Undoubtedly the ideas involved in the Ismaʿilian doctrines were totally subversive of the teachings of Islam, but so were those of the “philosophers,” and in exactly the same way. The views of Ibn Tufayl (d. 531 A.H.) and of Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595 A.H.) were purely Aristotelian in basis, and on this foundation was built up an agnostic-pantheistic superstructure. Ibn Tufayl particularly makes it quite clear that his teaching is not consistent with the Qurʾan which he treats as setting forth a system of doctrines and ritual precepts suitable for the unlearned who ought not to be disturbed in their simple faith, but quite inadequate for the satisfaction of the more intelligent: the mysteries of the universe, revealed through Aristotle and his followers, furnish a sounder religion, but it is expedient that this be reserved for the enlightened and not divulged to the illiterate who are unable to appreciate or understand its bearing. Such teaching is subversive of orthodox Islam, and consciously so: in the case of ʿAbdullah it may, perhaps, be described as a conspiracy against religion. In one sense it was the final product of the rationalism of the Muʿtazilites. Admittedly the Ismaʿiliya worked as a political conspiracy against the ʿAbbasids, but this was true of every Shiʿite sect: the ʿAbbasids had used the Shiʿites in seating themselves on the throne, and then discarded them. Still it seems that we have no reason to question the perfect sincerity of the Ismaʿilians in their agnostic principles: those principles were the product of the solvent influence of Greek philosophy upon the religion of Islam: Islamic thought was too simple and primitive to be able to adapt itself to that philosophy in its entirety, hence some such position as that of Ibn Tufayl, or of Ibn Rushd, or of the Ismaʿilians, was inevitable. It was equally a necessary result of the time and circumstances that these rationalists tended towards the Shiʿites. In spite of weird superstitions, especially current in Khurasan, the Shiʿites represent the Muslim element most kindly disposed towards freedom of thought. This seems a bold statement to those familiar with Shiʿites of the present day, but it must be noted that the Shiʿites whom the European most frequently meets are either the devotees who have settled in places like Samarra, or those who seem to be more exclusive than the orthodox Muslims, chiefly because they have as yet had much less intercourse with foreigners. In 2-3rd cent. Islam it was the Shiʿite princes who invariably did their best to foster philosophical and scientific research, whilst, after A.H. 232, the orthodox party, as it gets in the ascendent, becomes distinctly reactionary, and tends to repressive persecution.