They have given secondary names to their saints, and thus designate Ali the Sahib-i-Karam, Ibn Yamin they call Pir, Imam Reza they name Daud, Imam Husain they know under the name of Yadgar.
Their own people they term “yar,” and strangers “jouz,” and when a convert is made he must bring a nutmeg (jouz), which is a sign of his renunciation of all other beliefs. They abhor shaving the beard or clipping the moustache.[91]
Their chief men are called Sayyid; they are known as a manifestation of the Sahib-i-Karam, and they have the power to decide what is lawful and what is unlawful.
One Persian writer, Mirza Muhammad Husain Isfahani, Zaka ul Mulk, says:—
“The author has been for years among them, and—while refuting their doctrines—he is bound to say that though they do not veil their women there is little or no immorality among them.”
Such are the opinions of the best Persian authors regarding the origin of the sect, and it is evident that they explain very inadequately the curiosities of their beliefs, and have been led to commit some errors by attempting to give the Ali Illahi a purely Muhammadan origin.
There remains for notice the tribe of Kalhur, which is hardly within the province of this book, and to which therefore the briefest reference will suffice.
The tribe is to-day the most powerful of southern Kurdistan, and has for several centuries inhabited the lands near the frontier, upon the extreme southern border of Kurdistan and towards Kermanshah. Their leader is Daud Khan, an extremely powerful man, who from being a pedlar has risen to chief, and up to a month or two ago exercised the sway of an almost independent chief from Kermanshah to the Turkish frontier, as he has dispossessed the Guran of some of their power, and subjected entirely some small tribes, such as the Senjabi.
All kinds of curious theories have been put forward to account for the origin of the Kalhur, none being more fantastic than that of Rawlinson, that they are the descendants of the Jews carried into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.
THE KALHUR