325 ) 



OF THE DERVISES. 



f The following paper is translated and arranged from the writings of Count Andreossy* 

 formerly ambassador to the Porte, M. Courray, an eminent orientalist, and M. 

 Ruffin, a detenu at the Seven Towers during the French expedition to Egypt.] 



As soon as Islamism had taken root in the East, religious orders 

 known by the name of dervises grafted themselves upon it. The 

 dervises have been compared to the monks of Catholicism ; but they 

 have in truth a very remote resemblance to them. 



The word dervise, indicating a class of poor by voluntary profession, 

 signified originally, like the Arabic faquir, an indigent person with- 

 out roof or home.* The founders of the first orders of dervises ex- 

 perienced great difficulties in introducing this novelty into Islamism. 

 Restrained by the sentence, "/ ruhbaniete Jil Islam" no monkery in 

 Islamism (a sentence conveying to every true Mussulman a national 

 proverb and an article of faith), they were compelled scrupulously to 

 avoid in their statutes all that bore the slightest resemblance to the 

 monks of Christianity : they therefore refrained from imposing upon 

 the dervises the obligation of taking irrevocable vows of the cloister 

 and of celibacy, and the too rigid observance of abstinence and 

 prayers. These new founders took for their model, on the contrary-, 

 the bonzes of China and the deboussi of Persia, and> in imitation of 

 these latter, tried to attract the gaze of the multitude by violent 

 and extravagant exercises, dangerous and superhuman trials, and in- 

 credible macerations and austerities. But this was only a sacrifice 

 of their predilections and opinions dictated by policy to the necessity of 

 circumstances ; for their writings breathe the purest morality, and 

 are enthusiastic in the praise of solitude and celibacy. The aus- 

 terities of the monks are prescribed for the atonement of crimes and 

 habitual errors, or as labours whereby to purchase the favours of 

 another world ; but the dervises> in the abrogation of self, think only of 

 annihilating themselves before their Creator, in order to be identified, 

 if possible^ even in this world with the Divinity: to be brief, it is the 

 contemplative life carried beyond the limits of human perfectibility. 



The Turkish dervises deduce their origin from Ali, and even from 

 Abubekr, who was the first of the four caliphs who succeeded Mo- 

 hammed. The fourth caliph^ Ali, is however their reputed founder ; 

 not as having himself instituted the order or erected the convents of 

 dervises, but because he was the first Mussulman who renounced the 

 goods of this world to devote them to the service of the poor. His 

 example was followed by others, and thus a class of men was formed 

 consecrated to the service of the destitute, and voluntarily reducing 

 themselves, for their sake^ to poverty. But this order of things is now 



* Dervise is a Persian word composed of the substantive der, gate, and the participle 

 vich, extended, spread out : illustrative of the poor, who, for want of a lodging, lay 

 themselves down at night in the gateways to rest there, rather more under shelter than 

 in the open field. 



M.M. No. 4. 2 B 



