Chapter III: 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: وپر اکندہ نکردند اکرچہ ترکیب كالبد کشادہ شود
خواہ درنشاء جمادی خواہ نباتی خواہ حیوانى یا نشانی