Art. IX.—Some Notes on the Literature and Doctrines of the Ḥurūfī Sect

In my Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library (pp. 69–86) I described, at what may have seemed rather inordinate length, a work called the Jāvidān-i-Kabīr, which aroused my interest in the highest degree. The interest of this work, as I there pointed out, is twofold: it embodies very remarkable doctrines, apparently akin to those of the Isma'īlīs or Shī'ites of the “Sect of the Seven”; and considerable portions of it are written in a peculiar dialect of Persian which certainly merits a fuller study. Concerning the author of this work, Faẓlu'llāh b. Abī Muḥammad of Tabrīz, called “al-Ḥurūfī,” we know little (except what may be gleaned from his writings) beyond what is contained in the brief notice of Ibn Ḥajar al-'Asqalānī (d. a.h. 852), cited by Flügel at pp. vii–viii of the preface to the second volume of his edition of Hājī Khalfa. “Faẓlu'llāh,” says Ibn Ḥajar, “the son of Abū Muḥammad of Tabrīz, was one of those innovators who subject themselves to ascetic discipline. Imbued with heretical doctrine, he finally produced the sect known as the Ḥurūfīs [from ‘Letters’] pretending that the Letters [of the alphabet] were metamorphoses of men, together with many other idle and baseless fancies. He invited the Amīr Tīmūr the Lame [Tamerlane] to adopt his heresies, but he desired to slay him. And this came to the knowledge of his son (with whom he had sought refuge), and he struck off his head with his own hand.