17. Sooffeeism--Arts and Sciences
Sooffeeism--Arts and Sciences
Chapter VII
It is impossible to write of Persia with the view of affording some notion of the religious, as well as social condition of the people, without noticing, however slightly, the principles of what is called Sooffeeism, which has taken a strange hold of the national mind. The term Sooffee, which means “wise,” or “pious,” and is metaphysically used to denote a religious man, is supposed to be derived from the term saaf, “pure,” or “clear;” or, from suffa, which signifies purity. Some have traced it to soof, “wool,” or “wool-bearing,” in allusion to the coarse woolen garments usually worn by its teachers. It is worthy of remark, that these terms are all from the Arabic; and that the accounts we have of the Sooffees are comparatively of a modern date, being all subsequent to the conquest of Persia by the caliph Omar. It is, therefore, not unlikely that the name may have been originally adopted from the Greek term
It is currently described as a common of the Sooffee, that every man is an incarnation of Deity, or that, at least, all are partakers of the Divine principle. This generic idea may be traced in all the writings of the Sooffees, which in prose and verse form a very large proportion of the whole literature of Persia. This idea may be regarded as the source of all that is good and evil in the system. It tends to produce that liberality which we have had occasion to indicate as a characteristic of the Persian mind, for a Sooffee regards every human being as in some sort a representative of the Deity. “I hold,” said one of them, when rebuked for his intimacy with Christians, “I hold that all men are of God, and are therefore pure: I regard none as unclean.” Another of its tendencies is to a laxity of morals; for it is generally understood—and it is admitted by many of themselves—that the principles of Sooffeeism will, and do very often, cover the grossest delinquencies of conduct. By holding all things to be from God, they break up the very foundations of morality and religion, and declare good and evil, virtue and vice, to be alike of Divine origin. In others, the very same belief assumes an entirely different aspect. Regarding themselves as the offspring of God, they insist upon both the possibility and the duty of reuniting ourselves to the Divine essence from which we have sprung. The great means to this end is, to abstract the soul from worldly things, and to absorb it in Divine contemplation. This, in their view, takes the place of external worship, which they contemn as subjecting the soul to the bondage of arbitrary forms. They discourse largely and eloquently upon the love of God, the dignity of virtue, and the holy joys of a union with the Deity. The Musnavi, their principal book, is full of the most impassioned sentiments of this kind, as is also their most admired poetry, as the Persians themselves understood it, although to the uninitiated it seems to bear a very different aspect. But they insist that all the odes of their Celebrated poets are mystical; and that the poets, being generally Sooffees, “profess eager desires without carnal affections, and circulate the cup, but no material goblet, since all things are spiritual in their sect, all mystery within mystery.” In fact, they regard this poetry as of the same nature as Solomon’s Song; and, indeed, the fact that so large a proportion of the poetry of Western Asia, that is, of Arabia and Persia, is employed in the expression of religious emotions mystically, under the same images that we find there, is a very strong argument for the general opinion, that the Canticles form a mystical or allegorical religious poem, the details of which, although they seem to us “hard to be understood,” are perfectly intelligible in a sacred sense to the Persian and Arabian of the present day, as they were to the ancient Hebrew. The principle of this poetical mysticism is clearly announced by the poet Jamee, who tells us that he addresses the Almighty by no particular name, for that everything in the universe declares his presence and existence.
“Sometimes the wine, sometimes the cup I call thee; sometimes the lure, sometimes the net I call thee.
Excepting thy name, there is not another letter in the tablet of the universe.
Say by what appellation shall I call thee?”
Another passage, avowedly of this mystical character, we copy from Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hazin, as the most characteristic specimen of this kind of verse on which we can lay our hands:—
“Cup-bearer of orthodox wine[18] from among us— Which carries away the darkness of idolatry;
Which, to our gloomy hearts, is like a flame of fire, Or the midnight illumination at Mount Sinai—
Give us goblets, that we may move aside from ourselves, And, out of ourselves, in ecstasy, take our way towards the Incomparable.
Musician, put thy heart-attracting breath to the reed, And shorten this dark night of separation.
