With the work amongst the Khojahs and his other followers devolving upon him at so early an age his studies are, of course, liable to be interrupted, and it is hardly possible for him to devote himself to his books—Oriental and English—as much as he would wish to do. He is not yet married, nor does he seem inclined to marry early. A few years, however, must see him the father of a family, and there is little doubt that his children will be educated with all the advantages of the best ancient and modern education so as to make them worthy of their illustrious descent.”
How far His Highness will be himself initiated into more than the practice and rites, public and private, of so much of his form of the Ismailian Faith as is necessary for the maintenance of his position and responsibilities towards his followers, depends on his attainments, mental vigour, and character. With greater theoretical power than even the Pope, who is not hereditary, his influence is personal and representative by the consensus fidelium. Nearly all of them are in the first, or second, degree, even their Pirs being generally in the 3rd or 4th, with a general leaning to a mystic divine A’li, not merely the historical A’li, whom their followers see incarnated in his present living descendant. Few, if any, of the leaders are in higher degrees, for they might be out of touch with the practical exigencies of their position in different countries and circumstances. Perhaps, among the Druses, there may be one professor in the highest stage of the “initiated”—the Ninth—but even then he would take his choice of Philosophies and find a microcosm of theory and practice in each. The result on mind and character would be ennobling, and he would die, if, indeed, an “initiated” can die, carrying away with him the secret of his faith, which he alone has been found worthy to discover. What that secret is, no amount of divulging will impart to any one who is not fit to receive it, though the infinite variety of its manifestations adapt it to every form of thought or life. That even Masonic passwords may, for practical purposes and in spite of published books, be kept a secret, though possibly an open one, experience has shown, but the man does not yet exist who can, or will, apply the system, of which I have endeavoured to give a hint, to the Universal Federation of Religious Autonomies, which, in my humble opinion, the Ismailian doctrine was intended to found, little as its present followers may know of this use of the genuine ring of Truth, of which every religion, according to Lessing’s Nathan der Weise, claims to have the exclusive possession. If this be not enough, I will, at the outset, give the advice that the old man in Lavengro with his dying breath gave to his disciple as the reward of a life-long devotion to learn the great secret—“Learn Arabic”—as a variation on his “Learn German.” There is no royal road to learning or to salvation, and mental culture is impossible without the synthesis which the study of Classical languages—Oriental or European—still foster in this age of destructive analysis and of that scepticism which does not seek to re-construct.
Since writing above another accident has placed in my hands an evidently ancient manuscript in Persian verse, on the same or kindred subjects of Ismailian belief. The manuscript is duodecimo, about 200 pages in extent, and is written in exquisite miniature caligraphy. Its perusal may affect my decision as to the manner of dealing with the question, so far as the public is concerned; in the meanwhile, I am still in search of the name of its author, and of its date.
APPENDIX VIII.
ON THE
SCIENCES OF LANGUAGE AND OF ETHNOGRAPHY
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
The Language and Customs of the People of Hunza
BEING A REPORT ON AN EXTEMPORE ADDRESS
By G. W. LEITNER, M.A., PH.D., LL.D., D.O.L., etc.
Publications of the Oriental Institute, Woking.
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1890
ON THE SCIENCES OF LANGUAGE AND OF ETHNOGRAPHY:
With special reference to the Language and Customs of the People of Hunza.[149]
The time has long passed since grammar and its rules could be treated in the way to which we were accustomed at school. Vitality has now to be breathed into the dry bones of conjugations and declensions, and no language can be taught, even for mere practical purposes, without connecting custom and history with so-called “rules.” The influences of climate and of religion have to be considered, as well as the character of the people, if we wish to obtain a real hold on the language of our study. Do we desire to make language a speciality, the preparation of acquiring early in life two dissimilar languages, one analytic and the other synthetic, is absolutely necessary, because if that is not done, we shall always be hampered by the difficulty of dissociating the substance from the word which designates it. The human mind is extremely limited, and amongst the limits imposed upon it are those of, in early life, connecting an idea, fact, or process, with certain words; and unless two languages, at least, are learnt, and those two are as dissimilar as possible, one is always, more or less, the slave of routine in the perception and in the application of new facts and of new ideas, and in the adaptation of any matter of either theoretical or practical importance. It is a great advantage, for linguistic purposes, which are far more practically important than may be generally believed, that the study of the classical languages still holds the foremost place in this country; because, however necessary scientific “observation” may be, it cannot take the place of a cultured imagination. The stimulus of illustration and comparison, which, in the historical sense of the terms, is an absolutely necessary primary condition to mental advance, is derived from classical and literary pursuits. The study of two very similar languages, however, is not the same discipline to a beginner in linguistics; e.g., to learn French and Italian is not of the same value as French and German, for the more dissimilar the languages the better.
