Reviews Of Different Books

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274 REVIEWS bar wird. Wenn dieser Stil der Forschung Mode wird, wird in Hinkunft in der deutschsprachigen Iranforschung vielleicht zwar mehr geschrieben, aber weniger gelesen werden konnen. Der Rez. bedauert, dass er der Tatsache dieser standigen Mischung von beachtlicher Belesenheit, Gelehrsamkeit und grosser Sachkenntnis mit Unzulanglichkeit, von Ambition, redlicher Muhe und enormen Fleiss mit ausgesprochener Fluchtigkeit, an so ausgedehnten und so diffizilen Sachverhalten praktiziert, mit keinem anderen Ausdruck Rechnung zu tragen weiss. Das Werk ist ohne Zweifel ein echtes und trotz der zahlreichen Schwachen bedeutendes Stimulans der Forschung, aber auch eines ihrer Menetekel. Robert Gobl Muhammad Mokri, Le Chasseur de Dieu et le Mythe du Roi-Aigle (Dawra-y Damyari). Texte etabli, traduit et commente avec une etude sur la chasse mystique, le temps cyclique et des notes linguistiques. Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1967. 161 pp. + 52 pp. Persian and Gurani text and 2 pp. plates. DM. 58.--. This book, dedicated to E. Benveniste, is the first volume of the Beitrage zur Iranistik edited by Professor Georges Redard of Bern. It contains the first Chapter of an exposition of the Creed of the Ahl-i Haqg, written in Gurani, the sacred language of this sect. The edition is based on a recent copy of the Kalam-i Khazana (also called Kalam-i Perdiwari), made in 1934, but authorized by a member of the religious directorate of the sect. In Gurani opinion this is an important and authoritative work on the teachings of the Ahl-i Haqg, which sect - "Men of God" (Minorsky); "Fideles de la Verite" (Mokri) -- is widely spread among the Kurds of the province of Kirmanshah and also has its followers elsewhere in Iran, in Irak and in Turkey. The Ahl-i Haqq understand by Kalam a collection of sayings in poetic style spoken by God, the five Angels of His retinue and a few other prominent religious personalities when engaged in discussion at the time of their various incarnations in the seven epochs of world history, the culmination of which was reached in the fourth, the epoch of Sultan Sihak in the eighth century of the Muslim era. This Sultan Sihak is honoured as the founder of the Ahl-i Haqq religion. The Kalam-i Khazana contains 26 kalam, the first of which, called Dawra-y Damyari, "Epoch of the Hunt", forms a separate whole comprising 221 strophes of 4 hemistichs. The structure of the kalam is this, that after an opening verse spoken by God again and again a number of angels - not always all of them nor always in the same orderbegin to speak and utter one or more strophes. Except at the end, after strophe 204, the angels appear under the names which were theirs in the period of their incarnation in the eighth century A. H. The hunter (damyar) is the Angel Gabriel, here called Binyamin. Being created before all other creatures he is nearest to God and, therefore, in charge of attending to the observation of the pact concluded between God and the Angels to the effect that God pledged Himself to manifest Himself to the human race in the course of the centuries. Comparable to a hunter who with a net or a lasso (dam) in his hand follows the trail of the royal bird of prey (shahbaz), Gabriel-Binyamin, who on account of his priority of creation is pre-eminently fit for this task, traces the theophanies in the various epochs of the history of mankind. This span of time, an interlude between pre-eternity (azal) and eternity (abad), is the period during which men and angels, passing through a thousand incarnations of an average of fifty years each, may attain the perfection they need to see God at the end of the world. It is obvious that the teachings of this sect are alien to Islam as it is professed in Iran.