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  • Articles_of_he_Bishop_of_Uramiah, page : 93

Gal'ead where the Sophi with his family or attendants used
to live. After the conquest and occupation of the land of
Canaan by Israel, the number of the Misphas increases, and
they soon become great religious centers and develop into
institutions of learning and confraternities. They seem to
be like the Islamic Mevlevi, Bektashi, Neqshbendi, and other
religious confraternities, each one of them being under its
own Sheikh and Murshid. They had schools attached to the
Mispha, where the Law, the religion, the Hebrew literature
and other branches of knowledge were taught. But over and
above this educational work, the Sophi was the supreme

head of a community of initiates whom he used to instruct and
teach the esoteric or mystic religion which we know under

the name of Sophia. Indeed, what we term to-day Sufis

were then called nbiyim or "prophets," and what is called, in
Islamic takkas, zikr or invocation in prayer, they used to term