[11] Herbelot mentions (under the article Giogathai Khan, p. 363) a Mahmud, surnamed Tarabi, from his native place Tarab, near Bokhara, as an impostor, who by tricks and false miracles gained so many followers as to be able to seize upon the town of Bokhara, and to make war upon the Moghuls, in the year of the Hejira 630 (A. D. 1232). This date makes him a contemporary with the Mahmúd of our text, in which, however, nothing more is to be found for enabling us to identify the one with the other. Such was the terror which the name of Mahmùd Tarabi inspired, that the Tartars, being led against his camp, were seized by a panic, and took to flight, in which many thousands of them were slaughtered by the pursuing soldiers of Mahmúd, whilst he himself had been killed in his camp, by a random shot of an arrow from the Tartarian army. But his death remained concealed, and his friends spread the rumor of his voluntary but temporary disappearance. His brothers, Muhammed and Ali, were put at the head of the party, which was soon after overthrown by the Moghuls.
Section II.—An account of some of their tenets. —The author of this book heard from a person who was one of the safá, “pure” Durvishes, from the Durvish Bakáí Váhed, from the Durvish Ismâíl, and from Mizza Takí, from Shaikh Látef illa, and Shaikh Shaháb, who belonged to the Imaná, what follows: Any single person is a being which longs after earth; but other elements also exist with an abhorrence of earth. These sectaries consider the sun as the spirit of fire, and call it the Kâbah of worship, the fire-temple of obedience to the holy being. Hakím Khákani says:
“O Kâbah of the traveller of heaven,
O zemzem,[12] sacred well of fire to the world.”
They hold the heaven to be air, and the moon to be the spirit of water. They agree upon transmigration in the following manner: when a man dies and is buried, the component parts of his body manifest themselves in the shape of minerals or vegetables, until the latter become the food of animals, or serve as aliment to mankind. These sectaries subjoin: in the food may reside intelligence and action; for the dispersed ingredients of a body are in the food; intelligence and action collect all in one place, where * they experience no dispersion, although the conformation of the body may be disjoined; whether in the producing of a mineral, a vegetable, an animal, or a man. *[13] They do not agree upon the existence of a rational unsubstantial soul. They know of no heaven without the elements, and believe the necessary original principle to be a point of earth. Instead of Bísmilla hirrehma nirrehím, “in the name of the bountiful and merciful God,” they write Isteâín ba ne fseg illazi la illah hú, “I assist myself of thy essence which alone is God;” and instead of láysa kamsillah shaya, “nothing is like it;” they say Ana merkeb almabin, “I am the vehicle of him who explains the truth.”
[12] Zemzem is the name of a famous well at Mecca. According to the Muhammedans, it was formed from the source which God made appear in favor of Ismâil and Hagar, his mother, whom Abraham drove from his house, and obliged to retire to Arabia. When afterwards the patriarch came to visit his banished son Ismâil, and built the square temple, called Kâbah, he bestowed upon him the possession of it and the surrounding country, since called Mecca. This place became an object of contest between Ismâil’s posterity and the Arabian tribe of Jorhamides. The latter, after having possessed themselves of it, were attacked by the former, but before yielding it, they threw the sacred black stone, with the two gazelles of massive gold which an Arabian king had presented to the temple, into the well, and then completely filled it up. So it remained until the time of an ancestor of Muhammed, called Abdal mothleb; he was admonished by an heavenly voice to clear the well, the situation of which was at the same time indicated to him. This was near the idols Assat and Neilah, which were first to be removed, in spite of their adorers, the Koráishites. The latter, having ceded the well, claimed to share the treasure which Abdal mothleb had found in it. The new contest was to be decided by Ebn Sáid, a famous prophet, who lived on the confines of Syria. Upon the way to him, through a desert, when both parties were dying of thirst, a fountain which sprung up beneath the foot of Abdal mothleb’s camel brought about a reconciliation between them; the well was cleared; the treasure found was consecrated to the temple, which in after times gained so much celebrity.—(Herbelot after Khondemir.)
[13] In the translation of this obscure passage between the two asterisks (edit. of Calcutta, p. 375, l. 17, 18) I followed the manuscript of Oude, which reads a little differently: کیب كالبد کشادہ شوپر اکندہ نکردند اکرچہ ترکیب كالبد کشادہ شود خواہ درنشاء جمادی خواہ نباتی خواہ حیوانى یا نشانی
Section III.—Upon some of the sayings of Váhed. —The Mizán, “balance,” is a book which Váhed composed with many others; it is distinguished by the word naskh and “treatise;” and each naskh and treatise has a particular name. In the Mízán, which is reputed among the naskhs, it is stated, that the materials of the world existed from the very beginning, which signifies from the first appearance of afrád, “rudimental units (monades?),” which are primordial, that is to say, the root of the before-said state, until the time when these rudimental units, tempered together, became vegetables; thence rose animals, which are called dabtah ul ares, “the reptiles of the world.” Thus it existed until man was formed. The first mentioned state might have extended to sixteen thousand years; so that eight thousand years of the said number may be the period of Arabia, which is the superior, and eight thousand years the period of Ajem (Persia), which is the inferior period. In the sequel, when the said world, which is the era of the first mentioned rudimental units, had been so constituted as to admit the formation of man; then the duration of life, comprising the period of man, was to be also sixteen thousand years; of which eight thousand years should revolve for eight perfect prophets of Arabia, and other eight thousand years for eight perfect teachers of Ajem. Further, when the cycle of the two formations shall be completed, then the turn of the fundamental units is to reappear. After twice the said eight thousand, that is, sixteen thousand years, according to simple computation, when a perfect cycle of mankind and the world, in sixty-four thousand years,[14] on conditions exterior and interior, manifest and hidden, shall have been completed, then an entire period shall have received the seal.