326 OF THE DERVISES. 



inverted : instead of the rich giving to the poor, it is the poor who 

 wear the garb of dervises to find means of subsistence. They ha- 

 bitually receive money from the Turks who solicit their prayers, and 

 legacies from the pious, who seldom forget them in their last testa- 

 ments. Persons of distinguished rank will likewise occasionally en- 

 dow a convent with property in land. 



The dervises also draw a further revenue from the ignorance and 

 credulity of the people, by sell ng them amulets. When a child is ill 

 they write his name and that of his mother, with a verse of the Koran, 

 on a scrap of paper, which is hung round the neck of the invalid, with 

 the idea that it will effect his recovery. 



The son of a dervise, accustomed to the idle life of his father, ge- 

 nerally becomes a dervise in his turn; and other Mussulmans embrace 

 this profession, either from a deep religious feeling or from a love 

 of change. Amongst the number of these latter is mentioned Surouri 

 Effendi reis effendi, who, under the reign of Selim I., abandoned the 

 statesman's pursuits for the retirement of a simple dervise. 



As soon as one sect of dervises was admitted numerous others ap- 

 peared also: thirty-two founders of orders successively started up y 

 rivalling each other in the whimsicality and extravagance of the ce- 

 remonies they instituted. These ceremonies, the exercise of which 

 is now a complete charlatanism, form an amusement for the idle, for 

 whom the dervises carefully go through the ritual of representation. 

 Hypocrisy however so artfully extols these exertions as meritorious 

 that there are still to be seen pious Mussulmans who, deceived by this 

 brave show of penitence, form into parties and follow for a few mi- 

 nutes every day the rules and habits of the order in their own dwel- 

 lings : and these superstitions have even reached some in the highest 

 ranks. A devotional excess of this nature is indeed an apt illustration 

 of the contradictions of the human mind ; for the institutions of the 

 dervises do not at all harmonize with the Koran : they are in strong 

 contrast to its inculcation of practices quite unconnected with every 

 ostensible device for exciting the imagination ; and their condemna- 

 tion is expressly pronounced by that very book, in its interdiction of 

 music and dancing. 



The institutions of dervises, originating in laudable motives, speedily 

 degenerated, so that the dervises fell into general disrepute. There 

 are now scarcely any except the Mevlevi that enjoy any considera- 

 tion ; the others are despised by the higher orders, who pay them a 

 deference conventional rather than actual. The dervises enjoy the 

 prerogative of unlimited freedom of speech ; they are likewise entitled 

 to bear arms. With the Koran in their hand, they animate the soldiers 

 against the infidels, like the Spanish monks, who, in the name of the 

 gospel, preached the extermination of the Indians. 



United in communities under the authority of a sheik or superior, 

 the dervises are subject to a noviciate, and to religious practices in- 

 dependent of the prayers obligatory on all Mussulmans. The dervises 

 who are married do not reside in the convent, but pass the night 

 there previous to the days of ceremony, that they may go through 

 the routine of preparatory observances. 



Besides the dervises who live in communities there are wandering 



