After the first labors, came rest, during which the genius of the Arabs turned to persevering study, deep speculation, and noble ambition: this was the scientific age of the Arabs, which began in the middle of our eighth century, and was most conspicuous in the old seats of learning, Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Persia, and India. But in the numerous schools rose violent schisms and bloody contests between philosophy and religion. In the mean time the khalifs, by becoming worldly sovereigns, had lost their sacred character, and were in contradiction with the principle of their origin. The crusades of the Christians, by reviving their martial energy, maintained for some time the vacillating power of the Khalifs, but their vast and divided empire, assailed by Pagan nations, first in the West in 1211, and forty-seven years afterwards in the East, fell in 1258 of our era. Muhammedism however revived in the barbarous and energetic conquerors, Turks, Seljuks, Albanese, Kurds, Africans, who were drawn into its circle; and science was again cultivated in Tunis, Bulgaria, and India. I thought necessary to draw this rapid historical sketch, because within its outlines is contained the account of the Muhammedan sects as given in the text of the Dabistán. Mohsan Fani himself lived in the age of general decline of Muhammedism. He exhibits in the sixth chapter the religion of his own nation: we may expect that he will be true and accurate. He divides the chapter into two sections: the first treats of the creed of the Sonnites; the second, of that of the Shiâhs. These are the two principal sects of the Muhammedans, but divided into a number of others, exceeding that of seventy-three, which Muhammed himself has announced, and consigned, all except one, to eternal damnation. This one was that of the _sonnah_ “the traditional law,” or _Jamaât_, “the assembly.” The Dabistán explains this religion in a manner which, to Muhammedans, might appear sufficiently clear, in spite of digressions and want of order in the arrangement of the matter; but an European reader will desire more light than is afforded in the text, and feel himself perplexed to understand the meaning of frequent technical terms, and to connect the various notions disseminated in an unequal narrative――now too diffuse, now too contracted. The following are the principal features of the long account of Muhammedism contained in the Dabistán.