¹ Estimates of lsm'ili numbers made in the 19th century are few and unreliable. None of the travelers who visited Qadmus or Misyaf at that time (with the exception of F. Walpole who quoted ambiguous and obviously exaggerated figures) thought that there were more than 3,000 Isma'ilis in these districts. In 1917, Bahjat and Tamimi quoted figures, which they said were official, of 1,198 lsma'lis in 17 villages in the Khawabi area and 2,500 in 12 villages in the Qadmus area. Misyaf was not included in their survey. See Bahjat, M. and Tamimi, M., Wilayat Bayrut, Vol. 2, Al-qism al-shamali (Beirut, 1917), pp. 391, 395.Google Scholar

² Lyde, S., The Ansyreeh and the Ismaeleeh (London, 1853), p. 235.Google Scholar

³ On the events of the first half of the 19th century and on the lsma'ili settlement of Salamiyya, see Lewis, Norman N., Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800–1980 (Cambridge, 1987), Pp. 58–67, and the sources cited therein;Google ScholarAmin, Mahmud, Salamiyya fi khamsin qarn (Damascus, n.d. [1986?]), pp. 142–231.Google Scholar

⁴ Tamir, 'Arif “Furu' al-shajaray al-Isma'iliyya al-Imamiyya,” in al-Mashriq, 51 (1957), 581–612.Google ScholarCf. Ivanow, W., “A Forgotten Branch of the Ismailis,” JRAS (1938), 57–79;Google Scholar and Poonawala, I. K., Bibliography of Isma'ili Literature (Malibu, Calif., 1977), pp. 371–73.Google Scholar

⁵ The main sources for the above events are accounts orally transmitted and repeated with variations by lsma'ilis (both those who follow the Aga Khan and those who do not) in Qadmus, Misyaf, Salamiyya and elsewhere. Mahmud Amin, a local historian living in Tall Darra near Salamiyya, has written up the story, as he has heard it, in folios 167–70 of his unpublished Tarikh al-Isma'iliyyin fi bilad al-Sham. We are grateful to him for making his manuscript available to us and for giving us other assistance. Briefer references to these events are in al-Murtada, 'Abd Allah in his al-Falak al-dawwar fi sama' al-a'imma al-athar (Aleppo, 1933);Google ScholarGhalib, Mustafa, The Ismailis of Syria (Beirut, 1970).Google Scholar Amin, Murtada, and Ghalib are, or were, all followers of the Aga Khan. We do not know of any written account by a “Mu'mini” author. Among non-Isma'ilis, Bahjat, and Tamimi, report on these events in Wilayat Bayrut, 2, 397–98;Google ScholarBarrès, Maurie recounts conversations he had in 1913 with lsma'ilis and others on this and related subjects in Une enquête aux pays du Levant (Paris, 1922), 1, 252–88.Google Scholar

⁶ On the two factions see Rousseau, J. -B. L. J., “Mémoire sur les lsmaelis et les Nosairis de Sync,” Annales des Voyages, 14 (1811), 271–303;Google ScholarBahjat, and Tamimi, , Wilayat Bayrut, 2, 395–400;Google Scholar Amin, Tarikh, folios 137–39; Murtada, al-Falak al-dawwar, pp. 244–45. The words Suwaydani and Hajjawi are rarely used today. The Isma'ilis in Qadmus and Misyaf are sometimes referred to by themselves and others as Mu'minis.

⁷ The word is of Indian origin and is usually written as mukhi. In the letter of 1890, however, it was spelled mukki, and is so pronounced by Syrian Isma'ilis today.

⁸ The letter, dated “the month of Dhu'l-Qa'da, 1307,” is in the archives of the lsma'ili council of Salamiyya and bears a seal said to be that of the Aga Khan.

⁹ Amin, Tarikh, folios 171, 209. Bahjat and Tamimi give a lengthy account of what they believed to be lsma'ili beliefs and practices in Wilayat Bayrut, II, 395–408. The words that they say were used in the lsma'ili salat in the early part of this century have been described to us as “partly correct,” by lsma'ilis. It has been suggested that the phrase quoted above should be “'Ali Allah, ahaqq Allah.”

¹⁰ Salname-i Suriye vilayeti (Damascus, 1302/1885) and later issues.

¹¹ Murtada, al-Falak al-dawwar, p. 249.

