PERSIA. 4i 



who were banished out of Persia by Shah Abbas. Their sect, how- 

 ever, is said to be numerous, though tolerated in very few places. 



The long wars between the Persians and the Romans seem early 

 to have driven the ancient Christians, into Persia and the neighbour- 

 ing countries. Even to this day, many sects are found that evidently 

 have Christianity for the ground-work of their religion. Some of 

 them, called Sousees, who are a kind of quietists, sacrifice their pas- 

 sions to God, and profess the moral duties. The Sabean Cluustians 

 have, in their religion, a mixture of Judaism and Mahommedanism ; 

 and are numerous towards the Persian gulf. The Armenian and. 

 Georgian Christians are very numerous in Persia. 



The Persians observe the fast during the month of Ramazan (the 

 9th month of the Mahommedan year) with great strictness and sever- 

 ity. About an hour before day-light they eat a meal, which is called 

 Sehre, and from that time until the next evening at sunset they 

 neither eat nor drink of any thing whatever. If, in the course of the 

 day, the smoke of a calean, or the smallest drop of water should reach 

 their lips, the fast is in consequence deemed broken and of no avail. 

 From sunset until the next morning they are allowed to refresh them- 

 selves. This fast, when the month Ramazan falls in the middle of 

 summer, as it sometimes must do (the Mahommedan year being 

 lunar) is extremely severe, especially to those who are obliged by 

 their occupation to go about during the day time ; and is still render- 

 ed more so, as there are also several nights during its continuance 

 which they are enjoined to spend in prayer. The Persians particu- 

 larly observe two; the one being that in which their prophet Ali died, 

 from a wound which he received from the hands of an assassin, three 

 days before ; which night is the 2 1st of Ramazan, the day of which is 

 called by the natives the Day of Murder. The other is the night of 

 the 23d, in which they affirm that the Koran was brought down from; 

 heaven by the hands of the angel Gabriel, and delivered to their pro- 

 phet Mahommed : wherefore it is denominated the Night of Power. 



Literature. ...The Persians, in ancient limes, were famous for 

 polite literature, and their poets renowned all over the east. There 

 is a manuscript at Oxford, containing the lives of a hundred and 

 thirty -five of the finest Persian poets. Ferdusi and Sadi were among 

 the most celebrated. The former comprised the history of Persia in 

 a series of epic poems, which employed him for near thirty years, and 

 which are said by Mr. Jones to be " a glorious monument of eastern 

 genius and learning." Sadi was a native of Shirauz, and flourished in. 

 the thirteenth century, and wrote many elegant pieces both in prose 

 and in verse. Shemseddin was one of the most eminent lyric poets 

 that Asia has produced; and Nakhsheb wrote in Persian a book 

 called the Tales of a Parrot, not unlike the Decameron of Boccace. 

 Jami was a most animated and elegant poet, who flourished in the 

 middle of the fifteenth century, and whose beautiful compositions, on 

 a great variety of subjects, are preserved at Oxford in twenty-two 

 volumes. Hariri composed, in a rich, elegant, and flowery style, a 

 moral work, in fifty dissertations, on the changes of fortune, and the 

 various conditions of human life, interspersed with a number of agree- 

 able adventures, and several fine pieces of poetry. 



Of the sprightly and voluptuous bard of Shirauz, the name and 

 eharacter are sufficiently known to orientalists. It may, however, ex- 

 cite the curiosity of the English reader, that the poet Hafez, here in- 

 iced to his notice, conciliated the favour of an offended eraperer, 



V6l. If. G 



