For the religion of Mohammed, they were to tell the disciple at this stage, was not a thing easy to comprehend. It did not mean to flatter the senses, or to dazzle by outward signs. It was on the contrary, a difficult, the most difficult matter. Only angels of time first rank, or a prophet specially chosen, or a faithful servant whose heart God had searched and found true, were worthy of bearing this most precious of all burdens. By these and other speeches, the ordinary disciple is soon brought to revere and to admire the dal beyond all other men around him, upon whom he henceforth only looks as inferior beings and infidels, and his desire of knowing more ot.all becomes passionate. But hitherto the procedure has been discreet. All that wasdesired in this first prelimi nary stage, was to unsettle the man's faith. Time preparatory questions put to the neo phyte were so contrived as completely to 'puzzle and bewilder him (e.g.—Why did God take seven days to the creation of the' world? Why are there 12 wells and 12 months? What is the figure of your soul?); and if the missionaries themselves pro ceeded to answer them, it was by allegorizing interpretations of the Koran. the Sunnah, and the laws. But they used the common artifice of stopping short just in time middle of an explanation, for they said, when pressed to continue: " These timings are not lightly to be communicated; God always requires a pledge first. If you will swear iLto my hands, with the most solemn and inviolable oaths, never to divulge our secret, never to give any assistance to our adversaries, never to lay a trap for us, and never to speak to us unless for the purpose of telling us the truth, then I will tell you more." When, if the neophyte has taken the requisite oath—and it is only at the very commencement of the initiation that oaths are of any moment to the Ismaili—he is further asked to contri bute a certain sum of money, as a pledge for his sincerity. Should the convert, how ever, exhibit the slightest degree of reluctance either in swearing or in paying, he is instantly given up by the day—" a prey to the never-to-be-solved doubts of his heart." Thus far time first preliminary degree. In the second, the missionary begins to initiate the neophyte's mind into the doctrines of the Imamat—i.e., to prove to him, by argu ments and proofs best adapted to his mind, how the understanding of God's religion can only be accomplished by following the revelations given to and communicated by certain special delegates; whose names are communicated to him in the third degree. There are, he is told, seven such imams, as there are (according to the Koran, Sur. 63, 12) seven planets, seven heavens, seven earths—viz., Ali, Hassan, Husein, Ali Zein Alabidin, Mohammed Albakir, Jafar Assadik, Ismail. In the fourth degree, the proselyte learns that the number of the prophets,whose task it was to abrogate at different periods the ancient forms of faith, and to substitute new laws, is also seven, like that of the imams; that each of them had a " companion," to whom he confided his whole dispensation and its sacred meanings, and that the latter communicated the same in a secret manner, and by oral tradition, to another man after him, who again handed it down to a successor; until, after a string of seven such "successors," or samet (silent ones), in contradistinc tion to the prophet (natik) or speaking, teaching one, a new imam is born. The tra ditional chain has thus never been broken. After seven times seven such successions of prophets and their "silent" successors—during which seven religions were successively abrogated—there appeared the last and crowning prophet, who abrogated all the religions that were before him, and who is the " chief of the last century"—the last natik. These seven are: (1) Adam, with his companion (" Soos") Seth; (2) Noah, with Sem; (3) Abraham, with Ismael; (4) Moses, with Aaron. The last of the seven "silent ones" that followed him was John, the son of Zechariah. The 5th is Jesus, the son of Mary, with Simon '• Keplia"—by them supposed to be Arabic = purity. The 6th of the "speaking prophets" is Mohammed, the son of Abdallah; with him was Ali, the son of Abu Talib; and he was followed by six other " silent ones," who transmitted to each other the secret mysteries of his religion; the last of whom was 'small, the son of Jafar Sadik. The 7th of the prophets is the " chief" •or "master of the century." In hint culminate and are completed all those sciences which are called "the sciences of the primeval ones." It is he who has first fully opened up the inner and mystic meaning of the words of faith; from him, to the exclusion of every one else, their explanation is to be received. He, and he alone, is to be followed, obeyed, and trusted in all things. By utterly submitting to his words and teachings alone, man is in the right path. the
prophets and all their teachings without exception before him are abrogated through him and by him.
