Ismaili

“ The Assassins are but a branch of the Ismailites; and these latter, not the Arabs generally as descendants of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, but a sect existing in the bosom of Islamism, and so called from the Imam Ismail, the son of Jafer. In order, therefore, to understand their doctrinal system, and the origin of their power, it is necessary to treat, at some length, of Islamism itself, its founder, and its sects. ”

“ In the person of the Fatimites, the Ismailians had ascended the throne, and deprived the Abbassides of a considerable portion of their empire: but their ambition was not satisfied. The race of the prophet ought not to share the sovereignty230 with the descendants of usurpers, and even the honour of Islamism, and of the doctrine taught and propagated by the imams, required that all Musulmans should be united in the same faith, and pay obedience to a single legitimate pontiff. ”

“ In maintaining their sovereignty, the Seveners or Ismailites, were more fortunate than the other sect. Their power first originated with the dynasty of the Fatimites, on the coast and in the interior of Africa, at Mahadia, and Cairo; and, one hundred and fifty years afterwards, in Asia, by the dominion of the Assassins, in the mountainous parts of Irak, and the coasts of Syria. By the oriental historians, the African Ismailites are termed the western, the Asiatic the eastern Ismailites. ”

“ According to the doctrine of the Ismailites, the imam, even though a youth, is always considered as having attained his majority, and the efficiency of his commands is neither enfeebled by the age of childhood156 nor the childishness of age. His orders require unlimited obedience, as emanating from the higher power, centered in the vice-gerent of the Deity, and the Ismailites blindly followed the deadly behests of the young prince, by which their hands, for twelve years unused to the dagger, again became accustomed to it. ”

“ Remains of the Ismailites still exist both in Persia and Syria,291 but merely as one of the many sects and heresies of Islamism, without any claims to power, without the means of 211obtaining their former importance, of which they seem, in fact, to have lost all remembrance. The policy of the secret state-subverting doctrine of the first lodge of the Ismailites, and the murderous tactics of the Assassins, are equally foreign to them. ”

“ It is evident from this dexterous arrangement, which gained the Ismailites the name of Seveners,36 that as they named only the first of the mute divine envoys in each prophetic period; and since Mohammed, the son of Ismail, the first of the last prophet’s coadjutors had been dead only a hundred years, the teachers were at full liberty to present to those whose progress stopped at this degree, whomsoever they pleased, as one of the mute prophets of the current age. The fifth degree must necessarily render the credibility of the doctrine more manifest to the minds of the learners ”

“ Until they awake to a sense of the incongruity there is little hope of a reform in the right direction. Thus we hear Ismailia, Port Said, &c, pronounced in the French fashion, which is altogether wrong, either with reference to the diphthong or to the Arabic name. ”

“ The Ismailia went down to the junction of the Blue and White Niles, and the Arab guns opened on her, so she has come back. I have sent down to make inquiries on the quiet, whether the Arabs returned before or after the sinking of Husseinyeh. The Arabs fired five rounds at the Ismailia. The Arabs came back to their breastwork when the Ismailia appeared, but on her return they also went back. If Husseinyeh had not had a shot-hole in her, the Arabs would have captured her; but, as I had taken her steam-cocks off, they could not use her. We may be able to raise her if she has sunk evenly. ”

“ Although the back streets of Ismailia are crude and unpicturesque, the whole effect of the town is pleasing; and it enjoys a climate that must commend it to invalids. It is dry, free from dust, and even in summer not too warm, for there is a breeze from the lakes by day, and the nights are always cooled by the desert air. Sea-bathing can be enjoyed there the year round. It ought to be a wholesome spot, for there is nothing in sight around it but sand and salt-water. The invalid who should go there would probably die shortly of ennui, but he would escape the death expected from his disease. ”

“ And the Ismailites of upper Syria today, though they be suspected of nature-worship, have forgotten, through centuries of submission to the Turks, the use of the dagger,—they have lost the faculty of violence. ”

