[561] See note, p. 327, [note 1].
[562] Ma sha yín, may be deduced from مشى máshí, “walking, going,” and alludes to the peripatetic philosophers, who were followers of Aristotle, and were wont to discuss walking up and down in the Lyceum of Athens. Referred to مشايهء mashíyi-at (from مشيئ mas’hiyí), “willing, wishing, desiring,” the word may signify knowledge-desiring philosophers; مشايع musháíâ, means “a follower, adherent, companion.”
[563] The Orientals give to Aristotle the surname of Ilahíyún, “the divine.” They attribute to him more than one hundred treatises upon different matters. The greatest part of his works, such as we have them, have all been translated into Syriac and Arabic; it was through this medium, that the great philosopher became first known in Europe.
[564] The Orientals attribute more than sixty-five treatises to Plato. They relate that, being asked what he thought of this world, he answered: “I entered into it by necessity; I dwelt in it with admiration; and I leave it with contempt.” Al Ghazali (before-mentioned, see p. 349, [n. 2]), among other distinguished Orientals, wrote a book, called Monketh, upon Greek philosophy, not without condemning several of its dogmas.
[565] The author mentions three sciences, viz.: فان قلام fán kalám, “the science of scholastic theology;” فن اصول فقہِ fán ás ul fikah, “the science of the fundamentals of religion and law;” and فن فِقہ fan fikah, “jurisprudence.” We have already explained the first (see [note 1], p. 327); the four fundamental articles of the faith have been also enumerated (see [note 1], p. 324); but the fikah, “jurisprudence,” although stated as distinct, in reality comprehends the two first, and in addition shows only the practical application of them. Al Ghazali, quoted by Pococke (pp. 200-201, etc., 1st edit.), after having said that this world is created for furnishing assistance on the way to future life, in order that men, with a due check on cupidity, may take as much of this world as may be sufficient for a viaticum, and after having declared, that the jurist is to be the director of the king in the mode of retaining the people in due order, subjoins: “This science (the law) belongs to religion, although not by itself, yet by the intervention of the world. For the world is a field which is sown for the future, nor is religion put into practice, if not by the world. But religion and government are twin-brothers; religion is the foundation, and the king the guardian; but what wants a foundation, verges to ruin, and what has no guardian, goes off into nothing, etc., etc.” The same intimate junction of religion and civil law, which is acknowledged to prevail in the legislation of the Hindus, as well as in that of the ancient Hebrews and Persians, has passed into that of the Muhammedans. Just as the Vedas with the first, the five books of Moses with the second, the writings of Zoroaster with the third, so is the Koran with the fourth, the foundation of their code, and contains what we may call their whole civil and canonical law. With respect to the last-mentioned book, as it contains likewise all the articles of faith, it follows, that a doctor in law is also a doctor in theology; or a faki is at the same time a lawyer and a theologian: hence the word al faqui in the language of the Spaniards, who have preserved to our days, in their character and manners, not a little of their former conquerors, the Saracens.
[566] Upon ghaibet, “absence, disappearance, concealment” (see hereafter, p. 383, an explanatory [note]).
[567] Muhammed ben Yâkub is the author of the book entitled القاموس Kámús, “the ocean of the Arabic language.” He was born in the year of the Hejira 729, A. D. 1328, and died in 816, A. D. 1413, surnamed Al Shirazí, and Al Firuzabadí, the last is a town situated in the environs of Shiraz, the capital of Fars, or Persia proper. I do not, however, find elsewhere the title al Kalbi, “cordial,” joined to his name.
[568] The term in the text is القياس al kíás. Abu Hanifa and his commentators are commonly called ahel al kíás, “men of analogy,” because they applied the process of analysis to the study of sacred tradition, and rely more upon deductions of human judgment than upon a rigid fidelity to the precepts of the Sonna.
[569] I render in this place by “rational dialectics” the word اجتهاد ijtihad, which signifies properly, according to Silvestre de Sacy, an opinion in religious matters, founded upon reasoning, and deduced from the Koran or the Sonna, by way of comparison or induction. It may therefore be interpreted, as in the sequel, by “ratiocination, discussion, contentious arguing, reasoning, etc., etc.” It signifies also “study, effort, war against infidels.”—(See also upon Istihad, As. Res., vol. X. p. 492.)
[570] علامه حلى is a surname which never occurred to me in any other book which I have consulted, and the translation of which does not satisfy me.