Sykes' History of Persia Vol 2 (pdf) - Heritage Institute

io8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
There was an inner doctrine for the fully initiated, which,
as Browne puts it,
was " philosophical and eclectic, borrowing
much from old Iranian and Semitic systems and something
from Neo-Platonist and Nee-Pythagorean ideas. It
was dominated throughout by the mystic number Seven ;
there were Seven Prophetic Periods . . . and each of
these Seven great Prophets was succeeded by seven
Imams." l
The task of the dai was to arousexuriosity by asking
questions such as " :
did God create the Universe in
Why Seven Days?" "Why are there Seven Heavens, Seven
Earths (or Climes), Seven Seas, and Seven Verses in the
Opening Chapter of the Koran "
? Among the more subtle
questions were the "
following What, in : reality,
are the
torments of hell ? How can it be true that the skins
of the damned will be changed into a fresh skin, in order
that this fresh skin, which has not participated
in their
sins, may be submitted to the tortures of hell "
? After
a convert had been won, he was induced to take an oath
of allegiance
to the dai as representing the Imam, and to
pay the Imam's money.
The Fatimld Dynasty.>A.H. 297-567 (909-1 171).
The
founder of the Fatimid dynasty was the grandson of the
oculist.
Taking the name of Abu Mohamed Obaydulla,
he conquered the larger portion* oT nortKerrTTttHia' an3
made Mahdiya, near modern Tunis, his capital. Sixty
years later Egypt was added to the kingdom, and by the
end of the "tentri century A.D. the greater part of Syria,
including Jerusalem, was in the hands of the Fatimid
line, which bore sway until the famous Salah-u-Din, the
Saladin of the Crusaders, overthrew their kingdom in
A.H. 567(1171).
The- most notorious personage of the dynasty thus
founded was Hakim Biamrillah, or " He who rules by
the order of 'God," who claimed divine honours and,
possibly in imitation of the twelfth Imam, " "
disappeared
from the earth or else was assassinated. It is of interest
to note that his adherents, thfiJOni^es, who derive their
name from al-Duruzi, Hakim's Vizier, survive to the
1
Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 197.