Leckie in their new
Oriental Plan of Reform.--See the second of these letters.--How Abdallah's
epistle to Ispahan found its way into the Twopenny Post-Bag is more than I
can pretend to account for.
[2] Sunnites and Shiites are the two leading sects into which the
Mahometan world is divided; and they have gone on cursing and persecuting
each other, without any intermission, for about eleven hundred years. The
_Sunni_ is the established sect in Turkey, and the _Shia_ in
Persia; and the differences between them turn chiefly upon those important
points, which our pious friend Abdallah, is the true spirit of Shiite
Ascendency, reprobates in this Letter.
[3] "In contradistinction to the Sounis, who in their prayers cross their
hands on the lower part of the breasts, the Schiahs drop their arms in
straight lines; and as the Sounis, at certain periods of the prayer, press
their foreheads on the ground or carpet, the Schiahs," etc.--_Forster's
Voyage_.
[4] "The Shiites wear green slippers, which the Sunnites consider as a
great abomination."--_Mariti_.
[5] This will appear strange to an English reader, but it is literally
translated from Abdallah's Persian, and the curious bird to which he
alludes is the _Juftak_, of which I find the following account in
Richardson:--"A sort of bird, that is said to have but one wing; on the
opposite side to which the male has a hook and the female a ring, so that,
when they fly, they are fastened together.
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