AHL-E HAQQ

(Arabic: People of Truth, or People of God), a secret, syncretistic religion, derived largely from Islam, whose adherents are found in western Iran, with enclaves in Iraq. They retain the 12 imams of the Ithna 'Ashariyah sect and such aspects of Islamic mysticism as the communal feast. Central to their religion, however, is a belief in seven successive manifestations of God. They further believe in the transmigration of souls, asserting that every person must pass through 1,001 incarnations, in the course of which he receives the proper reward for his actions. The ultimate purification, however (becoming luminous), is limited to those who in the initial creation were destined to be good and were made of yellow clay; those destined to be evil were made of black clay. On the Day of Judgment the good will enter Paradise and the wicked will be annihilated. The Ahl-e Haqq rites, all communal, include animal sacrifice. The chief source of information about the sect is the Firqan al-Akhbar, written in the late 19th or early 20th century by a member.