Another interesting member of the first pilgrim band was Selmán el Fársí, one of the early companions of Mohammed. Although he does not play a very conspicuous part in Mohammedan history, his name has acquired a strange celebrity in connexion with the mysterious sect of the Nuseiríyeh in Syria. The tenets of this people are so extraordinary and so little known that I cannot refrain from giving a slight account of them here.
The Nuseiríyeh worship a mystic triad, consisting of and represented by ‘Alí, the son-in-law and successor of Mohammed, Mohammed himself, and Selmán el Fársí. These are alluded to as ‘Ams, a mystical word, composed of the three initial letters of their names; ‘Alí being, moreover, called the Maná, or “meaning,” i.e., the object implied in all their teaching, Mohammed, the chamberlain, and Selmán el Fársí, the door. To understand this we must remember that Eastern sovereigns are never approached except through the mediation of their chamberlains; and the three offices will therefore correspond with those of the Holy Trinity, the King of Kings, the Mediator, and the Door of Grace. From this triad proceed five other persons, called aitám, or monads, whose function is that of creation and order. Their names are those of persons who played a conspicuous part in the early history of Islám; but they are evidently identical with the five planets known to the ancients, and their functions correspond exactly to those of the heathen deities whose names the planets bear.
The Nuseiríyeh hold the doctrine of a Fall, believing that they originally existed as shining lights and brilliant stars, and that they were degraded from that high estate for refusing to recognise the omnipotence of ‘Alí.
The mystic Trinity, ‘Ams, is supposed to have appeared seven times upon the earth, once in each of the seven cycles into which the history of the world is divided. Each of these manifestations was in the persons of certain historical characters, and each avatar was accompanied by a similar incarnation of the antagonistic or evil principle.
The devil of the Nuseiríyeh is always represented as a triune being, and, carrying out the principle of affiliating their religious system upon the history of Mohammedanism, they have made the opponents of ‘Alí represent the personification of evil, as he himself and his immediate followers are the personification of good. Thus Abu Bekr, ‘Omar, and ‘Othmán, are considered by the Nuseiríyeh as the conjunct incarnation of Satan.
They believe in the transmigration of souls, and that after death those of Mohammedans will enter into the bodies of asses, Christians into pigs, and Jews into apes. As for their own sect, the wicked will become cattle, and serve for food; the initiated who have given way to religious doubts will be changed into apes; and those who are neither good nor bad will again become men, but will be born into a strange sect and people.
The religion professed by the great mass of the Nuseiríyeh is, indeed, a mere mélange of doctrines, dogmas, and superstitions, borrowed from the various creeds which have at various times been dominant in the country; and yet this incongruous jumble serves as a cloak for a much more interesting creed, namely, the ancient Sabæan faith.
The Nuseiríyeh conceal their religion from the outer world with the greatest care, and do not even initiate their own sons into its mysteries until they have arrived at years of discretion; the women are never initiated at all.
In the first degree or stage of initiation, they are made acquainted with the doctrines of which I have given a sketch; in the second they are told that by ‘Ams the Christian Trinity is intended; and in the last, or perfect degree, they are taught that this Trinity, the real object of their worship, is composed of Light, or the Sky, the Sun, and the Moon, the first being illimitable and infinite, the second proceeding from the first, and the last proceeding from the other two.
The five monads are, in this stage, absolutely declared to be identical with the five planets.