He will remain inside these chains for three years [many a year] [under] that vain curse" [this is a vain word]

4. AL LAY! Helper of Chosroes!* Such secrets to men why recklessly impart ? [it only makes them impudent] Not will say ever this the A'qil [or "the initiated one."]

[The wise do not mention their religion; if they do, they only make the unwise impudent.]

So, after all, we have not been told the process or secret of after-life, whether ascending into air, descending into earth, renewing human life or migrating into animal, plant or stone. In fact, we are made to understand that our inquiry is folly and that its answer, whether true or not, is also folly. Yet are we allowed to conjecture the belief of "the initiated" in transmigration.

As for the Muláis "being all things to all men" in matters of religion-Sunnis with Sunnis and Shiahs with Shiahs-this is, as already stated, a mere amplification of the Shiah doctrine of Taqqiah or concealment in times of danger, to which I have specially referred in my "Dardistan." The leaning of the Muláis is, of course, rather to poetical Shiism, with the chivalrous martyr A'li as its demigod or "next to God" in the A'lewia sect, than to prosaic and monotonous Sunniism, so that to strangers they seem to be Shiahs, as will be seen in an extract from a native Indian Diary written some 20 years ago, and which, it may be

* These words are so badly written that they may also be read as, "O, thou that waitest not for wisdom."

† Degol is the first village of Zebák . . . which is ruled by Shah AbdurRahim, a Sayad of the Shiah sect, worshipped by all the Shiahs of Kashkar, (Chitrál), Yarkand, and Khokand. They also worship Shah Bombay, Shah Madkasan, who is learned, good-natured, and friendly to travellers.

The people give a tenth of their income to their preceptors; if one has ten children, he consecrates one to Shah Abdur-Rahim. . . . The inhabitants are strong and hardy; the women do not cover their faces from strangers. Although Shiahs, they have no mosques and repeat no prayers. Abdur-Rahim has one in his village, where he prays. Every

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incidentally stated, still throws much light on the present conflicts in Dir, Bajaur and other petty States bordering on our frontier. No stranger is allowed to see the Kelámi-Pîr, which takes the place of the Korán with Muláis, but in the most popular poem that is recited by them, the Imám-ul Zemán or Sahib-al-Zemán - the Imám or Lord of the Age (H. H. Aga Khan) is worshipped as the Monarch of this World, the visible incarnation of the Deity, offerings or a pilgrimage to whom dispenses a Mulái from prayer, fasting or a visit to the sacred shrines of Mecca or Madina, or rather the Shiah Kerbelá, the place of the martyrdom of Hasan and Husain, which Shiahs annually celebrate by what are inappropriately called “miracle plays," but which really are "elegies," and commemorative funeral recitations and processions. A person who has seen "the Lord of the Age" or who possesses some of the water in which he has washed his feet is an honoured guest in Mulái countries. The poem above alluded to is a parallel to the Druse "Contract" which will be considered further on, and begins with an invocation for "Help, oh Ali."

"Nobody will worship God, without worshipping Thee, Lord of the Age! Jesus will descend from the fourth heaven to follow Thee, Lord of the Age!

Thy will alone will end the strife with Antichrist, Lord of the Age!

Thy beauty gives light to heaven, the sun and the moon, Lord of the Age!

May I be blessed by being under the dust of Thy feet, Lord of the Age!" A Maulái is, if sincere, already dead to sin, and can, therefore, not commit any. He needs, therefore, no resur

morning at Chasht (the middle hour between sunrise and noon) he sits in the assembly and distributes breads of wheat among the members, followed by the servants handing round tea in porcelain cups in which each one soaks his bread, and, after eating it, lifts his hand to bless the giver, a custom also followed by the nobles on entering the assembly. If Shah Abdur-Rahim addresses any of them, he rises from his seat and answers as if he were reading a ruka't at the time of praying, and then returns to his place, and sits on his knees, for to sit otherwise is reckoned a sin amongst these men." In other words, the only worship of the prayerless Muláis is to their Pîr, to whom they address the ruka't given by real Muhammadans in prayers to God [bowing, whilst standing, with hands resting on the knees].

rection or last Judgment day. Obedience to the Pîr is his sole article of faith, and he holds his property, family and life at this Chief's disposal.

I must now conclude this introduction to a comparison of the creeds of the Druses and of the Muláis by quoting a few words from a rhapsody of A'li, repeated by the ordinary Mauláis till the pious frenzy is at white heat :