Again, if you desire to elicit a language of which you know nothing, from a savage who cannot explain it and who does not understand your language, there are certain processes with which some linguists, no doubt, are familiar, and others commend themselves in practical experience; for instance, in pointing to an object which you wish to have, say, a fruit which you want to eat, you may not only obtain the name for it, but the gesture to obtain it, if you are surrounded by several savages whose language you do not know, may also induce one of the men to order another to get it for you,—I suppose on the principle that it is easy for one to command and for others to obey; but, be that as it may, this course, to the attentive observer, first obtains the name for the required thing and next elicits the imperative; you hear something with a kind of inflection which, once heard, cannot be mistaken for anything else than the imperative. Further, the reply to the imperative would either elicit “yes,” or “no,” or the indicative present. This process of inquiry does not apply to all languages, but it applies to a great many; and the attitude which you have to assume towards every language that you know nothing about, in the midst of strangers who speak it, is that, of course, of an entirely sympathetic student. You have, indeed, to apply to language the dictum which Buddhist Lamas apply to religion—never to think, much less to say, that your own religion (in this case your own language) is the best; i.e., the form of expression in which you are in the habit of conveying your thoughts, is one so perfectly conventional, though rational in your case, that the greatest freedom from prejudice is as essential a consideration as the wish to acquire the language of others. In other words, in addition to the mere elementary acquisition of knowledge, you have to cultivate a sympathetic attitude; and here, again, is one of the proofs of a truth which my experience has taught me, that, however great knowledge may be, sympathy is greater, for sympathy enables us to fit the key which is given by knowledge. Gestures also elicit a response in dealing, for instance, with numerals, where we are facilitated by the fingers of the hand. Of course, one is occasionally stopped by a savage who cannot go, or is supposed not to be able to go, beyond two, or beyond five.
I take it that in the majority of cases of that kind, a good deal of our misconception with regard to the difficulty of the inquiry lies in ourselves—that ideas of multitude connected with the peculiar customs of the race that have yet to be ascertained, are at the bottom of the inability of that race to follow our numeration. For instance we go up to ten, and in order to elicit a name for eleven, we say “one, ten;” if the man laughs, change the order, and say “ten, one;” the chances are that the savage will instinctively rejoin “ten and one,” and we then get the conjunction. Putting the fingers of both hands together may mean “multitude,” “alliance,” or “enmity,” according as the customs of the race are interpreted by that gesture.
I am reminded of this particular instance in my experience, because I referred to it in a discussion on an admirable paper on the Kafirs of the Hindukush by the eminent Dr. Bellew. If you do not take custom along with a “rule,” and do not try to explain the so-called rule by either historical events or some custom of the race, you make language a matter entirely of memory, and as memory is one of the faculties that suffers most from advancing age, or from modes of living and various other circumstances, the moment that memory is impaired your linguistic knowledge must suffer—you, therefore, should make language a matter of judgment and of associations. If you do not do that, however great your linguistic knowledge or scholarship, you must eventually fail in doing justice to the subject or to those with whom you are dealing.
The same principle applies as much to a highly civilised language like Arabic, one of the most important languages in the way of expressing the multifarious processes of human thought and action, as to the remnant of the pre-historic Hunza language, which throws an unexpected light on the science of language.
