If the Moollahs, and in particular the chief priest of Ispahan, Hajee Syed Moollah Mahomed Baukir, whose religious influence in Persia is powerful, should use the present opportunity for regaining their former position by exerting their authority among the people, and preaching a crusade against the rival branch of Mahommedanism, it is not easy to foresee the consequences.[11]
Indeed, reported Sheil, the Persian Foreign Minister and Ḥájí Mírzá Áqásí were considering the possibility of war.[12]
This chief priest of Iṣfahán, mentioned by Sheil, was the same divine from whom Mullá Ḥusayn-i-Bushrú'í obtained unqualified support for Siyyid Káẓim-i-Rashtí.
It is helpful to compare the authority of the divines of these two great branches of Islám. The Shí`ah divine in contradistinction to the Sunní has the power of 'Ijtihád', that is, issuing ex cathedra decrees and judgments. His position is, in a sense, analogous to that of the English judge who can, within the boundaries of equity and common law, establish precedents. The Sunní divine belongs to one of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the Ḥanafí, the Sháfi`í, the Málikí and the Ḥanbalí. The jurisconsults, who founded these four schools or rites, which are named after them, set certain standards from which the Sunní divine cannot deviate. The Shí`ah divine, on the other hand, relies exclusively on the text of the Qur'án and the Traditions ascribed to the Prophet and the Imáms, all of which are wide open to interpretation. Moreover, the Shí`ah mujtahid—the divine who pronounces ex cathedra—does so, it is understood, as the deputy of the Ṣáḥibu'z-Zamán, the Lord of the Age.
CHAPTER 1
ALL HAIL SHÍRÁZ
All hail, Shiraz, hail! Oh site without peer!
May God be the Watchman before thy gate,
That the feet of Misfortune enter not here!
Lest my Ruknabad be left desolate....
—Ḥáfiẓ
In the afternoon of May 22nd 1844 a traveller stood outside the gates of Shíráz. He had come from Karbilá, on a spiritual quest to his native land of Írán. A boat had taken him to Búshihr on the Persian Gulf. From that insalubrious port his route had lain over forbidding mountains to the renowned city of Shíráz. He was accompanied by his brother and his nephew, both barely twenty years old, and he himself but in his early thirties. They had undertaken this journey for a purpose which to many seemed fantastic. But for themselves and many more like them it was real and urgent.