Raise the curtain from the morning of conjunction;
Convert into the dawn of day the eve of our painful banishment That I may be freed at length from this disunion, And may gain the presence of the object of my love.[19]
Cup-bearer, a cup of Magian wine, Fresh drawn from the jar of the wine-house, Pour into the palate of the dry-lipped Hazin, As a libation to his fiery heat.
Musician, thy breath gives brightness to the soul; For the dead of heart it is the inspiration of the Messiah.
We are shrunk, as stagnant blood in the darkened cuticle: A lancet is good for a congealed vein. For the dead heart, the cold body is a grave: The sound of thy reed is the voice of the last trumpet.”
[18] Literally, wine of the acknowledgment of the Divine unity, opposed to the dry dullness and gloomy distraction of polytheism.
[19] This may be the more intelligible, when it is understood that the Sooffees suppose the cause of love to be an anxious desire of the soul for union. Thus, they compare the soul to a bird confined in a cage, panting for liberty, and pining at its separation from the Divine essence. The disregard of outward worship among the Sooffees makes them, more than anything else, obnoxious to the rigid Muslims, and more especially to the mullahs, who have not failed to perceive that their own influence with the people is compromised by the growth of this doctrine. They accuse its followers of atheism, and sometimes endeavor to draw them into the admission of consequences which would render them liable to punishment under the Muslim law. But these attempts are seldom successful. One obstacle to their accomplishment is that a large proportion of the Sooffees are sincere Mohammedans, notwithstanding the palpable inconsistency of the two forms of anti-Christian belief. Mr. Elphinstone says: “I have heard a man expatiate with rapture on the beauty of the Sooffee system, and on the enlarged and liberal views of human actions to which it leads, who has soon after stickled, in the same company for every tenet of Islam, and rejected with horror the idea of doubting the eternity of hell-fire. When the difficulty of reconciling this doctrine with the belief that nothing existed but God was pointed out, he said, that the system of the Sooffees was certainly true, but that the eternity of hell was proved by the word of God (meaning the Koran) itself.” The principles of Sooffeeism are undoubtedly on the increase in Persia, and are, indeed, diffused to a much greater extent than might at first sight appear. To regard the Sooffees as a sect merely, would be to convey an inadequate idea of the subject; for every Persian is so far a Sooffee, in that the religious vagaries which characterize that system are the most natural modes of thought to the Persian mind. It can only be described as a sect with regard to those who hold the principles of Sooffeeism as classified into a system; but, in fact, the Persians generally have the elements of this philosophy floating in their minds, as the natural product of their singularly imaginative temperament, their love of the ideal, and their want of fixed principles, either in religion or in philosophy. It is impossible, therefore, to state the number or proportion of those who cherish the principles of Sooffeeism. For the most part they do not appear as open sectaries, although they are to be found in every part of the empire, have their acknowledged head at Shiraz, and their chief men in all the principal cities. The late shah was supposed to belong to their party, although he was at the same time very rigid in the performance of his religious duties as a Muslim. In what degree the prevalence of these principles may be regarded as an obstacle or an aid to the ultimate diffusion of the doctrine of Christ in this interesting country is a difficult question, which the result alone can satisfactorily solve. Our own impression is, that the religion of Mohammed, by formally and deliberately shutting out the essential belief in Christ as the Son of God and the Redeemer, is an error so appallingly inveterate, that whatever tends to sap and weaken its foundation is to be regarded as an advantage—as an unbolting the iron doors of the prison-house. It becomes us to speak reverently of the hidden purposes of God; but it may be that it is his design that the system of the false prophet should be thus weakened from within previously to its final overthrow. It is certain that the Sooffee sees nothing abhorrent to his principles in those great doctrines of Christian truth which orthodox Muslims regard with hatred and scorn. This seems a suitable place for introducing the texts of Scripture which are commonly produced by Mohammedans in support of their own religion. We are indebted for the statement to Mr. Southgate:—
“And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation,” Genesis 17:20. The Arabs, as is well known, claim Ishmael as their great progenitor. The Shias suppose the twelve princes here indicated to be the twelve Imams of the family of Ali, whom they affirm to be the only lawful successors of Mohammed.
