WHAT A Dervish IS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2237, 26 September 1889, Page 2

WHAT A Dervish IS

Colonel F. H, Tyrrell writes to the " Daily News " :— There Is some question of the meaning of the word " Dervish" applied to the followers of the late Mihdl. The Persian wotd Dervish means, beggat or pror man, and has by degrees oome to be applied particularly to religious mondioauts, and by a further step to religious fanatics, m whioh sense It seems to ba applied to the soldiers of the Mahdl'a Khalifa. The prophet Mohammed said, "Ld lUhiMuiat fl'l laldmla." •• There li no monkery m lelam,' but when Turanlo tribes were converted they brought their own old monastic Institutions Into their new religion, heooe the order of Dervishes or religions mendloants In Turkey and Persia, vowed to poverty and oelibaoy, aad bound by -• vow of obedience. No doubt it la from their resemblance to these Mussulman mendioant friars that the Mthdlsts are o»lled Dervishes, bat whether they themselves own to the name, or whether it Is meroiy a nickname fastened upon them by their enemies, I do not know. There is a oarioaa analogy In the came of the eptthet of (-reason or Geased or Gaeux (beggars), whloh was applied In derision by the Royal oou' tiers to the patriots of the Spanish Netherlands, and was adopted by t iem as an hononrable soubrlqnet. T^e despised "sea heg^ara " (Gueux de Her) of Holland, aud Zealand, who wore oreoents In their asps as a s'ga that they would rather serve the Turk than the Pope, carried on their ' absurd beggars' war«" until they had humbled the pride of the mightiest monaroh la Europe.