Page 62 - Demo

58sheikh and Murshid. They had schools attached to the Mispha,where theLaw,the religion, the Hebrewliterature and other branches of knowledge were taught. But over and above this educational work, the Sophi was the supreme head of a community of initiates whom he used to instruct and teach the esoteric or mystic religion which we know under the name of Sophia. Indeed, what we term to-day Sūphees (súfees or sufís) were then callednbiyimor “prophets,” and what is called, in Islamic takkas, zikr or invocation in prayer; they used to term “prophesying.” In the time of the Prophet Samuel, who was the head of the State as well as that of the Mispha institutions, these disciples and initiates had become very numerous; and when Saul was anointed and crowned, he joined the zikr or religious practice of invocation with the initiates and was announced everywhere: “Behold Saul also among the Prophets.” And this saying become a proverb; for he was also “prophesying” with the group of prophets (1 Sam.x. 9-13). The Suphism among the Hebrews continuedto be an esoteric religious confraternity under the supremacy of the Prophet of the time until the death of King Solomon (pbuh) . After the division of the kingdom into two, it appears that a great schism had taken place among the Sophis too. In the time of the Prophet Elias (pbuh) , about 900 B.C., we are told that he was the only true Prophet left and that all others were killed; and that there were eight hundred and fifty prophets of the Baal and Ishra who “ate at the table of Queen Izabel”(1 Kings xviii. 19). But only a few years later, Elias’s disciple and successor, the Prophet Elisha, at Bethel and at Jericho is met by scores of the “sons of Prophets” who foretell him about the imminent ascension of his master Elias (pbuh) (2 Kingsii.).