Note 499 — Chapter VI

According to Sheheristani, quoted by Pococke (p. 211, 1st edit.), the Magians were divided into seventy sects; the Jews into seventy-one; the Christians into seventy-two; and the Moslem into seventy-three. Among the sects there was always one to be saved.

The baron de Hammer says (Journ. As., juin 1825, p. 321, Tableau généalogique des soixante-treize sectes de Islam): “The best information which we have yet upon the sects and the heresies of Islam are those given by Pococke, Marraccius, and Sale, according to Sheheristânî, and the Commentary of Mewakif. Pococke (Specimen historiæ Arabum, Oxoniæ, 1650, pp. 194 and 210), Marraccius (Prodromus), and Sale (Engl. transl. of the Koran) trace the principal classes of the genealogical table of the heresies; but their catalogue is not quite exact, and still less complete. This subject, interesting for the history of religions, and above all for that of the Islamitic heresies, is treated fundamentally in the Commentary of the great scholar Jorjani upon the Mewakif, that is to say, the metaphysics of Adhad eddin al Ijí, a valuable work in more than one respect, which work was printed in Constantinople” (in folio, of 635 pages, in the year of the Hejirah 1039, A. D. 1824). The baron de Hammer treated this subject summarily in the number of the journal quoted, pp. 321-335, and in the subsequent number for July, 1825, pp. 32-46.