“I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him,” Deuteronomy 18:18. The Muslims pretend that no prophet like unto Moses has appeared, except Mohammed.
“And Moses said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them,” Deuteronomy 33:2. Here, say the Muslims, are foretold the three dispensations; that of Moses from Mount Sinai; that of Jesus from (as they affirm) Mount Seir; and that of Mohammed from Paran, by which, they suppose, are intended the mountains near Mecca.
“For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, and let him declare what he seeth. And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels,” Isaiah 21:6-7. This, according to the Muslim doctors, typifies the gospel and Islamism, and the two horsemen represent Jesus and Mohammed. The former having entered Jerusalem upon an ass, and the camel being the principal animal in the country of the latter, they are considered as forming appropriate types of the two religions. The forty-second chapter of Isaiah is supposed to be throughout a prophecy of Mohammed, on account, as it would seem, of the allusions to the destruction of idolatry, in Isaiah 42:8; Isaiah 42:16, and to the Arabian tribe of Kedar in Isaiah 42:11. The first six verses of the sixty-third chapter are also claimed by the Muslim controversialists as prophetic of Mohammed, because they speak of war and blood, with which the religion of the Koran is acknowledged to be more familiar than the pacific dispensation of Christ. The passages in St. John 15-16, which speak of the Comforter, are interpreted by the Muslims to allude to Mohammed. Here, they say, is one instance of the corruption of the Christian copies of the gospel. The original word
Farming The means employed by them in tilling the ground appear to be just the same as those used by their ancestors in the most remote ages, and seem to be quite similar to those alluded to in the Scriptures. The plowing is performed by means of a share drawn by two oxen, harnessed not to the horns but to a yoke that passes over the chest. This share is very short, and the coulter only slightly cuts the ground. As the furrows are made, the clods are broken with large wooden beaters (Isaiah 28:24), and the surface is smoothed with the spade, and with a harrow that has very small teeth. The sickles used in Persia are not like ours, being scarcely bent in the blade. Threshing is performed either by the one scriptural mode of treading out the corn, or by the other scriptural mode of the “threshing instrument having teeth,” mentioned in Isaiah 41:15, and elsewhere. This is a square wooden frame, containing two cylinders, placed parallel to each other, and having a rotary motion. They are stuck full of spikes, with sharp square points, but not all of a length. Thus the rollers have much resemblance to the barrel of an organ, and their projections, when brought in contact with the corn, break the stalk and disengage the ear. The machine is put in motion by two oxen yoked to the frame, and guided by a man, who sits on a plank that covers the frame containing the cylinders. He drives this equipage in a circle around a heap of corn, keeping at a certain distance from its verge, close to which stands a second peasant, holding a long-handled fork, pronged like the spread-out sticks of a fan, with which he throws the unbound sheaves forward to meet the rotary motion of the machine. He is also provided with a shovel, wherewith to remove to a place aside, the corn that has already passed under the machine. At that place, other men are stationed with the like implement, with which they cast the corn aloft into the air, when the wind blows among the chaff, and the grain falls to the ground. This process is repeated till the corn is completely winnowed; it is then gathered up, and is generally deposited for use in large earthen jars. But the chief attention of the Persians has been devoted to their gardens, and their success has been proportioned to their labors. Their vegetables and fruits, of which the variety is great, are excellent. The latter may be said to form, during the season, no inconsiderable part of the daily food of the lowest classes of the inhabitants of this kingdom. The melons are peculiarly fine and abundant, and are held in high estimation. In the neighborhood of Isfahan, extensive fields are appropriated to its culture; and the country around that city is decorated with large and handsome pigeon-houses or towers, which are kept up at a considerable expense, solely to obtain, what is esteemed the best manure for this favorite fruit—for the bird itself is not eaten by the Persians. The great value here attached to this manure has been thought by some to throw light upon that passage of Scripture which relates, that, during the famine in Samaria, “the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung” was sold “for five pieces of silver,” 2 Kings 6:25. This supposes that the “dove’s dung” was required for some similar purpose. We must confess that we are not of that opinion. It appears little likely that persons under the present extremities of famine should so strongly covet, and prize so highly, the manure for a future vegetable, even supposing that vegetables were cultivable within a walled town. It is known, that the name of “dove’s dung” has been in the East applied to different vegetable substances; and it was probably to something of the sort, some bean, or berry, or root, that the statement in the sacred text applies. It claims to be added, that the employment of pigeon’s dung, in the culture of melons and cucumbers, is the only use of manure known in Persian agriculture. The dung of animals is indeed very carefully collected; it is not, however, applied to this purpose, but used for winter fuel. All substances of this nature are formed into cakes, and, being dried in the sun, are stored up for this service. There is an allusion to this use of dung in Ezekiel 4:15.
