United States or Åland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Mohammedanism would not there, as at Constantinople, be found a barrier to reform, for Persian Shiism is an eminently elastic creed, and on the contrary may, it is thought, be made the instrument of a social reformation; only, as I have said it would be folly to count on its success; and there are certain moral defects in Persian character which do not encourage lookers-on.
They also and this is their great doctrinal quarrel with the unitarian Sunites believe in a series of incarnations of the twelve qualities of God in the persons of the "twelve Imams," and in the advent of the last of them as a Messiah, or "Móhdy," doctrines which are especially advanced by the Sheykhi school of Shiism and minimized by the Mutesharreh or orthodox.
These last matters, however, are rather excrescences than necessary parts of Shiism. They owe their prevalence, without doubt, to the Persian mind, which is equally prone to scepticism and credulity, and where Shiism has always had its stronghold.
But for the greater part of his reign El-Kaim was on the defensive, fighting for existence against the usurpation of one Abu-Yezid, who repudiated Shiism, cursed the Mahdi and his successor, stirred up most of Morocco and Barbary against El-Kaim, drove him out of his capital, and went near to putting an end to the Fatimite caliphate.
The most extreme example of this was in Persia, where the austere monotheism of Mohammed was transmuted into the elaborate mystical cult known as Shiism, which presently cut the Persians off from full communion with the orthodox Moslem world.
Word Of The Day