¹² Salname-i Suriye vilayeri, 1307 Rumi, p. 120; 1308 Rumi, p. 177.

¹³ Murtada, al-Falak al-dawwar, p. 251.

¹⁴ Amin, Salamiyya, p. 227.

¹⁵ The events of 1901 are described by Murtada in al-Falak al-dawwar, pp. 249–51; by Amin in Tarikh, folios 171–73; and by Khuri in his memorandum of 1905 (see note 17). They are referred to more briefly by other authors including Bahjat and Tamimi, Wilayat Bayrut, 1, 397–98; Zakariya, A. W., “Salamiyya,” al-Insaniyya, 3 (1933), 601–10; 4 (1934), 17–27;Google ScholarZakariya, A. W., Jawlat athariyya fi ba'd al-bilad al-shamiyya (Damascus, 1934), p. 283.Google Scholar

¹⁶ It is to be doubted whether the Aga Khan, if he had had any contact with the prisoners, would have advised them to insist that he, and not Sultan Abdülhamid, was the Caliph. His own view, at any rate in later life, was that “The Sultan was also Caliph and, therefore, the recognized head of the whole Sunni branch of the Islamic world, and I was the head of the Ismaili section of the Shias.” (This passage, on page 67 of Memoirs of Aga Khan. World Enough and Time (London, 1954), occurs in his description of an audience with Sultan Abdülhamid in 1900.) His views on the Caliphate were expressed at greater length in a letter which he and Ali, Sayyid Ameer addressed to the Prime Minister of Turkey on November 24, 1923, published in The Times (London) on 12 14, 1923, and reprinted on pp. 571–72Google Scholar of Toynbee's, A. J.Survey of International Affairs (Oxford, 1927). For the historical context and comments, see pp. 56–57 of Toynbee;Google Scholar and pp. 256–59 of Lewis, B., The Emergence of Modern Turkey (Oxford, 1961).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Richards, 30 of 7 April 1903, FO 195/2144; and Drummond-Hay, Beirut, 76 of 15 November 1905, FO 195/2190, enclosing a memorandum by Fans al-Khuri entitled “Prosecution of the lsmailians before the Court of Appeal in Damascus.” These and other papers by British officials cited below are now in the Public Record Office (PRO) at Kew near London. The last item in each reference—e.g., FO 195/2190—is the number of the relevant volume at the PRO. Where no place of origin is given the paper originated in Damascus. In 1905, Faris al-Khuri was Dragoman at the British Consulate in Damascus. He was arrested as an Arab Nationalist by General Ahmad Jamal Pasha in 1916. Throughout the period of the Mandate, he was an active and respected politician, and in 1944–1945 was Prime Minister of Syria.

¹⁸ Richards, 30 of 7 April 1903, FO 195/2144.

¹⁹ Khuni, “Memorandum.”

²⁰ Article 57 of the Ottoman Penal Code was one of a group of articles concerned with crimes affecting the internal security of the State. The first of these was Article 55, which (as amended in 1880) stipulated that anyone making an attempt on the life of the Sultan or attempting to change the system of succession or the form of the government would be put to death, and that anyone attempting to malign or harm the Sultan should be imprisoned. Article 56 dealt with sedition; anyone inciting others to engage in civil strife, massacre, or pillage was to be put to death. Article 57 was concerned with the situation when acts referred to in Article 55 or 56 were jointly carried out or attempted by a band of malefactors; the leaders of such a band were subject to the death penalty and its other members to life or temporary imprisonment with hard labor. The sentences that the Damascus court issued in 1903 were based on this article: Sheikh Ahmad was regarded as the ringleader and therefore sentenced to death, the others to terms of imprisonment which varied, presumably, with the extent of their involvement. The Court of Cassation disagreed with Damascus on the grounds that the crimes of which the prisoners were convicted were equally attributable to them and that, therefore, they should all have received equal sentences. The court also held that Article 57 was not applicable. The Damascus court accordingly revised all their sentences to life imprisonment under Article 58, which stipulated that when a conspiracy was formed to carry out crimes referred to in Article 55 or 56 and preparations to do so had actually been initiated, the conspirators should be confined in a fortress in perpetuity. In March 1906, the Court of Cassation quashed this second sentence; O'Conor understood the view of that Court to be “that the judgment of the Damascus Court was not properly drawn up and that the degrees of responsibility of the accused had not been properly examined.” (O'Conor, Istanbul, April 5, 1906, FO 195/2217.) The response of Damascus was, as noted above, to reduce the term of imprisonment of the surviving prisoners to fifteen years. Bucknill, J. A. S. and Utidjian, H. A. S., The Imperial Ottoman Penal Code (Oxford, 1913), includes Articles 55–58 as then in force, with a useful commentary. Cf. Richards, 83, 16 November 1903, FO 195/2144.Google Scholar

