The national aversion of the Persians from the religion of their Mohammedan conquerors gave rise to a number of secret sects and societies having for their object the subversion of Islam, and in the hatred which already existed between the two great divisions of that creed, the Sunnís and Shiahs, the leaders and originators of these sects found a ready means of securing proselytes and adherents. In the year 815, a chief named Babek founded a new religious order and waged an open war against the Caliphs, by whom he was, however, defeated and exterminated. But while his partisans fell beneath the sword of the executioner there was living at Ahwas, in the south of Persia, a certain ‘Abdallah, grandson of Daisán the dualist, who had inherited the hatred which his grandfather had sworn against the faith and power of the Arabs. Warned by the fate of Babek’s followers, he determined to undermine insidiously what he could not with safety openly attack. He accordingly formed a society into which proselytes were only admitted upon proof, and after being sworn to the profoundest secrecy. The initiation consisted of seven degrees, in the last of which he taught—that all religions were mere chimeras and human actions indifferent. His missionaries spread over the whole of the East, and carried their peculiar doctrines into Syria, where one of them, named Ahmed ibn Eshk‘as el Carmatí, founded the sect of Carmathians, whose history has been already traced. ‘Obeid allah el Mehdí, the founder of the Fatemite dynasty, was a followeŕ of El Carmatí, and from the moment when El Mehdí made himself master of Egypt the Carmathian tenets prevailed in that country, under the name of the Ismá̔ilíyeh. They were propagated by official agents, of whom the chief was named _dái̒ ed do‘át_, “missionary of missionaries,” and _cádhí el codhát_, “judge of judges.” In the year 1004, they held public assemblies in Cairo under the presidency of the last-mentioned officer. These meetings were called _mejális el hikmeh_, or “scientific meetings,” and were devoted to instructing those present in the mathematical and other sciences; but such as were considered worthy, were admitted to a more intimate participation in their mysteries, and were taught the secret doctrines of the sect, consisting of a strange _mélange_ of Persian and Gnostic ideas. We have already seen how this institution was made to subserve the interests and pander to the mad fanaticism of El Hákem bi amri ’llah, and indirectly gave birth to the powerful sect of the Druzes.