In the fifth degree, the Koran and its precepts are made the subjects of discussion. It is proved to the convert how utterly wrong and foolish it is to interpret the words in their usual sense. Here, again, great subtlety is brought to bear upon the disciple. If he be a Persian, he is told that the Arabs are the oppressors of his country, upon which, with other humiliations, they have also imposed the slavish worship of this book. if he be an Arab, his mind is wrought up against the Persians, who, he is told, have appro priated to themselves the pontificate and the sovereignty that by rights belonged to the Arabs. He is then instructed in a multitude of mystical relations of things depending upon numbers.
The practical religious instruction begins with the sixth degree, into which the neo phyte only enters when fully prepared in his mind to deny all positive religion, and when he has given the most undoubted pledges of his discretion and silence. Every Koranic precept is now allegorized. Prayer, tithes, pilgrimage, legal purity, and other religious observances, are cautiously and systematically interpreted to mean certain spiritual things only. These precepts, the missionary explains, have only been estab lished "as enigmas by the philosophical prophets and imams, who saw in them the only means of keeping the common people in dependence, of exciting them to actions useful to society, of preventing them from hurting each other, and to commit gross crimes." But by slow degrees, the philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and their systems are introduced to the neophyte. They and their systems are contrasted with the prophet and the imams, and their dicta. The result is represented as by no means flattering to the latter. He is distinctly shown the absurdity of a blind belief in so-called historical traditions; it is made clear to him how hearsays and legends differ from reason and tire full and free action of the logical faculties: in this way the open contempt with which the imams themselves are then spoken of, no longer shocks the disciple to any very great extent.
The seventh degree paves the way for the neghtion of God's unity. which is fully carried out in the eighth. Here the Demiurgos, i.e., a second•god, but little inferior to the Supreme Being, is the real creator of all things. The first cause, or the " pre-ex isting," has neither hands nor attributes; no one is to talk of him, or to render him any worship. Much as this part of the doctrine has given cause to discussions within the bosom of the Ismailis themselves, it is yet scarcely doubtful that it is the notion of the Demiurgos that has crept in here. Hamm, himself speaks of this " pre-existence" as the Word, or Logos (q.v.), although nothing can be more obscure than the manner in which this most abstruse dogma is either explained or denied by the different doctors. The Koran and the "word of God" are then taken in hand, and explained to the proselyte in a fashion very different from the one he had been accustomed to before. The resurrec tion, the end of the world, the supreme judgment, the distribution of rewards and punishments, are treated as allegorical or mystical symbols of the revolutions of the stars and the universe; which follow each other periodically, and of the destruction and reproduction of all things terrestrial, such as physical science and philosophy teach. The ninth and concluding degree of initiation frees the proselyte from all and every restraint with regard to his belief. He may, and some do, adopt the system of Manes (see LAKES), of the .Magi (q.v.), of Aristotle or Plato, or he may proceed eclectically with them all. As to the notions previously instilled into his mind with regard to the prophets or the imams, lie is now led to look upon all those " inspired" people as without exception inferior to Mohammed ben Ismail, the chief and doctor of the last period. The disciple learns, at this stage, that no miracle has ever been performed by any one of them; that the prophet is merely a man distinguished by his purity and the perfection of his intelligence, and that this purity of his intelligence is precisely what is called "prophecy." God throws into the prophet's mind what pleases him, and that is is understood by " Word of God." The prophet Clothes this Word afterwards with flesh and bones, and communicates it to the creatures. He establishes by this means the systems of religious institutions which appear to him the most advantageous for the ruling of men; but these institutions and behests arc but temporary, and intended for the preservation of order and worldly interests. No man who knows need practice any single one of them; to him, his knowledge suffices.