The Ismâilahs are also denominated _Talamites_, _Khurramiah_, _Safiah_, _Babeciah_, _Majmirah_, _Maknâyah_, etc.――(_As. Res._ vol. XI. p. 421, etc.) I have no room for an account of each of them: I shall only add the name of the _Druses_, a sect existing in our days, upon which Silvestre de Sacy gave a particular notice drawn from their own papers, in his _Chrestomathie arabe_, vol II. pp. 191, 227, and undertook a detailed history of this sect. The name of the Druses is derived from دروز _deroz_, or درزية, _derziyet_, “juncture.” They are the disciples of Hamza, son of Ali, and honor as a god _Hakem beamr allah_, “he who governs by the order of God;” the sixth Fatimite khalif, in descent from Obaid-allah. Hakem was born in the year of the Hejira 375, A. D. 985; he was saluted khalif in 386 (A. D. 996); he disappeared, some say was assassinated, at the end of 441, A. D. 1020. The Druses give the same dates of his birth, reign, and death, but say he was the son of Ismâil, a descendant of Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, and his mother was of the race of Fatima, surnamed Zahra, the daughter of Muhammed the prophet. In short, every division of the Ismáilah appears to have its own _Mahdi_, “director,” but always traces his origin to Ali and Fatima. The Druses expect the return of Hakem; he is to reign over the whole earth during centuries of centuries, and the unitarian Druses with him: the other sects shall be obliged to pay homage and tribute to him. The Druses esteem the Koran very much, but the prophet not at all; they have rejected circumcision, fasting, and prayer, and indulge in drinking wine, eating pork, and marrying within the prohibited degrees. [624] The character and life of the khalif, mentioned above and in the preceding note, exhibit a strange mixture of intelligence and folly, superstition and incredulity, simplicity and ostentation, abstemiousness and liberality, intolerance and forbearance, cruelty and mildness; all his good and bad actions were marked with something whimsical and fantastical: still more――he wanted to be God: thus he realized in himself the idea of a monstrous tyrant. To his honor be it said that he founded in Cairo the first university of the middle ages.――(See his _Life_, by Macrisi, in the _Chrest. ar._, tom, I. p. 93 _et seq._, and _Gemäldesaal mosl., Herrsher, Band III. Seite 226_, etc.) [625] We observe two great divisions of the Ismâilahs; namely, the _Western_, to whom alone, till now, the account of the Dabistán referred, and the Ismâilah _of Iran_, that is, those who established themselves in the strongholds of _Kohistan_ (Khorassan), and in _Rúdbar_, which last is the name of a fort in the province of _Jebál_, or Persian Irak.