The first was
Sheykh Ah??mad of Ah??sa, in the province of Bah??rein. He knew full
well that he was chosen of God to prepare men's hearts for the
reception of the more complete truth shortly to be revealed, and that
through him the way of access to the hidden twelfth Ima?„m Mahdi was
reopened. But he did not set this forth in clear and unmistakable
terms, lest 'the unregenerate' should turn again and rend him.
According to a Shi'ite authority he paid two visits to Persia, in one
of which he was in high favour with the Court, and received as a
yearly subsidy from the Shah's son the sum of 700 tumans, and in the
other, owing chiefly to a malicious colleague, his theological
doctrines brought him into much disrepute. Yet he lived as a pious
Muslim, and died in the odour of sanctity, as a pilgrim to Mecca.
[Footnote: See _AMB_ (Nicolas), pp. 264-272; _NH_, pp. 235,
236.]
One of his opponents (Mulla?„ 'Ali) said of him that he was 'an
ignorant man with a pure heart.' Well, ignorant we dare not call him,
except with a big qualification, for his aim required great knowledge;
it was nothing less than the reconciliation of all truth, both
metaphysical and scientific. Now he had certainly taken much trouble
about truth, and had written many books on philosophy and the sciences
as understood in Islamic countries. We can only qualify our eulogy by
admitting that he was unaware of the limitations of human nature, and
of the weakness of Persian science.
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