Let us first take Arabic and the misconceptions of it by Arabic scholars. In 1859 I pointed out before the College of Preceptors, how it was necessary not only to discriminate between the Chapters in the Koran delivered at Mecca, and those given at Medina, but also to arrange the verses out of various Chapters in their real sequence. I believe we are now advancing towards a better understanding of this most remarkable book. But we still find in its translation such passages, for instance, as, “when in war women are captured, take those that are not married.” The meaning is nothing so arbitrary. The expression for “take” that we have there is ankohu—marry, i.e., take in marriage or nikáh, as no alliance can be formed with even a willing captive taken in war, except through the process of nikáh, which is the religious marriage contract. Again, we have the passage, “Kill the infidels wherever you find them.” There again is shown the want of sympathetic knowledge, which is distinct from the knowledge of our translators who render “qatilu” by “kill,” when it merely means “fight” and refers to an impending engagement with enemies who were then attacking Muhammed’s camp. Apart from accuracy of translation, a sympathetic attitude is also of practical importance. E.g., had we gone into Oriental questions with more sympathy and, in consequence, more real knowledge, many of our frontier wars would have been avoided, and there is not the least doubt that in dealing with Oriental humanity, whether we had taken a firm or a conciliatory course, we should have been upon a track more likely to lead to success than by taking action based on insufficient knowledge or on preconceptions. For instance, in the Times there was a telegram from Suakim about the Mahdi, to the effect that El Senousi was opposing him successfully. I do not know who El Senousi is, but very many years ago I pointed out the great importance of the Senousi sect in Africa, and, unless the deceased founder of that name has now arisen, whether it is a man of that name or the now well-known sect that is mentioned, one cannot say from the telegram. The sender of the message states that as sure as the El Senousi rises to importance there will be a danger to Egypt and to Islam. It is Christian like to think well of Islam, and to try to protect it. This very few Christians do, and it shows a kind feeling towards a sister-faith, but I am not sure that the writer accurately knew what Islam is; though there can be no doubt that the rise of fanatical sects, like the Senousi, which is largely due to the feeling of resistance created by the encroachments of so-called European civilisation, is opposed to orthodox Muhammedanism. Be that as it may, I have also turned to “the further correspondence on the affairs of Egypt” which a friend gave me, and, really, I now know rather less about Egypt than I did before. For instance, I find (and I am specially referring to the blue-book in my hand) that letters of the greatest importance from the Mahdi are treated in the following flippant manner: “This is nothing more or less than an unauthenticated copy of a letter sent by the deceased Mahdi to General Gordon!” Is this not enough to deserve attentive inquiry? General Gordon would, probably, not have agreed with the writer of this contemptuous remark, which is doubly out of place when we are also told that the Mahdi was sending Gordon certain verses and passages from the Korán, illustrative of his position, which are eliminated by the translator as unnecessary, of no importance, and of very little interest! Now, considering that this gentleman knew Arabic, I think I am right when I add that with a little more sympathy he would have known more, and had he known more he would have quoted those passages, for it is most necessary for us to know on what precise authority of the Korán or of tradition this so-called Mahdi based his claim, and knowledge of this kind would give us the opportunity of dealing with the matter. Again, on the question of Her Majesty’s title of “Kaisar-i-hind,” which, after great difficulty, I succeeded in carrying into general adoption in India, the previous translators of “Empress” had suggested some title which would either have been unintelligible or which would have given Her Majesty a disrespectful appellation, whilst none would have created that awe and respect which, I suppose, the translation of the Imperial title was intended to inspire. Even the subsequent official adopter of this title, Sir W. Muir, advocated it on grounds which would have rendered it inapplicable to India. With the National Anthem similarly, we had a translation by a Persian into Hindustani, which was supported by a number of Oriental scholars in this country, who either did not study it, or who dealt with the matter entirely from a theoretical point of view, and what was the result? The result was—that for “God Save the Queen,” a passage was put which was either blasphemous, or which, in popular Muhammedan acceptance, might mean, “God grant that Her Majesty may again marry!” whereas one of the glories of Her Majesty among her Hindu subjects is that she is a true “Satti” or Suttee, viz., a righteous widow, who ever honours the memory of her terrestrial and spiritual husband—neither of those views being intended by the translator, or by that very large and responsible body of men who supported him, and that still larger and emphatically loyal body that intended to give the translation of the National Anthem as a gift to India at a cost of several thousand pounds, when for a hundred rupees a dozen accurate and respectful versions were elicited by me in India itself.
