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Updated: May 11, 2025
Both Burton and his wife henceforward openly protected the Shazlis, and in fact made themselves, to use the words of a member of the English Government, "Emperor and Empress of Damascus." That Rashid Pasha and his crawling myrmidons were rascals of the first water and that the Shazlis were infamously treated is very evident. It is also clear that Burton was more just than diplomatic.
He was a Mohammedan among Mohammedans, a Mormon among Mormons, a sufi among the Shazlis, and a Catholic among the Catholics. One thing he certainly was not in his later years a member of the Church of England. He was baptized and brought up in the Anglican Communion.
I think that the foregoing statements will fully explain the true reasons which led to the recall of Burton from Damascus. It will be seen that in the above charges against Burton the question of the Shazlis does not enter; and in the face of all this evidence, how is it possible to maintain that Isabel was the true cause of her husband's recall?
But it was not God's will that he should be removed in this way. About this time the trouble with the Shazlis also came to a head. The Shazlis were Sufis, or mystics, esoterics of El Islam, who tried to spiritualize its material portions. Richard was most interested in them, and he used to study them and their history. The mystic side of their faith especially appealed to him.
Yet in this letter to his official chief Burton dwells at length on the revival of Christianity in Syria, and calls attention to the persecution and increasing number of the converted Shazlis, and asks for instructions as to what he is to do. "The revival," he says, "is progressing," and "this persecution," and he regards it in the "gravest Light."
Thus he managed to exasperate representatives of almost every class. But perhaps it was his championship of the Shazlis that made the most mischief. Says Lady Burton, "It broke his career, it shattered his life, it embittered him towards religion." Complaints and garbled stories reached London from all sides, and Burton was communicated with.
Twelve of the leading Shazlis the martyrs, as they were called were seized and imprisoned. Forner died suddenly; as some think, by poison. This threw Burton, who hated oppression in all its forms, into a towering rage, and he straightway flung the whole of his weight into the cause of the Shazlis. Persecution gave them holiness.
The new converts are now numbered by thousands: men of rank are enrolling themselves on the lists, and proselytizing has extended even to the Turkish soldiery." All this bears out Isabel's statement that her husband was interested in the Shazlis; but, all the same, it does not enter into the question of the recall.
The Shazlis. Mrs. Burton now heard news that fired her with joy. A sect of the Mohammedans called Shazlis used to assemble in the house of one of their number of Moslem prayer, reading and discussion. One day they became conscious of a mysterious presence among them. They heard and saw things incommunicably strange, and a sacred rapture diffused itself among them.
I also submit that she had very little to do in the matter of the Shazlis, and that little she did with her husband's full consent and approval. Burton alone was responsible for his recall in that he managed to offend nearly every part of the community at Damascus, and so gave the Turkish authorities, who disliked him from the first, an excuse for demanding his recall.
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