226 
SOONEH AND SHEAH SECTS. 
duce; and the people shewed as little similarity to the Persians, 
as liking to their persons. Jealousy of too near neighbourhood, 
and detestation of their contrary creeds, may, perhaps, account 
for the Soon eh natives of Irak Arabi, treating the Sheah subjects 
of the Great King, with the same absence of respect that the 
common order of Turks bestow on Christian Europeans, when¬ 
ever they dare shew such contempt with impunity. It may not 
be irrelevant to mention here, that the Sooneh faith is that 
ft-ixoh 
which considers Omar or Othman, to have been the legitimate 
immediate successorfin the caliphate, or head of the Mahomedan 
church, to the prophet himself; and this is the creed of the 
Turks or Ottomans. While the Sheah looks upon Omar to have 
been a usurper of the sacred throne ; having wrested it from Ali, 
the son-in-law, and first disciple of the prophet, and whose at¬ 
tested right to the supremacy was sealed with his own blood and 
that of his son Hossein. The Persians are of this faith, but 
tolerant to those of a different opinion ; while their adversaries 
denounce on them, the most unequivocal condemnation. 
But to return to the beautiful banks of the Diala, and their 
inhabitants. The dress of these people, a mixture of Courdish, 
Arabian, and Turkish : consisting of large flattened turbans, long 
white trowsers, and wide ample-sleeved kaftans bound round 
the waist with a piece of linen, or silk of various colours, in 
which they stuck a large crooked knife. Such were the persons 
who appeared from the town, but we did not then enter it, 
rather taking up our quarters in an excellent khaun; the most 
spacious, indeed, I had seen on either side of the Zagros. Close 
to it flowed a clear stream ; the usual object of our idolatry, after 
one of these hot and dusty rides. We reached this place about 
ten o’clock in the forenoon; the distance from Kesra Shirene 