“ As the order of the Ismailites was inimical to all rulers, and treated hostilely by most of them, and as they infused into all governments the envenomed and pernicious influence of murder and sedition, their history stands in close relation with that of all the contemporaneously paramount dynasties; and a glance at the reigning families of Asia will not be 92out of place here. From the confines of Khorassan to the mountains of Syria, from the Musdoramus to Lebanon, from the Caspian to the Mediterranean, extended the widely spread ramifications of the empire of the Assassins ”

“ Even after Abulfeda’s Arabic, and Mirkhond’s Persian historical work, of which A. Jourdain has given a valuable extract on the dynasty of the Ismailites, other oriental sources, almost unknown, claim the attention of the historian. Among the Arabic are—Macrisi’s, large Egyptian Topography, and Ibn Khaledun’s Political Prolegomena: Hadji Khalfa’s invaluable Geography and Chronological Tables; the Khaliph’s Bed of Roses, by Nasmisade; The Two Collectors of Histories and Narrations, by Mohammed the Secretary, and Mohammed Elaufi ”

“ Ismailian teaching had spread through the Empire of Mohammed and reached even Southern Arabia. About 892 a certain Mohammed Alhabib, who claimed his descent from Ismail, son of Jaffar es Sadik, sent one Abu Abdallah to the north coast of Africa. Abu Abdallah impressed the Berber tribes greatly, and his success was so enormous that they drove out the Aglabid dynasty then ruling them. He roused expectations to the highest degree by announcing a Mahdi, or infallible guide for believers. He then summoned in Obeidallah, a son of that Mohammed Alhabib, who had sent him to Africa. ”

“ It is unnecessary to enter into the details of this strange religion, which still persists to-day in the range of Lebanon; suffice it to say that, although the outcome of the Ismailis, the Druses do not appear to have embraced the materialism of Abdullah ibn Maymūn, but to have grafted on a primitive form of Nature-worship and of Sabeism the avowed belief of the Ismailis in the dynasty of Ali and his successors, and beyond this an abstruse, esoteric creed concerning the nature of the Supreme Deity. God they declare to be "Universal Reason," who manifests Himself by a series of "avatars." ”

“ But now an Emir to whom Melik Shah had given Rudbar in fief, that is the whole region in which Alamut was the main stronghold, stopped every road to the fortress and cut off all supplies. The inhabitants were ready to abandon the place, but Hassan assured them that fortune would soon show them favor, as in fact it did, and the name “Abode of Good Fortune” was bestowed on the castle. Melik Shah, who hitherto had treated Ismailians with contempt, resolved now to crush them. He commanded Arslan Tash, his Emir, to destroy Hassan Sabah with all his followers. ”

“ It contained a good collection in a small space, of African, Australian, and Brazilian plants. Many, that with us require almost constant stove-heat, were flowering here, in January, in the open air. Among the inhabitants, as at Ismailia, are to be found many of the (in the East) ubiquitous Greeks.
Ismailia is very preferable every way to Port Saïd. It is in the heart of the desert, and on the shore of a considerable lake. I can imagine a not unprofitable, or over dull, month spent here by a man who finds a pleasure in coming in contact with strange sorts of people ”

“ For four months Egypt knew him not. For four months the Khedive was never told the truth save by European financiers, when truths were obvious facts; for four long months never saw a fearless or an honest eye in his own household. Not that it mattered in one sense; but Ismail was a man of ideas, a sportsman of a sort, an Iniquity with points; a man who chose the broad way because it was easier, not because he was remorseless. ”

“ All things, good and evil, come out, it seems, of the East. The Illuminati, like the Ismailites, dealt in allegories; and like the Mazdakites, they played with fire. ”

“ I remembered how the Sheikh Ismail was reputed to be the son of an Efreet and an Arabian princess, and to have lived in that oasis for generations, since the reign of the Sultan Mohammed Nâsir ibn-Kalaûn, who had expelled him from Cairo as a magician. He was said to possess the secrets of Geber and of Avicenna—the great Ibn Sina of Bokhara; to possess the Philosophers' Stone and the Elixir Vitæ. In this pavilion with the bronze door I beheld the magician's treasure-house, guarded, within, by a ginneyeh and, without, by ghouls or black Efreets! ”

