The Ismâilahs are often confounded with the Batenian. The first who maintained this doctrine of mystic interpretation was Marzaban, ben Abdullah, ben Maimun al Kadah. He was the servant of Imám Jâfer Sadík, and also served Jâfer’s son Ismâil, after whose death he attended Muhammed, the son of the latter. When Jâfer was poisoned, Abdullah carried off Jâfer’s grandson, from Medina to Misr (Egypt). When Muhammed died, he left a concubine pregnant, and Abdullah, having put her to death, substituted a woman of his own in her room. This woman brought forth a son, whom Abdullah asserted to be Muhammed’s son; and when this son had grown up, he succeeded in making him acknowledged as the Imám by many. Some of this person’s descendants attained the rank of sovereigns, and the doctrine of the Batenian spread afar. The first of these who sat on the throne of the khalifat was Sáid, under the name of Abu-Muhammed Obaid-alla, the founder of the Fatimite khalifs, in Africa, in the year of the Hejira 296, A. D. 908. He took the title of _Al Mahdi_, “the Director.”――(See, upon this sect, _Asiatic Researches_, vol. II. p. 424.) The Fatimites claim their descent from _Alí_, the fourth legitimate khalif, and from _Fatima_, the daughter of the prophet; but their adversaries give an account of their origin similar to that just stated: the opinions of historians are divided about this fact. [599] The manuscript of Oude reads here _âkl_ instead of _fêz_, which the edition of Calcutta repeats twice; I adopted the first. [600] This part of the doctrine reminds us of the sentiments expressed in Plato’s Symposion, by Agathon, one of the interlocutors in this admirable dialogue upon love and the beautiful. [601] According to the Ismàilahs, each speaker or legislator is associated with a vicar, whom they call _śamet_, “silent,” because he has nothing new to teach; and of these vicars he who assisted the legislator, and succeeded immediately to him, receives the name of _asás_, “fundamental,” or _sús_, “root, source.” The seven _natíks_, or “legislators of the revolution, past,” and their vicars, are as follow: I. Adam and Seth; II. Noah and Sem; III. Abraham and Ismâil; IV. Moses and Aarún, replaced afterwards by Joshua; V. Jesus and Simon Kefas; VI. Muhammed and Alí; VII. Muhammed, son of Jsmâil, who is designated by the title قايم الزمان _Kaím al zemán_, or صاحب الزمان _śáheb al zeman_, “the chief, the lord of the age;” in him all the doctrines of the ancients are terminated.――(See _Journal asiatique_, 1824, t. IV. p. 298 _et seq._; _Recherches sur l’initiation à la secte des Ismaéliens. Par Silvestre de Sacy_.)