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Thus was the sect of the Druzes established in Syria: they take their name from Ed Darazí, but they regard Hamza as the true founder of their religion. And for eight hundred years a hardy and intelligent race have acknowledged for their god one of the maddest monsters that the world has ever produced!
As for Hakem himself, his extravagant conduct could not long go unpunished. In the year 1021 he was assassinated, by the orders of his own sister, while engaged in one of his nocturnal ceremonies in Jebel Mokattem, where he was in the habit of retiring “to worship the planet Saturn, and hold converse with the devil.”
It will not be out of place here to give some account of the tenets of the Druzes.[40] This remarkable sect profess to recognise but one God, without seeking to penetrate into the nature of His being and attributes; to confess that He can neither be comprehended by the senses, nor defined by language; to believe that the Deity has manifested itself to mankind at different epochs under a human form, without participating in any of the weaknesses and imperfections of human nature; that the last of these avatars descended upon earth in the person of El Hakem bi Amr Illah, in whom they ceased for all time; that Hakem disappeared in the year 411 of the Hijrah (A.D. 1021), in order to put the faith of his worshippers to the test; and that he will one day appear again, clothed in majesty and glory, to extend his empire over the whole face of the globe, and to consummate the happiness of those who faithfully believe in him. They believe, moreover, that the Universal Intelligence is the first of God’s creatures, and the immediate production of His omnipotence, and that this intelligence was incarnate in the person of Hamza ibn Ahmed during Hakem’s reign; that it is by his ministry that all other creatures have been produced; that Hamza alone possesses the knowledge of truth and of true religion, and that he communicates, directly or indirectly, but in different proportions, to the other ministers, and to the faithful themselves, that knowledge and grace which he receives from the Deity, and of which he is the sole channel; that he alone has immediate access to the presence of God, and serves as the mediator to all other worshippers of the Supreme Being; and that he will be, at the second advent, the instrument by which all rewards and punishments are to be distributed, and the kingdom of Hakem to be established upon earth. They hold that all souls are created by this Universal Intelligence; that the number of human beings is always the same, and that souls pass successively into different bodies; that their condition during this transmigration is progressive or the reverse, according to their adherence in the previous state to the dogmas and precepts of their religion, and their strict performance of the duties enjoined by the seven commandments of Hamza. These are—Veracity; Charity; the renunciation of their ancient faith; submission to the will of God; to believe that all preceding religions are but types of the true faith; that all their precepts and ceremonies are allegories; and that their own religion abrogates all other creeds which have gone before. Such are the doctrines taught in the religious works of the Druzes themselves; the followers of the sect are known amongst themselves by the name of Unitarians. The Druzes are accused of worshipping a small idol in the form of a calf, and it is a well-ascertained fact that they do make use of some such figure in their religious ceremonies. It is, however, the symbol of Iblis, the rival or enemy of Hakem, the calf (‘ejl) being opposed to the Universal Intelligence (‘aḳl) just mentioned.