“ Do you wish to drive the English out of Egypt, to establish Khedive or Sultan, to found kingdom or empire? Go home! This work is not for you! Only one enemy will you drive out, and that is the devil! Only one Sultan will you establish, and that is God!"
The mass of moving heads seemed to sway for a moment, and then, amid the deep breathing of the people, Ishmael said—
"You will take nothing with you on your way, neither purse nor scrip nor second coat. In the city or the village or the desert the Merciful will make your beds, the Compassionate will provide for you. ”

“ His own position had to be strengthened, and the country provided with institutions after European models. To these objects Ismail applied himself with energy and cleverness, but without any stint of expense. During the ’sixties and ’seventies Egypt became the happy hunting-ground of self-seeking financiers, to whose schemes Ismail fell an easy and a willing prey. In 1866–1867 he obtained from the sultan of Turkey, in exchange for an increase in the tribute, firmans giving him the title of khedive, and changing the law of succession to direct descent from father to son ”

“ He at once left Egypt for Naples, but eventually was permitted by the sultan to retire to his palace of Emirghian on the Bosporus. There he remained, more or less a state prisoner, till his death on the 2nd of March 1895. Ismail was a man of undoubted ability and remarkable powers. But beneath a veneer of French manners and education he remained throughout a thorough Oriental, though without any of the moral earnestness which characterizes the better side of Mahommedanism. ”

“ Abdalla ate, and Dicky dipped his fingers in the basin before them, saying, as he lifted them again: “I will speak as to my brother. Ismail has staked all on the Soudan. If, in the will of God, he is driven from Berber, from Dongola, from Khartoum, from Darfar, from Kassala, his power is gone. Egypt goes down like the sun at evening. Ismail will be like a withered gourd. To establish order and peace and revenue there, he is sending the man his soul loves, whom the nations trust, to the cities of the desert. If it be well with Gordon, it will be well with the desert-cities. ”

“ He is a straight-forward, upright man, of a large and generous nature, and with a stable character that is no slave to the impulse, passion and caprice that distinguish Ismail. He has the gift of inspiring respect; the Sultan highly esteems him, and both in native and foreign circles in Constantinople he has the highest standing. His large establishment, for he is very wealthy, is a model of order, propriety and good taste; in fact he is "every inch a gentleman," and no one who knows him will pronounce any other opinion. ”

“ Is this [he said] your service to your Sultan? Does your loyalty consist of mere boast and lip worship? Let those among you who wish to go stand out from the ranks and depart. As for me, I have not advanced 108thus far merely to double back on my track. Let the cowards instantly stand aloof from the brave who have devoted themselves with sword and quiver, soul and hand to our enterprise.
He gave word of command to form columns and march, and not a single man dared to leave the ranks.
On the approach of the Ottoman army to Tabriz, Ismail was at last drawn from his reserve. ”

“ The history of the reigns of Ismail and Tewfik is a grotesque satire upon the preamble of the firman. The non-fulfilment of its prime condition incontestably invalidates it.
And now as to its legality. We venture to think that the firman of 1866 was an immoral transaction. It was not the spontaneous act of the Sultan Abdul Aziz; it was obtained by increasing the Egyptian Tribute. Egypt was at that time already insolvent; so also was Turkey. The Porte required new revenues to pledge for new loans, and in 1871 did pledge this increment of the Egyptian Tribute for a loan of £5,700,000. ”

“ It was a very serious misfortune to Egypt that during his sojourn abroad Ismail had learned many luxurious ways, and had also discovered that European nations were accustomed to make free use of their credit in raising sums of money for their immediate advantage. From this moment Ismail started upon a career which gave to Egypt, in the eyes of the world, a fictitious grandeur, and which made him one of the most talked-of rulers among the cabinets and peoples of the European countries. ”