68 



PROF. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, D.LITT., ON 



Syrian last mentioned expresses the opinion,* which I know 

 from other sources to be well grounded, that had Babism 

 .succeeded it would have been as rabidly persecuting as any 

 other of the sects which have arisen in Islam. A Babi 

 informed me that it would tolerate no religion besides itself ; 

 and it would seem that the Christians are taunted with 

 blindness in failing to see that the prophecies of their Bible 

 ;are realized in the Bab, just as they were taunted by 

 Mohammed for their obstinacy in refusing to identify him 

 with the Comforter promised by St. John. So far as the 

 -doctrinal content of Babism is concerned, even admirers in 

 Europe acknowledge its puerile character ; the fact that it 

 gives a year of nineteen months is sufficient to show how far 

 the founder was alive to the practical needs of mankind. 

 The general character of the teaching does not appear to 

 •differ in kind from that of the Sufis or mystics who have 

 •enriched the literature of the Mohammedan languages almost 

 from the commencement, and the literary output of the 

 -existing sect seems decidedly outdone in originality and 

 depth by that of the mystics of the sixth and seventh 

 •centuries of the Mohammedan era. If their standard of 

 conduct was at any time free from the chief evils attending 

 the Mohammedan system, it is difficult to assert that the 

 amelioration was either considerable or permanent in 

 character ; and at quite an early period in the history of the 

 .sect they took to settling their internal differences with the 

 aid of the poisoned bowl and the dagger, the style in which 

 Mohammedan dissensions have been settled from Mohammed's 

 time to that of the Wahhabis. Under the present ruler of 

 Persia they exist as a sect that is tolerated provided that it 

 keep in the background ; and the errors committed by 

 previous rulers in making it popular by too rigid persecution 

 will probably be retrieved by this sagacious policy. 



In the . work by Dr. Adams, to which attention has been 

 called, there is a translation of an interesting correspondence 

 between the Babi community in America and the headquarters 

 of the sect at Acre, from which it would appear that acquain- 

 tance with the New World is rapidly iuffuencing the sect, in 

 such a way as to change it from a dangerous form of fanaticism 

 to sometiiing like one of the comparatively harmless religious 

 revivals, which, not unconnected with mysticism, have repeat- 

 -p,dly taken place in the States. One of the writers assures the , 



Persia by a Persian, p. 467. 



