feet orator of his day." Even higher was the opinion of Lord Aberdeen, who is reported by the Times to have said that no one of the giants he had listened to in his youth, Pitt, Fox, Burke, or Sheridan, " as a speaker, is to be compared with our own Lord Derby, when Lord Derby is at his best." (w. B. s.)
DEREYEH, or Deraya, a town of Arabia, in the Nejd, on the caravan-route from the Tied Sea to the Persian Gulf, about 15 miles west of Riad. It was formerly the capital of the Wahabees, and had a population of about 30,000 inhabitants; but it has never recovered from the ruin inflicted on it by the army of Ibrahim Pasha in 1818.
DERHAM, WILLIAM (1657-1735), an eminent English
divine and natural philosopher, was born at Stoughton,
near Worcester, in 1657. He received his early educa
tion at Blockley, in his native county, and in 1679
graduated with much distinction at Trinity College, Oxford.
Three years later he became vicar of Wargrave, in Berkshire;
and in 1689 he was preferred to the living of Upminster,
in Essex. In 1696 he published his Artificial Clockmaker,
which went through several editions. The best known of
his subsequent works are Physwo-Theology, published in
1713; Astro- Theology, 1714; and Christo-Theology, 1730.
In consideration of these contributions to science and
theology he was, in 1716, made a canon of Windsor; and
in 1730 he received the degree of D.D. from Oxford.
His last work, entitled A Defence of the Church s Right in
Leasehold Estates, appeared four years previous to his death,
which happened in 1735. Besides the works published in
his own name, Derham contributed a variety of papers to
the Philosophical Transactions, revised the Miscellanea
Curiosa, edited the correspondence of John Ray, and
Albin s Natural History, and published some of the MSS.
of Hooke, the natural philosopher.
DERVISH is a Persian word meaning " the sill of the
door," or those who beg from door to door. The Arabic
equivalent is fakir, or fuqueer. The dervishes of tliQ Turkish
empire may be said to constitute the regular religious
orders, and are distinguished from the ulemas, or secular
clergy. In Turkey, Egypt, Persia, Hindustan, and Central
Asia, however, dervishes, or fakirs, are to be found in great
number who belong to no society, but are simply
mendicants or single devotees, many of whom subsist
by professional jugglery. Especially is this true of the
Byragis, the Dundis, the Bhikshooks, the Wanuprusts,
the Sunyasis, the Aghorpunts, the Gosaens, the Jogis,
the Oodassis, the Jutis, and the Lingaet Jungums of
northern Hindustan, and still more emphatically of the
Bonzes, or Buddhist monks. But in the more favourable
sense of the word, the dervishes represent Sofism, or the
spiritual and mystic side of Islam. Long before the time
of Mahomet, Arabic thought was divided, as if by Greek and
Indian influences, into the schools of the Meschaiouns (the
walkers) and the Ischracha iouns (the contemplators). When
the Koran appeared, these became the Mutekelim (meta
physicians), and the Softs (mystics). The latter put an
esoteric interpretation on both the Koran and the Hadisat,
or collected sayings of the Prophet-; they dispense with
the jemaat and other formalities of the mosque; they in
many cases recognize the fact of spiritual religion outside
Islam; and in general they observe the rules of poverty,
abstinence from wine, and celibacy. The name fakir,
indeed, comes from the saying of the Prophet, " El fakr
fakhri," poverty is my pride. The six Erkian, or pillars
of the Tesavvuf, or spiritual life, are (1) the existence of
God, (2) His unity, (3) the angels, (4) the prophets, (5) the
day of resurrection, and (6) good and evil through God s
predestination. But it is only the Tarikats, or orders (lit.
paths), among the more orthodox or Sunnite Mahometans
who attach much importance to positive dogma. The
Shiite party, especially the Persian dervishes, who trace
their descent through various sheikhs and peers from Ali,
the fourth caliph, believe that " the paths leading to God
are as many as the breaths of his creatures." These form
the great majority of the orders; for it is stated in a work
called the Sitsileh ul Evlia Ullah (Genealogy of the Saints
of God), last edited in 1783, that, out of 36 well-
defined orders, 12 of which were in existence before the
beginning of the Ottoman empire, only 3, viz., the
Bestamis, the .Nakshibendis, and the Bektashis, are
descended from the congregation of Abu Bekr, the second
caliph, and that all the others are descended from the
caliph Ali. As the dervishes do not recognize the
legal exposition which the ordinary tribunals give of the
letter of the Koran, and acknowledge no authority but that
of their spiritual guide, or of Allah himself speaking
directly to their souls, the Ottoman sultans have always
regarded them with jealousy; and in 1826 Mahmoud
entirely suppressed the order of the Bektashis, which had
for centuries been closely connected with the Janissaries,
or Hoo Keshans (him scatterers), and which is said to have
formed part of a Fermason (freemasonry) extending through
Palestine, Syria, and Turkey. 1 The other orders, however,
or most of them, have survived to the present day, and are
generally popular, one of them, the Mevlevis, being
joined by persons from the highest and wealthiest ranks.
But membership, when it does not proceed beyond the first
stage of Shi at or Sher iat, i.e., legal religion under the
supervision of a murshid, 2 may be satisfied by the repeti
tion of a few prayers at home and the wearing of the
sacred cap for a few minutes each day.
The regular dervishes live in tekkiehs, khanakahs, or con
vents, which are endowed with lands or wakf, just as the
Muths of Hindustan are endowed with enam lands, incapable
of mortgage or alienation. Thus, in 1634, the sultan
Amurath IV. gave to the Bektashis of Konieh the whole
tribute paid by that city. Over each convent presides a
sheikh, or murshid, who represents the pir, or original
founder of the order. This corresponds to the mohunt,
malik, or guru of Hindustan. Among the Persian
Nosairis (who consider Mahomet an impostor, and perform
no ablutions), the succession of sheikhs is hereditary else
where by seniority or election, confirmed by the Sheikh ul
Islam. In Hindustan the selection takes place in a
dusname, or council of mohunts, called among the Sikhs a
muta. The murid, or disciple, has to undergo a long
initiation (called in Turkey Ikrar, in Egypt Ahd) before
he obtains the taybend, or woollen belt, with its palenk or
cabalistic " stone of contentment; " the mengusay, or ear
rings shaped like the horse shoe of Ali; the khirka, or
mantle; the tesbeeh, or rosary, containing the ismi jelal,
or the 99 beautiful names of God; and finally the taj, or
white cap, with the proper number of terks, or sections,
belonging to the order. Similar distinctions are preserved
in Hindustan by the barbarous method of marking on the
forehead the sandal-wood stripes of Siva, or the white and
red trident of Vishnu. In the Mevlevi order the murid
goes through 1001 days of menial labour, and is during
that time called the karra kolak, or jackal. It is not
necessary, however, to give up one s private property; and
many dervishes are permitted to remain in trade on the
1 This jealousy was not without foundation. The great political
factions which disturbed Constantinople, the Reds, the Whites, the
Masked, the Intimates, the Interpreters, the Hashashins (from
Hashish, whence assassins), were to some extent connected with the
dervish orders. The Kalenderis, founded by an Audalusian dervish
who was expelled from the Bektashis, furnished several pretenders
to the title of Mehdee, the 12th imam, whose second coining is looked
for by all the mystics.
2 The subsequent stages are Tarikat, mystical rites, Mearifat, know ,
ledge, and Hakikat. truth.