Manufacturing
Many of the manufactures of Persia are beautiful, particularly their gold and silver brocades, their silks, and their imitations of Cashmere shawls, which are made of the wool of Kerman. They also make a variety of cotton cloths, but not of so fine a texture as those of India. They have also several manufactories of glass, and some of a coarse ware resembling china, but they have not succeeded in bringing these wares to any perfection. In mechanical arts the Persians are not inferior to any other nations of the cast. They work well in steel; and their swords, although brittle, are of excellent temper and edge. In the arts of carving and gilding, few nations are more skilful. They also enamel upon gold and silver in a very beautiful manner, and their ornaments made of these metals and precious stones often display admirable workmanship.
Chemistry
Chemistry, as now understood in Europe, is unknown in Persia; but the occult science of alchemy continues to be the favorite pursuit of some of the most learned in that country. After giving an account of the strange effects produced among a party of Persians by the view and operation of an electrical machine, the Rev. Justin Perkins says: “The Persians, much as they were nonplussed by the electrical machine, are not wanting in ‘science, falsely so called.’ They are naturally acute metaphysicians; but, unguided by ‘Divine philosophy,’ their speculations amount to little more than the entities and quiddities of the schoolmen and dreams of the old Greek writers. Alchemy is still laboring in the brains of multitudes in Persia, with all the magic interest and ponderous importance that it possessed in Europe in bygone centuries. I have been repeatedly asked whether the electrical machine had no connection with the science of converting the baser metals into gold—a theory very grateful to an Asiatic mind; and I have found it very difficult to persuade those who made the inquiry that such was not the case. One of my companions entertained Mar Yohannan,[20] in America, with experiments in gilding by the new electro-magnetic process. He introduced a silver watch, presented to the bishop by friends in this country, into an opaque liquid mixture; and after some time, on taking out the watch, lo, it was gold! The bishop stared a few moments, delighted and amazed, without saying a word; at length he thus gave utterance to his emotions?—‘You make chémie,’ (the term by which the Persians denote alchemy); ‘the people in our country say the English can make chémie; before I did not believe; but it is true; you do make chémie.’ He soon understood it, however, as a superinducing rather than a transmuting process.”
Medicine In medicine, the system of practice is derived from the Greeks, and has descended to the Persians with very little alteration, as explained and enlarged upon in the writings of Avicenna, and others of their most learned doctors. Galen and Hippocrates, whom they call Galenous and Bocrat, are still their masters. They are wholly unacquainted with anatomy and the circulation of the blood. The Mohammedan religion will not allow of dissection, so that they are deprived of the means of acquiring knowledge through the discoveries of anatomy; and their skill in surgery is, consequently, as rude as their knowledge of medicine. They class both their diseases and remedies under four heads—hot, cold, moist, or dry; each may contain one or more of these qualities; and the great principle maintained is, that the disease must be cured by remedies of an opposite quality. If, for instance, an illness has arisen from moisture, dry remedies must be given; and hot diseases are alone to be cured by cooling medicines. Many instances of the application of this theory may be found in books of travels. In one case, mentioned by Mr. Scott Waring, a poor man was violently affected with heart-burn; and instead of prescribing an internal medicine, the doctors heaped upon his breast a large quantity of ice and snow, which they said was an effectual cure. Kotzebue relates a similar instance in the treatment of one of the musicians belonging to the Russian embassy. This man being a Mohammedan, had not sufficient confidence in the physician of the embassy, and desired that a Persian doctor might be called in. His disorder was an inflammatory fever. The Persian doctor appeared, and prescribed for the patient a large quantity of ice, which the poor fellow swallowed with ecstasy, and died the third day.
