J. F. Campbell Collection > Koran: or, Alcoran of Mohammed

SECT. vuL PRELBnNARY DISCOURSE. 125
willetli something in us, and something from us, and that what he willeth
from us he hath revealed to us ; for which i-easun he thought it preposterous
that we shouhl employ our thoughts about those things which God willeth
in us, and neglect those which he willeth from us : and as to God's decree,
he held that the way lay in the middle, and that there was neither compul-
sion nor fne liberty.^ A tenet of the Khattabians, or disciples of one
A^bu'l Khattab, is too peculiar to be omitted. These maintained paradise
to be no other than the pleasures of this world, and hell-fire to be the pains
thereof, and that the world will never decay: which proposition being first
laid down, it is no wonder they went farther, and declared it lawful to in-
dulge themselves in drinking wine and whoring, and to do other things
forbidden by the law, and also to omit doing the things commanded by
the law.^
Many of the Shiites carried their veneration for Aliand his descendants
so far, that they transgressed all bounds of reason and decency ; though
some of them were less extravagant than others. The Gholaites, who had
their name from their excessive zeal for their Imams, were so highly
transportetl therewith, that they raised them above the degrees of created
beings, and attributed divine properties to them ; transgressing on either
hand by deifying of mortal men, and by making God corporeal : for one
while they liken one of their Imams to God, and another while they liken
God to a creature.' The sects of these are vai'ious, and have various
appellations in difierent countries. Abd'allah Ebn Saba (who had been a
Jew, and had asserted the same thing of Joshua the son of Nun) was the
ringleader of one of them. This man gave the following salutation to Ali,
viz. Thou art thou, i. e. Thou art God : and hereupon the Gholai'tes
became divided into several species; some maintaining the same thing, or
something like it, of Ali, and others of some one of his descendants ;
affirming that he was not dead, but would return again in the clouds, and
fill the earth with justice.* But how much soever they disagi-eed in other
things, they unanimously held a metempsychosis, and what they call al
Holul, or the descent of God on his creatures j meaning thereby, tliat God
is present in every place, and speaks with every tongue, and appeal's in
some individual persons:* and hence some of them asserted their Imams
to be prophets and at length gods.® The Nosairians and the Ishakians
taught that spiritual substances appear in grosser bodies ; and that the
angels and the devil have appeared in this manner. They also assert that
God hath appeared in the form of certain men ; and since, after Mohammed,
there hath been no man more excellent than Ali, and after him, his sons
have excelled all other men, that God hath appeared in their form,
spoken with their tongue, and made use of their hands, for which reason,
say they, we attribute divinity to thera.^ And, to support these blas-
phemies, they tell several miraculous things of Ali, as his moving the gates
of Khaibar,* which they urge as a plain proof that he was endued with
a particle of divinity and with sovereign power, and that he was the person
in whose form God appeared, with whose hands he created all things, and
with whose tongue he published his commands ; and therefore they say he
was in being before the creation of heaven and earth.® In so impious a
manner do they seem to wrest those things which are said in Scriptijire of
Christ, by applying them to AIL These extravagant fancies of the Shiites,
1 Al Shahrest. ibid. p. 263. * Idem, et Ebn al Kossa, ibid. p. 260, &c. ' Idem,
ibid. * Idem, ibid. p. 264. Vide Marracc. Prodr. part iii. p. 80, &c. * Al Shahrest.
ibid. p. 265. 6 Vide D'Herbel. Bibl. Or. Art. Hakem beamrillah. ^ Idem. ibid.
Abullar. p. 169. ^ See Prid. Life of Moham. p. 93. » Al Shah, ubi sup. p. 266.