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'Oh A'li, to God, to God, oh A'li, my sole aim, the only one, our Mula A'li; My desire, the only our Mula A'li; My passion only the beauty of A'li: My longing day and night for union with A'li; Higher and Higher A'li, oh A'li; A'li is the Killer of difficulties, oh A'li; He is the Commander of the Faithful, namely A'li; That one is the Imám of the steadfast in faith, namely A'li," and so on ad infinitum till we come to the natural connection between normal Shiism, its exaggeration into A'li worship, its mysterious interpretation of the self-sacrifice of Husain to save the world, and, finally, to all other aberrations of which Maulaism is one. The poem then goes into wild Turkish and Arabic measures, which exhausted my informant, Ghulam Haidar, who adds on behalf of himself, also in verse: "It is not proper that I should not answer the question which you ask me, but what am I to say? The answer from me is easy, but I see a difficulty in your way. Oh Ghulam Haidar" (thrice repeated). Then in prose. "In the night of Friday, the Mulái men (in Hunza), instead of worship and prayer, taking Guitars and Drums (Rabábs and Daffs) in their hands, play the above "Ghazals" on them. Then six old men, Akhunds (priests), having assembled, read (sing) them in the Mosque, when the men of the mass of the people gather and give ear to them:

"Oh Ali, Oh Ali, Oh Imám (and Lord) of the Age"is the mention (Chorus) which they take on their tongues. From the beginning of the evening till the morning they thus show their zeal; the Raja then as a reward of thanks for that worship bestows (gold dust to the value of) four

tilas on the priests and gives them a quantity of butter of the weight of four measures and one sheep or big calf and one maund of wheat in order to hold a feast."

DRUSES.

II. THE COVENANT OF "THE INITIATED The following is a rendering of the Covenant or Contract which the U'qalá or "the initiated" amongst the Druses are reciting in mysterious seclusion. It was overheard by my informant, an "uninitiated" Druse.* It formed, as it were, the evening prayer of his uncle and aunt. Although an educated and highly intelligent person, he was not aware of even its local interest, much less of its general historical and religious importance.

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The Covenant = Al Mitháq:

"O Governor [Vali] of the Age,† may Allah's blessing and peace be upon him" (this phrase seems intended to delude * The Druses are divided into "Juhelá "="uninitiated," or the Laity, and "U'qalá" the "initiated."

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† It should be noticed that this apotheosis of "Al-Hakim," the mad Fatimite Khalifa of Cairo (A.D. 996-1020), who was the head and originator of the special Ismailian sect, which became subsequently known to the Crusaders under the name of the "Assassins "--a corruption of "Hashishin,” or drinkers of Hashish (Canabis Indica)-commences with titles of governorship or Age which would seem (to the uninitiated) to be compatible with his subordination to the Deity, although, for practical purposes, Al-Hákim is the "ruler of this world," whether for good or for evil. He is, therefore, the Prince of this world, if not Apollyon, and the fact that the words "Vali "a deputed governor or "Hákim = a governor, may cause him to be confounded with either an ordinary ruler, or be merely ringing the changes on his own name of "Al-Hakim," it is clear, at any rate to the initiated, that the only Deity worth caring for is thereby meant, and that he began with the Khalifa Al-Hakim, who lives for ever. In the titles "Maula" and "Vali" there is also an allusion to A'li, who is "next to God," and from whom Al-Hákim was descended. The Mauláis or Muláis of the Hindukush use similar titles for their spiritual head, whether dead, or continuing in his lineal descendant, Agha Khan of Bombay. The "Kelám-i-Pir," or "the Logos or word of the Pir or ancient sage," mainly refers to the sayings attributed to the "Sheikh-ul-Jabl," or "Old Man of the Mountain." In Hunza itself, the Muláis equally address their practical Deity as "The Ancient of the Age," or Pir-uz-Zamán."

Muhammadans into the belief that the Druses have the same Allah or God, but it has an esoteric sense which will become apparent further on). "I put my confidence into our spiritual head the Lord' (literally 'OUR MAULA AL-HÁKIM') (here is one of the esoteric formula)—' the One, the Single, the Everlasting (Lord), the (serenely) Distinct from Duality and Number.' (This is a protest not only against the female form of the Deity, but also against the notion of a distinct good and evil principle, an Ahriman or Ormuz, whilst its Muhammadan form would seem to outsiders to be merely a protest against giving any 'companion. to God.') The initiator and the to be 'initiated' then go on repeating together the following, the former using the 3rd, and the latter the 1st, person. 'I so and so' (here comes name of the initiated), 'son of such a one, CONFESS firmly the confession to which he (or I) respond from his [or my] soul, and bears testimony to it upon his spirit, whilst in a condition of soundness of his spirit and of his body, and with the (acceptance of the passing of the) lawfulness of the order, obeying without reluctance and under no violence: THAT he verily absolves (himself) from all Religions and Dogmas and Faiths and Convictions, all of them, in the various species of their contradictions, and that he does not acknowledge anything except the OBEDIENCE TO OUR MAULA AL-HÁKIM, may his mention be glorious! and this obedience it is the worship, and that he will not associate in his worship any (other) that is past or is present, or is to come, and that he has verily entrusted his spirit and his body, and whatever is to him and the whole of what he may possess to OUR MAULA AL-HAKIM, and that he is satisfied to fulfil all His orders unto himself and against himself without any contradiction, and not refusing anything and not denying (refusing) anything of His actions, whether this injures him or rejoices him, and that he, should he ever revert (apostatize) from the religion of our Maula Al-Hakim which he has written upon his soul, and to which he has born testimony unto his spirit, that HE SHALL BE BEREFT (free) of the Creator,