time swore by God, either to confirm a truth, or to affirm a falsehood; and that once being by chance asked his opinion, he remained silent for some time, and when the reason of his silence was demanded, he answered, "I am considering first whether it be better to speak or to hold my tongue." The following saying is also recorded of him, viz.: "Whoever pretends to love the world and its Creator at the same time is a liar."

The chief seat of Ash Shafii's system was originally Egypt, where he had passed so great a portion of his life, and where his tomb was considered a sacred spot by the Faithful, and much visited by devout pilgrims. But schools to disseminate his doctrines were founded in Iraq, Khorassan, and the regions beyond the Oxus, and shared with the Hanifite seminaries the privilege of teaching and giving opinions on questions of law. The rivalry, however, thus engendered, soon degenerated into a deep and bitter hatred, and it is recorded that when the Mongols in after years besieged the city of Rhe, one faction, the Shafiites, entered into secret negotiations with the invaders to deliver up the town, upon condition that the Hanifites should be exterminated. The agreement was carried out to the letter, but the spectacle of so many Shafiites remaining untouched while the carcases of their brethren lay in festering piles in the streets, was intolerable to a horde of barbarians, whose sole ambition was indiscriminate slaughter, so the fiat went forth that no distinction of religion was to stay the avenging sword; thus the traitors to their country and their faith met the just reward of their bigoted perfidy and pious

malignity. The stronghold of Shafiism in the present day is at Cairo, though in India, especially at Haidarabad, and in the Bombay Presidency, the mass of the Musulman population adopt the tenets of this form of Islam.

Ibn Hambal, the founder of the fourth school, was born in A.D. 780, but as to the place of his birth there are two traditions. Some say that he first saw day at Marv, in Khorassan, where his parents were settled, and that his mother brought him thence to Baghdad at the breast; while others are of opinion that she reached that city before giving birth to her child. Ibn Hambal in process of time attained a great reputation on account of his virtue and knowledge, being so well versed in the traditions of Muhammad that it is said he could repeat no less than a million of them! He was very intimate with Ash Shafii, from whom he received most of his traditionary knowledge, having been his constant attendant till the departure of the latter for Egypt. Refusing to acknowledge the Quran to be created, that is, to be the language of man, he was, by order of the Khalif of the day, severely scourged and imprisoned. Ibn Hambal died at Baghdad on 31st July, A.D. 855, and it is alleged, was followed to his grave by 800,000 men, and 60,000 women. It is related as something very extraordinary, if not miraculous, that on the day of his death no less than 20,000 Christians, Jews, and Magians embraced the Muhammadan faith.

Ibn Hambal appears to have been bolder than any of his predecessors, and to have taught doctrines which subjected him to the most cruel persecutions. Nor need this latter circumstance occasion wonder,

seeing that he lived at a time when orthodox Islam seemed in danger of being lost amidst the rationalistic speculations and licentious practices of the Court at Baghdad: so rejecting the dangerous principles of analogical deductions, which had so weakened all the essentials of faith, he went upon the surer ground of the traditions, as these at least could not be supposed to pander to the appetites of a people steeped in luxury and self-indulgence. But to curb the passions of men, and to restrain their freedom of thought and action, is at all times difficult, and Ibn Hambal in encountering opposition, shared the fate of all reformers who seek to bring back mankind to ways of purity and faith.

So scrupulous was this theologian in his veneration for the Prophet of Arabia, that he would not eat water-melons because, although aware that the Master whom he adored indulged in them, it was uncertain whether the founder of Islam peeled off the rind, or whether he broke, bit, or cut them! In these circumstances the disciple deemed it better to refrain than to sin. Again, it is alleged that this Imam forbade a woman, who questioned him as to the propriety of the act, to spin by the light of such torches as might happen to pass along the streets at night, because the Prophet had not mentioned that it was lawful so to do. But if tradition be accepted in his case, virtue was its own reward, for the tale is told that one day, when sitting in an assembly, he alone of all present observed some formal custom authorised by the Prophet, whereupon Gabriel at once appeared and informed him that on account of this action he had been selected as a repository of the Faith!

At one time the Hambalites increased so fast, and became so powerful, that in A.D. 934, they raised a great commotion at Baghdad, entering people's houses and upsetting their wine wherever it was found they beat, too, the singing women, and broke their instruments. But at the present day, Ibn Hambal's followers are not very numerous, and few of them are to be found beyond the limits of Arabia.

Such are the four leading schools of thought in the Sunni faith; it must not, however, be supposed that the divergence of opinion in Islam ends here; far otherwise; the parties in the Muhammadan Church are well-nigh unlimited. Every reformer who can collect a few followers, establishes a new canon of faith, and the pages of history teem with the recital of the struggles, the upheavings, the heresies which have rent asunder the belief in the one God, as established by the Prophet of Arabia.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SHIAS

THE second great division of the Muslim faith is known as the "Shia" creed, which, supplanting the religion founded by Zoroaster, who is generally supposed to have flourished about 600 years before the birth of Christ, became the national doctrine of the Persian Monarchy (A.D. 1499). The main tenets of the older faith thus banished from Iran's shores are a belief in the All-Good, whose habitation is the Kingdom of Light, and in an evil Being, who dwells in a region of darkness. The names of these two powers are respectively Ormazd and Ahriman, and the true believer is instructed so to conduct himself that he may be eternally happy hereafter with the Prince of Light, instead of inhabiting the Kingdom of the Ruler of Darkness. Fire-light and the sun are reverenced, if not worshipped, as symbols of the Divine nature, hence the term "fire-worshippers" by which these religionists are not infrequently designated. Prayer is also a duty most strongly enjoined, it being the prerogative of the priest to intercede alike for himself and the whole of his brethren.