or GAVRES, a religious sect in Persia and India; called also Gebres, Guebres, Gevres, Gours, &c. See MAGI.

The Turks call the Christians Gabres, q. d. Infidels, or people of a false religion; or rather, as Leunclavius obserbes, Heathens or Gentiles: the word Gabre, among the Turks, having the same signification as Pagan or Infidel among the Christians, and denoting any thing not Mahometan.

In Persia the word has a more peculiar signification; wherein it is applied to a sect dispersed through the country, and said to be the remains of the ancient Persians or followers of Zoroaster, being worshippers of fire. They have a suburb at Ilpahan, which is called Gaurabad, or "the town of the Gours," where they are employed in the meanest and vilest drudgery; some of them are dispersed through other parts of Persia; but they principally abound in Kerman, the most barren province in the whole country, where the Mahometans allow them liberty and the exercise of their religion. Several of them fled many ages ago into India, and settled about Surat, where their posterity remain to this day. There is also a colony of them at Bombay. They are a poor, ignorant, inoffensive people, extremely superstitious, and zealous for their rights, rigorous in their morals, and honest in their dealings. They profess to believe a resurrection and a future judgment, and to worship only one God. And though they perform their worship before fire, and direct their devotion towards the rising sun, for which they have an extraordinary veneration, yet they strenuously maintain that they worship neither; but that these are the most expressive symbols of the Deity, and that for this reason they turn towards them in their devotional fer- Gabres vices.—However, some have supposed, that these are Persians converted to Christianity, who, being afterwards left to themselves, mingled their ancient superstitions with the truths and practices of Christianity, and so formed for themselves a religion apart: and they allege, that throughout the whole of their system of doctrine and practice, we may discern the marks and traces of Christianity, though grievously defaced; the annunciation, the magi, the massacre of the infants, our Saviour's miracles, his persecutions, ascension, &c.