The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi by Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 85 of 91 (93%)
page 85 of 91 (93%)
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In opposition to the orthodox Mohammedan tenets which make Man's soul his percipient Ego, an entity, a unity, the Soofi considers it a fancy, opposed to body, which is a fact; at most a state of things, not a thing; a consensus of faculties whereof our frames are but the phenomena. This is not contrary to Genesitic legend. The Hebrew Ruach and Arabic Ruh, now perverted to mean soul or spirit, simply signify wind or breath, the outward and visible sign of life. Their later schools are even more explicit. "For that which befalls man befalls beasts; as the one dies, so does the other; they have all one death; all go unto one place" (Eccles. iii. 19). But the modern soul, a nothing, a string of negations, a negative in chief, is thus described in the Mahabharat: "It is indivisible, inconceivable, inconceptible: it is eternal, universal, permanent, immovable: it is invisible and unalterable." Hence the modern spiritualism which, rejecting materialism, can use only material language. These, says the Haji, are mere sounds. He would not assert "Verba gignunt verba," but "Verba gignunt res," a step further. The idea is Bacon's "idola fori, omnium molestissima," the twofold illusions of language; either the names of things that have no existence in fact, or the names of things whose idea is confused and ill-defined. He derives the Soul-idea from the "savage ghost" which Dr. Johnson defined to be a "kind of shadowy being." He justly remarks that it arose (perhaps) in Egypt; and was not invented by the "People of the Book." By this term Moslems denote Jews and Christians who have a recognized revelation, while their |
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