The Bastamiyah, the Nagshbandiyah, and the Bakhtashiyah descend from the original order established by Abu Bakr. All the others come from Ali.
THE FAQUIRS OR DERVISHES.
The Arabic word Faqir signifies poor, poor in the sense of being in need of mercy, poor in the sight of God. The Persian equivalent Darvish is derived from dar “a door”—those who “beg from door to door.”
The dervishes are, as stated before, the practical expounders of Mohammedanism. They are divided into two great classes, the ba Shara (with the law), or those who govern their conduct according to the principles of Islam: and the be Shara (without the law), or those who do not rule their lives according to the formal principles of any religious creed, although they call themselves Muslims. To the latter, the Sufis principally belong. These Faquirs are called either Azad, the free, or Majnub, the absorbed. The former shave their beards, whiskers, eyebrows, etc., and live a life of celibacy.
Every school and every brotherhood has its own distinctive teachings and technicalities, and its peculiar practices and observances, its saints and doctors, great men and founders.
A student will also readily discover a different character in Arabic and Persian Sufism. The Arabic being nearer to Christianity takes up much from it, but moulds it in its peculiar way; the Persian being nearer the traditions of Zoroaster and in immediate contact with Manechaism, naturally borrows from thence. Thus the “pantheistic” tendencies, such as Divine absorption, universal manifestation of the Deity under the seeming appearances of limited forms, the final return of all things to the unity of God, a tendency to regard matter as evil, the reprobation of marriage, etc.—these were ideas that rose from Persian soil, while the ideas of a radiant Divinity mediating between the supreme fountain-head of Being and the created world; of an all-prevading Spirit of love; of detachment from the world; of poverty, humility, etc., were more akin to Christian belief.
Still Saadis’ description applies to all: “The outward tokens of a dervish are a patched garment and a shaven head; and the inward signs, those of being alive in the spirit, and dead in the flesh:—‘not he who will sit apart from his fellow-creatures at the door of supplication with God; and, if he shall reject his prayer, will stand up in disobedience; or if a millstone come rolling down a mountain, he is not intelligent in the ways of providence, that would rise to avoid it.’
“The ritual of the Dervishes is gratitude and praise, worship and obedience, contentment and charity, and a belief in the unity and providence of God, having a reliance on and being resigned to his will, confident of his favour, and forbearant of all: whosoever is endowed with these qualifications is in truth a dervish, notwithstanding he be arrayed in gorgeous apparel: whereas, the irreligious and hypocritical vainboaster, sensualist, and whoremonger, who turn days into nights in his slavish indulgences, and converts nights into days in his dreams of forgetfulness; who eats whatever falls in his way, and speaks whatever comes uppermost, is a profligate, though clothed in the sackcloth of a saint.——”
The dervishes differ, says A. Vambery,[120] from each other only by the manner in which they demonstrate their enthusiasm; still the more we penetrate towards the East, the greater is the purity with which they have been preserved. In Persia the dervishes play a much more important part than in Turkey, and in Central Asia, isolated as it has been from the rest of the world for centuries, this fraternity is still in full vigor, and exercises a great influence upon society.
According to A. Vambery, the Bektashi, Mevlevi, and Rufai orders are principally found in Turkey; the Kadrie and Djelali in Arabia; the Oveisi and the Nurbakhchi Nimetullahi in Persia; the Khilali and Zahibi in India, and the Nakishbendi and Sofi (a recent order) in Central Asia.