I therefore submit that in speaking of the sciences of language and ethnography, we have, or ought to have, passed, long ago, the standpoint of treating them separately; they must be treated together, and, as I said at the beginning, taking, e.g., Arabic, with its thirty-six broken plurals (quite enough to break anybody’s memory), you will never be able to learn it unless you thoroughly realise the life of the Arab, as he gets out of his tent in the morning, milks his female camel, &c., and unless you follow him through his daily ride or occupations. Then you will understand how it is, especially if you have travelled in Arabia, that camels that appear at a distance on the horizon, affect the eye differently from camels when they come near, and are seen as they follow one another in a row, and those again different from the camels as they gather round the tent or encampment; and therefore it is that in the different perceptions to the eye, under the influence of natural phenomena, these multifarious plurals are of the greatest importance in examining the customs of the people. Then will the discovery of the right plural be a matter of enjoyment, leading one on to another discovery, and to work all the better; whereas, with the grammatical routine that we still pursue, I wonder, when we reach to middle or old age, after following the literary profession, that we are not more dull or confused than we are at present. When one abstract idea follows the other, as in our phraseology, it is not like one scene following another in a new country which is full of stimulus, but the course which we adopt of abstract generalisations, without analysing them and bringing them back to their concrete constituents, is almost a process of stultification.
Coming now to one of the most primitive, and certainly one of the remnants of pre-historic languages, that of Hunza, which I had the opportunity of examining twenty-three years ago, while Gilgit was in a state of warfare, and where I had to learn the language, so to speak, with a pencil in one hand and a weapon in the other, and surrounded by people who were waiting for an opportunity to kill me, I found, that on reverting to it three years ago, the language had already undergone a process of assimilation to the surrounding dialects, owing to the advance of so-called civilisation, which in that case, and which in the case of most of these tribes, means the introduction of drunkenness and disease, in this instance of cholera, for we know what has been the condition of those countries which lie in the triangle between Cashmere, Kabul, and Badakhshan, and to which I first gave the name of Dardistan in 1866.
Now, what does this language show us? There the ordinary methods proved entirely at fault. If one pointed to an object, quite apart from the ordinary difficulties of misapprehension, the man appealed to, for instance, might say “your finger,” if a finger were the thing of which he thought you wanted the name. If not satisfied with the name given in response, and you turned to somebody else, another name was obtained; and if you turned to a third person, you got a third name.
What was the reason for these differences? It was this, that the language had not emerged from the state in which it is impossible to have such a word as “head,” as distinguished from “my head,” or “thy head,” or “his head”; for instance, ak is “my name,” and ik is “his name.” Take away the pronominal sign, and you are left with k, which means nothing. Aus is “my wife,” and gus “thy wife.” The s alone has no meaning, and, in some cases, it seemed impossible to arrive at putting anything down correctly; but so it is in the initial stage of a language. In the Hunza language under discussion, that stage is important to us as members of the Aryan group, as the dissociation of the pronoun, verb, adverb and conjunction from the act or substance only occurs when the language emerges beyond the stage when the groping, as it were, of the human child between the meum and tuum, the first and second persons, approaches the clear perception of the outer world, the “suum,” the third person. Now, during the twenty years referred to “his” (house), “his” (name), and “his” (head) are beginning to take the place of “house,” “name,” “head,” generally, in not quite a decided manner, but still they are taking their place. When I subsequently talked to the Hunzas, and tried to find a reason for that “idiom,” if one may use the term, it seemed very clear and convincing when they said, “How is it possible for ‘a wife’ to exist unless she is somebody’s wife?” “You cannot say, for instance, if you dissociate the one from the other, ‘her wife,’ or ‘his husband.’ ‘Head,’ by itself, does not exist; it must be somebody’s head.” When, again, you dissociate the sound which stands for the action or substance from the pronoun, you come, in a certain group of words, to another range of thought connected with the primary family relation, and showing the existence of that particularly ancient form of endogamy, in which all the elder females are the mothers and all the elder men are the fathers of the tribe. For instance, take a word like “mother;” “m” would mean the female principle, “o” would be the self, and the ther would mean “the tribe;” in other words, “mother” would mean: “the female that bore me and that belongs to my tribe.” Now, fanciful as this may appear to us, it is the simple fact as regards the Hunza language, which, when put the test of analysis, will throw an incredible light on the history of Aryan words. For instance, taking Sanskrit as a typical language, you will, I believe, find how the early relations grew, and you will get beyond the root into the parts of which the root is made up; each of which has a meaning, not in one or two instances, but in most. I am not going to read you the volume which I am preparing for the Indian Government, and which is only the first part of the analysis with