[Footnote 68: The religion of the Druses is concealed by
their ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are
confined to the elect who profess a contemplative life; and
the vulgar Druses, the most indifferent of men, occasionally
conform to the worship of the Mahometans and Christians of
their neighborhood. The little that is, or deserves to be,
known, may be seen in the industrious Niebuhr, (Voyages,
tom. ii. p. 354 - 357,) and the second volume of the recent
and instructive Travels of M. de Volney. Note: The religion
of the Druses has, within the present year, been fully
developed from their own writings, which have long lain
neglected in the libraries of Paris and Oxford, in the
"Expose de la Religion des Druses, by M. Silvestre de Sacy."
Deux tomes, Paris, 1838. The learned author has prefixed a
life of Hakem Biamr-Allah, which enables us to correct
several errors in the account of Gibbon. These errors
chiefly arose from his want of knowledge or of attention to
the chronology of Hakem's life. Hakem succeeded to the
throne of Egypt in the year of the Hegira 386. He did not
assume his divinity till 408. His life was indeed "a wild
mixture of vice and folly," to which may be added, of the
most sanguinary cruelty. During his reign, 18,000 persons
were victims of his ferocity. Yet such is the god, observes
M. de Sacy, whom the Druses have worshipped for 800 years!
(See p. ccccxxix.) All his wildest and most extravagant
actions were interpreted by his followers as having a mystic
and allegoric meaning, alluding to the destruction of other
religions and the propagation of his own. It does not seem
to have been the "vanity" of Hakem which induced him to
introduce a new religion. The curious point in the new faith
is that Hamza, the son of Ali, the real founder of the
Unitarian religion, (such is its boastful title,) was
content to take a secondary part. While Hakem was God, the
one Supreme, the Imam Hamza was his Intelligence. It was
not in his "divine character" that Hakem "hated the Jews and
Christians," but in that of a Mahometan bigot, which he
displayed in the earlier years of his reign. His barbarous
persecution, and the burning of the church of the
Resurrection at Jerusalem, belong entirely to that period;
and his assumption of divinity was followed by an edict of
toleration to Jews and Christians. The Mahometans, whose
religion he then treated with hostility and contempt, being
far the most numerous, were his most dangerous enemies, and
therefore the objects of his most inveterate hatred. It is
another singular fact, that the religion of Hakem was by no
means confined to Egypt and Syria. M. de Sacy quotes a
letter addressed to the chief of the sect in India; and
there is likewise a letter to the Byzantine emperor
Constantine, son of Armanous, (Romanus,) and the clergy of
the empire. (Constantine VIII., M. de Sacy supposes, but
this is irreconcilable with chronology; it must mean
Constantine XI., Monomachus.) The assassination of Hakem is,
of course, disbelieved by his sectaries. M. de Sacy seems
to consider the fact obscure and doubtful. According to his
followers he disappeared, but is hereafter to return. At
his return the resurrection is to take place; the triumph of
Unitarianism, and the final discomfiture of all other
religions. The temple of Mecca is especially devoted to
destruction. It is remarkable that one of the signs of this
final consummation, and of the reappearance of Hakem, is
that Christianity shall be gaining a manifest predominance
over Mahometanism.
As for the religion of the Druses, I cannot agree with
Gibbon that it does not "deserve" to be better known; and am
grateful to M. de Sacy, notwithstanding the prolixity and
occasional repetition in his two large volumes, for the full
examination of the most extraordinary religious aberration
which ever extensively affected the mind of man. The
worship of a mad tyrant is the basis of a subtle
metaphysical creed, and of a severe, and even ascetic,
morality. - M.]