1888. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 187 
term and the principles of the Assassins, however, originated 
with the following named sect : 
6. The Ismaeliyeh. 'This sect of Islam is found in small num- 
bers in Syria, and only in its north-eastern parts. They are of 
mixed, but principally of Persian origin. ‘Their name is derived 
from Ismael, the seventh caliph of the line of Ali, whom they 
follow. Like the Nusairiyeh, they are only nominal Moslems, 
with a loose morality, aud a jealous and esoteric system of half- 
heathen mysticism, founded on a mixture of allegorical interpre- 
tations of the Koran with pagan superstitions. In the days of 
their greatest prosperity, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, 
they attained a malign notoriety through the interior development 
of the military and religious sect of the Assassins, whose methods 
of cowardly secret murder have made the history of all Moham- 
medan states so tragical. In the period of the crusades, this 
society spread over Persia, Syria, and Egypt, and had the most 
terrible influence over the Christian and Mohammedan dynasties 
of that period. After the expulsion of the crusaders, the society 
was little by little broken up, and its few remaining adherents 
driven from Persia, Tartary and Egypt into the mountain fast- 
nesses of northern Syria. ‘heir political power is now broken, 
and they number only a few thousand peasants, who have little 
sphere for the exercise of their diabolical doctrines and prac- 
tices. 
Before leaving the Mohammedan and semi-Mohammedan sects, 
it may be remarked that, although intensely religious, they are, 
with the exception of a few of the inhabitants of the larger 
cities, very little instructed in their religion, and regard it more 
as a matter of family inheritance than of conscientious con- 
viction. ‘There is really more antipathy between Druzes and 
Nusairiyah than between either and the Christians. The sec- 
tarian divisions of Islam are stronger and more permanent than 
those between Catholic and Protestant. The only condition of 
the co-existence of the different Islamic sects in thesame district, 
is political as well as religious autonomy. It is, therefore, not 
with direct and primary reference to the Christians that the 
political system of the Mohammedan government was adopted. 
It would continue, were Christianity to disappear from all 
Mohammedan states as thoroughly as it has done from Arabia. 
%. The Gypsies. The number of the Gypsies of Syria is 
considerable, but not accurately known. ‘They seem to be of 
Hindoo origin. They speak Arabic, and their own Arabicized 
Gypsy. They are nomads, subsisting by weaving sieves, cloth, 
mats and sacking, and by raising asses, thieving, fortune telling, 
and assisting as musicians and dancers at the weddings and 