²¹ The texts of this telegram and of another, sent by Ahmad, Sheikh to Istanbul in 1902, are given on pp. 253–55 of Murtada, al-Falak al-dawwar.Google Scholar

²² The course of the trials of the men arrested in 1901, summarized above, may be followed in the reports of Richards, Drummond-Hay, and Khuri already referred to, and in Richards, 83 of 16 November 1903, FO 195/2144; Monahan, 75 of 7 October 1903, FO 195/2144; Drummond-Hay, Beirut, 16 of 24 Feruary 1906, FO 195/2217; O'Conor, Istanbul to Drummond-Hay, Beirut, 5 April 1906, FO 195/2217; Edmonds, 15 of 30 May and 19 of 11 July 1906, FO 195/2217.

²³ The arrests of 1906 and the subsequent trial are dealt with in the following Damascus dispatches: Edmonds, 15, 19 and 22 of 30 May, 11 July and 7 August 1906, FO 195/2217. Devey, 17,28 and 44 of 9 April, 23 July and 25 December 1907, FO 195/2245 and 9 of 14 March 1908, FO 195/2277.

²⁴ Devey, 32 of 11 August 1908, FO 618/3.

²⁵ Richards, 83 of 16 November 1903, FO 195/2144.

²⁶ Devey, 17 of 9 April 1907, FO 195/2245.

²⁷ The lsma'ilis were rumored to participate in ceremonial adoration of a virgin, indulge in orgies, and commit incest. Such rumors echoed reports of the 12th century (by, for example, al-Din, Kamal, quoted by Lewis, B., The Assassins [London, 1967], p. 111) and are still occasionally heard.Google Scholar Contemptuous amusement at “these foolish people,” was then and is now also common. See, for example, Burckhardt, J. C., Travels in Syria (London, 1822), P. 152;Google ScholarPerrier, F., La Syrie sous le gouvernement de Mehemet-Ali (Paris, 1842), pp. 265–66;Google ScholarBell, G. L., Syria, the Desert and the Sown (London, 1919), pp. 195–97 and 223;Google ScholarBliss, F. J., The Religions of Modern Syria and Palestine (Edinburgh, 1912), p. 311;Google Scholar Barrès, Enquête, pp. 253–85. Compare MacEoin's, D. “The Baha'is of Iran,” in Proceedings of the 1986 International Conference on Middle Eastern Studies (London, 1986), pp. 207–15. The following passage from this article might almost have been written about the Syrian Isma'ilis in 1905: “There is a perception of Baha'is as foreign agents, subversives, exploiters or whatever, that is enough in itself to convince the man in the bazaar or the judge on his bench that members of the sect are public enemies.…”Google Scholar

²⁸ Khuri, “Memorandum”; Murtada, al-Falak al-dawwar, p. 252.

²⁹ Devey, 44 of 26 December 1907, FO 195/2245.

³⁰ Cf. Abu-Manneh, B., “Sultan Abdulhamid 11 and Shaikh Abulhuda Al-Sayyadi,” Middle Eastern Studies, 15, 2 (05 1979), 131–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³¹ Devey, 7 of 9 April 1907, FO 195/2245.

³² Richards, 30 of 7 April and Monahan, 75 of 7 October 1903, FO 195/2144; O'Conor, Istanbul, to Monahan 29 October 1903, FO 195/2143; Richards 83 of 16 November 1903, FO 195/2144.

³³ Maxwell, R. P., Foreign Office, memorandum of 6 March 1907, document no. 7484 in FO 371/ 346.Google Scholar

³⁴ O'Conor, Istanbul, to Drummond-Hay, 18 July 1905, FO 195/2189.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Cf. dispatches of 1905 from Istanbul, Beirut, Damascus, and Basrah in FO 195/2189 and 2190. The confrontation between the British and the Turks at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba followed in 1906.

