Proceeding nominally on the basis of the Koran, it inculcates or expounds a kind of spiritual transcendentalism; in which the adept is raised above the necessity of formal laws, which are only requisite for those who are not capable of rising to a full intelligence of the supreme power. To gain this height, by devout contemplation, must be the personal work and endeavor of each individual. The revelation of divine truth, once attained, supersedes specific moral injunctions; ceremonies and systems, even, of religion, become indifferent to the mind illuminated by the sacred idea. A higher degree is the perfect conception or ecstatic vision of the Deity;--the highest-reserved only for the prophetic few--a real immediate union with his essence. Here, it will be seen, are four steps or stages, each of which has its sacred manual or appropriate system of teaching. In the hieratic system, of which Schamyl is the head, the divisions seem to correspond pretty nearly with this arrangement, as follows:-- The _first_ includes the mass of the armed people; whose zeal it promotes by strict religious and moral injunctions enjoining purity of life, exact regard to the ritual of the Koran, teaching pilgrimages, fasting, ablutions; the duty of implacable war against the Infidel, the sin of enduring his tyranny. The _second_ is composed of those, who, in virtue of striving upward to a higher Divine intelligence, are elevated above ceremonial religion. Of these the _Murids_ (_seekers_ or _strugglers_,) are formed: a body of religious warriors attached to the Imam, whose courage in battle, raised to a kind of frenzy, despises numbers and laughs at death. To accept quarter, or to fly from the Infidel, is forbidden to this class. The _third_ includes the more perfect acolytes, who are presumed to have risen to the ecstatic view of the Deity. These are the elect, whom the Imam makes _Naibs_ or vice-regents,--invested with nearly absolute power in his absence.