regard to this language, and only a very small portion indeed of the material that I collected in 1866, 1872, and 1884 regarding that important part of the world, Dardistan, which is now being drawn within the range of practical Indian politics—a region situated between the Hindukush and Kaghan (lat. 37° N. and long. 73° E. to lat. 35° N. and long. 74·3° E.) and comprising monarchies and republics, including a small republic of eleven houses—a region which contains the solution of numerous linguistic and ethnographical problems, the cradle of the Aryan race, inhabited by the most varied tribes, from which region I brought the first Hunza and the first Káfir that ever visited England, and of which region one of its bigger Chiefs, owing to my sympathy with the people, invested me with a kind of titular governorship. In that comparatively small area the questions that are to be solved are great, and it is even now in some parts, perhaps, as hazardous a journey as, say, through the dark continent. Whether you get to the ancient Robber’s Seat of Hunza, where the right of plundering is hereditary, or into the recesses of Kafiristan or the fastnesses of Pakhtu settlers; whether you proceed to the republics of Darel, Tangir or Chilás, or proceed to the community where women are sometimes at the head of affairs, and which is neither worse nor better than others, an amount of information, especially ethnographic, is within one’s reach which makes Dardistan a region that would reward a number of explorers. I may say, in my own instance, if my life is spared for ten years longer, all I could do would be to bring out the mere material in my possession in a rough form, leaving the theories thereon to be elaborated by others. My difficulties were great, but my reward has been in a mass of material, for the elaboration of which International, Oriental, and other Congresses and learned societies have petitioned Government since 1866. My official duties have hitherto prevented my addressing myself to the congenial task of elaborating the material in conjunction with others. In 1886, I was, however, put for a few months on special duty in connexion with the Hunza language, at the very time that Colonel Lockhart was traversing a portion of Dardistan. But I think you will be more interested if, beyond personal observations, I tell you something about that little country of Hunza itself, which in many respects differs from those surrounding it, not only in regard to its peculiar language, which I have mentioned, but in other respects also. Unfortunately, it is also unlike the surrounding districts, in being characterised by customs the absence of some of which would be desirable. The Hunzas are nominal Muhammedans, and they use their mosques for drinking and dancing assemblies. Women are as free as air. There is little restriction in the relation of the sexes, and the management of the State, in theory, is attributed to fairies. No war is undertaken unless the fairy (whom, by the way, one is not allowed to see) gives the command by beating the sacred drum. The witches, who get into an ecstatic state, are the journalists, historians, and prophetesses of the tribe. They tell you what goes on in the surrounding valleys. They represent, as it were, the local Times; they tell you the past glories, such as they are, of raids and murders by their tribe; and when the Tham or ruler, who is supposed to be heaven-born (there being some mystery about the origin of his dynasty), does wrong, the only one who will dare to tell him the truth is the Dayal, or the witch who prophesies the future, and takes the opportunity of telling the Rajah that, unless he behaves in a manner worthy of his origin, he will come to grief! This is not a common form of popular representation to be met with, say, in India. Grimm’s fairy-tales sometimes seem to be translated into practise in Hunza-land, which offers material for discussion alike to those who search for the Huns and to those who search for the very different Honas.
Then with regard to religion, as I said before, though nominally Muhammedan, they are really deniers of all the important precepts of true Muhammedanism, which is opposed to drunkenness, introduces a real brotherhood, and enjoins great cleanliness as absolutely necessary before the spiritual purification by prayer can take place. The people are mostly Muláis, but inferior in piety (?) to those of Zébak, Shignán, Wakhan, and other places. Now, what is that sect? It is represented by His Highness Prince Aga Khan, of Bombay, a person who is not half aware of his importance in those regions, where, till very recently, men were murdered as soon as looked at. One who acknowledges him or has brought some of the water with which he has washed his feet, would always be able to pass through those regions perfectly unharmed! I found my disguise as a Bokhara Mullah in 1866 to be quite useless, as a protection at Gilgit, whence men were kidnapped to be exchanged for a good hunting dog, but in Hunza they used to fill prisoners with gunpowder, and blow them up for general amusement. His Highness, who is much given to horse-racing, confines his spiritual administration to the collection of taxes throughout Central Asia from his followers or believers, and the believers themselves represent what is still left of the doctrine of the Sheik-ul-Jabl or the Ancient of the Mountain, the head of the so-called Assassins, a connexion of the Mahdi, if he was the Mahdi, or the supposed Mahdi in the Soudan. I consider he was not the Mahdi as foretold in Muhammedan tradition; but, be that as it may, the 7th Imám of the Shiahs has given rise to the sects both of the Druses in the Lebanon and to the Hunzas on the Pamir. They are the existing Ismailians, who, centuries ago, under the influence of Hashish, the Indian hemp, committed crimes throughout Christendom, and were the terror of Knight-Templars, as “Hashîshîn,” corrupted into “Assassins.”