³⁷ A detailed account of the bomb attack is given on pp. 202–23 of Abdulhamit ve Yildiz Hatiralari (Istanbul, 1931) by Pasha, Tahsin, who was the Sultan's private secretary.Google Scholar

³⁸ O'Conor, Istanbul, to Drummond-Hay, 17 August 1905, FO 195/2189.

³⁹ Drummond-Hay, Beirut, 76 of 15 November 1905, FO 195/2190.

⁴⁰ Letter from the Aga Khan to Sir Steyning Edgerley, 4 April 1906, in reply to letter from Edgerley, 3 April 1906, informing him of the situation in Damascus, inFO 371/145. (Correspondence of 1906, 1907, and 1908 on this subject between officials at the Embassy, the Foreign Office, the India Office and India is contained in FO 371/ 146, FO 371/346, and FO 371/541. Many of these letters merely forward reports or summaries of reports from the consuls, sometimes for the information of the Aga Khan.)

⁴¹ Copy of telegram from the Viceroy, Simla, 25 August 1906, in letter from Campbell, India Office, to Maxwell, Foreign Office, 27 August 1906, document 29322 in FO 371/145; memo by Maxwell, 6 March 1907, document 7848 in FO 371/346; letter from Maxwell to Tilley, Istanbul, 12 March 1907, FO 195/2244.

⁴² O'Conor, Istanbul, to Edmonds, 15 June 1906; Edmonds, 19 of 11 July 1906, FO 195/2217.

⁴³ Tilley, Istanbul, to Devey, 25 March 1907, FO 618/3; Devey, 17 of 9 April 1907, FO 195/2245.

⁴⁴ Notations on Devey, 17 of 9 April 1907, FO 195/2245.

⁴⁵ Devey, 9 of 14 March 1908, FO 195/2277.

⁴⁶ An earlier episode might be thought to give color to this suggestion. In 1858, an lsma'ili sheikh named Ahmad contacted the French consulate in Damascus, and is reported to have said that he would receive Christian missionaries and would welcome the establishment of schools among his people, and that if he could be given some protection against his oppressors he might even be willing to become a Christian himself. The French Consul passed this information on to the Jesuit missionaries in Beirut, who sent one of their number, W. G. Palgrave, to investigate. Palgrave was well received by Sheikh Ahmad in his mountain castle and met him again three years later in Salamiyya, where he had recently moved. Palgrave would have liked to help, but the Jesuits were unwilling to get involved and nothing further came of the matter. (We are grateful to Professor B. Braude for furnishing us with his translation of Palgrave's letter, written from Zahlah on April 16, 1861, reproduced in his “The Spiritual Quest of William Gifford Palgrave: a Jesuit Mission to Arabia,” B.A. thesis, Harvard University, 1967.Google Scholar See also Amédée, P., Souvenirs du Mont Liban [Lyon, 1870], 1, 260–72;Google ScholarJullien, M., La nouvelle mission de la Compagnie de Jesus en Syrie [Paris, 1898], 11, 33–36.)Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Barrès, Enquête, p. 252.

⁴⁸ The murder is referred to in a note in the Damascus court records dated 28 şubat, 1322 Rumi (1906); see note 49. Murtada, al-Falak al-dawwar, pp. 256–57, says the killing took place in 1904 or 1905.

⁴⁹ These events are referred to in the following brief notes in the Damascus court records: al-Mahakim al-nizamiyya, Vol. 13, nos. 411 of 15 teşrin avval 1321 Rumi (1905), 630 of 28 şubat 1322 (1906), 214 of 17 haziran 1322 (1906), 282 of 13 temmuz 1322 (1906); vol. 18, no. 292 of 17 temmuz 1322 (1906); vol. 13, nos. 474 of 31 teşrin avval 1322 (1906), 17 of 12 maris 1323 (1907), 188 of 125 haziran 1323 (1907), 204 of 27 haziran 1323 (1907) and 251 of 25 eylul 1323 (1907). These are in Markaz al-Watha'iq al-Tarikhiyya, Damascus.

⁵⁰ Murtada, al-Falak al-dawwar, pp. 257–58.

⁵¹ Khan, Aga, Memoirs, p. 187.Google Scholar

⁵² Wasfi Zakariyya was for many years the principal of the Agricultural School. See his works cited in note 15.