Artwork The representation of animate objects, and particularly of the human figure, is regarded by rigid Muslims as being forbidden by Mohammed, and in this they are no doubt correct. The Persians doest, however, so understand the prohibition, or, understanding, do not heed it. Paintings of human and animal figures abound in their houses and palaces, and are seen upon their ornamental waves. The colors of the Persian painters are very brilliant; and, when they draw portraits, they usually succeed in taking likenesses. Some of their lesser drawings, which are highly glazed and painted on wood, display much industry and care; but they are as yet unacquainted with the rules of perspective, and with those principles of just proportion which are essential to form a good painting. It is no uncommon thing in a Persian painting to see a man nearly as tall as a mountain; or, in the representations of battles, a line of guns, on which is formed a line of infantry, over whom is another of cavalry. One may also see a picture representing in one part the commencement of an action, and in another the defeat of the enemy.
Anyone who has examined the representations of ancient Persian sculptures, will have seen the kings and other great personages represented in colossal proportions as compared with those around them. So with their descendants, in whose paintings strangers, whether friends or enemies are usually represented in much smaller dimensions than the Persians. Thus, Sir John Malcolm was an especial favorite with the last generation of Persians; yet, in the palace of Shiraz, where the hall of audience is adorned with representations of his reception as ambassador, they have not spared even him. The Persians are shown as tall and towering beings; while Sir John stands straddling in his regimentals, a diminutive and dwarfish creature, as also all his staff.
General Sciences In the higher branches of science the Persians can scarcely be said to know more than their ancestors. They have a limited knowledge of mathematics; and they study astronomy chiefly for the purpose of becoming adepts in judicial astrology, a so-called science, in which the whole nation, from the monarch to the peasant, has the most implicit faith. The system of Ptolemy, both with respect to the forms and motions of the heavenly bodies, and the shape and surface of the earth, is that in which they believe. An abstract of the Copernican system has indeed been translated, through which, aided by the instruction of Europeans connected with the embassies, some individuals have acquired a better knowledge of the subject; but it is not to be expected that long-cherished belief in such matters of a prejudiced and superstitious nation will very soon or very easily be shaken. The same, very nearly, may be said of geography. By means of European maps and instructions, some few—a very few, in the higher and most learned classes, have acquired tolerably correct notions of the relative positions and magnitudes of different countries. But of the great body even of the educated classes it may be said that, independent of their erroneous notions of the form of the earth, their knowledge of its surface is limited to a very imperfect acquaintance with the territories of those kingdoms in their immediate vicinity; nor do they understand the art of surveying in a degree which would enable them to lay down with any exactness whatever, that portion of the globe which they themselves inhabit. “The New World” of America is the great geographical mystery to them. A missionary of that country (the Rev. Justin Perkins), voyaging from Constantinople to Trebizond in a vessel, had occasion to ascertain their notions on this point. “Takvoor told the Turks that I was from the New World, the appellation by which America is known to them. They stared at me with amazement, and said it was a day favored beyond any they had ever anticipated that they were permitted to behold an inhabitant of the New World. I inquired of them where they supposed the New World to be situated, and they pointed upwards! The captain informed me, that his Persian passengers on the previous voyage to Constantinople developed a regular theory on this subject. They told him that their countrymen who know of the New World suppose it to be located in the skies, and hold that the English discovered it by means of a very large telescope!” On board was a Hajji, who was very curious respecting the position of the New World. “According to our ideas,” he said, “there is only one world; and the New World must be some part of that; yet, if it be a part, how can it be so far distant?” The captain endeavored to explain to him that a great ocean must be crossed to reach the New World. “But there is no sea larger than Akh Dengis, the Mediterranean Sea,” he replied; and so difficult was it to convince him of the existence of a larger body of water than the Mediterranean, that the attempt to satisfy him was abandoned as hopeless.