Now, I have been fortunate enough, owing to my friendship with the head of their tribe, to obtain some portions of the Kelám-i-pîr volume, which takes the place, really, of the Korán, and of which I have got a portion here. I thought it might not be unworthy of your society to bring this to your knowledge, as a very interesting remnant which throws, inter alia, considerable light not only on their doctrine, but also on the Crusades. By a similar favour, I have had the opportunity of hearing the Mitháq, or covenant of the Druses, and that covenant of the Druses is a kind of prayer they offer up to God, not only in connexion with the Old Man of the Mountain, the head of the assassins who began about 1022, but also with those mysterious rites which also take place in what I may call the fairy-land of Hunza. With regard to the covenants, or one of them, which the “U’qelá” or the “initiated” or “wise,” as distinguished from the “Juhelá” or “ignorant” “laity,” among the Druses, offer up every night, this was used by a so-called educated Druse, one who had been converted to Protestantism,—a very good thing: but, as often happens, with that denationalisation which renders his conversion useless as a means for the promotion of any religion, as there are no indigenous elements for its growth. Such a convert is often unable to obtain a knowledge of the practices of his still unconverted countrymen, as nobody can be looked upon with greater distrust than that native of a country who has unlearnt to think in his own language, and who cannot acquire a foreign language with its associations, which are part of the history of that language; he does not become an Englishman with English associations, but ceases to be a good native with his own indigenous associations. Therefore, in my humble opinion, of all the unfortunate specimens of mankind, the most degraded are those who, under the guise of being Europeanised and, therefore, reformers, have themselves the greatest necessity for reform. Their mind has become completely unhinged, thereby showing us that if we Europeans wish to do good among Orientals we can do so best by living good lives in the midst of professors of other religions, this being also in accordance with the 13th edict of Asoka.
This Druse covenant makes the mad Fatimite ruler of Egypt, Hákim, the “Lord of the Universe.” As I said before, the present “Lord of the Universe”. for the Hunzas is the lineal descendant of the 7th Imám, a resident of Bombay, one to whom the Muláis make pilgrimages, instead of going to Mecca or to Kerbelá. You may imagine that, even as regards the Druses, there must be something higher than their “Lord of the Universe;” but, such as he is, it is with him that this covenant is made. Reverting to his living colleague, the Indian “Lord,” it may be stated that there are men scattered throughout India of whose influence we have only the faintest conception. I pointed out in 1866 that if anyone wanted to follow successfully my footsteps is Dardistan, he would have to get recommendations from His Highness Aga Khan of Bombay, and I am glad to say that Col. Lockhart has taken advantage of that recommendation. The Druse “Lord of the Universe” is regarded as one with whom nothing can be compared. The Druses are to render him the most implicit obedience, and to carry out his behests at the loss of everything, good name, wealth, and life, with the view of obtaining the favour of one who may be taken to be God; but the sentence is so constructed as to make him, if not God, only second to God; in other words, only just a discrimination between God as the distant ruler of the Universe and, perhaps, some lineal descendant of Hákim, or rather, Hákim himself as an ever-living being, as the ruler of this world. This and some other prayers, with some songs, one amongst which breathes the greatest hatred to Muhammedanism, and speaks of the destruction of Mecca as something to look forward to, seems to be deserving of study. There are also references in them to rites connected with Abraham. A full translation of these documents, compared with invocations in portions of the Korán, would, indeed, reward the attention of the student.
