The organiser of the sect or masonic fraternity was ʿAbdullah, who is stated to have been the son of one Maymun. Sometimes ʿAbdullah is surnamed _al-laddah_ (“the oculist”), as is done by Abu l-Feda, but more often this surname is given to his father Maymun. Maqrizi, referring to the Fatimids, says, “this family was traced to al-Husayn, the son of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, but men are divided in the matter between two opinions: some treat it as true, but others deny that they are descendants of the Prophet and treat them as pretenders descended from Daysan the Dualist, who has given his name to the Dualists, and (say) that Daysan had a son whose name was Maymun al-Qaddah, and that he had a sect of extreme views. And Maymun had a son ʿAbdullah, and ʿAbdullah was learned in all the canon law and customs and sects” (_Maqrizi_, i. 348). The reference to “Daysan the Dualist” is pure fable. This Daysan appears frequently in Arabic history as the legendary founder of the _Zindiqs_, a name given to the followers of the pre-Islamic cults of Mesopotamia and Persia, who found it convenient to make external profession of Islam. Thus Masʿudi (_Muruj adh-Dhahab_, viii. 293) says that “many heresies arose after the publication of the books of Mani, Ibn Daysan, and Marcion, translated from Persian and Pahlawi by ʿAbdullah ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and others.” Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was a converted Zoroastrian who took a leading part in translating Persian and Syrian works into Arabic under the first two ʿAbbasids, and was generally regarded as privately adhering to his earlier religious views.