Читать книгу A Dictionary of Islam. Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion онлайн

399 страница из 560

“They were doubtlessly emboldened in this enterprise by that of a recluse who, in the thirty-seventh year of the Hijrah (A.D. 657) formed the first order of anchorets of the greatest austerity, named Uwais al-Karānī, a native of Kārū, in Yaman, who one day announced that the archangel Gabriel had appeared to him in a dream, and in the name of the Eternal God commanded him to withdraw from the world, and to give himself up to a life of contemplation and penitence. This visionary pretended also to have received from that heavenly visitor the plan of his future conduct, and the rules of his institution. These consisted in a continual abstinence, in retirement from society, in an abandonment of the pleasures of innocent nature, and in the recital of an infinity of prayers day and night (Ẕikrs). Uwais even added to these practices. He went so far as to draw out his teeth, in honour, it is said, of the Prophet, who had lost two of his own in the celebrated battle of Uḥud. He required his disciples to make the same sacrifice. He pretended that all those who would be especially favoured by heaven, and really called to the exercises of his Order, should lose their teeth in a supernatural manner; that an angel should draw out their teeth whilst in the midst of a deep sleep; and that on awakening they should find them by their bedside. The experiences of such a vocation were doubtless too severe to attract many proselytes to the order; it only enjoyed a certain degree of attraction for fanatics and credulously ignorant people during the first days of Islām. Since then it has remained in Yaman, where it originated, and where its partisans were always but few in number.”