I will now again revert from the Druses of the Lebanon to the Muláis in the Himalayas. I obtained the poem in my hand from the head of that sect, and the wording is such that it denies whilst affirming the immortality and transmigration of souls. It says, “It is no use telling the ignorant multitude what your faith is.” That is very much like what Lord Beaconsfield said—that all thinking men were of one religion, but they would not tell of what religion!—a wrong sentiment, but one that is embodied in the above poem. “Tell them,” continues the poem in effect, “if they want to know, in an answer of wisdom to a question of folly: ‘if your life has been bad you will descend into the stone the vegetable, or the animal; if your life has been good you will return as a better man. The chain of life is undivided. The animal that is sacrificed proceeds to a higher life.’ You cannot discriminate and yet deny individual life, and apportion that air, stone, or plant, to the animal and to man, but you ought to be punished for saying this to others!” And on this principle, at any rate, the Druses also act or acted, that that is no crime which is not found out; and a good many people, I am sorry to say, elsewhere, think much the same; whereas in Hunza they have gone beyond that stage, and care extremely little about their crimes being found out. The Mitháq and other religious utterances of the Druses and the Kelám-i-Pîr of the Hunzas, if published together, with certain new information which we have regarding the Crusade of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, would, I think, were time given and the matter elaborated, indeed deserve the attention of the readers of the “Transactions.” It also seems strange that where such customs exist there should be a prize for virtue, but there is one in Hunza for wives who have remained faithful to their husbands, something like the French prize for rosières.
Formerly Suttee was practised, but Suttee had rather the meaning of Sáthi or companion, as both husband and wife went to the funeral pyre. Prizes are similarly given to wives who have not quarrelled for, say, a certain number of years with their husbands. The most curious custom which seems to permeate these countries is to foster relationship in nursing, where a nurse and all her relations come not only within the prohibited degrees, which is against the spirit of Muhammedanism, but also create the only real bond of true attachment that I have seen in Dardistan, where other relatives seemed always engaged in murdering one another.
Nearly all the chiefs in Dardistan give their children to persons of low degree to nurse, and these and the children of the nurse become attached to them throughout life and are their only friends. But this foster-relationship is also taken in order to get rid of the consequences, say, of crime; for instance, in the case of adultery, or supposed adultery, the suspected person who declares that he enters into the relationship of a son to the woman with whom he is suspected, after a certain penalty, is really accepted in that position, and the trust is in no case betrayed. It is the only kind of forgiveness which is given in Dardistan generally to that sort of transgression; but, further than that, drinking milk with some one, or appointing some one as foster-father, which is done by crossing two vases of milk, creates the same relationship, except amongst the noble caste of Shins, who were expelled by the Brahmins from India or Kashmir, and who hold the cow in abhorence as one of their religious dogmas, whereas, in other ways, they are really Brahmins, among whom we find Hinduism peeping out through the thin crust of Muhammedanism.
The subject of caste, by the way, is also one which is generally misunderstood, and which, if developed on Christian lines, would give us the perfection of human society, and solve many of the problems with which we are dealing in Europe in more advanced civilisations. I have just read with concern some remarks against caste by Sir John Petheram, who has been in India some three or four years. I think that before people speak on subjects of such intricacy, they should take the position of students of the question, learn at least one of the classical and one of the vernacular languages of India, and then alone assume the role of teachers whilst continuing to be learners; even in regard to such subjects of infant-marriage and the prohibition of widow re-marriage, there is a side of the question which has not yet been put sufficiently before the British public. Infant-marriage, when properly carried out in the higher castes, is an adoption of the girl into the family where she and the husband grow up together and join in prayer in common, which is necessary for their respective salvation; there is much to learn in the way of tenderness, charity, and love, from some of the households in India, where we find a community constituted on the noblest principles of “the joint family,” with an admirable and economical subdivision of labour, which enables them to live for a mere trifle, and yet so to prepare their food that in every dish you can see the tender care of the woman who prepares it for the good of the husband and of the household.
Then, as to the widow re-marriage, it has not been sufficiently pointed out to the British public that spiritual marriage renders the re-marriage of the Hindu widow impossible, because she is necessary for the spiritual salvation of the husband, and because as the representative of his property she may be called on to be the head of the family, for many of them are at the head of the family, and their position, therefore, renders it simply impossible for them to re-marry. These are matters that we should treat with respect, especially if we seek to adapt them to the spirit of the age. There are also differences amongst Muhammedans as great as there are between a Christian who tries to follow the Sermon on the Mount and a nominal Christian. Science and religion, according to a Muhammedan saying, are twins, and if I understand the object of this Society, it is in order to make this twinship (if I may be allowed to use the expression) more real that your labours have been initiated, and that, under Providence, they have been carried to the successful results that have followed them both here and abroad.